Members of Melbourne-based seminal improvising experimental group Laughing Hands and its alter ego Invisible College have been Paul Schütze, Gordon Harvey, Ian Russell and Paul Widdicombe.Their spectrally shaded instrumental post-punk-by-way-of-post-industrial constructs were effectively post rock before the genre existed.
The group continued in several permutations until disbanding in 1982. They have released two vinyl albums on their own Adhesive Label (Ledge (1980) and Dog Photos (1981) plus one cassette which is part of this box EE-The Welder's Bible (1981) as well as two cassettes on the Australian tape-label Rash (Decisions) called Nights (1982) under the pseudonym of Invisible College titled The Luxury of Horns (1981/82), both also part of this box-set.
While the esoteric Eno-by-way-of-Dome post punk instrumental constructs doled out across their two LP's are some of the most mesmerizing examples of this sort, their work on the tape-only releases finds them exploring a decidedly more shrouded, nocturnal and formally abstract dimension of their universe.
The two tapes issued under their heading as well as the material they issued under the pseudonym The Invisible College tease out certain territories only hinted at on the vinyl releases. Nights is comprised of two side-long pieces. Side A's mesmerizing title track is filled with watery glisses, spectral synth shadings, distant metallic clatter and pained wails, while the B-side's Infinite Summer unfurls a protracted stream of stutter pulse across a vast terrain of preternatural and phantasmagoric incident.
The material on EE, divided into subsections titled Vibrate, Scatter, Picture and Splinter spans the gap between Nights atmospheric abstractions and The Invisible College's more forcefully driving and art rock-ish confections, each section highlighting a facet of their cumulative praxis, Vibrate foregrounding the rhythmically forceful dimension of their aesthetic as heard on the Invisible College material, Scatter proposing a more fractured and hermetic attack that carries a whiff of Can's ethnological forgeries, Splinter exploring the more nocturnal and mechanistic side of their nature and Picture setting it's sights on the cosmos with pore-penetrating widescreen tracts of alternately shearing and suspended krautrock-ish acid sound-scaping that is perhaps the epiphanic peak of their whole discography.
LH member and electronic producer Paul Schütze has received most of his media attention for the dark ambient/rhythmic/quasi-isolationist music he's authored under his own name for the last 2 1/2 decades:
“Listening back over these recordings, teased skillfully from the few remaining cassettes by VOD’s engineers I am forced to wonder whether perhaps, as artists we spend our time re-discovering solutions to the same creative problems over and over. I hear things in these pieces (many of which I had entirely forgotten) that offer solutions to problems I am dealing with in my own works today. Suddenly I realize I knew the answers thirty years ago! I guess if it is true that artists remake the same work over and over then perhaps we are doomed to confront the same creative dilemmas repeatedly having inexplicably mislaid the effective solutions of our own manufacture.” Paul Schütze, Paris, 2011
Ian Boddy is a prolific British electronic musician and composer. He has been active for over 3 decades with numerous releases and contributions to many international labels such as Flowmotion, Mirage, Signal Records, Colin Potters ICR (Integrated Circuit Records), Third Mind, his own label DIN Records (founded in 1999) and many more.
His creative output has been influenced from the 70’s German Krautrock/electronica and especially bands like Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze.
In the late 70’s and early 1980s Boddy began experimenting at an Arts Council funded Studio in Newcastle called Spectro Arts Workshop, where he was able to use the facility and its equipment (e.g. VCS3, EMS, etc.) to compose and record his first compositions.
This early period resulted in 3 cassette releases on the Mirage label, which showcased Boddy's work with analogue synthesis and tape manipulation."Images" (1979/80), "Elements Of Chance" (1981) and "Options" (1982).
All three tape releases plus additional bonus and live material from this period is presented as a 3LP box set on VOD Records.
Data Bank A is most likely the best-known, highly prolific and protagonistic EBM/Dark-Wave/Synth project of Andrew Szava-Kovats, who is also known for his 80/90’s works as and with Dominion, Compound, Parade of Sinners on labels like New Rose/Lively Art (France), Subway (aka Subtronic) Records (Germany), Tragic Figures (Portugal) and KK Records (Belgium).
As many artsts back in early 80’s, he founded his own label called K.O.City Records (later re-named True Age Records) where he released his first Tapes and records, such as the cassette tapes Spriritus Sanctus and Language Barrier, the vinyl LPs Access Denied and The CItadel, as well as the 7“ vinyl EPS Intervention and Isolation.
All of those recordings from the early stage (81-85) of this amazing project can be found on this 3Lp-Set with Bonus 7“.
VOD-Members will furthermore recieve a T-Shirt accompaning this 3Lp-Box-Set.
Data-Bank-A: continues recording to this day. And Andrew continues the Dominion project, with recordings on True Age Records (USA) and Wave Records (Brazil). He also has a new recording project called Fossil Man, with a release on True Age.
The Modern Art (sometimes spelled Mødern Art) was a band-project formed in the early 80’s by Gary Ramon, also known for his band-projects WeR7, Mystery Plane, and latterly, Quad and Sun Dial, as well as working with Current 93 and Coil on their "Astral Disaster" album.
The sound is very unique as it combines the classic Minimal/Synth and Drum-elements with psychedelic/guitarrock that built the fundament for the later works as Sun Dial. The band had a loose lineup and released two studio albums (one self-released called „Stereoland“ from 1987 and one on the german Out of Depression-Label in 1989) and a number of self-produced cassettes on Gary’s own Color Disc & Tapes label.
In 2011 the spanish label Domestica released a limited.320 copies Lp primarily focussed on the minimal/synth output with tracks from 82-86.
This 3Lp-Box is now the chance to dig deeper into this musical output of the Modern Art.
Besides most of the tracks from the Domestica release, it contains more tracks (36 Tracks with total paying time 165 Min) recorded between 1982 and 1985 from their self-released Color-Disc-tapes like „Underwater Kites“ (Color 2), „Oriental Towers“ (Color 4), „Dimensions of Noise“ (Color 8), „Age of Lights“ (Color Ext3) and „Modern Artifact“ (Color 11). It also contains previously unreleased tracks plus a complete LP of previously unreleased publisher demos recorded in 1985 planned for a vinyl release back in 1985.
Ramon disbanded the group in the late 1980's and from the ashes became Sun Dial. This legendary band have released many albums over the last 20 years including the classics "Other Way Out", "Return Journey", "Acid Yantra" and more recently "Mind Control".
This lmtd.500 3Lp-Box-Set is compiling the early Stage (1979-85) of the swedish Label Xenophone International founded by Dan Söderqvist and Karl Gasleben in late 70’s and which is well known for their own projects and Tape-releases by Cosmic Overdose (Final Koka, 1980) & Twice a Man (A Goat in a Room, 1983“) as well as the 1983-release „Through“ by the previous Twice a Man-member Lars Falk.
Now, and for the first time on Vinyl, all three of those highly collectable and searched-after Tape-Releases are now presented with additional Bonus-material in one nice 3Lp-Box-Set.
The three Bonus-Tracks on the Cosmic Overdose Lp include 1 previously unreleased Track from 1980 called „Defence“ as well as the two tracks („To Night“ and „Dead“) from their second 7“inch release previously released on Silence Records in 1980.
The Bonus-Tracks on the Lars Falk-Lp include the the two 7“inch-Tracks („TV-Eye“ and „Doors“) from the TV-Eye 7“inch released on Xenophone in 1985 as Xeno4.
VOD-Members will furthermore recieve an additional 3-Track 7“ including two tracks previously unreleased on Vinyl („Japanese letters“ and „Plan F“) and one Demo-Version of „Tribal Ways“ which has never been released before.
Un-Kommuniti (sometimes also called Un-Kommunity or Thee Un-Kommuniti) was an early to mid 80’s project run by Tim Gane with support of Joe Manning, Vince "Van Hire" Adams & Dave "Smut" Smit and Pete Levy.
Nowadays, Tim Gane is a well known for his highly prolific band/project Stereolab and his participation in the band Mc Carthy in the late 80’s.
During the early to mid 80's-cassette-culture and lead by Tim Gane, the group was running their own Tape-Label „Black Dwarf Recordings" (also called "Wreckordings“).
Their first and very limited cassettes-issues had the catalogue-numbers BDW which they later changed to BDC including a different Cat-number for the releases.
The group was interested in musical alchemy and the result of this apporach in the creation of their music has been an incredible „alchemistic“ mix of psychedelic elements paired with heaviest power-electronics & noise-soundwalls leading the listening to the ultimate psychedelic journey/trip.
People familar with the music of Stereolab will definately recognize the roots to their current musical output in this 4Lp-Box-Set.
They were active from 1983 until 1987 and by then have released on numerous Cassette-Culture-Labels including Freedom in a Vaccum, Broken Flag, Selbstmord Organization, Cause for Concern, Sound of Pig, Statutory Tapes.
Besides their „Brutality of Facts“ 7“ Vinyl released on Cause for Concern in 1984 they just had two more vinyl-Contributions on the Compilations Freedom in a Vacuum and Statement (Broken Flag)
This is the ultimate chance to enjoy a musical journey with almost 4 hours of carefully seletced Tape-Tracks by Un-Kommuniti
All the tracks selected for this Box are recorded between 1983 and 85 and were previously only released on their own „Black Dwarf“-Label and on the Tapes „Black Dwarf“ (BDRS1) „Doktrine“ (BDC01), „Overliberate/In the Shithouse“ (BDC06), „The Prime Advantage“ (BDC10), „Anarchist Bingo Hall / Soundtracks“ (BDC11), „Sense of Unmaking“ (BDC12), „Dhol Chants“ (BDC14), „Ex-Oblivione“ (BDC17) as well as the Compilations „Faith will never die“ (BDC05) and „Crusade“ (BDC08)
This is a CD-Edition of the VOD41-Release "C.O.I.T. A Collection Of Isolated Tracks 1981-1988", previously published by Vinyl On Demand in 2007 in two different versions.
This edition of "A Collection Of Isolated Tracks 1982-1988" collects 28 tracks from the period 1981-1988 which appeared on singles or on compilations, or were never released before the 2007 release of VOD41. A shorter 15-Track-Version of C.O.I.T. was initially released on CD by Apocalyptic Vision in 1995.
Besides 6 Offset printed Postcards inside the black varnished wooden-box-Set lmtd.to 300 copies it furthermore contains a 7“inch with the 8 tracks from the legendary „La Cassette Noire-Tape.
These titles were chosen to give a more complete survey of that period and have been remastered once more with best possible equipment as some of the recordings might still sound quiet rough and raw.
It furthermore contains a 7“inch with the 8 tracks from the legendary „La Cassette Noire-Tape as well as the CD-Edition of C.O.I.T (VODCD6)
This edition of "A Collection Of Isolated Tracks 1982-1988" collects 28 tracks from the period 1981-1988 which appeared on singles or on compilations, or were never released before the 2007 release of VOD41.
A shorter 15-Track-Version of C.O.I.T. was initially released on CD by Apocalyptic Vision in 1995. These titles were chosen to give a more complete survey of that period and have been remastered once more with best possible equipment as some of the recordings might still sound quiet rough and raw: