• Scanner – Mort aux Vaches

CD, Mort aux Vaches/Staaplaat, 1998

Mort aux Vaches is a limited edition label run by Staalplaat in conjunction with the Dutch radio station, VPRO. It’s released the various live radio sessions performed for the station, by a wide selection of the great and good of the experimental and ambient worlds. There are a few knocking around online, but here’s a pair that we haven’t seen recently.

Scanner is Robin Rimbaud, known for using radio scanners to add found sounds from the airwaves to his unsettling electronic ambiences. This session is from 1996.

01. Clustal (4:01)
02. Cotton Steel (4:53)
03. Scent (9:40)
04. Jat Scheelan (9:17)
05. Preterite (6:51)

Link | Discogs

• Tarentel – Mort aux Vaches

CD, Mort aux Vaches/Staalplaat, 2002

On April 18th, 2000, not long after releasing their stratospherically lovely album From Bone to Satellite, San Francisco’s Tarentel joined the lengthy roster of acts to record a session for the series. The band have moved on from these taught, soaring post-rock workouts in recent years, so it’s great to have a further record of how they were back then.

01. Adonai (10:27)
02. Steede Bonnet (13:13)
03. When No One’s Listening (9:30)
04. For Carl Sagan (18:11)

Link | Discogs

• The Tiller Boys – Big Noise from the Jungle

7″, New Hormones, 1979

Pair of instrumental post-punk workouts today. Not sure why, but hey, the sun is shining.

In a minute, Bristol’s ker-azy Mouth, but for starters here’s Pete Shelley and Eric Random with a rockin’ little number that still sounds freshly fresh. Third release on New Hormones following Spiral Scratch of course, and an unreleased second indie Buzzcocks EP canned when they signed to UA. But does anyone know: was it just these two fine fellows, or were others part of that hip-swinging Tiller Boys sound?

A1. Big Noise from the Jungle
B1. Slaves & Pyramids
B2. What Me Worry?

Link | Discogs

• Mouth – Ooh Ah Yeah!

7″, Recreational, 1980

God, this takes us back. Used to hammer this natty little offshoot of the Bristol sound back in the day, probably after hearing on Peel’s show. After this they joined their natural home, Y, and made a couple more singles produced by Pigbag’s Simon Underwood, and an appearance on the fabulous Birth of the Y compilation (comments if you fancy that etc etc). Not much more than a Wipeout or Rumble for the post-punk generation, but nothing wrong with that.

A. Ooh, Ah, Yeah!
B. Ooh?

Link | Discogs

• AC. Marias AC. – Drop

7″, Dome, 1981

Dome Records, of course, was run by the guys from Dome… ie, Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis of Wire. Angela Conway, meanwhile, was an associate of the Wire guys, a dancer and singer, and latterly video director. This delicate little single was part of the little run of activity from the guys that included the various Dome albums, as well as work credited to Cupol, Duet Emmo with Mute founder Daniel Miller, and Gilbert & Lewis themselves… It’s funny, but whenever one talks of AC Marias, one can’t help pretty quickly talking about the Wire guys instead. Which is a shame, if this little gem is anything to go by.

The sole AC Marias album on Mute, One of Our Girls Has Gone Missing, is also getting hard to find these days; lob a request in the comments if we should rip that too. Ditto for the P’o record While Climbing Thieves Vie For Attention, which featured AC, Gilbert and Lewis among others. It got a WMO reissue a few years back but that’s as hard to find as the vinyl. Let. Us. Know.

BTW, as you’ll see from the larger sleeve shots included in the archive, this comes packaged in a sleeve with fake weathering. We do treat our discs somewhat better than this seems to indicate…

A. Drop (4:33)
B. So (2:32)

Link | Discogs

• World Power Alliance

Short-run trilogy of releases from the legendary Underground Resistance, with each of the three main members exploring a particular theme across three one-sided concept twelves, the flips each covered with all manner of etched nonsense. Here’s the, um, concept:

“The World Power Alliance was designed to bring the worlds minds together, to combat the medicore audio and visual programming being fed to the inhabitants of Earth, this programming is stagnating the minds of the people, building a wall between races and world peace. This wall must be destroyed, and it will fall.

By using the untapped energy potential of sound, the W.P.A. will smash this wall much the same as certain frequencies shatter the glass.

Brothers of the underground, transmit your tones and frequencies from all locations of this world and wreak havoc on the programmers.

THIS IS WAR! LONG LIVE THE UNDERGROUND”

That’s all bollocks of the highest order, of course, but this is still heavy pounding UR techno at its finest and well worthy of your attention.

(Mike Banks), 12″, World Power Alliance/UR, 1992

1. Kamikaze (5:52)

Discogs

(Jeff Mills), 12″, World Power Alliance/UR, 1992

1. The Seawolf (5:43)

Discogs

(Robert Hood), 12″, World Power Alliance/UR, 1992

1. Belgian Resistance (6:19)

Discogs

Link to all three.