Bleak Bliss

va - Asperando A Gogo - 20 Golden Krautzuck Hits

This magnificent bootleg LP from 1997 is a well-selected collection of raw obscurities from below the Neue Deutche Welle/industrial/no wave DIY unterirdisch of late 1970's to early 1980's Germany. Most tracks were lifted from 7" singles and every one is a brain-scratching winner. These are not the new wave anthems of ZickZack or anything as polished as arena-filling DAF, Fehlfarben, or Einsturzende Neubauten. This is the sound of real punk noise by heroes such as Boss & Beusi (Boss Peter Braatz would rename himself Harry Rag and both members would go on to form the mighty SYPH), Luxus (featuring Christine Hahn, also of Malaria! and Glenn Branca's band The Static), Freider Butzmann (still quite active today, with a recent LP on PAN), Permutative Distortion (aka P.D., later to start the Selektion label and rename themselves P16.D4), Phonophobia (Very Good Records would release a very good LP collecting their music of this era), and unknowns Notorische Reflexe, Saab, Katastrophentheorie and Mron Euen. If you liked the "I Hate the Pop Group" LP, which kinda served the same purpose for the British no-fans scene of the same era, then this is exactly the kind of dirt you want to rub all over your ears.

va - Asperando A Gogo - 20 Golden Krautzuck Hits

Glands Of External Secretion - Reverse Atheism

It shouldn't be a big secret that I adore Glands Of External Secretion.

The central combination of Barbara Manning and Seymour Glass make gorgeous music that willfully switches from the most beautiful emotion provoking songs to the delightfully fucked up acid fried David Lynch meets William Seward Burroughs II "what the hell am I doing here and how do I get out"?

Every single thing they do is essential ... but just to ramp it up a bit, here you also get contributions from the likes of Bruce Russell, Patricia de Rowland and Alastair Galbraith.

This is a double LP (there is a track-list but there is absolutely no point in splitting it into tracks, each side of vinyl is a flowing entity in its own right) and the initial 100 came with the Expanding Universe CDr. The vinyl was released on Butte County Free Music Society in 2011 but the CDr was only available when you bought the first copies from Tedium House.

I listen to this several times a week and have done so for a long time ... so should you. I'm already nauseated by the approaching capitalist bullshit and as Christ Mass and 2016 relentlessly tries to involve me, I'll be listening to this!

Reverse Atheism

This Expanding Universe (Reverse Atheism Penalty Tracks)

Jason Crumer - Hum Of An Imagined Environment

The title and the cover hint at what's inside but doesn't adequately convey its brutal beauty.

CD released on Ignivomous in 2006.

Hum Of An Imagined Environment

Jason Crumer - Hoss

Soaring drone tones that take you to dark places.

CDr released on Audiobot in 2006.

Hoss

Jason Crumer - What Is Love

14 minutes of recommended collapsing wall junk released on Hospital Productions in 2007.

What Is Love

Jason Crumer - Burning In Hell

A full on roaring beast of an LP jointly released on Harsh Head Rituals ‎and PAS-83 Productions in 2008.

Burning In Hell

Jason Crumer - A Personal Hell

Somebody emailed me a month or two ago saying "Post some Crumer". That was it. I'm still not sure whether it was a request or an order. Anyway, it made me think "How the hell haven't we posted any of Jason Crumer's work?". Baffling. I suppose you can put it down to the butterfly mind syndrome. We get a bit over enthusiastic sometimes ... yeah, like children full of E numbers. We start off with good ideas and a plan and before you know it "look at the shiny thing!" and we're off in a different direction.

Anyway (again) guess what? I've posted some Jason Crumer. He makes top quality noise recordings under his own name as well as being in such outfits as American Band and Aluminum Noise (yeah, I know, it's Aluminium but you know what the Americans are like for ignoring the English language and talking all American and that).

This is a 7" vinyl and CDr combo released on Small Doses in 2009. The 7" is ripped at 33rpm and 45rpm just because both sound great.

Extract the two parts together to hear why it's so ridiculous that it has taken so long ...

Part One

Part Two

Mauve Sideshow - s/t

A disc that collects tracks from the first two LPs ("Dark Flowers" and "Stray Apparitions", from 1990 and 1991 respectively) by the band formerly known as Kangaroo Kourt. It was first self-released on Refraction Sound in 1991, then reissued in 1993 on the band's Ventricle label.

Mauve Sideshow - s/t

Chris Corsano, Thurston Moore, Mats Gustafsson, Bill Nace - Mother / Groundhog

This really needs no preamble (but, the many tentacled majesty of Mr Corsano really is jaw dropping on this one). LP released on Thurston's Ecstatic Peace! ‎and Bill's Open Mouth in 2010 and was largely (if not exclusively) sold on their tour as Northampton Wools in December of that year.

Mother / Groundhog

Mats Gustafsson, Thurston Moore - Play Some Fucking Stooges

22 minutes of a live recording from their US tour in 2009. You just wish it was longer ... or that you were there ... or both. Single sided LP jointly released on Quasi Pop and Dumpster Diving Lab in 2012.

Play Some Fucking Stooges

à;GRUMH... - By the Phone

First cassette by Belgian electro-industrial-synth weirdoes à;GRUMH..., self-released on the band's own Titicaca Records in 1982. This is an artifact of the no-one's-listening-so-let's-do-whatever-the-hell-we-feel-like hometaper spirit of the early 1980's. The name of their label should be a red flag for the level of sophistication the duo was capable of. After this oddity (also an LP called "Rebearth" and a couple of more abstract fake-TG affairs recorded under other nonsensically punctuated names), they grew to resemble a sillier, snottier, far less ambitious Front 242... or like A Split Second as party band with somewhat less embarrassing lyrics. This tape, though, is the most inscrutable of the lot. Side A features four songs of meandering goof replete with tuneless/artless trumpet and recorder (!) warble and a drumbox preset you've no doubt heard on a billion better albums than this one. Side B includes three of the same songs recorded (you guessed it) over a telephone line. I can hear you ask... why on Earth would anyone do that? My answer to you is... who the hell knows? It must have seemed like a good idea to them at the time. In any case, à;GRUMH... didn't take themselves too seriously and neither should you. Maybe the boneheaded ugliness of this thing would appeal to fans of The Door and the Window... maybe... ?

à;GRUMH... - By the Phone

Astro - Darkness Dynamics

Analog sci-fi synthesizer noise by Hiroshi Hasegawa (CCCC, Mortal Vision), recorded in 2006 and released by Trust Lost in 2008 as an LP in an edition of only 100 copies.

Astro - Darkness Dynamics

:zoviet*france: and Fossil Aerosol Mining Project - Flexible Pooling

Zoviet France and Fossil Aerosol Mining Project combined to release this 7" flexi on alt.vinyl and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art earlier this year to coincide with the Baltic 39 exhibition "The Curves of the Needle". Those who are familiar with trying to get a decent sound from thin floppy plastic will be glad to know that it came with a download code which included a bonus 18 minute track "Aperture Apparent". There was even a companion track for free download on the Zoviet Soundcloud page that I have included as well.

Flexible Pooling

Zoviet France‎ - 7.10.12

"Devoid of any pictorial imagery or narrative text, this is a set of three label-less heavy weight translucent records – a 7-inch, 10-inch and 12-inch – housed (suspended and separated) in a custom made heavy textured card archive clam shell lined box along with traces of the area's unfathomable prehistory: a blind rubbing – a paper impression – taken from one of the neolithic cup and ring carved stones that pepper the region and a vial containing dried hawthorn berries, a tree with imbued with much pre-Christian metaphysical meaning."

I've really wanted to post this magnificent thing for ages! It was originally released on alt.vinyl in 2012 and sold out very quickly. It's so good that it got a second (black vinyl) edition in 2013 which has now also sold out.

You really should keep track of alt.vinyl. They release wonderful things and the aesthetic and presentaion is just as important as the music. A very important label!

Nothing can be opened unless it has first been closed

Mixed Band Philanthropist - The Man Who Mistook A Real Woman For His Muse And Acted Accordingly

There was a request to post the MBP "The Impossible Humane" LP as a counterpoint to the brilliant Kangaroo Kourt posts. However, it was reissued on Staubgold last year and is still available. The reissue also contains this 7" but I think it's fair enough to post this to show you what they were about.

This was released on Paul Coates' Hypnagogia in 2003.

Paul is a top bloke. I bought both vinyl volumes of The New Blockaders' "Viva Negativa" from him and he went out of his way to hand deliver them because he wanted to make sure they arrived in mint condition. That's when he told me that he is also a member of TNB ... didn't recognise him without his mask on. One of those lovely moments where you shut your front door and think "did that just really happen?"

The Man Who Mistook A Real Woman...

Kangaroo Kourt - Atmospheric Distortions From The Kangaroo Kourt

Final Kangaroo Kourt LP, issued in 1992. One side is junk tape cut-up, the other is more dark ambience that hints at where the band would go when they renamed themselves Mauve Sideshow.

Kangaroo Kourt - Atmospheric Distortions From The Kangaroo Kourt

Kangaroo Kourt - Messages In Ether From The Kangaroo Kourt

Third Kangaroo Kourt LP, released in 1990. The weakest of the lot, but still better than whatever you were listening to before you downloaded this.

Kangaroo Kourt - Messages In Ether From The Kangaroo Kourt

Various - Outnumbered By Sheep

There are many many reasons to love New Zealand. One of those reasons is Flying Nun Records. Try to imagine my excitement when they created a European distribution arm in the mid-late 80's so I was able to hoover up The Bats, The Chills, Tall Dwarfs, The Gordons and Bailter Space at a convenient local delight emporium rather than have my man servant travel to the other side of the world to acquire them for me. In the early '90s it appeared to go all a bit tits up in the wake of the Seattle "inspired" corporate interest in the "hey let's get down with the kids ... we can make a fucking fortune" ethos. There were takeovers and I sort of drifted away ...

Which is my way of saying that this LP from 1986 is a beautiful glimpse of the astonishing enthusiasm and quality control of those early bands and label owners before the sharks began to circle.

Outnumbered By Sheep

Various - The Neckparty

Another classy tape of mid-Eighties electronics featuring (amongst others) De Fabriek, Kapotte Muziek, Maybe Mental, Arvid Tuba, If, Bwana, Experiment Incest and Odal.

This C68 was released in 1986 without the aid of a label but the man behind this is Markus Arvidson (aka Arvid Tuba).

The Neckparty

Gasenata - ちらかしっぱなし: ガセネタ In The Box

For me, Gasenata were a complete enigma for many years. Of course, PSF released the "Sooner Or Later" CD in 1991 and then Asahito Nanjo released the High Rise "Play Gaseneta" tape on La Musica in 1996. But, who the hell were they? Information was impossible to find, they made Les Rallizes Denudes look positively mainstream. Finally, I gave up on the prospect of hearing any more about them. That is until Disk Union released the "In The Box" 10 disc box set in 2011. There was an 11th disc if you bought the release from the Disk Union stores in Japan ... this is what you have here. There was even a booklet which told you all that you needed to know about the mystery quartet. I won't prattle on too much ... you can read the information yourselves.

This rough and ready set of live materials, demos and outtakes (I would assume) literally represents the final word!

01 雨上がりのバラード 1 (Ameagari No Ballad 1)

02 雨上がりのバラード 2 (Ameagari No Ballad 2)

03 父ちゃんのポーが聞こえる 1 (Touchan No Poh Ga Kikoeru 1)

04 父ちゃんのポーが聞こえる 2 (Touchan No Poh Ga Kikoeru 2)

05 宇宙人の春・社会復帰 (Uchujin No Haru, Shakaifukki)

06 アウトテイク (Outtakes)

07 初期セッション (Early Sessions)

08 ガセ・ガセネタ (Gase-Gaseneta)

09 ハイライズーガセネタ (High Rise - Gaseneta)

10 ノン・ストップ・ミックス (Non-Stop Mix)

11 「こたつで吠えろ！」ガセネタ初期セッション番外編

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THE FUTURE?

We still don't know...we're making this shit up as we go along!

As always, dripfeed us a few requests, we still have changeable minds!

All requests are welcome, no matter what genre!

PRACTICALITIES!

We have had to change file hosts many times since we started in 2009.

Most of the older links are undoubtedly dead. If we were to try to keep every link going there would literally be no time for new posts.

Given that we have an untold number of things that we think need to be heard, it's not possible to do both.

Some things may be re-upped but (as always) we are unlikely to pay any attention to "anonymous" requests.

Entertaining (rather than desperate) requests may stand a chance but don't bet on it!

Get Engaged!