Crashblack Big Orange: Naked Man LP

     Sometimes you have to redefine your idea of a “prime” era of good music in order to find music you love. For the longest time I was extremely wary of records from the late 80s and early 90s. There was so much CRAP issued around that time, as hair metal extended its Aqua Net-doused tentacles and electronic music traded in its experimentalism for digitalized rhythms and its vocals for the sound of a thousand  ravers sucking on pacifiers in an ecstacy-induced fury.

     But I have been occasionally finding records from this forsaken era. It was, after all, a great time for shoegaze. And the French coldwave/touching pop bands of the time were quite good.. The Juju mini LP from 1989 is a masterpiece, and both records by Intelligence Unit from 1989 and 1991 are excellent and unique. Well, Chicago band (and Intelligence Unit labelmates) Crashblack Big Orange can certainly be added to the category of great post-punk from this time. In fact, I'd say they were one of the best dark post-punk bands of not just their era, but ANY era. Here's a sample:

 
     Crashblack Big Orange (don’t worry, their name literally does not mean anything) was a husband and wife duo that rose from the ashes of a couple other bands, The Hail Marys and Unknown Pleasures. I found an interview in which they cited Killing Joke and Xmal Deutschland as their biggest influences and, well, it shows (and that alone should get you to download this post haste). I’d also add Skeletal Family to that list; Crashblack’s guitars are often quite remisncent of them. Both members share drum program duties, and both sing as well. He sounds a bit like an early UK goth-punk singer (think Twisted Nerve or UK Decay) and she sounds a bit Siouxsie-ish. The combination of male and female vocals (both of whom are actually good) is one of the things that sets this band apart from so many others. And the extended guitar intros, outros, bridges, and solos could sound a bit jammy if they didn’t completely kick ass, weren’t chock-full of distortion, or did not have that perfect darkwave tone to them. Even the basslines are memorable (and is it just me, or does the bassline of the lead track “Trust” sound like the bass from Secession’s classic “Betrayal”?) Here's another song of theirs:

 
   The band released at least 3 demo tapes before this LP. Most of those songs were released on this LP, although I would love to hear them if they’re demo versions. And at least one Iain Burgess –produced tape has some exclusive songs on it. The band later shortened their name to Crashblack, although I have not heard anything from that incarnation. If anyone out there has anything else from them – or demo tapes from  Unknown Pleasures or The Hail Marys, I’d be interested in hearing them!

Crashblack Big Orange

Naked Man LP

1990, Cold Grey Matter Records

Listen here!

The Black Box: Fetish#1 7”

Out of Australia comes this obscure and rare 7” by a band called The Black Box. Their influences are quite obvious – very Birthday Party and somewhat deathrock sounding stuff here. It’s grinding, screeching, noisy guitar rock, with vocals that seem primed for attack, drums occasionally pounded so hard you feel sorry for them, and short sax interludes. It’s actually the band’s perfect use of the sax that sets this release above so many similar “me-too” bands. The instrument goes from short aggressive bleats to tuneful melodies in the space of a few seconds. It makes both songs much more dynamic and interesting.

The record was self released in 1989 on Claude Records. There is not too much information to be found about this band – it seems they released only this 7” (although I’d certainly like to hear more if it exists) and then toiled in obscurity. It’s time to rediscover them now. This record is a bit scratchy, so excuse the static and clicks that are mainly at the beginning of each song.

Black Box: Fetish#1 7”

1989, Claude Records

Fetish#1

Poison Shadows

Click here to listen!

The Stars That Wouldn't Shine: Selftitled mLP

Occasionally an unknown record grabs you, even though the ingredients that it consists of sound a bit ridiculous. New York band The Stars That Wouldn't Shine are a perfect example of that phenomenon. First of all, take a look at the cover. Their style is a mishmash of goth, punk, greaser, and Clockwork Orange. Who wouldn't buy this record base on the cover photo alone? Fittingly, their music is a complete conundrum as well - it's a mix of heavily synthed-out gloomy post punk, Madness-style ska, gothic surf rock, jokey deathrock, and completely deadpan, monotone and British-sounding vocals with lyrics about murder, death, Nazis, and mice. This sounds like a completley inconceivable combination, but oh, how wonderfully it works on this 8-track mini LP. If the Addams Family were a band on 4AD Records, they would probably sound like this.

There are no credits on the record aside from a photo credit and the songwriter "SARJ". Mysterious and intriguing! Right off the bat, the band slams into two fast-paced gothic ska-ish songs, full of synths, random cymbal crashes, and polyrhythmic percussion a la Adam and the Ants. The third track, Tchiakovsky, really shows the band hitting their stride. Again, it begins abruptly. No fade-in, no intro, no full measure before the vocals.... just, BAM! you're hit with a wall of heavy synths and repetitive surf guitars. The vocals are perfectly monotone, almost spoken-word, with no attempt to even try rhyming. The final song on the first side, Mister Klaus, is a "live" song that, rather than sounding like a live performance recording, sounds more like a studio recording with crowd noises thrown on top for its entire duration. It also inexplicably contains an entire album's worth of "Oi" chants, all in a row, all stated in a completely monotone voice ("oi. oi. oi. oi. oi. oi."). It is also probably the best gothic party anthem about a Nazi war ciminal (presumably Klaus Barbie) that I've ever heard.

Side 2 starts with their best gothic ska-cum-darkwave track on the album. It's fast paced and reverbed, with two or three repetitive guitar notes that sound more like they are quickly fading in and out rather than being strummed, and refrains with great organ-sounding synths. The next two tracks sound quite similar to each other, except "Four Days" has a bit of a bright feel to it and is probably the only relative dud on the album, and the subsequent "Don't Stop Now" is darker both musically and lyrically, with a break in which the singer matter-of-factly states "And so I kill you". It would be a bit creepy, if it wasn't so charming. The closing song on the album, "The Mouse Song", is on probably my favorte - a complete deathrock gem full of heavy haunted-house synths, tinny, jagged guitars, and lyrics about... um, being a mouse.

I've listened to this album half a dozen times in the past few days, and it continues to grow on me. It somehow achieves the rare mark of simultaneously sounding completely campy and utterly unironic. The ingredients of this album simply should not work anywhere near as well as they do. Maybe I am the only person who loves this record this much, but I have the sneaking suspicion that there will be a few people who'll be adding this to their wantlists and seeking it out.

The Stars That Wouldn't Shine: Selftitled mLP

1983, ADI Records

A1 Lying On The Floor

A2 You Don't Love Me

A3 Tchiakovsky

A4 Mister Klause

B1 Anything #3

B2 Four Days

B3 Don't Stop Now

B4 The Mouse Song

Click here to listen!

Basic Scream: Tales of Intoxication LP

Here’s a pretty obscure LP from the Netherlands. It’s a self-released and self-produced record from a band called Basic Scream. It’s a bit surprising that this is so unknown, since it really is the type of record that goth and deathrock fans (myself included) would enjoy. It combines noisy Swans-ish guitars with deranged Lydia Lunch-style vocals. The band used guitars that almost sound like basses, and in turn their bass guitars are so low they sound like the ominous rumblings of angry monsters. The low-end-focused sound of the music lends a heaviness to the songs that perfectly couples with the creeped-out vocals and lyrics.

There are certainly some weak points on the album. Some of the songs sound a bit too similar to each other. And although the lyrics are certainly written with an avant garde poetic approach, they can tend to be goth-for-the-sake-of-goth. The song “Springtime” starts out with a plaintive wail that exclaims “Springtime / the season of decay”, and the song “Hunt” fades out with her chanting “Life is a place / that’s forbidden to live”, while the song “An Insane Queen” is entirely about the psychotic musings of its titular subject.

Still, I cannot fault the record too much. As a whole, it works very well. Standout songs like “Hunt”, with its machine-gun tribal drumming and washes and stabs of guitars, and “An Insane Queen”, with its absolutely delirious ambiance as the song builds into a tsunami of guitar effects and pure cacophony, certainly keep the album fresh. All of the songs flow from one to the next perfectly. The music will deviate from simple, repetitive guitar lines to full-on deathrock in the space of a minute, and that variety ensures that the album is listenable throughout its duration.

Basic Scream – Tales of Intoxication LP

1986, Basic Records

A1 A Dance Of Fire

A2 On The Edge II

A3 Rites

A4 Sixty-Seven Men And Women

A5 An Insane Queen

B1 The Shadow Of Man

B2 Springtime

B3 The Hunt

B4 Requiem

Click here to listen

Real Macabre: Emotion 12”

Here is a mysterious record from 1985, from a UK band called Real Macabre. There are absolutely no credits or band members listed. The cover is just a white textured sleeve with a sticker on the front that says “This is Emotion”. The band seemed to go out of their way to NOT attract any attention.

It’s unfortunate, because this could easily have been a big club hit in the 80s Surely this band’s noisy-yet-tuneful brand of dark (but quite poppy) goth rock has widespread appeal. Fans of Look Back in Anger, Asmodi Bizaar, and Siouxsie and the Banshees will certainly enjoy both mixes of Emotion. While the tracks on this 12” may not be terribly original, they are well-written. With slightly sassy vocals and buzzsaw guitars, the extended mix of Emotion is a pretty great "lost" single, and is guaranteed to have you tapping your feet by the time the chorus arrives and the song kicks into overdrive.

Sadly, fate has found this band receiving little or no recognition. I’m sure the record was simply not distributed well enough for it to gain a wide audience. At least the age of mp3s can rectify this. I have no idea if this band ever released anything else (or, as mentioned earler, WHO the band members were). If anyone out there has any information, share it!

Real Macabre: Emotion 12”

1985, Push Records

A1 Emotion (extended)

B1 Emotion

B2 The Dance

Click here to listen!

Various Artists: Untitled LP

Courtesy of Riegler, the beautiful and discerning San Francisco minimal synth/post punk/darkwave DJ-at-large, comes this virtually unknown compilation that she was kind enough to mail to me to rip and play at a party or two. I've shared a couple of Club de Rome records, and here is a compilation that has an exclusive song from them, during their formative coldwave years.

This compilation was released in 1986 on the tiny Post Tenebras label out of Switzerland. Aside from probably being pressed in a small run of a few hundred copies or so, this record is completely untitled, making searching for it (or even referring to it by name) a futile exercise. The record features eight tracks from four Swiss bands. Club de Rome have two songs here, one of which was the B-side to the Hypnotised 7" I shared a couple weeks ago, the other of which is exclusive. The exclusive song, Murder, finds the band veering close to deathrock territory, with sheets of metallic guitars, a solid bassline backbone, and lyrics at the end that, oddly enough, they would rerecord later ("Why don't you recognize/That my life/is not a dream" would later become the refrain of A L'Est & A L'Ouest Du Crépuscule).

Smirnov, whose EP was shared a while ago on the Capa Nostra Syndicate blog was a coldwave band in the tradition of Norma Loy, Charles de Goal, Asylum Party, and others; both their songs are extremely solid and may be my two favorites on this album.

Smog (not to be confused with the current indie band) was a female-fronted deathrock/dark punk band in the vein of early Christian Death, The Sears, and Blitz. Their song Dream of sand is a particularly excellent track, with aggressive vocals and guitars tuned to attack.

Nova Express are the synth band on this record - both their songs make heavy use of programmed drums, electronics, and cold vocals. Their song on the A side, La Fille Aux Yeux Telescopiques, may be one of the weaker songs on the album, but they more than make up for it on the second side with A 2000 a l'Heure, a definite coldwave gem.

Overall, this comp is quite excellent, and really is more than deserving of a name. Perhaps not giving the record a title helps the record label remain neutral in true Swiss tradition.

Various Artists: Untitled LP

1986, Post Tenebras Records

A1 Club De Rome: Occhio Blu

A2 Smirnov: Cliches

A3 Smog: Dream of Sand

A4 Nova Express: La Fille Aux Yeux Telescopiques

B1 Nova Express: A 2000 a l'Heure

B2 Smog: Better Than I Do

B3 Smirnov: Save

B4 Club De Rome: Murder

Click here to download the record!

MY SIN: Beyond Good and Evil EP + Chains 7"

Well, I figured that if I'm going to post a rare SF female-fronted darkwave EP with tortured religious overtones, I may as well post the male equivalent! This is the 12" EP from one-man San Francisco band My Sin, self-released on Endless Music, as well as his debut (I think) 7", called Chains. The 7" has one song (You End Up Swimming) that is on the 12", so I've only included the exclusive track.
My Sin were pretty productive, releasing several cassettes (at least one of which had an accompanying book) and eventually a CD in the early 90s. My Sin is a mix of darkwave, deathrock, and synthpop on these releases. Using only bass, synths, and drums (no guitars, apparently), this one-man band created some dark, gloomy, angry, and lyrically quite bitter music. He starts with excellent covers of the Stones (Moonlight Mile) and the Stooges (I Need Somebody) on one side of the 12", and all other songs are his own. If you like your darkwave and deathrock infused with a good deal of melodrama, download this one! And if you have any of his other releases (cassettes or CDs), I would love to hear them!

My Sin: Beyond Good and Evil + Chains 7"
198? + 1984, Endless Records
A1 Moonlight Mile
A2 I Need Somebody
B1 You End Up Swimming
B2 Hayloft
+Chains


Click here to download these records!

Cipher: Selftitled EP

UPDATE: Marsha Mann has emailed me with a great bio of the band and her work, and also some corrections:
Hi Goutroy,
A musician friend of mine came across your site recently and told me about it...I'm Marsha Mann, lead singer & producer of the L.A. based band, CIPHER (1977-1983). While I appreciate you featuring our record on your site (and don't mind others downloading it as well) the info about myself & the band is a bit off.
When my writing partner (Jose Garcia) and I started working together in 1976, we had no knowledge of Souxie & The Banshees. As a singer/performer I was much more influenced by 60's icons Grace Slick & Jim Morrison, and later, David Bowie & Patti Smith. Our music also had elements of avant garde jazz and various ethnic musics from around the world...my lyrics reflected years of self study in metaphysics, shamanism, and the new sciences.
In 1981, I was the first female rocker to produce myself (and the band) in the studio, on my own label (Right-Brain Records). Working with a small network of independent distributors, I was able to get it into stores throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe, before the internet existed! We were being played on college radio stations around the country, were featured 5 times on the famed cable TV show 'New Wave Theater', and headlined shows at The Whisky A-Go-Go and Club Lingerie on the Sunset Strip. The L.A. Weekly considered us 'one of the most influential bands of the L.A. Music Underground', and Bam Magazine did a full-page feature article on us. We also played The Savoy Club in S.F. and appeared on the New Wave compilation album, 'Savoy Sound Wave Goodbye' w/ Tuxedo Moon and The Sleepers.
CIPHER was in the process of recording a second record in 1983 when the band broke up. In 1984, I married Radames Pera (the actor who played Grasshopper on the TV series 'Kung Fu') and a year or so later we joined forces with the performance-art rock trio 'Freshly Wrapped Candies' (Chris Haaga, Roz & Wade Hall), performing live interactive video on multiple monitors in changing configurations (very groundbreaking stuff). FWC was briefly signed to Ralph Records in S.F. (The Residents Record/Video Label) who released a 60-minute music video called 'The Sheep of Things To Come'. The female voice on the FWC records are Roz, not me.
My ex-music partner and I are still good friends and plan to release a CIPHER retrospective in the next year or so, which will include the songs we recorded in 1983 that were never released.
I hope this has been of some interest to you, and again, we do appreciate the attention you have given our EP.
Feel free to contact me if you have any other questions.
Best Regards,Marsha Mann

... and here's my original post: Los Angeles had a great run of bands in the early 1980s before hair metal reared its ugly Aqua Net-ed head. Cipher was one of the many, many Los Angeles darkwave/post punk/deathrock bands from that genre's heyday. The singer's voice combined with the tense, dense and often ominous post punk made for some unique music that is not unlike the Global Infantilists LP that I shared a couple months ago. I'm pretty sure this was the band's only release. The singer Marsha Mann, later found slighly more notoriety in the undergound LA performance/art band Freshly Wrapped Candies, whose self-released first two LPs were shared on the Mutant Sounds blog a while ago. According to the credits, Mann was the performance conceptualist for Cipher, so I'm guessing that their live performances were artistic and expressive.




Cipher: Selftitled EP
1981, Right Brain Records
A1 Body Chemistry
A2 Harmonic 33
A3 Cymatic Mambo
B1 Modern Medicine
B2 Brown

Click here to download this record!

Thrill of the Pull: Green to Red 12"

For all of you who really wish that Killing Joke would record a song that sounds exactly like their early-to-mid-80s heyday, here you go. Green to Red basically sounds like it could be on Night Time, with vocals that sound a bit like Mark Burgess of Chameleons. The B side is even more Chameleons-like. I can't really fault a band for sounding like other bands I love, though. It's derivative gems like this that make scrounging for unknown records worth it! All I know about this band is that they released this one 12" on Underground Release Records in a die-cut sleeve that made it look like some random rap record the first couple times I saw it. They were from San Francisco, and I think one of the members may have been in Fade to Black, a SF deathrock band from around 1984-85. I'm not sure, though.

Thrill of the Pull: Green to Red 12"
1986, Underground Release Records
A1 Green to Red
B1 Everlasting Dream

Click here to download this 12"!

The Hail Mary: What's That Fire EP

The thing that grabbed me first when I found this album at a small record shop in Antwerp was the sticker on the front: "First Record Censured in Belgium". What caused it to be censured? Were all the songs promoting baby sacrifice? Listening to the album didn't really offer many clues - it's a solid four songs of excellent deathrock and dark post punk that's part Christian Death and part Bauhaus. So I ask all of you - do you know why the Hail Mary had the first record censured in Belgium? Is there even any credibility to this claim?

The Hail Mary: What's That Fire EP
198?, self-released
A1 What's That Fire?
A2 The Quiet Way to Paradise
B1 Into the Last Fight
B2 Violets

Click here to download the EP!

Parchment Prayer & Infant Bonds of Joy links fixed

Due to popular demand, I've reuploaded the Parchment Prayer LP and demo tape. Both can be found in one convenient .zip folder here.
I also re-uploaded the Infant Bonds of Joy album here.

European Toys has been re-upped here - thanks to SowhatX for the upload! 

Capital Punishment (ie Ben Stiller's old band) has been reuploaded as well. Find it here. Thanks to Monkey Flinging Poo for the re-up!

More re-uploads will come soon. Please let me know in the comments section if you have any you want in particular. I'll also post more new rips soon...

Insulin Reaction: What's the Point LP & Witchfinder General 7"

Here are the two releases from the band Insulin Reaction: their debut 7", and their 1988 LP. Both are pretty obscure, and the LP can be found for quite cheap (like, $5 or so) on gemm.com or ebay occasionally, which is a nice relief. This group is notable for including two ex-members of dark punk band Peace Corpse (Tracy Lee Garcia and Julianna Towns). Unlike Peace Corpse, Insulin Reaction is dark post punk very much in the Cure vein. What I find most interesting about the band is that they use no guitar - they have two bassists, a drummer, and a keyboardist. With two basses, the songs have a dark, ominous quality to them with very few bright, treblous noises appearing. The only problem is that the combination of dual basses and low production costs cause an extremely murky sound on the 7"; thankfully this was corrected for the LP. The LP is quite good; although many of the songs sound a bit similar, there are some classics, especially Darkzone and Secrets. Anyway, enough jabbering, you probably want to download the records. Do so here:

Insulin Reaction: Witchfinder General 7"
1987 Icon Records
1. Witchfinder General
2. Ride to Forever

Insulin Reaction: What's the Point LP
1988 Bobok Records, Ltd.
1. Lonely Lady
2. Reconstruction
3. Want
4. New Way
5. Darkzone
6. Factory
7. Blacksuit Man
8. Difference
9. Machine
10. Crossfure
11. Secrets
12. Cannibals

Download the LP and 7" here!

Parchment Prayer LP + Miscellaneous tracks

I wish I could give some sort of background or detail about this release, but the truth is there is simply no information to be found. None of the band members are named (not even on the lyrics sheet). I don't know what else this band released, but I have this LP and a cd-r of their demo tape. The band was from Germany, and was part of the darkwave/goth/deathrock scene there. They released their selftitled LP on Independance Records. Musically, it recalls everything from Joy Division to Christian Death to South of No North to anarcho post punk and punk bands like Lack of Knowledge, The Ex, and Crass. It's sometimes aggressive, sometimes melodic, and always quite dark (except on the kinda lame "Children", with its chorus of "Take Care of the Children... Children... Children...". I mean come on, that's only a few steps away from Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All". Ugh.) But aside from that misstep, the LP is great, with songs like This Love Lost and Comedy sounding like long lost classics. The demos are even better, in my opinion, except some of them aren't the greatest sound quality. A huge thanks to anonymous (was it sorrow-vomit?) who informed me about the demo songs: they were on a demo tape that the band released in 1985, limited to 100 copies. The image of the cover comes from sorrow-vomit. I didn't name the songs in the .zip file, but have included them here so that you can change them accordingly.

Parchment Prayer LP
1987 Independance Records, Germany
Songs:
1.Sense of Belonging
2. This Love Lost
3. Change
4. We Could Be Them
5. Wish I Could Be
6. Incommunicado (Detention)
7. Comedy
8. Happy Day
9. Sensuality
10. Anger
11. Children



and...

Parchment Prayer Demos:
1985, slef-released demo cassette, ltd to 100 copies
1. Rituale Romanum
2. Comedy
3. Bath of Flies
4. The Clock
5. Subway
6. Just Like You
7. Movement
8. Black Mess (recorded live)


Download both here.

South of No North: Fell Frozen LP

I was a bit hesitant to share this album, because I think the album was reissued on CD. But I can find no official information on a rerelease, except that only 680 copies were pressed. I don't know if it's still available, or where, so if it is indeed still sold commercially I can take this post down. But anyway, on to the album:
This is one of the best darkwave records ever, hands down. The band was from Greece, and they released this album in 1985 on Creep Records. There isn't too much else that needs to be said.
This is yet another record I found in Vienna.
A note to anyone who will be visiting that fine city who wants to go record shopping: go to Teuchtler Schallplatten, found on Windmuhlgasse 10, (1060 or "6" section of town). Also check out the store right around the corner from it. Between the two, I found this, the Astaron LP, the Sing As We Go compilation, the first Bisca LP, the Desert Corbusier EP, and a load more, all for about 5-10 euro each.

Tracks:
1. She's Only a Song
2. Fell Frozen
3. Creeping
4. Annabelle Lee
5. Melancholy Bells
6. Behiund the Eternal Tree
7. Fairy Tale

Get the album here!

Primal Danse - Show No Emotion EP

Here's a pretty obscure EP from an LA band called Primal Danse. Although the record was marketed through Enigma Records, very little seems to be known about this record or the label (American Standard) that it's on. It seems that the drummer, Mike Hirsch, runs a skate shop these days in Southern California. Darin Bond, who played the rototoms, is also the name of one of the members of late 90s/early 2000s garage punk band Deadites (I don't know if they are actually the same person, though). This record was released on American Standard Records in 1982. The styles vary a bit: Insomnia is a midtempo mix of psychedelic and goth (similar to Red Temple Spirits or their predecessor, Ministry of Love); Johannesburg is dark new wave; Show No Emotion is more like a dancey funk-punk song.


Click here to download this EP!

Sad Is Fiction: Zum Wohle Der Menschheit 12"

This time I have a mysterious 12" EP from a Swiss band called Sad is Fiction. They self-released this EP in 1991, and that's really all I know. I have no idea if they released anything else, if the members (who only go by their first names on the jacket) went on to any other bands or what... I do know that I really like this EP. It's femele-fronted goth that's oddly dynamic, almost... I don't know, mathy? Math-goth? Would that be "Moth"? "Gothematics"? "Agothmetic"? There are loads of tempo changes, the songs build from repetitive doom-sounding basslines to angry shrieks and abruptly change to repeated chanting. It's definitely worth checking out if you're a goth or deathrock fan.

The tracks are:
Lied 13
Lied 7
Darling (Live)


Click here to download it!