Here's another relic from behind the iron curtain on the great Polish cassette label Anti-Musik Der Landsh that was founded by Mariusz Blachowicz in the small town of Łańcut. The label is another prime example of the hidden counter cultural expressions that were going on in the underground during the socialist times in Eastern Europe in the last century. In a nutshell, first there was state controlled cultural propaganda, then there were examples of youth culture expressions in music that were somehow allowed and then there were things like this, done by a handful of people somewhere d ..read more

  Dear music friends, it has been a while! Had to adjust to some new life developments, couldn't come up with the right connecting piece (it's all in my mind obviously) and even thought to maybe quit this blog after more than ten years. I could go into everything that is going on out there in the world and fabricate some narrative about where we are standing in these common music fields, but everyone knows what's the situation, so why even bother. Another thing is I'm also not really in a hurry I guess. Let's just go for another run now that summer's over and see what comes next. Maybe a ..read more

  It has been a while (for several reasons) but here it goes again. Vol Sec (originally Voluntary Sector) was a post-punk outfit from Brighton that emerged from the band The Parrots in late 1979 or early 1980. The band consisted of Les Phillips (drums), Brenda Robinson (vocals), Rick Blair (guitar, vocals, synth), Colin Murray (bass), Jay Derrick (keyboards, synth, vocals), Nick Wells (guitar) and Tom White (trumpet). Rick Blair was simultaneously running Attrix Records (which also was a record store). Vol Sec was embedded in a larger local scene of punk, post-punk and new wave groups. Th ..read more

Here's another Musicworks cassette compilation. Musicworks was a journal that focused on Canadian avant-garde music as well as music recorded during music meetings in Canada by foreign musicians. It was founded by Andrew Timar and John Oswald in Toronto. Numerous cassettes were released and accompanied by background information and different articles on music. This volume includes: France based American composer Rhys Chatham known for his orchestral works for electric guitars and compositions with guitar, trumpet, keyboards and electronics. He studied under electronic music pioneer Morton Su ..read more

So I never thought another cassette by Error would surface after stumbling upon their earlier Show Off Your Mutants tape, but I was wrong. Here it is! Error was an electronic music group from the small sea town of Corpus Christi in Texas. On this release it says that the music was made by Geronimo (voice/instruments) and Big Chief (instruments), however it might as well be a solo project, who knows. Just like Error's previous cassette Strange Universe is an interesting collage of samples, electronics, drum machine patterns and EBM basslines. This album reflects a much more colorful 90's so ..read more

  Let's start the new year with another special cassette by the Dutch anarchist, free-form home-taping group Dust And The Minds. The band hailed from the surroundings of the small village of Egmond-Binnen and was created by the brothers Fred and John Valkering who were accompanied by a lot of different other musicians. The Valkering brothers established their cassette label Egmondse Klank Opsessie (Egmond sound obsession/on session) to release their different musical disguises like Dust And The Minds, Comrades Creating, Hafre as well as solo works. During the 80's they released dozens of ..read more

 Merry Christmas to all friends and followers of the blog! Is that an image of the Brooklyn Bridge with the Twin Towers in New York? Can't really figure out the angle of the photo though. Ofcourse those towers were already there decades before they got used to scam us into the new millennium. But whether this image is a correct depiction of the skyline is quite unclear. Actually it doesn't really matter. All we care for is that those UFO's high up there in the sky were real! The rest is basically constructed around them. Skyscrapers, UFO's, modern metropoles: some key signs of the futu ..read more

  Viktimized Karcass was an experimental underground band from Memphis, Tennessee that was strongly embedded in the cassette culture of the 80's. The band consisted of Chris Phinney (founder of the Harsh Reality cassette label), Michael Thomas Jackson, Richard Martin, Robert Henson and Roger Moneymaker. The music consists of psychedelic jams, electronic experimentation, tape-loops and other improvised sounds. Most of the members were also involved in solo projects and contributed immensely to the shaping of the cassette culture of home-tapers. Viktimized Karcass released many cassettes o ..read more

  The Katharos Foundation was a collective of audio-visual artists and musicians from Tilburg, The Netherlands, established in February 1986. They used performative, conceptual and multi-media aspects in their work which incorporated transgressive elements. There were different musical guises of which a notable one was the industrial Sluagh Ghairm. That band would later turn into the tribal techno act Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia which would gain both domestic and international fame. Some band members were apparently part of Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth. During the phase of the Katharos Fou ..read more

  Naomi N'Uru was a project by Caroline Frerichs and Rasmi Nithokar from the Nothern German town of Bremerhaven. They released a couple of cassettes as well as this record and a CD. They also recorded under the name Cosmic Dance Society which I highly recommend to check out.  The music on Wurm consists of late EBM style music with lots of cut-ups, sampling and strange transitions. Occasionally it becomes a little more melodic gothic wave-like, but maintains its EBM core. Ofcourse iconic bands like Front 242 or Front Line Assembly come to mind, but it mostly fits that 80's into the 90 ..read more