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CD
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TR 467CD
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$17.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 8/21/2020
Southend stalwarts Eight Rounds Rapid release their third album Love Your Work on German label Tapete Records. Rooted in the infamous Canvey Island R'n'B tradition, Eight Rounds Rapid channel the fervor of Dr Feelgood, Wire, Gang of Four, and Public Image Limited with their gritty tales of the Essex underworld. The band's debut album (2014) gained excellent reviews from the likes of Uncut, who called it "edgy, drugged-up thug punk." Mojo gave the band a 4-star review and Classic Rock said the album is a "welcome blast of no-frills, bullshit-free excitement." Eight Rounds Rapid supported Wilko Johnson on two major UK tours, and have had airplay from BBC DJs Mark Radcliffe, Gary Crowley, Gideon Coe, and Steve Lamacq. Second album Objet D'Art (2017) also received critical acclaim. Mojo praised it's "high octane rebelliousness and cheeky wit" and guitarist Simon Johnson's "trashy, thrashy guitar, a cacophonous hybrid of his dad Wilko, Johnny Thunders and early Pete Townsend". The band's songs are rooted in traditional rhythm and blues, but impulsive guitar from Simon Johnson (Wilko's son) and acerbic delivery from singer David Alexander make the act sound like John Cooper Clarke and Mark E Smith fighting in a Southend bus depot. The line-up also features Jules Cooper (bass) and Lee Watkins (drums). Recorded under the specter of a global pandemic, Love Your Work reflects feelings of confusion, angst and isolation -- all delivered with singer David Alexander's trademark sneering dry wit. The customary low life and underground subjects are still the only language they know, but this album is as much a commentary on contemporary music confronting modernity as it is a collection of musical compositions. The new album grapples with the folly of nostalgia while singles "Love Don't", "Tricks", and "Eating" ramp up the energy levels. Violent low lives and losers populate the songs as usual, but David Alexander now draws himself closer into view, with "Aging Athlete", a metaphor for a musician searching for legitimacy in a dull landscape. Music as duty. Love your work.
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LP
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TR 467LP
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$22.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 8/21/2020
LP version. Southend stalwarts Eight Rounds Rapid release their third album Love Your Work on German label Tapete Records. Rooted in the infamous Canvey Island R'n'B tradition, Eight Rounds Rapid channel the fervor of Dr Feelgood, Wire, Gang of Four, and Public Image Limited with their gritty tales of the Essex underworld. The band's debut album (2014) gained excellent reviews from the likes of Uncut, who called it "edgy, drugged-up thug punk." Mojo gave the band a 4-star review and Classic Rock said the album is a "welcome blast of no-frills, bullshit-free excitement." Eight Rounds Rapid supported Wilko Johnson on two major UK tours, and have had airplay from BBC DJs Mark Radcliffe, Gary Crowley, Gideon Coe, and Steve Lamacq. Second album Objet D'Art (2017) also received critical acclaim. Mojo praised it's "high octane rebelliousness and cheeky wit" and guitarist Simon Johnson's "trashy, thrashy guitar, a cacophonous hybrid of his dad Wilko, Johnny Thunders and early Pete Townsend". The band's songs are rooted in traditional rhythm and blues, but impulsive guitar from Simon Johnson (Wilko's son) and acerbic delivery from singer David Alexander make the act sound like John Cooper Clarke and Mark E Smith fighting in a Southend bus depot. The line-up also features Jules Cooper (bass) and Lee Watkins (drums). Recorded under the specter of a global pandemic, Love Your Work reflects feelings of confusion, angst and isolation -- all delivered with singer David Alexander's trademark sneering dry wit. The customary low life and underground subjects are still the only language they know, but this album is as much a commentary on contemporary music confronting modernity as it is a collection of musical compositions. The new album grapples with the folly of nostalgia while singles "Love Don't", "Tricks", and "Eating" ramp up the energy levels. Violent low lives and losers populate the songs as usual, but David Alexander now draws himself closer into view, with "Aging Athlete", a metaphor for a musician searching for legitimacy in a dull landscape. Music as duty. Love your work.
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TR 463LP
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LP version. Drift. is the project of London based artist Nathalie Bruno. Starting in 2015, her debut EP Black Devotion was released on the Italian label Avant! Records. After playing a range of diverse shows in UK and Europe and the release of the second EP, Genderland in 2017, she locked herself in her East London studio to assimilate a new set of influences that synthesized in what became Symbiosis, her first full-length record. "The seed for Symbiosis was sewn after having picked up a book from a charity shop by chance in Finsbury Park, The Fourth Industrial Revolution by Klaus Schwab. It really struck a chord inside and brought on a deep exploration of myself and the world I was seeing form around me. As a form of therapy, I set myself the target of finishing an album by the end of the year, I didn't know what or how but I knew I didn't want it to be compiled of 'singles' and had envisioned songs weaving together, forming a subtle message as a whole yet to not be a 'concept album' as such. I was attracted to sounds, in any form; classical music, '70s electronic pioneers like Harmonia, Cluster, Faust, New York's tape experimentalists, the avant-pop landscapes of Chris & Cosey to John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Kate Bush, and Broadcast: all resonated with me a greatly whilst I devoured any form of literature or films that came my way by suggestion or by chance and stored every word and every image in a little box somewhere up there. I let it come out in its own time by revisiting old songs I had recorded over the years, until I started molding new sounds from old ones, cut ups of synth jams done alone, field recordings from my phone to use as samples -- Eventually it was all starting to make sense. The name itself came to me from reading a book of William Burroughs. The word 'symbiosis' had never been in my vocabulary before, which is strange now as it's a word that pops up all the time. It represented a whole variety of interpretations, from the content in each song, to the process of finishing the record, to how I felt in general and towards the world. The cover-artwork which is a masterpiece in my opinion, was done by Jack Smith."
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TR 463CD
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Drift. is the project of London based artist Nathalie Bruno. Starting in 2015, her debut EP Black Devotion was released on the Italian label Avant! Records. After playing a range of diverse shows in UK and Europe and the release of the second EP, Genderland in 2017, she locked herself in her East London studio to assimilate a new set of influences that synthesized in what became Symbiosis, her first full-length record. "The seed for Symbiosis was sewn after having picked up a book from a charity shop by chance in Finsbury Park, The Fourth Industrial Revolution by Klaus Schwab. It really struck a chord inside and brought on a deep exploration of myself and the world I was seeing form around me. As a form of therapy, I set myself the target of finishing an album by the end of the year, I didn't know what or how but I knew I didn't want it to be compiled of 'singles' and had envisioned songs weaving together, forming a subtle message as a whole yet to not be a 'concept album' as such. I was attracted to sounds, in any form; classical music, '70s electronic pioneers like Harmonia, Cluster, Faust, New York's tape experimentalists, the avant-pop landscapes of Chris & Cosey to John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Kate Bush, and Broadcast: all resonated with me a greatly whilst I devoured any form of literature or films that came my way by suggestion or by chance and stored every word and every image in a little box somewhere up there. I let it come out in its own time by revisiting old songs I had recorded over the years, until I started molding new sounds from old ones, cut ups of synth jams done alone, field recordings from my phone to use as samples -- Eventually it was all starting to make sense. The name itself came to me from reading a book of William Burroughs. The word 'symbiosis' had never been in my vocabulary before, which is strange now as it's a word that pops up all the time. It represented a whole variety of interpretations, from the content in each song, to the process of finishing the record, to how I felt in general and towards the world. The cover-artwork which is a masterpiece in my opinion, was done by Jack Smith."
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2LP
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TR 453LP
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$29.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 6/12/2020
Double LP version. The Düsseldorf women's punk band Östro 430 was founded in late 1979. In May 1980 they were discovered by the band Fehlfarben at a punk festival in Neuss and hired to support their German tour. In 1981 the first EP Durch Dick & Dünn followed with a total of eight songs, including their most famous title "Sexueller Notstand". Sex, outdated views (especially against women), and smugness were often topics in the songs of Östro 430. In spring 1983 the first album Weiber Wie Wir was released, no further releases were made. In May 1984 Östro 430 gave a farewell concert in Düsseldorf and disbanded. The two founders Martina Weith and Bettina Flörchinger performed together again.
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TR 453CD
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$19.50
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 6/12/2020
The Düsseldorf women's punk band Östro 430 was founded in late 1979. In May 1980 they were discovered by the band Fehlfarben at a punk festival in Neuss and hired to support their German tour. In 1981 the first EP Durch Dick & Dünn followed with a total of eight songs, including their most famous title "Sexueller Notstand". Sex, outdated views (especially against women), and smugness were often topics in the songs of Östro 430. In spring 1983 the first album Weiber Wie Wir was released, no further releases were made. In May 1984 Östro 430 gave a farewell concert in Düsseldorf and disbanded. The two founders Martina Weith and Bettina Flörchinger performed together again.
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TR 462LP
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$22.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 5/29/2020
LP version. This album is a tale of two cities, or rather, two studios; one in Hayland, Norway and the other in Flatbush, Brooklyn and two brothers who came up with the idea making a record with indie rock wizard Gary Olson which now links the two locations. Gary Olson is the lead singer, main songwriter, and plays trumpet with the band Ladybug Transistor who have released five albums on Merge Records. He is also producer and engineer at Marlborough Farms studio deep in the heart of Flatbush Brooklyn. On the Norwegian side Ole Johannes Åleskjær has his studio, Tune-J in the bucolic countryside outside Oslo. He and his brother Jorn Åleskjær met Gary many years ago when their band Loch Ness Mouse crossed paths with Ladybug Transistor on tour. At one of these chance meetings Ole put forward the idea of a writing and recording collaboration between himself, his brother Jorn and Gary with the recording done both in Norway and Brooklyn. Over a period of eight years Gary would visit the Åleskjær brother's barn studio in its idyllic setting near the Swedish border and do basic tracks on whatever songs the three had written. Gary would then take the recordings back to Brooklyn where he would add vocals, horns, and strings at his studio. The recordings would then return to Norway for producer Ole to finish the tracks. By the end of 2019 this set of eleven songs had naturally blossomed into an album. With Ole producing and playing guitar and Gary doing vocals and trumpet the album personnel was rounded out by Håvard Krogedal (bass, cello) and Emil Nikolaisen (drums) both from Serena-Maneesh; Joe McGinty (string arrangements, piano, organ) from The Psychedelic Furs, Ryan Adams, and Suzanne Nienaber on backing vocals (Pale Lights). Although the initial idea was to do simple recordings Ladybug Transistor fans will no doubt be pleased to find Gary's signature exultant trumpet sound, the luscious strings, and gorgeous pop hooks so favored by that band present in plenty on this album. The melodies are at once both delicate and strongly memorable and the lustrous production gives a sheen reminiscent of the best '70s commercial radio and '80s indie pop. Fittingly the album cover photo depicts Gary on a decommissioned airfield in New York that is now a national park. There's a dreamy, overwhelming vastness on the old runway that was built in the 1920s.
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TR 462CD
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$17.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 5/29/2020
This album is a tale of two cities, or rather, two studios; one in Hayland, Norway and the other in Flatbush, Brooklyn and two brothers who came up with the idea making a record with indie rock wizard Gary Olson which now links the two locations. Gary Olson is the lead singer, main songwriter, and plays trumpet with the band Ladybug Transistor who have released five albums on Merge Records. He is also producer and engineer at Marlborough Farms studio deep in the heart of Flatbush Brooklyn. On the Norwegian side Ole Johannes Åleskjær has his studio, Tune-J in the bucolic countryside outside Oslo. He and his brother Jorn Åleskjær met Gary many years ago when their band Loch Ness Mouse crossed paths with Ladybug Transistor on tour. At one of these chance meetings Ole put forward the idea of a writing and recording collaboration between himself, his brother Jorn and Gary with the recording done both in Norway and Brooklyn. Over a period of eight years Gary would visit the Åleskjær brother's barn studio in its idyllic setting near the Swedish border and do basic tracks on whatever songs the three had written. Gary would then take the recordings back to Brooklyn where he would add vocals, horns, and strings at his studio. The recordings would then return to Norway for producer Ole to finish the tracks. By the end of 2019 this set of eleven songs had naturally blossomed into an album. With Ole producing and playing guitar and Gary doing vocals and trumpet the album personnel was rounded out by Håvard Krogedal (bass, cello) and Emil Nikolaisen (drums) both from Serena-Maneesh; Joe McGinty (string arrangements, piano, organ) from The Psychedelic Furs, Ryan Adams, and Suzanne Nienaber on backing vocals (Pale Lights). Although the initial idea was to do simple recordings Ladybug Transistor fans will no doubt be pleased to find Gary's signature exultant trumpet sound, the luscious strings, and gorgeous pop hooks so favored by that band present in plenty on this album. The melodies are at once both delicate and strongly memorable and the lustrous production gives a sheen reminiscent of the best '70s commercial radio and '80s indie pop. Fittingly the album cover photo depicts Gary on a decommissioned airfield in New York that is now a national park. There's a dreamy, overwhelming vastness on the old runway that was built in the 1920s.
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CD
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TR 395CD
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"I read a bit of Restoration poetry and listen to Leadbelly, and it comes out like that." (Bid, The Monochrome Set)
Tapete Records present a reissue of The Monochrome Set's second album Love Zombies, originally released in 1980. The casual prose of pop history is full of backhanded compliments, and The Monochrome Set have received a few, ranging from "should have been massive" to "influential", numbering the likes of Morrissey and Marr, Blur's Graham Coxon and Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos among their celebrity admirers. Released in February 1980, their first album Strange Boutique (TR 394CD/LP), featuring the band's percussion-heavy theme song (predating Adam & The Ants' "Kings of the Wild Frontier" by months) and the Johnny Marr-anticipating "Love Goes Down The Drain", caught the Monochrome Set in full flight, quickly followed by the equally taut, funny and adventurously dynamic Love Zombies.
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TR 394CD
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"I read a bit of Restoration poetry and listen to Leadbelly, and it comes out like that." (Bid, The Monochrome Set)
Tapete Records present a reissue of The Monochrome Set's first album Strange Boutique, originally released in 1980. The casual prose of pop history is full of backhanded compliments, and The Monochrome Set have received a few, ranging from "should have been massive" to "influential", numbering the likes of Morrissey and Marr, Blur's Graham Coxon and Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos among their celebrity admirers. Released in February 1980, their first album Strange Boutique, featuring the band's percussion-heavy theme song (predating Adam & The Ants' "Kings of the Wild Frontier" by months) and the Johnny Marr-anticipating "Love Goes Down The Drain", caught the Monochrome Set in full flight, quickly followed by the equally taut, funny and adventurously dynamic Love Zombies (TR 395CD/LP).
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LP
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TR 395LP
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LP version. "I read a bit of Restoration poetry and listen to Leadbelly, and it comes out like that." (Bid, The Monochrome Set)
Tapete Records present a reissue of The Monochrome Set's second album Love Zombies, originally released in 1980. The casual prose of pop history is full of backhanded compliments, and The Monochrome Set have received a few, ranging from "should have been massive" to "influential", numbering the likes of Morrissey and Marr, Blur's Graham Coxon and Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos among their celebrity admirers. Released in February 1980, their first album Strange Boutique (TR 394CD/LP), featuring the band's percussion-heavy theme song (predating Adam & The Ants' "Kings of the Wild Frontier" by months) and the Johnny Marr-anticipating "Love Goes Down The Drain", caught the Monochrome Set in full flight, quickly followed by the equally taut, funny and adventurously dynamic Love Zombies.
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LP
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TR 394LP
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LP version. "I read a bit of Restoration poetry and listen to Leadbelly, and it comes out like that." (Bid, The Monochrome Set)
Tapete Records present a reissue of The Monochrome Set's first album Strange Boutique, originally released in 1980. The casual prose of pop history is full of backhanded compliments, and The Monochrome Set have received a few, ranging from "should have been massive" to "influential", numbering the likes of Morrissey and Marr, Blur's Graham Coxon and Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos among their celebrity admirers. Released in February 1980, their first album Strange Boutique, featuring the band's percussion-heavy theme song (predating Adam & The Ants' "Kings of the Wild Frontier" by months) and the Johnny Marr-anticipating "Love Goes Down The Drain", caught the Monochrome Set in full flight, quickly followed by the equally taut, funny and adventurously dynamic Love Zombies (TR 395CD/LP).
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CD
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TR 450CD
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Bobby Conn on Recovery: "What's the point of recovery if we were never really healthy to begin with? I started working on this record about four years ago, thinking of the American obsession with self-help, self-care, and self-empowerment as a cruel and cheap substitute for helping each other. It's a concept that rewards those that have the money to help themselves, and blames those that don't for not trying hard enough. Then there were some elections. Now there is a narrative of 'recovering' our stronger, bolder, racially pure, cultural and economic glory days. And then some of my friends started getting sick, or dying or committed suicide . . . I was really into 10cc, J Dilla, Liaisons Dangereuses, Jean-Claude Vannier, Anna Meredith, Slade, D'Angelo, etc. when writing this record, but I'm sure you can hear it for yourself. Musically, this is a collaboration with my partner Monica BouBou on violin and vocals and our super-band of drummer Josh Johannpeter, bassist Jim 'Dallas' Cooper, keyboardist and string player Billie Howard, guitarist Devin Davis, and longtime sound artist DJ LeDeuce. We recorded it over many months in a basement. There is a cameo by synth genius Felix Kubin on 'Brother'. Mixed by the brilliant Tobias Levin and Hannes Plattmeier in Hamburg, Germany. Some notes on each tune: 'Recovery' -- the never-ending journey and an addiction unto itself. 'Disposable Future' -- amazing new technology gives us unlimited choice delivered through devices we cannot control; is this what we were dreaming of? 'Good Old Days' -- nostalgia for the lies of old white men will kill us all. 'No Grownups' -- from the perspective of a teenager trapped in a world where all the adults are self-deluded, irresponsible narcissists in terrible clothes. 'Brother' -- it's easy to ignore the suffering that surrounds us everyday. 'On The Nose' -- grandpa's racism now rebranded as edgy rebellion for the internet generation. 'Bijou' -- an ode to a recently closed gay porn theatre in Chicago that was part of the struggle for sexual liberty. 'Disaster' -- our masters imagine themselves as heroes when the mob storms the gates and burns the palace to the ground. 'Young Man's Game' -- you can't play the same game forever. 'Always Already' -- a misreading of Derrida, Marx and Foucault turned into a nihilist anthem. With apologies to Lionel Richie."
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TR 450LP
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LP version. Bobby Conn on Recovery: "What's the point of recovery if we were never really healthy to begin with? I started working on this record about four years ago, thinking of the American obsession with self-help, self-care, and self-empowerment as a cruel and cheap substitute for helping each other. It's a concept that rewards those that have the money to help themselves, and blames those that don't for not trying hard enough. Then there were some elections. Now there is a narrative of 'recovering' our stronger, bolder, racially pure, cultural and economic glory days. And then some of my friends started getting sick, or dying or committed suicide . . . I was really into 10cc, J Dilla, Liaisons Dangereuses, Jean-Claude Vannier, Anna Meredith, Slade, D'Angelo, etc. when writing this record, but I'm sure you can hear it for yourself. Musically, this is a collaboration with my partner Monica BouBou on violin and vocals and our super-band of drummer Josh Johannpeter, bassist Jim 'Dallas' Cooper, keyboardist and string player Billie Howard, guitarist Devin Davis, and longtime sound artist DJ LeDeuce. We recorded it over many months in a basement. There is a cameo by synth genius Felix Kubin on 'Brother'. Mixed by the brilliant Tobias Levin and Hannes Plattmeier in Hamburg, Germany. Some notes on each tune: 'Recovery' -- the never-ending journey and an addiction unto itself. 'Disposable Future' -- amazing new technology gives us unlimited choice delivered through devices we cannot control; is this what we were dreaming of? 'Good Old Days' -- nostalgia for the lies of old white men will kill us all. 'No Grownups' -- from the perspective of a teenager trapped in a world where all the adults are self-deluded, irresponsible narcissists in terrible clothes. 'Brother' -- it's easy to ignore the suffering that surrounds us everyday. 'On The Nose' -- grandpa's racism now rebranded as edgy rebellion for the internet generation. 'Bijou' -- an ode to a recently closed gay porn theatre in Chicago that was part of the struggle for sexual liberty. 'Disaster' -- our masters imagine themselves as heroes when the mob storms the gates and burns the palace to the ground. 'Young Man's Game' -- you can't play the same game forever. 'Always Already' -- a misreading of Derrida, Marx and Foucault turned into a nihilist anthem. With apologies to Lionel Richie."
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TR 447LP
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Double LP version. Tapete Records present a reissue of Zensur & Zensur by Germany's first ever punk band Male, originally released in 1979. Includes 11 live tracks recorded at Markthalle Hamburg, June, 29 1979. "The Dusseldorf punk scene was without compare in the years 1977 to 1979 and Male were there in the thick of it, etching their name into German musical history. I was magnetically drawn towards the punk phenomenon back in 1977 and through Bilk's integral role in the movement, I was lucky enough to get right up close . . . Somehow, I heard about a gig in an assembly hall and that's where I saw Male, a burning revelation, rising above all the tiresome Stones cover bands! Loud, dirty, new and different! Setting the German flag alight brought the gig to a spectacular conclusion. I offered my services as a roadie for the gigs that followed in and around Düsseldorf . . . Having broken through the inner-city walls, Male were invited to Berlin for the opening of SO36 where they shared the bill with local Berlin heroes PVC, Din A Testbild, Ffurs and Düsseldorf's Mittagspause. The Male track 'Polizei' is included on a sampler commemorating the event. Next up, the 'Into the Future' festival in Hamburg saw them in triumphant mode alongside Mittagspause and Kleenex, earning them a headliner slot at the next In die Zukunft -- live albums documented the respective performances. Back in Düsseldorf, a record import store gave Male permission to rehearse in their cellar as they geared up for the production of their LP. Earlier tracks and a few newer songs added up to a superb Male album, from the cut-up lyrics on 'KH 3' to the hypnotic intro of 'Ein Tag Düsseldorf' and the cult track 'Zensur & Zensur'. Time was racing by and Male arguably reached their zenith as backup for The Clash on the London Calling tour. As the air raid siren rang out on 'Ich hör schon die Sirenen', Kosmo Vinyl (Clash roadie), Joe Strummer and Mick Jones stopped in their tracks to take a closer look at Male on stage. On this memorable night in the Phillipshalle, Male were far more than just a warm-up act . . . In the wake of the name change to Vorsprung, Jürgen Engler soon shifted his focus to Die Krupps, but Male remained close to his heart as new songs and the odd gig here and there demonstrated in the years that followed." --Wolf Lauenroth (Dieter Zensur)
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CD
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TR 447CD
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Tapete Records present a reissue of Zensur & Zensur by Germany's first ever punk band Male, originally released in 1979. Includes 11 live tracks recorded at Markthalle Hamburg, June, 29 1979. "The Dusseldorf punk scene was without compare in the years 1977 to 1979 and Male were there in the thick of it, etching their name into German musical history. I was magnetically drawn towards the punk phenomenon back in 1977 and through Bilk's integral role in the movement, I was lucky enough to get right up close . . . Somehow, I heard about a gig in an assembly hall and that's where I saw Male, a burning revelation, rising above all the tiresome Stones cover bands! Loud, dirty, new and different! Setting the German flag alight brought the gig to a spectacular conclusion. I offered my services as a roadie for the gigs that followed in and around Düsseldorf . . . Having broken through the inner-city walls, Male were invited to Berlin for the opening of SO36 where they shared the bill with local Berlin heroes PVC, Din A Testbild, Ffurs and Düsseldorf's Mittagspause. The Male track 'Polizei' is included on a sampler commemorating the event. Next up, the 'Into the Future' festival in Hamburg saw them in triumphant mode alongside Mittagspause and Kleenex, earning them a headliner slot at the next In die Zukunft -- live albums documented the respective performances. Back in Düsseldorf, a record import store gave Male permission to rehearse in their cellar as they geared up for the production of their LP. Earlier tracks and a few newer songs added up to a superb Male album, from the cut-up lyrics on 'KH 3' to the hypnotic intro of 'Ein Tag Düsseldorf' and the cult track 'Zensur & Zensur'. Time was racing by and Male arguably reached their zenith as backup for The Clash on the London Calling tour. As the air raid siren rang out on 'Ich hör schon die Sirenen', Kosmo Vinyl (Clash roadie), Joe Strummer and Mick Jones stopped in their tracks to take a closer look at Male on stage. On this memorable night in the Phillipshalle, Male were far more than just a warm-up act . . . In the wake of the name change to Vorsprung, Jürgen Engler soon shifted his focus to Die Krupps, but Male remained close to his heart as new songs and the odd gig here and there demonstrated in the years that followed." --Wolf Lauenroth (Dieter Zensur)
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TR 454CD
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Nine months since the release of 6 Lenins (TR 432CD/LP, 2019), The Proper Ornaments are back with Mission Bells, a somber but uplifting record that began its life while they were on tour earlier in 2019, when new ideas emerged in different soundchecks around Europe. James Hoare, Bobby Syme, and Max Oscarnold, the founders of the group, recruited Nathalie Bruno as a bassist for the tour, and then the four-piece began recording in the summer at Hoare's home studio in Finsbury Park, London, using the same 16-track Studer tape machine as on their previous record, but this time they incorporated a Moog sequencer and other electronics instruments. On these recordings, meticulous attention to detail is never deployed as an end in itself but always with the song and sound in mind. As the Mission Bells sing, echoes of black albums Velvets, Swell Maps, Spiritualized, and Cluster might reach inside your brain, but the truth is that it's hard to pinpoint influences on an album that is the fifth in the life of this band, as they have been becoming more and more themselves, not needing to look elsewhere for inspiration. This is not a retro band, they just happened to like playing guitar, a preference that began, at least for James Hoare and Max Oscarnold, when they were nine years old. Whoever is familiar with their previous records might agree that Mission Bells has a lot of the innocent elements (drum machines underneath simple songs) of their first record, Waiting For The Summer (2013), the melancholy of Foxhole (2017), and their heavy live sounds, as drummer Bobby Syme points out. But it's the lyrical maturity that is the real achievement on this record. The words can be read as a William Burroughs cut-up experiment on what it is to live in these dystopian times. Mission Bells is a majestic achievement, a musical maelstrom, its harmonies drawing the inclined listener into an irreversible somnambulant state, caught between dreamland and waking hours. The beauty of it is, you won't want to escape, even though the door is flung open as your postmodern life awaits you outside...
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TR 454LP
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LP version. Nine months since the release of 6 Lenins (TR 432CD/LP, 2019), The Proper Ornaments are back with Mission Bells, a somber but uplifting record that began its life while they were on tour earlier in 2019, when new ideas emerged in different soundchecks around Europe. James Hoare, Bobby Syme, and Max Oscarnold, the founders of the group, recruited Nathalie Bruno as a bassist for the tour, and then the four-piece began recording in the summer at Hoare's home studio in Finsbury Park, London, using the same 16-track Studer tape machine as on their previous record, but this time they incorporated a Moog sequencer and other electronics instruments. On these recordings, meticulous attention to detail is never deployed as an end in itself but always with the song and sound in mind. As the Mission Bells sing, echoes of black albums Velvets, Swell Maps, Spiritualized, and Cluster might reach inside your brain, but the truth is that it's hard to pinpoint influences on an album that is the fifth in the life of this band, as they have been becoming more and more themselves, not needing to look elsewhere for inspiration. This is not a retro band, they just happened to like playing guitar, a preference that began, at least for James Hoare and Max Oscarnold, when they were nine years old. Whoever is familiar with their previous records might agree that Mission Bells has a lot of the innocent elements (drum machines underneath simple songs) of their first record, Waiting For The Summer (2013), the melancholy of Foxhole (2017), and their heavy live sounds, as drummer Bobby Syme points out. But it's the lyrical maturity that is the real achievement on this record. The words can be read as a William Burroughs cut-up experiment on what it is to live in these dystopian times. Mission Bells is a majestic achievement, a musical maelstrom, its harmonies drawing the inclined listener into an irreversible somnambulant state, caught between dreamland and waking hours. The beauty of it is, you won't want to escape, even though the door is flung open as your postmodern life awaits you outside...
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TR 397LP
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LP version. Here comes the beat of the broken street... "Fireraisers" as in those with flames in veins -- had enough of the never ending spiral of stupidity and hate and greed and religious/political hypocrisy --the inexorable rise of the moron mind and those sleepwalking in their lazy hives letting THEM do this to US... a modern rite to burn away all this to the ground and see what nice flowers rise up from the ground... we imagine an army of disenchanted, beaten down kids becoming modern anarchist magicians drawing dumb sgylls of dada retribution ... "if we all spit together we can drown the bastards".
The last LP was a gentler, inner, melancholic hug at 2am and perhaps we would've continued to go down a sweeter road but the state of the world has meant Comet Gain were compelled to turn the fuzz up and make something more brutal and instant. In defiance to their last LP -- now its late-night sadness turns to the angry morning. First take beats ethics. Two weeks of late afternoon 45s listening parties with The Rationals/Nerves/Messthetics/Back From The Grave garage/Fading Yellow comps/The Jam/Dead Moon --whatever had the urge. Trying to figure out how Rufus Thomas would sound if he joined the Swell Maps... condensing it all mixing and absorbing then forgetting it all and propelling the psychic mix tape into an albums worth of angry pop drops and slow howls. Recorded in a living room in North London with James Hoare (The Proper Ornaments, Ultimate Painting) with the help of Joseph Harvey-Whyte (Hanging Stars) pedal steeliest. Then turned into the record it is by drummer/producer M.J. Taylor who also produced Comet Gain's LP Realistes -- the closest cousin to this one... songs about the evil greedy mirage of world religion, Victor Jara and those poets and teachers killed for believing in love and words, about the forgotten who are blamed for everything and can't rise up from their knees to fight back, about the high street Kali-Yuga, occult terrorists with low IQ but high ESP, about the Godfrey Brothers, about Lou Reed's mourning dog on a road trip trying to bury his masters mullet somewhere in the desert, about those stuck in the glory days of their past myopic of the present and all the other usual losers and romantics the band always bang on about -- with added melody and stomp... giving no real answers but pointing fingers and prodding you in the back... in defiance of just staying silent and letting the morons win. So Comet Gain is still alive longer than we should --still trying to be a collective and an idea emerging every now and then with the same grumpy erratic sounds -- this one's louder than the last one but sometimes maybe quieter. And it's filled with love and rage. And it's about 40 minutes long which is always a good thing.
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TR 436CD
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Tapete Records present a reissue of Pete Astor's Paradise, originally released in 1992 on Danceteria. With the onset of the 1990s and the conclusion of The Weather Prophets, Pete Astor was in the mood for some artistic regeneration. To this end, he recruited a new group of musicians and friends, forming The Holy Road. The band consisted of erstwhile Felt and Everything But The Girl guitarist Neil Scott, bassist Chris Clarke (soon to become a key member of both The Rockingbirds and Danny and the Champions of the World), and drummer Russell Lax (of The Oyster Band and Billy Childish's Pop Rivets). While much of the UK was -- in the words of Jarvis Cocker -- "standing in a field, sorted for Es and Whizz," Astor maintained his commitment to his version of an English Chanson tradition. As such, he was adopted by a new French audience, coalescing around the anglophile gospel of the influential magazine Les Inrockuptibles who lionized Astor's work -- whether it be "Why Does The Rain?", courtesy of his first Creation band, The Loft, or The Weather Prophets' demi-anthem "Almost Prayed", or his more recent solo work on "Submarine" and "Zoo". And so arrived Paradise, becoming for many the album in which Astor, along with The Holy Road, most perfectly expressed his indubitable facility as a singer and songwriter. All his enduring musical references -- from classic British guitar pop to New-York punk via the blues and even jazz -- seem to blend into a fully-formed vision, one which envisions a kind of mythic America whilst always cleaving to European, and specifically British, roots. Twenty-seven years later, with Tapete's re-release, Paradise is a vital addition to a body of work which sounds as good now as it did then.
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TR 436LP
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LP version. Tapete Records present a reissue of Pete Astor's Paradise, originally released in 1992 on Danceteria. With the onset of the 1990s and the conclusion of The Weather Prophets, Pete Astor was in the mood for some artistic regeneration. To this end, he recruited a new group of musicians and friends, forming The Holy Road. The band consisted of erstwhile Felt and Everything But The Girl guitarist Neil Scott, bassist Chris Clarke (soon to become a key member of both The Rockingbirds and Danny and the Champions of the World), and drummer Russell Lax (of The Oyster Band and Billy Childish's Pop Rivets). While much of the UK was -- in the words of Jarvis Cocker -- "standing in a field, sorted for Es and Whizz," Astor maintained his commitment to his version of an English Chanson tradition. As such, he was adopted by a new French audience, coalescing around the anglophile gospel of the influential magazine Les Inrockuptibles who lionized Astor's work -- whether it be "Why Does The Rain?", courtesy of his first Creation band, The Loft, or The Weather Prophets' demi-anthem "Almost Prayed", or his more recent solo work on "Submarine" and "Zoo". And so arrived Paradise, becoming for many the album in which Astor, along with The Holy Road, most perfectly expressed his indubitable facility as a singer and songwriter. All his enduring musical references -- from classic British guitar pop to New-York punk via the blues and even jazz -- seem to blend into a fully-formed vision, one which envisions a kind of mythic America whilst always cleaving to European, and specifically British, roots. Twenty-seven years later, with Tapete's re-release, Paradise is a vital addition to a body of work which sounds as good now as it did then.
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TR 449LP
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LP version. At the end of the '70s, The Monochrome Set were part of the first wave of "post punk" bands. Right from the beginning, the band earned a solid reputation as purveyors of fine pop, gaining praise from '80s contemporaries such as Morrissey and Edwyn Collins. Importantly, in later years this praise has continued with artists such as Franz Ferdinand, The Divine Comedy, and Graham Coxon, all citing the band as a key influence on their own work. The Monochrome Set sound has often been described as "timeless", and that alone explains why, over the years, the band has continued gaining admirers. Fabula Mendax is based on manuscripts written in the 15th Century by Armande de Pange, a companion of Jehanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc). Follow Armande as she flees her unhinged family, only to be caught up in the chaos of The Hundred Years' War. She encounters and trails the enigmatic Joan, later becoming a part of her expanding group of followers. As they travel west into the war zone of Northern France, they meet a motley medley of scheming noblewomen, bellicose knights, nefarious bishops, and assorted rotters, rogues, and renegades. This is The Monochrome Set at its most ornate, and, much like Joan of Arc's ensemble, features a myriad of fiddlers, pluckers, beaters, tinklers, and wailers, surrounding a central core of notorious crackpots. The hauntingly melodic pop harks back to the early TMS period of "Eine Symphonie Des Grauens" (1979), but is now complemented by a (periodically unemployed) vampire's orchestra, whose cha-cha-charnel chiming careens into carnal rhyming chanting, while saints and demon's trip lightly across the slick red fields of liberty. As with all TMS albums, Fabula Mendax is at once accessible and arcane, upbeat and dark, lush and spare, and with lyrics that as ever remain tantalizingly opaque.
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TR 397CD
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Here comes the beat of the broken street... "Fireraisers" as in those with flames in veins -- had enough of the never ending spiral of stupidity and hate and greed and religious/political hypocrisy --the inexorable rise of the moron mind and those sleepwalking in their lazy hives letting THEM do this to US... a modern rite to burn away all this to the ground and see what nice flowers rise up from the ground... we imagine an army of disenchanted, beaten down kids becoming modern anarchist magicians drawing dumb sgylls of dada retribution ... "if we all spit together we can drown the bastards".
The last LP was a gentler, inner, melancholic hug at 2am and perhaps we would've continued to go down a sweeter road but the state of the world has meant Comet Gain were compelled to turn the fuzz up and make something more brutal and instant. In defiance to their last LP -- now its late-night sadness turns to the angry morning. First take beats ethics. Two weeks of late afternoon 45s listening parties with The Rationals/Nerves/Messthetics/Back From The Grave garage/Fading Yellow comps/The Jam/Dead Moon --whatever had the urge. Trying to figure out how Rufus Thomas would sound if he joined the Swell Maps... condensing it all mixing and absorbing then forgetting it all and propelling the psychic mix tape into an albums worth of angry pop drops and slow howls. Recorded in a living room in North London with James Hoare (The Proper Ornaments, Ultimate Painting) with the help of Joseph Harvey-Whyte (Hanging Stars) pedal steeliest. Then turned into the record it is by drummer/producer M.J. Taylor who also produced Comet Gain's LP Realistes -- the closest cousin to this one... songs about the evil greedy mirage of world religion, Victor Jara and those poets and teachers killed for believing in love and words, about the forgotten who are blamed for everything and can't rise up from their knees to fight back, about the high street Kali-Yuga, occult terrorists with low IQ but high ESP, about the Godfrey Brothers, about Lou Reed's mourning dog on a road trip trying to bury his masters mullet somewhere in the desert, about those stuck in the glory days of their past myopic of the present and all the other usual losers and romantics the band always bang on about -- with added melody and stomp... giving no real answers but pointing fingers and prodding you in the back... in defiance of just staying silent and letting the morons win. So Comet Gain is still alive longer than we should --still trying to be a collective and an idea emerging every now and then with the same grumpy erratic sounds -- this one's louder than the last one but sometimes maybe quieter. And it's filled with love and rage. And it's about 40 minutes long which is always a good thing.
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CD
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TR 449CD
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At the end of the '70s, The Monochrome Set were part of the first wave of "post punk" bands. Right from the beginning, the band earned a solid reputation as purveyors of fine pop, gaining praise from '80s contemporaries such as Morrissey and Edwyn Collins. Importantly, in later years this praise has continued with artists such as Franz Ferdinand, The Divine Comedy, and Graham Coxon, all citing the band as a key influence on their own work. The Monochrome Set sound has often been described as "timeless", and that alone explains why, over the years, the band has continued gaining admirers. Fabula Mendax is based on manuscripts written in the 15th Century by Armande de Pange, a companion of Jehanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc). Follow Armande as she flees her unhinged family, only to be caught up in the chaos of The Hundred Years' War. She encounters and trails the enigmatic Joan, later becoming a part of her expanding group of followers. As they travel west into the war zone of Northern France, they meet a motley medley of scheming noblewomen, bellicose knights, nefarious bishops, and assorted rotters, rogues, and renegades. This is The Monochrome Set at its most ornate, and, much like Joan of Arc's ensemble, features a myriad of fiddlers, pluckers, beaters, tinklers, and wailers, surrounding a central core of notorious crackpots. The hauntingly melodic pop harks back to the early TMS period of "Eine Symphonie Des Grauens" (1979), but is now complemented by a (periodically unemployed) vampire's orchestra, whose cha-cha-charnel chiming careens into carnal rhyming chanting, while saints and demon's trip lightly across the slick red fields of liberty. As with all TMS albums, Fabula Mendax is at once accessible and arcane, upbeat and dark, lush and spare, and with lyrics that as ever remain tantalizingly opaque.
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TR 440CD
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Stereo Total -- Ah! Quel Cinéma! An album title with not one, but two exclamation marks, meaning something akin to "what a palaver" as it primes the listener for songs like "Cinemascope". Themes such as personal injuries ("Ich Bin Cool"), betrayal ("Mes Copines"), personality deficiencies brought on by drug abuse ("Methedrine"), rage ("Hass-Satellit"), inflated opinions of oneself ("Brezel Says"), suicide ("Le Spleen"), grief ("Dancing With A Memory"), and souls in torment ("Elektroschocktherapie") are presented in widescreen format in and often in the most entertaining fashion. Stereo Total's penchant for wordplay is not in evidence in all of the lyrics on this record. Many tracks here echo the rather more somber, desperate songs she wrote for her first band Les Lolitas. Nevertheless, the anarchic humor which can be associated with Stereo Total resurfaces on compositions like "Keine Musik" and "Einfach". Musically, this Stereo Total disc, their twelfth, cannot be readily aligned with anything at all. If earlier albums resonated with influences from chanson, trash, or disco to punk, rock'n'roll and NDW (German New Wave), Stereo Total have now arrived in their very own musical universe which pays no heed to stylistic devices, reminiscent of "rien de tout". Brezel Göring draws on his favored array of instruments more likely to be found in the hands of children in households where a musical education is not on the agenda: plastic baby organ and dreadful mouse piano, accompanied by home-made guitars glued together by less than gifted artisans. Stereo Total continue to make electronic music with flea market Casio sounds which fly in the face of what is generally accepted to be electronic music. Each musical instrument could probably be translated into social coordinates and in this sense, the tools of Stereo Total's trade speak an unequivocal language. Stereo Total continue to play lo-fi garage rock music which makes a mockery of all the masculine clichés associated with guitars. When Françoise Cactus plays the drums, the rhythms of feminism, anti-professionalism and subversive dilettantism come to the fore. Any attempts to pigeonhole Stereo Total. The group began making music before the internet existed, before the Euro, before Germany reunited and before there were even bands or music. They will probably still be playing when all that has been consigned to the dustbin of history. When they began making music together, they made it their mission to disrupt rules, to destabilize ideas. They may not have thrown European harmonic structure or 4/4 time out of the window, but they have certainly asked questions of every other aspect of musical and lyrical techniques.
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