Cerebral Hemorrhage: Back in 1984 EP

       Astonishingly and inexplicably, this is a record that has flown under the radar of pretty much every minimal synth collector out there - aside from a popsike entry from a few years ago and a couple other mentions of its existence, info on this record is nonexistant. At a recent record fair, the dealer selling this 12" saw me looking it up on discogs on my phone, and told me "unfortunatly that won't help - I made that entry". And since his copy was sealed, he hadn't even been able to hear it firsthand.
Still, it had the signature of an interesting record:
Cool band name (Cerebral Hemorrhage)
Promising title (Back in 1984)
Great label name (Illusion Records)
Intriguing song titles (Let's Modulate, Night Music)
And a strange icon of a stoic face with the caption "Big Brother is watching YOU"
       How could anyone resist that? I certainly couldn't - and when I put the needle on the record and heard 20 seconds of tinny drum machine plink-plonks before falling into a steady stream of pulsating synths, I was immensely satisfied. Through a bit of research I pieced together a few potentially-incorrect factoids about the record and band. It was ostensibly a one-man project by a guy named Dennis Hurley. This record was the third put out under the Cerebral Hemorrhage moniker. Two preceeding albums - an EP from 1981 and a double-LP from 1983 - appear to be almost as scarce than this one. (there might be a fourth record that came out around the same time as Back in 1984 too, but I'm not sure) However, whereas those records apparently incorporated lots of guitar and sound more like Hawkwind-style prog, there is nary a guitar to be found on this record, which appears to be re-recorded all-synth versions of songs from the earlier records.
       The two sides of the record are different animals - the second side is largely ambient and instrumental, and much more experimental. It comes across as highly influenced by Cluster and other 70s-era Krautrock bands. They're good songs, and they have interesting titles, but are not nearly as sonically wonderful as the A-side.
       The two tracks on the first side of the record pack a great one-two punch of electronics and lyrics of Cold War fear. After a minute and a half of synths and drums, the vocals suddenly kick in, singing about 1984's (the year, not the book) alternate history, in which after Reagan's re-election the US descended into nuclear war with the Soviets. The lyrics repeat "where were you?" at the moment world was annihilated. It's a great track that ends with a gurgle of synths before being interrupted by a nuclear explosion, and suddenly the second track begins. Where the first track asked "where were you?" at the world's end, the second track is a repetitive litany of memories from before the destruction: "there were buildings / there were faces / there were cities / there were towers / there was sunlight"... you get the gist. Both tracks are absolutely great for synth nerds, coming across like a crossbreed of League of Nations-ish minimal synth and the bedroom lonerisms of John Bender or Kevin Lazar.
       If anyone has Cerebral Hemorrhage's previous two records  I would love to hear them. Even if they're more prog-rock, I'm interested in seeing the progression toward this undiscovered minimal synth gem. I'd be surprised if this one doesn't end up on quite a few wantlists in the coming years. If anything, this one proves that there are still some diamonds out there - maybe they're just hidden in plain white sleeves with minimal information.

Cerebral Hemorrhage: Back in 1984 12"
1984, Illusion Records
Tracks:
A1 Back In 1984
A2 I Remember
B1 Let's Modulate
B2 The Chilly Dance
B3 Night Music

Click here to listen!

Commercial Music: Volume 4

 Six years. I never would have thought when I started this thing way back in 2007 that I'd still be updating it after a half-dozen years! A lot has happened in the interim - I've even moved across the country from SF to New York - but my love of music has not diminished at all. I still love to share music with others, and as my collection grows, so too does my resources of records and songs to post on this blog. Today, for a sixth anniversary, it seems like a good idea to post another homemade compilation.
This one certainly has a lot of odds and ends within it. There's Hungarian synthpop (KFT and GM49, the latter of whom has reissued most of their catalog on MP3 and is rather enjoyable, if cheesy). There's a rare song from the unreleased second Autumn Cathedral LP. It's the best of the 3 songs I've heard from that album, and it makes me really want to hear the rest of them. There's a cover of Voice Farm's "Modern Things", done by the guitarist from Japanese synthpop band The Plastics, found on a scarce picture disc. There's cheesy synthpop from a band called Press, whose album "The Low Hum of Machines" is not as promising as it sounds, but still has one great track.
Post punk/DIY fans will like the Louder Animal Group song, taken from a one-sided flexi. There's a track from the second Bluenose B 12". Unfortunately the other songs aren't nearly as good as their debut. There's weird dark avant-folk-synth from a guy called Breikreutz, a synthpop smash from Shades of Grey, and a practically unheard-of minimal synth demo from the singer of B-Movie, which sounds similar to early Eyeless In Gaza.
Hopefully there's something that everyone will like. Unless you only like twerk-wave, in which case what are you doing reading this?

PS. I promise that will be the only time I ever mention "twerk", unless twerk-wave becomes a genre.

Click here to twerk listen!

Innervoice: Nobody Knows EP

Here's an oddity that has slipped under the radar of most synth and new wave fans. I could say that NOBODY KNOWS about this EP, but that would be stupid. Instead, I'll just say that it's a strange and uneven EP from a trio of French Canadians. I cannot find any info about any of them whatsoever, so it appears this was a self-released effort by people who didn't move on to any other projects. In fact, the only relation to any record that I can find is that this was recorded at the same studio as the Janitors Animated 12" shared by Crispy Nuggets several years ago.
The music on this EP emphasizes rhythm, with little to no melody. It actually slightly reminds me of Iron Curtain in that regard - it's simplistic, repetitive, and groove-oriented synth music. The vocals are a different story though - they are often animated and forceful. The lyrics are sung in broken English, and are rather simplistic (sometimes bordering on silly - sample lyric from Too Direct: "You say I / I'm too direct / just loving and caring and sharing things / touching and glowing and feeling feeling feeling". Despite the obvious shortcomins in the lyrics department and the lack of ambition in the musical composition, it's still somehow a rather enjoyanle record.

Innervoice: Nobody Knows EP
1986, 3rd Wave Coll.

A1 Nobody Knows
A2 Shadows
B1 Too Direct
B2 Don't Go Too Fast


Click here to listen!

Famous Rays: Ending Beginning LP

The first time I saw this LP, I knew it had to be by a New York band. Anyone who has been to NYC can be easily confused by the similarly-named-but-not-at-all related pizza places called "Famous Ray's" "Original Ray's", "Famous Original Ray's", or (as Kramer discovered), simply "Ray's Pizza". As it turns out, the band was from the UK originally, but moved to NYC in the late 80s to seek better opportunities.
Famous Rays released this record in 1990, and from what I can find, this is the only thing they ever released.
By most standards, 1990 is a rather late year for a DIY post punk album to be released. You probably know the kind of record I mean - the kind that combines relentless experimentation, amateurishness, and variety of non-punk instruments (synths and sax being especially common). Bands as diverse as 48 Chairs, Beyond the Impload, Vice Versa, Androids of Mu, Desperate Bicycles, and countless thousands others all fell into this "genre". Well, Famous Rays can be counted as a VERY late addition to that DIY group (and indeed, an earlier incarnation of the band, Romford Stompers, was part of the fertile UK DIY scene). Famous Rays carried the lo-fi, avant-garde, synthpop-meets-post-punk-meets-jazzy-noise-meets-goth of their forebears into the neon years of the early 90s.
As with pretty much all of these records, there's a combination of strong and weak tracks. After a brief spoken-word intro the songs start off with the lyrics "I am looking through a synthesizer" on Hard Times. With a somewhat bouncy beat, it's a nice 100% minimal synth track that sounds 10 years too late. The next couple songs on the syn-drums and throw a wall of cascading, noisy guitars into the mix. Then there's a slow dark ambient synth interlude before delving into No Recognition, probably the most poppy song on the album. The song is musically similar to early Cure, but with the keyboards and arty weirdness of early Modern English (it's not as good as either of those bands, of course, but had it been released in 1980 I can guarantee it would have been on many "UK DIY Top Ten" lists.)
The following songs range from sax-and-synth skronk (Deception Island) to dark synth noise with spoken word (Wealthy Not Healthy) to almost deathrock sounding (Move By Dance), which combines syn-drums, heavy and noisy guitars, and sax similar to Ipso Facto. Overall, it's a highly unique album that (at the moment) is readily available very cheaply online. Perhaps others will like what they hear here and decide to pick up a copy. Or perhaps the late release date of this record will turn off people and the album will toil in the cheap bargain bins of obscurity, relegated to a few crackly mp3s that forever float in the aether of the Internet.

Famous Rays: Ending Beginning LP
1990, Blue Dot Records

1 The Sky Belongs To The Sun
2 Hard Times
3 Agents Of Change
4 Absolute Zero
5 Uphill
6 No Recognition
7 Deception Island
8 Black Dress
9 Wealthy Not Healthy
10 Release - For Bitten
11 Blue World
12 Move By Dance
13 The Great Discovery

Note: Many of these songs are only a few seconds long, or blend indistinguishably into one another, so I've combined several songs together in the rip.

Click here to listen!

The French: The Model 7”

The French were a band from England (um...  where else?) in the early 80s who released a couple 7”s on their own label and then disappeared. Like many bands at the time they were a post punk band featuring angular guitars and stabs of synths and plucky basslines and even the occasional sax. While it’s not the most original style, it’s the type of sound that I love, and I’m willing to bet that many of you appreciate it as well. It’s always nice to unearth another nugget of post-punk gold.

Their first 7” features a cover of Kraftwerk’s “The Model”. It’s a bit of an odd choice – the song had come out only a few years prior – but they actually make it sound pretty great. In fact, it’s one of the best covers that I’ve heard in a long time, as it sounds very different from the original but still captures a raw urgency that seems to be lacking from the many rote covers that abound. The song is built upon a tinny syn-drum and slices of guitar and bass. The strangest part of the song are the synths that randomly are thrown on top of the entire affair – they are loud, haphazard, and sound almost exactly like the sound Pac-Man makes when he’s caught by a ghost.

The band’s other songs are originals. Set Me On Fire is a great (if thin-sounding) track with simplistic synth pulses and flourishes of sax on top of great guitar lines and vocals. It’s certainly a favorite in the house of Goutroy.

I’ve also included the A-side of their second single, The River Flows East. It’s also a pretty good song, trading in the angular and arty sound for a more groove-oriented sound in the style of bands like APB. Unfortunately my copy is currently in storage and I don’t have a rip of the B side, but from what I remember it sucked. So I’m sparing you a song that you’d just end up deleting anyway.

Click here to listen!

Electric Avantgarde: Lonely 12”

Hailing from the college town of Freiberg in Germany, where I obtained this 12” while travelling earlier this year, Electric Avantgarde was a duo who made amateur yet enjoyable synthpop. If the band is remembered at all, it is for a tape they released on the long-enduring Danse Macabre Records  in 1990. This 12” predates that tape by a few years, and has two mixes of a song called “Lonely”.

While the band’s later material (at least the songs that I have heard) are more guitar-oriented goth rock, “Lonely” is completely enjoyable – albeit unabashedly cheesy -- electro-pop/Euro dance. Think Mysterious Art or Dead or Alive or Secession and you’re halfway there. The group was led by a guy who mysteriously (or pretentiously) went by the name Mozart. He sings in a weird combination of a girlish falsetto and a forceful masculine style.

The B side is just a dub mix of the A-side, because every band apparently had to have a dub mix back in the 80s. It’s not as good as the original mix. This song may not be for everyone , but those of us who have a soft spot for the occasional unironic dance track will enjoy it!

Electric Avantgarde: Lonely 12”

1988, self-released

Listen here!

Julie Jumper: Rhythm Radar 7"

Here is a 7” from 1982 that’s ostensibly a one-woman vanity project by a Richmond, VA based girl named Julie Jumper. I think the best way to describe it is “outsider electro”. On the A side, Rhythm Radar, she sings in a super-poppy 60s girl-group style over gurgling, pulsating, screeching, and beeping electronics. It’s endearingly amateur, and also quite subversive in its earworm-like catchiness, especially as she exclaims “no-one wants to vegetate so GYRATE! GYRATE!”. If you’ve ever wanted to hear, I don’t know... Liaisons Dangereuses fronted by Cyndi Lauper, this is probably the closest you’re ever going to get.

The B side, Male Rites, is a decidedly feminist argument for stronger male roles in sex and reproductive responsibility. If I heard this on the radio or on a podcast, I would just assume it was a Le Tigre or Chicks on Speed song from about 10 years ago. The song is certainly a bit snotty (in a punk sort of way) and quite clever in its adamant political stance. It alternates between noodling electronics and full-on synthpop when the intermittent rhythm machine kicks in. My copy has a weird “haze” sort of defect on it that causes crackling on the B side. I cleaned it up a bit, but it’s still present, mainly at the beginning.

After she released this 7”, Julie went on to form a similar group called O.Boy with two other girls (two rhythm boxes, a synth, and vocals), who are still quite legendary in the local Richmond scene. While they recorded some tracks together, I don’t know if they ever actually released anything. I'd be interested if anyone has any info or songs from them, though.

Julie Jumper: Rhythm Radar 7”

1982, Restless Records

A: Rhythm Radar

B: Male Rites

Click here to listen!

Tirez Tirez: Scattered 7”

Here is a record that will certainly please fans of early US and UK DIY post-punk. I’ve seen requests for this self-released debut 7” from Mikel Rouse’s band Tirez Tirez and after finally tracking down a copy I’m happy to share this rarity.

As indicated above, this record was self-released by the band, in 1979. Tirez Tirez initially hailed from that bastion of art-punk… Missouri. After opening for the Talking Heads there, Rouse packed his bags and moved to New York, where he found a more receptive audience. Tirez Tirez’s art-wave is extremely European sounding. Combine this with the fact that their first couple albums and singles were initially (or only) released in Europe and you’d be likely to think they were from the UK (I certainly did for several years).

This record is among the more sought-after and rare US DIY records, and for good reason. While the music on this record is a bit rough around the edges – a little lo-fi and less developed than their later material –it’s still a solid record. The A side, Scattered, is a drumless track filled with reverbed and fuzzy 60s-style guitars and almost crosses over into a “punk poetry” vein along the lines of John Cooper Clarke or early Patrik Fitzgerald. The B side, Scenery, is more accessible and full sounding, with an uptempo beat and loads of repetitive keyboards and synth lines - kind of like a less melancholy version of early Tuxedomoon. The record is certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, but fans of the raw DIY new wave of the Messthetics and Homework compilations will appreciate it.

Tirez Tirez: Scattered 7"

1979, self-released

A: Scattered

B: Scenery

Click here to listen!

The Real Camouflage: Look Close EP

It's very, very rare that one gets to compare a darkwave album to The Ghostbusters, but I have the opportunity to do just that with this post here, so I will take advantage of it. Those of us who grew up in the 80s will remember that the Ghostbusters cartoon based on the films we all knew and loved was actually called The Real Ghostbusters. This was because there was already a cartoon called Ghost Busters that was around years before the film-to-cartoon was extant. So it was not just a superfluous qualifier in the title; the "Real" indicated that THIS was the Ghostbusters you actually cared about (at least until the show became overly Slimer-centric and started being called Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters).

This ties in to the Kozmonaut LP I posted a while ago. Christian, who provided that LP, also provided this excellent record, as well as the majority of the info for the writeup below. Peter Ziegelmeier, who formed the industrial band Kode IV with Hans Schiller of Kozmonaut, was in a band called Camouflage years before his well-known industrial project existed. Camouflage was a darkwave band with quite a few similarities to the Italian and Greek darkwave bands of the mid-80s - groups like Magic De Spell, South of No North, and Diaframma. The band was formed in 1982 in Switzerland, which is where Peter was originally from. Back then, they recorded 3 songs (the ones on the A-side) before they relocated to Berlin in 1984. That's when they recorded the two songs found on the B-side. They made a video clip for both songs, which one of the band members uploaded two years ago but have received little play, what with all the competition from kitten videos:

(Peter is the one on the right)

Canmouflage was the name they went under for several years, until they finally decided to commit to pressing all five songs on vinyl in 1987. As luck would have it, a new Camouflage band had surfaced and became huge Depeche Mode clones overnight. Peter said that he was in shock when he saw a big banner advertising the other Camouflage's first album. The earlier Camouflage had no money or resources to go after the new Camouflage. Hence, they ended up changing their band name to "The Real Camouflage". Did they knowingly take a cue from the cartoon Ghostbusters naming war? Probably not... The record was pressed up in very small quantities and is virtually unknown to this day. They were completely underground.

The story of The Real Camouflage ends in 1987 when the band split up. One former member is still making music, another started working for a TV station, and Peter was looking for a new band. Peter said that he was really good friends with Carlos Peron , a former band member of Yello. Hans Schiller of Kozmonaut was also friends with Peron. When Hans recorded a Kozmonaut demo cassette called Hyko, he sent a copy of the tape to Carlos. At the time, Hans was trying to form a real band that was more than just a solo project. Hyko was the name of a girl he wanted to have a band with, but for some reason it didn't work out. Carlos played that cassette to Peter. Peter loved the music so much he decided to fly to San Francisco to meet up with Hans, literally just showing up at his front door one day. Just a few months later they had their first record deal as Kode IV. Kode IV was supposed to be named Code 4 but Peter, still traumatized from having one band name stolen from him, decided to mix things up and spell the band name with a 'K' and change the number to Roman numerals.

In one more highly amusing bit of Kozmonaut trivia, it turns out that Hans's identity is completely questionable - first of all, was not German at all. He was from a small province in Canada. He moved to San Francisco due to his sexual orientation, in hopes that he would find acceptance in the tolerant City By the Bay. He was fascinated by German culture, German music (big Kraftwerk fan), and Germany in general. Hence, he made these pseudo German records under the Kozmonaut alias. It also turns out that Hans Schiller was a made up name as well. He admired a musician called "Hans" and was a big fan of Friedrich Schiller, the German poet. So he mixed the two names together to make the pseudonym Hans Schiller. He also used a different name in the gay community - his identities were so different and separate from each other that he had three different phone lines set up at home and called himself different names depending on which phone rang.

He ran his "Vier Productions, Inc." label right out of a house that he rented near Ocean Beach, San Francisco. It has nothing to do with Hamburg, Germany. They recorded all of their Kode IV stuff in that same garage as well. That's where Hans stored all his records and cassettes as well. And, unless there are any more new discoveries, that concludes the story about The Real Camouflage, Kozmonaut and the beginnings of Kode IV all in one nice nutshell.

The Real Camouflage: Look Closely EP

1987, Z Records

A1 Walk With Me

A2 Il Tempio

A3 Get Away

B1 Out of This Time

B2 Victims

Click here to download this record!

Gluons: Gluons EP

The first time I heard this EP several years ago, it was a cheapo record I picked up on a whim the middle of a batch of Amoeba Record finds that included a bunch of gems that I had been looking for for a long time - I listened to about 30 seconds of this, thought "Huh, OK, nice" and filed it away. It was not until I rummaged through my records I wanted to part with before moving to New York that I even gave it a second thought.

I gave it a good listen, and it instantly grew. It starts with the midtempo and spacey I Enter Your Void, which, although very repetitive, contained a mix of characteristics that made me love it. The guitars were dissonant, the drums steady, and the vocals almost in the glam-punk realm. The tempo practically doubles with Miami, which mixes more of the dissonant guitars with plucking basslines and more of the glam punk vocals. But the songs on side B are really the killer tracks. By the time A Room In Your Head started, I realized that the band's strongest point is the difficult ability to take dissonant and effected guitars and slightly snotty/arty but usually perfectly clear and articulated vocals and spin them into perfect dark pop. Your Manikin Hand drove this point home, sounding like a frantic version of Joy Division sans the studio atmospherics. This record is now one of my favorites. The band was from Massachusetts and I believe this was their only release. Perhaps, sadly, the city of New Bedford was not quite ready for their arty brand of dissonant new wave.

Gluons: S/T EP

1983, Self-released

A1 I Enter Your Void

A2 Miami

B1 A Room In Your Head

B2 Your Manikin Hand

Click here to listen to this record!

Pitch: What Am I Gonna Do For Fun?

This record was written up waaaaay back in 2006 on the Italians Do It Better blog/website, but I don't think the music was ever shared. Their post explains the origins of the record and the personnel involved. The most "fun fact" about the musicians involved is that Marc Center more or less developed Macromedia (some company that released an obscure and probably unused program called "Flash"), and programmed the first licensed music for a video game (the Peter Gunn theme in Spyhunter!).

When I found this record, I didn't know what to expect - it had a nice DIY silkscreened sleeve, "synthetizers" listed as the main instruments, and a guest horn section on the B-side. The B-side is indeed a bit of a loungy number somewhere between synthpop, funk, and lounge music. In actuality, it fits pretty well with the NY no wave scene (think Elliot Sharpe and the more brass-oriented bands he was in).

The A side is the winner here, and is one of the unknown minimal synth gems that occasionally pops up out of nowhere. With completely blasse, vaguely foreign, and occasionally delay-effected spoken female vocals, random samples, a gurgling dublike synth bassline, and lazy synthesizer melodies, this sounds like a contemplative Young marble Giants during a heroin-induced trance. And I mean that in the best way possible.

Pitch: What Am I Gonna Do For Fun? 12"

1982, self-released

A: What Am I Gonna Do For Fun?

B: It's a Quest

Click here to download this record!

Distant Thunder: Shelter LP + Unreleased & demo tracks

One of the most obscure and forgotten LPs (that seemingly NOBODY knows about) is this 10-track oddity from Distant Thunder. Self-released in 1985 on Last Records, this record by this one-man band almost seems like a gothic vanity pressing. Completely amateur, with programmed drums, stabs of synths, dissonent and atonal electronics, and repetitive guitars and vocals, it seems like Mark Wenning, the man behind Distant Thunder, bought a few cheapo instruments and said "I'm going to write and record an album this week".
I don't mean that disparagingly, though. The combination of all the above elements ensures that this album is unlike anything I have ever heard before. Repetitive, off-key, tribal, droney, lo-fi, dark, simplistic, and completely endearing, this is a strange lost classic. In reality, many of these songs were written over the period of a few years (although he did indeed initially utilize a Mattel toy drum machine, which he used in conjunction with an Apple IIe for the basslines). He recorded a second album, which was unfortunately never released. You can visit his Distant Thunder website here , which includes a bio and downloads of his unreleased second album (which I have also included here for your convenience!) I also included a couple pre-album demo tracks as well (songs that use the toy drum machine) for good measure. He sold about 300 copies of this album, but I still occasionally see it offered for pretty cheap prices online, so this isn't very hard to track down. For now.

Distant Thunder: Shelter LP
1985, Last Records
A1 Cost/Benefit Analysis
A2 Simon Says
A3 Too
A4 Promised Land
A5 It
B1 Nouns and Verbs
B2 Smart Birds
B3 Show and Tell
B4 Modern Medicine
B5 Who

Click here to download "Shelter"

Click here to download the unlreased album "Impulse" and the demo tracks

The Short Wave Mystery - Pilots 12"

Well, I figured that since a copy of this 12" recently fetched $910 on eBay, why not share the record so everyone could hear what the hype is all about? Some people are trying to sell bootleg copies of this for hundreds of dollars as well...
I have managed to track down two of the original members of the group, including Greg, the songwriter/singer.
Here is what he had to say about the group:

"We never again pressed anything else under the moniker Short-Wave Mystery but there are more songs that I have on tape, from that era.

Most of the tracks on that record were written and recorded by myself when I was attending Santa Barbara City College down in Isla Vista, CA around the 1985-1986 time frame. They were recorded in a bedroom using a 4 track Tascam 38 and some small Electro-Harmonix 2 second samplers and a Memorymoog Plus running a sequencer driving a Moog Source. I took some of the tracks into a bigger facility for mastering before releasing the record.

All of the memebers were essentially friends. Two of the members were brothers who I grew up with in Modesto, CA (Tom and Jason) while the tall, blonde fellow, Dave, was a roomate of ours from college in Santa Barbara, who played sax. The other guys in the band played instruments, but none actually played anything on the record, save for Jason, who laid a few percussive licks down. It was all written and sequenced by me. When we played live, I essentially hit the tape play button ala Depeche Mode and let it roll. Not much going on save for a lot of posing and gesturing..

We pressed about 1000 copies of the record and never and never went into repressing. I think we had a hard time getting the record to sell at all, and took a loss. None of us had much marketing or business savvy when it came to getting our product peddled. We just could not create a demand and spent most of our cash just trying to get the record made. I believe it was available through Rough Trade Distribtuion in SF when it was down on 6th street. After that, we grew up and went our separate ways. Tom still lives in the Bay area, Dave I haven't heard from in years, and Jason sells his art in Michigan...

...Anyway, I have all those tracks and many many more from that era still on 2" and 4" real to real tapes. I am going to take them into the studio and remaster them then post them and perhaps re-release them as an album if anyone might be interested. This will occur in the first quarter of 2009.

Jason and I did some stuff after that under the moniker Chapel Bell Chimes, which perhaps I should release as well. More digital sounding of course since I was using a lot of antiqated samplers at that particular time."

I consulted the other member, Jason, who once had over 500 copies of the record in his parents' barn.(!) They have unfortunately all been trashed... No more copies are available from either member. Boohoo.

So, as he mentioned, Greg still has all the original tapes, including many unreleased songs. Jason also has some old tapes, which may contain even more unreleased material! Greg is in the process of remastering them with modern equipment and is interested in eventually shopping the tracks around to various labels and rereleasing them. I've suggested a few labels to him, and helped pass along a message from one of them, so perhaps a reissue of this incredibly sought-after record can finally come about?!? Keep your fingers crossed...

PS. I am not selling this record. Please do not ask!

Short Wave Mystery - Pilots 12" EP
1985 Good Records
Songs:
1. Pilots
2. Nice Girl
3. Ecaterina Szabo
4. Szabo (Version)

Link removed by request... reissue coming soon!

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!

Eleven Pond - Bas Relief LP

I think this one is going to make a lot of people happy. The band Eleven Pond was from New York, and they released this LP in 1986. I just love the ultra lo-fi, DIY feel of the entire thing: It was self-released (no label, even!) in one pressing of 500 copies and hand-numbered on the front. Both the front and back have silkscreened artwork. It was recorded live to a 2-track (hence the lo-fi nature) and self-produced.
Almost every song is killer dark post-punk or electronic wave. They seemed to take cues from Echo and the Bunnymen, Joy Division/early New Order, Fad Gadget, and Depeche Mode.
As far as I know, this was the only record they ever released (does anyone know for sure?). Songs like Watching Trees, Tears and Cinnamon, Portugal, Ignorant Father, and Temporal deserve to be heard. I can guarantee that nobody will be disappointed in this one.

Tracklist:
1. Tears and Cinnamon
2. Watching Trees
3. Days Hence
4. Tightrope
5. Portugal
6. Asterisk
7. Moving Nowhere
8. Changing Face
9. Temporal
10. Ignorant Father
11. Ask

Get it here:
Link removed because the record has been reissued!
1986, self-released, New York