Not Blobs. 1988 Poultry Productions
Liveloudandlumpy. 1988 Poultry Productions
Genuflex. 1989 Poultry Productions
These were all pressed on cassette originally. The date of Not Blobs is based on the catalog number. Genuflex is listed 3rd as that's how the Freeman's from Ultima Thule have it ordered. Given that Liveloudandlumpy is from November 1988, I'll surmise this one is from 1989. But it's only a guess.
AMA can quite simply be described as long and improvised, primitive sounding guitar-bass-drums psychedelic instrumental music with a muddy production. The kind of group that makes Tangle Edge sound like Conservatory students with an academic pedigree. A little of this kind of music goes a long way. Probably the Improvised Drop Outs sessions from Tangle Edge are the best reference here. It has a hypnotic effect as background music, but close inspection reveals all sorts of cracks, lines and warts. Like going to a dark restaurant and appearing on the surface to look beautiful, only later to be exposed in the bright lights to demonstrate the ugly truth. Personally I like the raw intensity of the recordings, though probably not enough to lobby for a reissue. Perhaps the cassette format is perfect for these kind of recordings in that, like the medium itself, it's old and creaky.
Start with "Not Blobs" if you're curios, as that one has an inkling of compositional acumen at least.
Priority: none
AMA can quite simply be described as long and improvised, primitive sounding guitar-bass-drums psychedelic instrumental music with a muddy production. The kind of group that makes Tangle Edge sound like Conservatory students with an academic pedigree. A little of this kind of music goes a long way. Probably the Improvised Drop Outs sessions from Tangle Edge are the best reference here. It has a hypnotic effect as background music, but close inspection reveals all sorts of cracks, lines and warts. Like going to a dark restaurant and appearing on the surface to look beautiful, only later to be exposed in the bright lights to demonstrate the ugly truth. Personally I like the raw intensity of the recordings, though probably not enough to lobby for a reissue. Perhaps the cassette format is perfect for these kind of recordings in that, like the medium itself, it's old and creaky.
Start with "Not Blobs" if you're curios, as that one has an inkling of compositional acumen at least.
Priority: none
6/25/11 (new entry)
4 comments:
I was very lucky to live the festival scene from the insides, as I was living in Belgium at the times. Most of these musicians came from the 2nd wave of the british punk scene, thus the primitive, raw sound. AMA, RANCID POULTRY, GIANT EYES, TECHNO PAGAN, OMNIA OPERA had one leg in the punk/squat/peace convoy scene. On 1985-1986 Stonehenge was full of punks, bikers, crusties and new age travellers. SMART PILLS had Richard Chadwick on drums (went on to HAWKWIND). Bridget Wishart sang for three punk bands, the most famous being the HIPPY SLAGS. DEMENTED STOATS were a unique tribal psychedelic acid punk. The crossover of styles, space rock to punk agression to NWOBHM rhythms to hippy acid jams, all blended through the DIY ethos of the era worked miracles.
Thanks Spyros for the cool inside info. You were lucky to be a witness to that scene! I don't know most of those bands. Omnia Opera of course (and a post is coming soon, though I was hoping the CD reissues would have come out by now). And I have a pile of Rancid Poultry CD-R's to go through - I have the original cassette of "Controlled Exposure" and that's all I've heard by them to date.
For me, one of the most interesting bands of that scene (as uniqueness is concerned) were GIANT EYES from Brighton, England. A surreal mixture of GONG, RESIDENTS, post punk, horror movies... Too bad they never made it past two cassette releases ("Tales of Weirdo Hicks" pts 1 & 2). I found by chance an extract from those tapes uploaded here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoOl4QanqxY&feature=related
PS. Their drummer Nimbus ended up in CRAWLSPACE.
Official remastered CDR reissues available here, and more to come http://home.btconnect.com/ultimathule/tachyon/poultryproducts/menu.html
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