18 Nov 2015

PiLesque

Dum Dum Dum Dum Dum Dum EP (Struck Dum Records, 1980)

Dum Dum Dum – Dum Dum Dum
Get it here.

VA Street To Street Volume Two LP (Open Eye Records, 1981)

Chinese Religion – Eden
Get it here.

The Vacant Lot Living Underground 7" (Doublethink, 1981)

The Vacant Lot – She's Really Dead
More info here.

15 Aug 2015

How minimal can you get? #99

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy (Live at Carmel High School Cafeteria, IN 1983)

“Sounds like these guys try to play speedcore on handmade instruments; really weird. Sounds like a horrible parody of the first DRI EP. Cult or trash?“ Burkhard Jaerisch

“Totally crude and psychotic garage stuff here. They've got amazingly primitive drumming, raw guitars, and lots of super-short outbursts of madness called songs. A delight for Neos and early Half-Japanese fanatics.” Tim Yohannan (Maximum Rocknroll #9)

“Lack of proficiency in playing instruments would be a deterrent in just about any musical genre but it is exactly this 'weakness' that elevates the seven-inch to Dadaist improvisational levels, something I'm pretty sure Chemotherapy wasn't consciously aware of at the time.” Freddy Alva

Chemotherapy s/t 7" (Uprising Records, 1983)

Chemotherapy – Smart, Tough, And Catholic
Get it here.

“So if you enjoy music that was obviously put together in a matter of hours and sounds like the band recorded it with a Walkman whilst they were falling down a very long flight of stairs then this is for you!” Punk & Hardcore Record Sleeves

More info here.

9 Aug 2015

Nuclear power & weapons: No, thanks!

“This confirmation that, for the first time, it is possible to govern without any artistic knowledge, nor any sense of the authentic or the impossible, could alone suffice to make us conjecture that the naive dupes of the economy and the administration will probably lead the world to some great catastrophe; if their actual practice had not already demonstrated that fact.” Guy Debord

The Reactors Meltdown EP (Nuclear Waste Records, 1979)

The Reactors – Meltdown
Get it here. More info here.

“Not that I wish in any way to belittle the evils of conventional air and water pollution; but we must recognise 'dimensional differences' when we encounter them: radioactive pollution is an evil of an incomparably greater 'dimension' than anything mankind has known before. One might even ask: what is the point of insisting on clean air, if the air is laden with radioactive particles? And even if the air could be protected, what is the point of it, if soil and water are being poisoned?” E. F. Schumacher

The Mistakes Radiation 7" (Twist And Shout Records, 1981)

The Mistakes – Radiation
Get it here. More info here.

“Nuclear practices, both military and civil, necessitate a far higher dose of secrecy than in other fields — which already have plenty, as we already know. To make life — that is to say, lying — easier for the sages chosen by the system's masters, it has discovered the utility of changing measurements, to vary them according to a large number of points of view, and refine them, finally juggle them, according to the case, with several figures that are hard to convert. Hence, to measure radioactivity levels, one can choose from a range of units of measurement: curies, becquerels, roentgens, rads alias centigrays, and rems, not forgetting the humble millirads, and sieverts which are worth 100 rems. This evokes the memory of the subdivisions of British currency, the complexity of which foreigners could not quickly master, back in the days when Sellafield was still called Windscale.” Guy Debord

Fallout Fallout EP (1981)

Fallout – Nuclear Power
Get it here. More info here.

* * *

For further information, please do not hesitate to watch Robert Stone's Radio Bikini documentary.

8 Aug 2015

Broken Talent


Broken Talent – Lou Reed Lou Reed (Live at Open Books And Records, North Miami Beach, FL 4/15/84)

How minimal can you get? #98

A State Of Mind
“A State of Mind is a group of individuals working together in various forms of communication; music, literature and art. We believe in anarchism. True freedom, not one we are told to supposedly have by the state. A freedom from exploitation and oppression, the lifeline of the system. A lifeline where we control our fate, our life and minds.” Mustard Relics

Liberté? / A State Of Mind Don't Vote... Subvert 7" Flexi (Mind Matter Records, 1984)

A State Of Mind – Don't Vote


A State Of Mind – Don't Vote (Pt. 2)
Get it here.

3 Aug 2015

How minimal can you get? #95–97

Summer '15 jams

Vital Idles – Chains
More info here.


Genderdog – Bad Dream Lady
More info here.


Sneaks – No Problem
More info here.

22 Jun 2015

Record collectors are pretentious assholes

Pillsbury Hardcore In A Straight Edge Limbo EP (Fartblossom Enterprizes, 1985)

Pillsbury Hardcore – Wanna Check Out My Record Collection?
More info here.

The Pooh Sticks The The Pooh Sticks LP (Fierce Recordings, 1988)

The Pooh Sticks – On Tape

I, Ludicrous Light & Bitter LP (Rodney, Rodney!, 1990)
I, Ludicrous – ‪My Favourite Records
More info here.

21 Jun 2015

Reflections on war and violence

“War is the truest expression of the state, and its most powerful reinforcement. Just as capitalism must create artificial needs for its increasingly superfluous commodities, the state must continually create artificial conflicts of interest requiring its violent intervention. The fact that the state incidentally provides a few 'social services' merely camouflages its fundamental nature as a protection racket. When two states go to war the net result is as if each state had made war on its own people — who are then taxed to pay for it.” Ken Knabb

The Proletariat Distortion Cassette (1982)

The Proletariat – Splendid Wars

“(…) the word violence comes from the Latin violare and etymologically means violation. Strictly speaking, to act violently means to treat others without respect… A violent revolution is therefore unlikely to bring about any fundamental change in human relations… Given the anarchists' respect for the sovereignty of the individual, in the long run it is nonviolence and not violence which is implied by anarchist values.” Peter Marshall

Rondos Red Attack LP (King Kong Records,  1980)

Rondos – Peacedilemma
Get it here.

“It is true that many forms of violent struggle, such as terrorism or minority coups, are inconsistent with the sort of open, participatory organization required to create a genuinely liberated global society. An antihierarchical revolution can only be carried out by the people as a whole, not by some group supposedly acting on their behalf; and such an overwhelming majority would have no need for violence except to neutralize any pockets of the ruling minority that may violently try to hold on to their power. But any significant social change inevitably involves some violence. It would seem more sensible to admit this fact, and simply strive to minimize violence as far as possible.” Ken Knabb

The Apostles‎ Smash The Spectacle! EP (Mortarhate Records, 1985)

The Apostles – Anarchy, Peace & Freedom

“Violence is what the police use. It's what the state uses. If we want a revolution, it's because we want a better world, because we think we have a bigger imagination, a more beautiful vision. So we're not violent; we're not like them in crucial ways.” Rebecca Solnit

“As always, war, when not civil, only freezes the process of social revolution.” S.I.

Covered Wagon Musicians We Say No To Your War! LP (Paredon, 1972)

Covered Wagon Musicians – We Say No To Your War!
More info here.


* * *

For further information, please do not hesitate to watch David Zeiger's Sir! No Sir documentary.

28 May 2015

How minimal can you get? #94

A Guy Called Gerald
“I was trying to keep it quiet from the dudes in 808 State, because I was still working with them but wanted to do my own thing. It was fun just slipping out of their basement and taking the drum machine. They'd be like, 'Where are you going?' I'd say, 'Oh, I'm just going home to do some programming,' then nip off to another studio. I was trying to get a tribal sound and found this sample saying 'Voodoo rage'. That was originally the title but the old sampler I was using didn't have that much memory. I just about had enough for 'voodoo ra…', so that's what it became.” Gerald Simpson


A Guy Called Gerald – Voodoo Ray (1988)

“It [Acid House] was more important than punk because it was more egalitarian. Punk in Britain, in its essence, was just a few people in London. Acid house was totally egalitarian, and quite quickly, it spread to small towns, too. It really revolutionized the country.” Luke Bainbridge

“I loved the anarchy of the early parties. It was as if all those years we spent trying to jack the system through things like punk and aggression had had no effect, and then all these kids who’d never consider themselves political were creating this revolution. It was more punk than punk ever was.” Neville Watson

For further reading, please check out The True Story of Acid House: Britain's Last Youth Culture Revolution.

16 Jan 2015

Le Corbusier was a fascist

Songs against modern architecture


Philip Glass – Pruit Igoe (Koyaanisqatsi, 1983)
More info here.

“If the social ideals of an age are to be judged by the aesthetic quality of its architecture, the last hundred years represent the lowest point yet reached by humanity.” Bertrand Russell

VA Spectacular Commodity! EP (Groucho Marxist Record Co:Operative, 1979)

Mod Cons – Buildings Of The 70's
More info here.

“A perfectly square house, shaped like a magnified piece of brick, is justifiable in a factory building, because it is a factory building where efficiency is the first consideration. But a perfectly square house for a home to live in is an atrocity of the first order.” Lin Yutang

Television Personalities 14th Floor 7" (1978)

Television Personalities – 14th Floor

“We will leave Monsieur Le Corbusier’s style to him, a style suitable for factories and hospitals, and no doubt eventually for prisons. (Doesn’t he already build churches?) Some sort of psychological repression dominates this individual — whose face is as ugly as his conceptions of the world — such that he wants to squash people under ignoble masses of reinforced concrete, a noble material that should rather be used to enable an aerial articulation of space that could surpass the flamboyant Gothic style. His cretinizing influence is immense. A Le Corbusier model is the only image that arouses in me the idea of immediate suicide. He is destroying the last remnants of joy. And of love, passion, freedom.” Ivan Chtcheglov

VA City Walls A Southampton Compilation LP (White Elephant Records, 1980)

Exploding Seagulls – Prefab (Buildings)!
Get it here.