New Releases
Electropulse - Voices
Here's what is known: Electropulse performed a handful of shows around Brisbane in 1981 - namely the 279 Club with projections by (present day Australian filmmaker) Kriv Stenders. The only article that's cropped up on the research path is that the 11th of August in the same year, the University of Queensland's newspaper, Semper had a half page overview of Brisbane's new wave scene by one of the city's most staunch music and culture critics, The Brisbane Devotee (née John Reid):
Electropulse - the face of local music in the future? Word is, they don't even know how to play (probably irrelevant) but they bash away at electronic equipment and produce 'interesting' quirks of sound. By waving a video around they get background visuals. No one sings. Is it art? Is Jackson Pollock a finger painter?
And that's really it.
As for the single itself, it was originally released during the early part of 1980 by the auspices of EMI Custom. This is what they call in collector's circles a 'private press' or more aptly, a 'vanity press.' In Australia up until 1994, this was common place - if you couldn't charm a major label or minor to put out your work - or if you didn't care to even bother with the process of doing that - you got one of the half dozen or so vinyl pressing plants to press up your 'art'."
Alain Neffe – An Introduction into the Insane World of Alain Neffe
Stroom instigator Ziggy Devriendt dug deep into Neffes personal back catalogue and came up with an Insane selection. For the first time, the compilation spans work from all of Neffe's different projects, such as Bene Gesserit (with his wife Nadine), Pseudo Code, Subject, Cortex and Human Flesh. The record comes with the longest liner notes you’ve ever seen, documenting every step in his career."
Series- A – Evolution ⁵ Technology 12”
In 1987, Series-A recorded the single “Evolution ⁵ Technology” at Spectrum Sounds Studio in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. Their set up was a vocoder, E-mu Emulator III, Roland 909 drum machine, and an Otari 24-Track recorder. They landed a record deal with Satellite Records in Burbank, California, which had been founded by Pete Moore of The Miracles. After pressing 50 promotional copies, the label ran into financial problems, and the record never reached a full release."
LCMR
LCMR-009
STROOM
STRLP-002
Dark Entries
DE-126
Features
“Peter Bonne is a pioneer of electro-body music and minimal wave. He is the founder of the label Micrart and of the bands Autumn, Linear Movement, Twilight Ritual and A Split-Second. Belgium Underground went to meet him..“
Source: Belgium Underground
The strange story of Soviet music on the bone. The iconic images of gramophone grooves cut onto x-rays of skulls, ribcages and bones have captured the collective imagination way beyond the music scene. Now for the first time, the complete story of the Soviet x-ray record has emerged, as told by the people who made it happen.
Cold War Leningrad: In a culture where the recording industry was ruthlessly controlled by the state, music lovers discovered an extraordinary alternative means of reproduction: they repurposed used x-ray film as the base for records of forbidden songs. Giving blood every week to earn enough money to buy a recording lathe, one bootlegger Rudy Fuchs cuts banned music onto such discarded x-rays to be sold on street corners by shady dealers. It was ultimate act of punk resistance, a two-fingered salute to the repressive regime that gave a generation of young Soviets access to forbidden Western and Russian music, an act for which Rudy and his fellow bootleggers would pay a heavy price. The culmination of four years of research and countless trips to Russia to track down Rudy, buyer and amateur dealer Nick Markovitch and Beatles’ fanatic Kolya Vasin, this short documentary gives an evocative and intimate insight into one of the most extraordinary, untold stories of twentieth century music. Produced by The Vinyl Factory and Antique Beat, the film is part of a larger project which has seen Stephen Coates and Paul Heartfield publish a book and tour a series of live events, the next of which will take place at Rough Trade East in London on 9th March.
Source: The Vinyl Factory
“Rooted in the concept of a “neo-tribal” approach; reducing electronics to the emotional, hypnotic rhythm core, James Dean Brown founded Hypnobeat in 1983. Affected by the energy and the emotional impact of polyrhythms, their live sets turned out to become machine improvisations centered around the inimitable sound of the Roland TR-808 plus a wide range of analog gear including up to six synchronized rhythm machines.“
“Active contributors to the tape scene of the 80’s, two retrospective Hypnobeat vinyl albums are planned for release in 2014 on Serendip and Dark Entries.”