War Arrow’s Skipload of Tapes
Nine home recording masterpieces
Original position in magazine: pages 37-40
Contents: Labrador, Wil Web / Lode Runner, X-Chris / Creosote, Form, Manslaughter, Ectogram, The Moth, Nocturnal Emissions, Aural Guerilla
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Not a good start. Ankst Records, being from the land of the Red Dragon, are just so doggone hip that their cassettes say ‘Pshaw! Don’t fence me in, Daddio’, to those rather practical little plastic tabs that project from the inside of tape cases, preventing the spools from unwinding themselves willy-nilly. As a result the Ectogram cassette, having unwound dramatically within its own shell, tried to fuck with my tape player, reckoning very much without the mighty force of its capstan wheel and pinch roller. Perhaps, if the mood takes me, I shall try again later. But first. if I might paraphrase Arthur Brown, whose Crazy World achieved fleeting popularity a number of moons ago…I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE, AND I GIVE YOU…
Labrador
Why are you Laughing
MATCHING HEAD C30 cassette
This has an offputting ambience about it; the cover, the titles. In its mild and wacky nonchalance, it seems deeply Canadian (and waxing xenophobic for a moment, Canucks really are a bunch of charlies, aren’t they?) The multicellular bipeds responsible for this are actually from Tyne and Wear. The music isn’t too bad at all, happily. The sound quality is good, despite the austerity of the instrumentation. Cheap sampler (a Casio SK1, unless I’m mistaken), enthusiastically twanged guitar, things being banged, and something being sawn in half are all to be found in Labrador’s musical biscuit barrel, and the overall effect is enjoyable. It’s intuitively structured, I suspect, so sits happily apart from extremes of contrivance or cacophony. One track ‘Dreams After Coffee’ is really rather listenable, featuring a scratchy and ethereal (in a 1920s film kind of way) looped sample and rumbling bass which went via speaker floor and sofa straight to my ‘gentleman’s area’ - which was surprising. I had prepared a few snide words for this review involving your archetypal toddler’s drawing of a sad face, whose exaggerated crescent leaves the viewer in no doubt as to the subject’s unrelenting misery. This hypothetical countenance could be a portrayal of my own as I listened to this tape, its title making an inappropriate enquiry as to the nature of my mirth. I shall save my razor sharp ribaldry for some other work…
WAR ARROW
Wil Web
I Like it Grisly
Lode Runner
The Bubble Sort
RACING ROOM TAPES C60 cassette (1996)
A split tape of quite dissimilar artists. I’d suspect that Wil Web had composed the entirety of his contribution on some new-fangled computer (and as Frank Sidebottom once pointed out, a computer is after all just a television and a typewriter with some wires), were it not for the odd snatch of guitar, and that giveaway of giveaways - a Casio SK1 on the brass ensemble setting. Mrs Web’s pride and joy obviously has an ear for composition, and is the author of some corking tunes. Unfortunately, it may all be a bit too nice. After a while, one begins to long for the days when all cassettes had titles like Allotropik Genocide Funktion, or Hitler? Great Bloke!. Tapes so monikered negated any need for one to actually listen to them because, well…five men shouting whilst mowing the lawn. Enjoy?… Wil’s tunes would do any milkman proud, but like rich food and the ’solitary vice’, are best enjoyed in moderation. I Like it Grisly gets a little samey in places, and is more like a work in progress than someone’s finest half hour. However, it certainly isn’t without its moments…he should do film soundtracks, he’d be good at that.
The Lode Runner side equally suffers from a certain homogeneity, a lack of finish. But every cloud, as they say (exhibiting a shameful ignorance of even the most basic meteorological facts), has a silver lining. The music is pleasantly description-defying, reminding one alternately of Cluster, Nurse With Wound and Rainbow - specifically the ‘Curly and Straight’ films which bisected the exploits of George, Bungle and Zippy (rather than the ‘Long and Uninteresting’ variant of Richie Blackmore’s band). This tape is heavily electronic, and often rhythmic; not the best pint that will be pulled at Lode Runner’s musical tavern, but enjoyable because it hints that the best is yet to come. WAR ARROW
X-Chris
Alpine Star
Creosote
Ulung
RACING ROOM TAPES C60 cassette (1996)
This features those five shouting men and their lawnmowers as mentioned above. Not quite, but Creosote really do kick up an absolute flip of a racket. Ulung would appear to be improvised live, with the amplifiers (probably jammed on 11) serving up a provocative casserole of guitar, noise, tapes, rhythms, noise, feedback, noise, and electronics. And noise. I can’t decide whether I love it or hate it, and the music doesn’t seem to care much either way. Truly, this is an onslaught unrelenting in its ferocity, although it does progress in some indefinable sense. It isn’t just ‘1-2-3-4 GHGHGHGHGHGHHGHHGHGHGHHGHGHGH! for half an hour.
Personally I find what distinguishes good from bad in any form of art, particularly music, is whether the work speaks for itself, or simply brings to the mind’s eye images of how that work may have been created. For example, Faust IV somehow makes me think of speeded-up and out-of-focus Super 8 films, in gaudy overexposed colour, of bearded yokels in a summery corn field. Conversely, when I hear George Michael, all I can think of is a silly orange man taking himself seriously in a recording studio. If loud and shirty is your bag then you’ll love Creosote. I might have done also, had I been able to clear from my mind the picture of three lads in a garage all praying fervently that Dad takes his time washing the car so they can get the tape finished.
On the other hand, I received no offputting visual interference from the X-Chris side. It is almost completely abstract. Like Creosote, it’s noisy, but here the noise is expertly sculpted into a surprising range of textures. I see circuit boards, empty office buildings, decaying electronics, existing in some remote place where human reach does not extend. It seems inappropriate to say anything more. X-Chris is definitely the prize find of this issue’s Skipload. Even if his contribution had been paired with a side of Jonathan King, rather than Creosote, this tape would still come highly recommended.
WAR ARROW
Form
[The one with the blue cover and six tracks on it]
C90 cassette demo
An astounding tour de force which, resolute and uncompromising in its rugose atonality, demands the listener’s attention whilst Form lift up the deceptively rounded stone of normality to peer, without procrastination, at the fetid horrors which lurk beneath. But not really.
Six tracks of noise, a drum machine on the tommy gun setting (de-le-le-ler, de-le-le-ler as we used to chant in the playground) over which a person with a quiet voice says meaningful things. It’s easy to see what they’re getting at, and as a variant on Whitehouse or early Ramleh, it isn’t without originality. But if you’re going to do power electronics, it should sound, er…powerful. This just sounds weak, and even a bit apologetic. The music is okay, I suppose. The recording is dry and unflattering. The words, which dare not speak their name too loudly in case anyone actually hears them and sends a transcription off to Pseud’s Corner, leave room for improvement. On the positive side, Form have had the decency to record this on a good quality cassette, with the erase tabs intact. So full marks on that score.
WAR ARROW
Manslaughter
Sofa, So Good…So What?
ABATTOIR RECORDS C30 cassette
I eat my words, X-Chris is not the pick of this issue’s selection, for it turns out to be the mighty force of Manslaughter that is most deserving of your money.
Heavy Metal - Speed Metal - Death Metal. Now there is…Furniture Metal! An exciting new genre of which Manslaughter (who cite their influences as Metallica, Megadeath, Slayer and The Antiques Roadshow) are the first, and finest, exponents. A cynic might suggest that this tape amounts to little more than the tomfoolery of a brace of inebriated Geordies, though I doubt they would have the guts to say it to Manslaughter’s faces, least of all the one with the Lemmy moustache. To such a cynic I say, either open your ears or fuck off back to your late night Channel 4 arts dump.
Manslaughter deliver the goods, in big black trucks with studded tyres and a furry Hellraiser puzzle cube hanging from the mirror. And what goods they are! There’s no ironic smarm, no nudging or winking here, just full-on skull crushing metal power. Listen to the rage of ‘Can’t Be Arsed’ or the merciless fury that is ‘Sideboards of Destruction’. These men are quite serious. These are not men who have time to waste upon mere trifles. These are men who have, perhaps, seen too much. Listen to their story.
WAR ARROW
Ectogram
Svalbard
ANKST RECORDS ANKST 074 C30 cassette (1996)
Upon finally getting this to play, I was impressed by the outrageously deep flanging effect which opens the music, until I realised it was merely a result of the tape screwing up yet again. Luckily this seems to be recorded, like many modern cassettes (for reasons that at last become clear) with all of the tracks appearing on both sides. Svalbard seems to be a sampler for some impending release [Spitsbergen]. The music is fairly pleasant. Loose and vaguely mesmeric in a Krautrocky kind of way. It’s okay, bit with so much around at the moment, is ‘okay’ really enough? I have a problem with this ongoing Krautrock revival, highlighted best by an interview with Loop some years ago. A Loop person praised Can as a truly innovative and avant-garde band; Loop, he claimed, by continuing in their tradition, were thus equally innovative and avant-garde. Let me just get this straight…if I copy a painting by Picasso, I will have produced a work that is startling and original? What rot!
Don’t be fooled, kids. Krautrock revival - Mod revival - Oompah revival. It’s all the same thing, but for the ersatz stamp of ‘authenticity’ afforded to Tortoise and the like. Stereolab have some fine tunes, but so, doubtlessly, did The Merton Parkas and The Lambrettas, if you like that kind of thing. If your scratchy old Faust albums aren’t enough, and you need that nostalgic fix of the latest thing in Disney-style animatronic experimentalism, then Ectogram are just as good as anything else presently doing the circuit. They’ll probably be huge, but for me they seem closer in spirit to Darts and Matchbox, than Can or Neu!
WAR ARROW
The Moth
Pummel Box
RED NEON TAPES RN36 C90 cassette (1996)
Astonishingly bad. This is a shame because Red Neon have put out some nice things in the past, so I really don’t know what the excuse for this could possibly be. Most of the songs feature a keyboard which I’d swear is being played by a cat. Wearing boxing gloves. The drum machine rarely wavers from the Bontempi setting, over which our hero, presumably he whom men call The Moth, sings his special art lyrics in positively stentorian tones. I get the impression that Mr Moth is of the belief that everything he does - music, drawings, diaries, shopping lists - is art which will one day be discovered and revered by future historians. One gets an almost tangible sense of the thought processes in action here: ‘Crap it may be, but these are the SEMINAL EARLY WORKS.’ Pummel Box is recorded on a high quality chrome cassette, and the erase tabs are kindly left intact, both of which are worth a few house points in my book, but not enough to excuse this shoddily-produced tripe. Imagine the local amateur dramatics society doing free expression mime, to the local recorder group’s medley of songs made famous by The Fall and Captain Beefheart. Yes, it’s an amusing image, providing you’re not expected to actually sit through the bloody thing.
Does anyone remember Mighty Moth in the old seventies TV Comic? For the benefit of culturally impoverished readers, the Mighty Moth saga reiterated the popular theme of the conflict between the Apollonian and the Dionysian, embodied in the lead character and his long-suffering nemesis: Dad. Every week, Mighty Moth would eat Dad’s entire wardrobe. Dad, driven to the brink of madness, would attempt lepidoptricide of the thoughtless and inconsiderate creature. Sadly, all his efforts ended in disaster, much to the amusement of the little insect cunt. I often wonder why Dad never tried mothballs. Which is what this cassette is a load of.
WAR ARROW
Nocturnal Emissions
Reliquary
EARTHLY DELIGHTS C90 cassette (1994)
When a group more commonly associated with release on vinyl or CD puts out a cassette, there is often a sound basis for caution. The cassette, in such cases, often serves as a dumping ground for material that is too esoteric, or just plain crap, for inclusion on ‘proper releases’. Happily, this is not the case with Nocturnal Emissions, who seem physically incapable of producing substandard dross. What is found here clearly benefits from the same high standards of production, composition, and even packaging, as has been applied to their extensive back catalogue, with the exception (which may hopefully dispel any accusations of sycophancy) of the unlistenable second side of 1984’s Shake Those Chains, Rattle Those Cages album - redeemed, I hasten to add, by a blinding first side.
The music? Ooh. Tricky.
Reliquary is entirely instrumental, and seems to be composed mainly with samples of acoustic instruments. The sound is dense without being oppressive; meditative without sounding like some appalling new age musical laxative. The overall effect is a little like Muslimgauze providing the soundtrack to a Charlton Heston biblical epic, on mediaeval instruments - I’m certain I heard a krumhorn in there - only, it doesn’t actually sound like that at all. Curse my limited descriptive powers!
In truth I suspect it to be Nocturnal Emissions’ musical prowess, rather than any literary handicap on my part, which makes this difficult to review. It is therefore a shame that the mainstream music press continues to ascribe bold innovation and dangerous avant-garde foresight to a bunch of groups who have earned such kudos by daringly shoving some old John Barry soundtracks through a few effects pedals, while Nocturnal Emissions remain relatively obscure. This, however, is the genuine article and you should accept no substitutes.
WAR ARROW
Aural Guerrilla
Magical Moments
C60 cassette (1997)
Jim MacDougall, the mastermind behind this operation, is mad. I don’t mean he’s like, this real wacky dude, who’d catch you with a hand buzzer or pinch a traffic cone as soon as look at you. Rather, he has spent a proportion of his life (the part which most musicians spend at art college or studying sociology) in the dubious care of psychiatric institutions, subject to even more dubious chemical cocktails. Yer average patronising arse might then expect this tape to be ‘a traumatic plummet into the depths of the human psyche’ or similar, oblivious that such an assumption is not greatly different to ‘All black people enjoy reggae’ or ‘Japanese music is plinky-plonky and inscrutable’. True, there is some fairly severe stuff on this tape, but it doesn’t dominate by any means. In fact given that the musical line-up - guitar, bass, drum machine, synthesiser, and vocals - is consistent throughout the tape, it’s surprisingly varied.
Joy Division, Throbbing Gristle, The Fall, and especially Chrome, all spring to mind as passing influences, without this being overwhelming. The tape does have its faults. For one, a few of the numbers sound a bit incomplete, and I wonder about the sense in including ’songs’ with lyrics about not being able to think of any words. And oh look, Steve’s having a crafty fag in the corner of the studio. Also, there’s a picture of someone’s ‘Hampton’ on the cover, which (hopefully you’ll all agree) is uncalled for. Still, I doubt Aural Guerrilla are particularly bothered about being nominated for this year’s Mercury music awards, so…whatever.
On the positive side, the overall quality of playing and production is excellent, and there are examples of a particularly valuable commodity here, namely the ‘corker’. Several tracks - ‘Loony’, ‘Revenge’, ‘Don’t Tell Me You Care’ and ‘Medicine’ - certainly fall into this category. The majority of the other tracks also ‘cork’, albeit to a lesser extent. Jim’s stream of consciousness vocal style is highly listenable, and hints that the best may be still to come, particularly with the few tantalising glimpses of his talent for crooning, which is sadly underused here. Not the greatest tape ever produced, but as the Perry Como inspired title suggests, it does indeed have its share of magical moments.
WAR ARROW