The 1985 - Obscured By Pink Clouds

Label : Progeria Records - prg002 / Carbon Records - CR21

Country : US

Year : 1999

Format : CD

Before 1975, there was 1985.

Not having heard this in awhile and hard of total memory (wild year, that), I can only give vague past impressions. But I can also speak about the group itself, though I have little info on them despite being "from" the same place.

I suppose it is a rather alien document amongst the scuzzbucket-pigfukkit noize rockers, the standard abrasive punx interspersed with bizarre minimal-electro synth motifs (Recalling at least a tiny bit at points the brilliant Brainiac) make this a worthwhile get. But that's just me. The CD version added all that stuff after the fact for all I know.

The (rightful [if I cared about "sequencing"]) closer on the vinyl platter, "Shooting Blanks" is a noise rock masterpiece in every sense for all I care... Looking now, I made a mistake in the above blurb: what was tacked on was the nameless little snippets after the seminal ender. Although I still do like em fine, it does lessen the impact of hearing the cops raid the band's recording studio/garage.

Here

Pelthead International Conspiracy Theory - Pelthead International Conspiracy Theory

Label : La Bande Magnétique

Year : 1994

Country : Canada

Format : C60

 The second half as promised in the last post, just in time for the prelude to Christmas sunlight. As I mentioned before, this auction was somewhat of a crapshoot, an unknown. It was well worth the few 10s of dollars spent for both of em, two winners. At least I'd like to think so, without the fog of buyer's remorse and bargaining. But really, there is some interesting stuff going on here.

 Music for art installations, like the last one somewhat, but that doesn't take away the listenable aspects of this. Stray samples, strange synthsounds, and autre alliterations abound. The grand mystery revealed itself in a surprise of familiarity: one of the fellows involved in this project is a musician I know (not personally) from a few tapes from the noise-arch archive, Gerard Leckey. Here, under the alias Gabrel [sic] Angel with his partners in croime Patrick Harrop (who did the cover art here as well as the SLOD tape) and Paz Paisley (who has been putting some stuff from this group n perpendicular, including stuff from then and now), it is not too dissimilar to how I remember his own music sounding: collage, minimalism, and electronic overall.

The last tape had this nice little advertisement too but I felt it more appropriate to include it in the finale to the 2 episode miniseries.

Here

Secret Life Of Dali - Live

Label : La Bande Magnétique

Year : 1994

Country : Canada

Format : C60

 Christmas is in the air, and there's nothing more enchanting than that. Well, except for unknown tapes I picked up on eBay. You never know what to find in these plastic mystery boxes. Here is the first of these media incognita... Like many things, what appears to be totally obscured at first is eventually shone a light with a little scrutiny.
Like so, after previously having no luck finding any info on this at all, I soon found a Youtube channel (of which I was already subscribed) that contained both info and various tracks from this mysterious collective and adjacent.

This particular tape contains longform and lesser longform minimal elektronik pieces, not quite techno and not quite Vice Versa, Suicide, etc. Ambient and prog structure of an art gallery soundtrack.

Here

Hebephrenic - Ataraxia

Label : Tapehiss Recordings

Year : 1991

Country : US

Format : C90

We keep going further and further back in time in this particular artist's catalog, in this installment quite a bit of fade in and outs. Maybe more ambient and progressive in comparison, too, but still with a mutant-pop sensibility. Ethereal and ghostly but not too harrowing. Listeth.

Here

Selfs Without Shells - 5: The Number Of Communication

Label : EE Tapes - ET16

Country : Belgium

Year : 1993

Format : C60

Astute minds might notice something about today's post, that is the fact that it has been posted before. Well, apparently. Kinda. What the monumental tape-attack (which I'm glad was not shuttered after a few weeks without downloadability on the blog) posted was the IRRE iteration of this particular series of tapes. What we have here is not a failure to communication, but simply a small series of misunderstanding. numero cinq.

What's different? The tracklisting differs a little bit, though it shares the Birds of a Feather (apparently a separate group? I dunno, I wasn't there) side to a tee. The schism here, ironically, is the one that also shares a title with the other issue, that is 5: The Number of Communication side. Now, I don't know the significance of the number 5 and what it has to do with communication and magick and whatever but it seems to me that it comprises of various collaborations (probably via mail and elsewhere) between members of the Selfs with such incandescent figures as the Sack himself(s) and Del(eted) and autre un-unforgotten luminaries of the underground seen.

Here

I was not very confident in my ability to discern between different tracks on this one as I am usually, given the muffled aspects of it and my forgetful laziness. Seeing as the "Bofa Feather" side differs from mine on the Brains For Breakfast rip, only one of us can be wrong! Or both.