KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER @ 50

 

Debuting in its weekly series format on September 13th, 1974, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, is marking its golden jubilee today at 50 years old. While the series only lasted a single season, it has since gained cult status, being cited by the likes of X-Files creator, Chris Carter, as a principal inspiration for his own iconic cult franchise.

Originating as a pair of wildly successful made for TV movies, The Night Stalker (1972), and The Night Strangler (1973), the series' first incarnation was actually in the form of an unpublished novel written by Jeff Rice called, The Kolchak Papers. Initially, the main protagonist was a Las Vegas newspaper reporter named Carl Kolchak, who tracks down and defeats a serial killer who turns out to be the vampire Janos Skorzeny. The novel gave Kolchak's birth name is "Karel", although he uses the anglicized version "Carl".

ABC approached Rice with an offer to option The Kolchak Papers, which was adapted by Richard Matheson into the television movie. The Night Stalker, first aired on January 11, 1972. It garnered the highest ratings of any television movie at that time (33.2 rating — 54 share). Matheson received a 1973 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best TV Feature or Miniseries Teleplay.

Following the success of the TV movie and its sequel, the novel was published in 1973 by Pocket Books as a mass-market paperback original, titled The Night Stalker, with a photo of star Darren McGavin on the cover in order to tie it to the film. With the success of the movies, ABC negotiated with Matheson and McGavin to create a series, with the later given unofficial executive producer status. However, neither ABC nor Universal had obtained novel author Jeff Rice's permission for the series, and he sued the studio. The suit was resolved shortly before the series aired, and Rice received an on-screen credit as series creator.

Also of note in the production of the series was David Chase, creator of The Sopranos, who worked on the series as a story editor, his first regular staff position in Hollywood. Though Chase is credited on eight episodes as story editor, he also helped rewrite the remaining 12. McGavin and others attribute much of the show's quirky humour to his creative input.

As the series evolved, it became a unique supernatural crime drama, with Kolchak's rumpled, gruff persona constantly at odds with his stressed-out publisher and disparaging co-workers. As he dealt with a wide variety of unusual phenomenon and creatures each week, it seemed like nothing he ever wrote got published due to the fantastical nature of his stories. It's a wonder he was able to retain any employment at all, given his incredible and unbelievable subject matter.

His personal life also seemed to be a total disaster, with hardly anything resembling a friend or romantic relationship ever taking any prominence in the series. Yet his isolation from the rest of humanity seemed to be perfectly appropriate for his idiosyncratic obsession with the bizarre and the unnatural. It's not at all surprising he'd be something of a loner, especially given the fact he only seemed to possess a single suite of clothes. He did have a pretty nice little Mustang for a car though. Still, he's the kinda guy who'd probably have fallen in with QAnon weirdos if he were around today.

As a kid, the series had an instant appeal for me. I remember being on the edge of my seat on numerous occasions as Kolchak narrowly escaped one bizarre predicament after another. The series was usually quite good at conjuring up dramatic tension when it came to putting him in tight squeezes. It's no wonder those who grew up with the show never forgot it.

During its initial run, the series was undermined by poor time slots, frequent changes in scheduling and irregular schedules, with hiatuses between clumps of episodes, and some episodes never even airing until the show was in syndication years later. Daren McGavin also had issues with his role within the series, becoming embittered by his lack of credit as executive producer, as well as a lack of financial compensation for his contributions in that role as well. With the lacklustre ratings for the series thrown on top of this, he declined to continue with the series and ABC pulled the show after one season.

Yet the show's impact would see it return in various incarnations and repackaging attempts, gaining a strong cult following when it was aired in late night. It has subsequently only grown in stature as its impact has become more pronounced in popular culture. As previously mentioned, The X-Files owes a huge debt to the series in terms of inspiration, with Chris Carter frequently integrating sly references into his series. He even planned to have McGavin reprise his Kolchak character for an episode, though McGavin refused to return for the role, albeit he did eventually agree to play the character of an FBI agent who had been an early investigator of the so-called "X-Files" department. Carter also incorporated a character in the X-Files revival in 2016 who wore Kolchak's trademark rumpled white suit and straw hat.

An attempt to reboot the series was made in 2005 by ABC, who still had rights to the Character, but low ratings saw the series vanish quickly. I've never seen any of those episodes, and didn't even know that it existed until I started research for this retrospective piece. In May 2012, Disney announced a film adaptation was in the works with Johnny Depp starring and producing, and Edgar Wright directing, but there doesn't seem to be much momentum on that lately, so who knows if its still in the works. It's the kind of property that could certainly be successful in a re-imagined version, if it had the right people behind it, with the proper backing, but for now, the original series is still floating around out there, currently streaming on AppleTV+, for those looking to discover its charms.

COIL - ANS @ 20

 

Released in September of 2004, Coil's sprawling ambient monolith, ANS, is marking its 20th anniversary this month. The primary release of the album consisted of a box set including three audio CDs and a DVD with abstract visual accompaniment. The initial run of the box set included art prints, though some purchasers, myself included, never received their art prints due to issues with manufacturing that were further complicated after the death of Jhon Balance in November of that year.

All sounds on the album were created utilizing the ANS synthesizer, "a photo-electronic musical instrument created by Russian engineer Evgeny Murzin from 1937 to 1957. The technological basis of his invention was the method of graphical sound recording used in cinematography (developed in Russia concurrently with USA), which made it possible to obtain a visible image of a sound wave, as well as to realize the opposite goal—synthesizing a sound from an artificially drawn sound spectrogram." It was built around half a century ago and still to this day sits where it was originally conceived; in the Moscow State University.

At the time of its recording, Coil consisted of Jhonn Balance, Ossian Brown, Peter Christopherson, Thighpaulsandra, and Ivan Pavlov, all of whom contributed to the creation of the album, to some degree, in terms of the creation of the etched transparent plates that were passed through the machine to create the album's sounds. None of the participants understood the exact mechanism for composition when it came to creating etchings, so they essentially created doodles that did not adhere to any fixed musical notation theory specific to the device. It was all a bit of an experiment to see what would happen. Images of the sound plates were included in the graphics package for the box set.

Prior to the full release of the box set, a single CD, identical in content to the first disc in the finished set, was issued in a limited edition, black clam-shell case version in 2003, which was sold at various live shows throughout that year, with the fully packaged box set issued in September of 2004. The album, while perhaps lacking in clear intent, offers up some interesting ambient tonalities. It's a bit like an abstract audio seance, conjuring sounds from the ether in a manner that yielded some unexpected and surprising results.

COIL - MUSICK TO PLAY IN THE DARK VOL. 1 @ 25

 

Marking a quarter century on the shelves, at 25 years old this month, is Coil's Musick to Play in the Dark Vol. 1, which was released in September of 1999. The album represented a striking thematic shift for the group and, despite its genesis within the womb of excessive drug use, manifested as some of the most cohesive and intentional music from that era of their existence.

Given the group was primarily the purview of two gay men, their initial conceptual focus was decidedly "solar", or masculine. Solar symbolism was frequently in play, whether it was the Black Sun logo, or the references to gold, an element distinctly connected to solar imagery, though both are also decidedly scatological in nature as well. Their 1984 debut EP release, How To Destroy Angels, was specifically dedicated to Mars and the "accumulation of males sexual energy", deliberately excluding and avoiding female influence as a matter of process. Yet with Musick to Play in the Dark, a realignment had occurred. Jhon Balance specifically announces on the album that this is "Moon Musick", aligning the group's focus with intentionally feminine energies, like tides and cycles of nature. The result in the music is something entirely more atmospheric and ephemeral than much of their prior work.

The album was recorded at a sprawling Victorian manor that Peter Christopherson had purchased in the coastal community of Weston-super-Mare in the UK. He and Balance had set up a recording studio in their new home, and the group, at this time, were augmented by Thighpaulsandra and Drew McDowall.

Their social scene was heavily involved with the consumption of large quantities of MDMA (Ecstasy), the semi-psychedelic party pill popularized by the rave scene of the preceding decade, so the process of recording was done in something of a barely remembered blur of intoxication. It's something rather perfectly captured in the album's opener, Are You Shivering, a reference to the distinct teeth chattering & grinding that occurs with sufficient indulgence in the aforementioned substance. If you've ever taken enough, you will recognize the sensations intimately.

Technically, they were working with some of the latest digital tools that were changing the shape of music making for electronic producers at the time, with Christopherson always keen to work on the cutting edge of the available tech, though there was some balance as well with the use of older gear. Advanced recording software like ProTools and more versatile and sophisticated samplers and synthesizers were combined with vintage gear, like their collection of old rhythm boxes and an Optigan, a keyboard from the 1970s which replaced their unwieldy and unreliable Mellotron and it's tape loops with a much more stable optical flexidisc sound library interface.

Given the nature of the substance abuse involve in the production of the album, one might expect them to have done the obvious thing and delved into the electronic dance music genre, inspired by their late nights at raucous rave-ups, but nothing could be further from the results that came about for this album. The style of the music was predominantly in the ambient vein, though with bizarre intersections through Krautrock influences, similar to early Tangerine Dream, or elements of cocktail jazz, spaced out and slowed down to capture the sense of deep, chill-out late-night altered state listening.

The Lunar conception for the album was intended to be pursued in a series of recordings, with a "Vol. 2" of Musick to Play in the Dark issued the following year, though these were both preceded by the Moon's Milk series of EPs, released in 1998. Collectively, these recordings represent Coil reaching a new peak of creative inspiration, and they have gone on to be valued as some of the group's most accomplished and effective works. They would also provide the momentum for them to take their unique sound on stage in the early 2000s, where they performed many of these pieces in concerts that have since become legendary. Most were documented on video and issued on the limited edition DVD box set, Colour Sound Oblivion.

Unfortunately, this era would be sadly abbreviated by the tragic accidental death of Jhon Balance in 2004, when he tumbled off a balcony in their aforementioned Victorian home. His struggles with substance abuse had taken their toll on both his physical and mental well-being, as well as his relationship with Christopherson, who had recently relocated to Thailand where he would remain based until his own tragic passing in December of 2010.

With both of the group's principal creatives now gone, there has been some confusion in terms of the plethora of reissues that have appeared and who, exactly, has the authority to manage their catalogue. Regardless, the group has left an astonishing canon of work in their wake, with this album sitting among the top of the heap in terms of its significance.

ZERO KAMA - THE SECRET EYE OF L.A.Y.L.A.H. @ 40

Released on cassette in September of 1984, the debut and only full studio album from Zero Kama, The Secret Eye of L.A.Y.L.A.H., turns 40 years old this month. Subsequently reissued on vinyl in 1988, and CD in 1991, with a special edition remastered 30th anniversary edition in 2014, this might be the most sinister sounding album ever created. If any recording is capable of summoning "Evil Dead" style undead demons by playing it, this could be IT!

Austrian native, Michael Sperlhofer, later Michael Dewitt, now Zoe Dewitt, was an avid admirer of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV in the late '70s and early '80s, respectively. Dewitt engaged in frequent correspondence with members of both projects, especially Geoff Rushton (John Balance), before deciding to found the cassette label, Nekrophile Rekords, with the 1983 release of the compilation, The Beast 666. After initially working under the name, Korpses Katatonik, utilizing fairly standard tools such as tape loops and electronics, Dewitt began conceiving of something far more transgressive, leveraging an interest in occult practices, specifically those of Aleister Crowley and his Thelemic esoteric system. Rechristening their project as Zero Kama, Dewitt began making excursions to the mausoleums of the local graveyard, which were often poorly maintained, with minimal or no security, to procure raw materials for this new endeavour. Various skulls, leg and arm bones were collected, dried, cleaned and carved into a collection of ornately decorated percussion and wind instruments. It was a long process requiring painstaking and often grim preparation.

The resulting recordings created with these hand-crafted instruments, were nothing if not evocative of the most clandestine ritual music one could expect to find in the deepest darkest caverns of some obscure Satanic cult. Initially the identity of the creator of this music was kept a bit secret, which helped develop a mythology around the production of the music. Record collectors could only imagine the sorts of depraved ghouls who would put something like this together. Eventually, it would become common knowledge that Dewitt had been the sole creator of these recordings, likely keeping it quiet initially to avoid potential legal issues.

Since its initial release, the album has gone on to become somewhat legendary in avant-garde music circles as one of the more controversial products of the underground music scene. It inspired other artists like Metgubnerbone to go grave robbing for raw materials as well, though not as discretely since they did face legal blow-back from their actions. Dewitt would subsequently put on a couple of live performances as Zero Kama before withdrawing from pursuing the project any further, though in recent years, a revival has taken place. A lecture by Dewitt at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna on April 30, 2015, offered a detailed exploration of the creation of the album and its relationship to the broader spectrum of experimental music at that time. It is linked below and is well worth the time as a unique perspective on the scene.

 

LAND OF THE LOST @ 50

 

Debuting Saturday morning, September 7th, 1974, the classic children's adventure series, Land of the Lost, is marking its 50th anniversary today. Produced by Sid & Marty Kroft, creators of a string of live action Saturday morning puppet fantasies such as H.R. Pufnstuf (1969), The Bugaloos (1970), Lidsville (1971) and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters (1973), Land of the Lost saw the pair shifting gears into a decidedly more mature and dramatic tone for this particular production. Though still leaning into the "stranger in a strange land" trope that had been the common thread through their previous work, this particular series left the surreal psychedelic fantasy creatures behind for something somewhat more realistic, albeit still otherworldly, with a more legitimate science fiction style structure, utilizing less puppetry and more stop motion animation.

Originally conceived by the uncredited David Gerrold, the premise of the show involved the journey of the Marshall family: father Rick, son Will and daughter Holly, who were mysteriously transported to some kind of alternate reality/time/planet, where dinosaurs still roamed alongside a primitive primate species, the Pakuni, and an enigmatic and antagonistic reptilian race, the Sleestak, who had devolved from highly technologically advanced ancestors. Particularly in its first of three seasons, the series focused on relatively sophisticated science fiction concepts, as the stranded Marshalls attempted to find a way home while learning about the strange domain where they found themselves trapped. Though the series was restricted to a minuscule budget by being Saturday morning kid's fair, the Kroft production team were able to recruit some serious genre writers to help with the scripts, including Star Trek luminaries like D.C. Fontana and Walter Koenig and other respected talent such as Larry Niven, Theodore Sturgeon, Ben Bova and Norman Spinrad. With this set of minds creating the stories, the first and second seasons were often surprisingly sophisticated in terms of the concepts being explored, particularly when they introduced the advanced remnant of the Sleestak race, Enik, who helped the Marshall family uncover the mysteries of the pylons and the ancient Altrusian technology for creating dimensional doorways, the means by which the family arrived in this "lost land".

The series lasted for three seasons, though the already limited production values suffered by cutbacks in the third, with the story sophistication giving way to more comical and childish themes. The cast also lost the father as Spencer Milligan quit the series over disputes regarding compensation, especially in relation to the merchandising of the characters for toys and other memorabilia. He was abruptly replaced by an uncle, who conveniently managed to stumble into the same dimensional doorway just ad poor dad gets sucked out. After its cancellation, it went on to be revived in syndication over the years, developing a strong cult following while becoming an iconic source of childhood nostalgia for the generation that grew up watching the series. It even had a successful big budget feature film remake in 2009, though with a decidedly comedic bent with Will Farrell staring as the father.

It was certainly a staple of my Saturday morning viewing when I was a kid, though I was just old enough to recognized its flaws in terms of its budgetary limitation. However, I always found the basic concepts of the fallen advanced civilization fascinating and worthy of more serious development. I could very definitely see this show succeeding with a reboot aimed at a more mature and sophisticated implementation.

THE SLITS - CUT @ 45

Celebrating its 45th anniversary today is the debut LP by The Slits, Cut, which was released on September 7th, 1979. It's an album that would highlight the core of the "girl power" substrata inherent in the punk and post-punk scenes of the era, with a collection of distinctive and innovative songs, influenced and infused by dub reggae and underlined by the DIY idiosyncrasies of the culture.

The band originally came together in late 1976 after founding members Viv Albertine and Palmolive had a stint earlier that year in the mythical Flowers of Romance, a band that never performed live or recorded, but which had a revolving door of notable members who included the likes of Keith Levene (The Clash, Public Image Ltd), Sid Vicious, Marco Pirroni (Adam & the Ants, Siouxsie and the Banshees) and Kenny Morris (also a Banshees member). The impetus for The Slits formation was an October 1976 Patti Smith gig attended by Ari Up, Palmolive and early member, Kate Korus. Ari had got into an argument with her mum, future wife of John Lydon, Nora Foster, before being approached by Palmolive and Kora with the idea to form a band. After an initial lineup shuffle, the principal early lineup stabilized with Ari, Viv, Palmolive and Tessa Pollit.

This configuration of the group spent the next couple of years performing and touring, mostly as a support act, often with bands like The Clash, Buzzcocks or The Jam as headliners. Their early sound was characterized by the dominance of Palmolive's primal, tribal aggressive drumming style. However, after she left the group late in 1978, joining The Raincoats by January of 1979, the addition of future Banshees drummer, Budgie, had a profound effect on the band's sound. His style helped to push them into the more refined, bass heavy dub reggae influenced sound that would be their calling card by the time they got to recording their debut LP.

Recorded at Ridge Farm Studios in Rusper and produced by Dennis Bovell, the album was a proper fusion of punk and reggae, two musical styles which had intertwined throughout the previous few years, without being a case of cultural appropriation. What the group took as influence was a sincere hybridization, rather than a case of white people ripping off black music. It had its own originality and distinction that was completely idiosyncratic to The Slits. Provocatively packaged in a cover showing the band's female members topless, covered in mud and sporting loincloths, it was a thumb in the eye to the concept of sexual exploitation and, rather, was a proclamation of female empowerment, with the album's title, as it was, being but one letter shy of obscenity. These girls weren't anyone's playthings or victims, and were in complete control of their creative process and what it manifested.

Cut's mark has been noted on several musical movements. The Guardian's Lindesay Irvine saw the album explore "adventurous" sonics while maintaining a "defiant" attitude. This included a full embrace of Jamaican music influences, with which he credited the Slits as one of the first bands to do so. Indeed, PopMatters felt that Cut spoke to post-punk's appropriation of dub and reggae clearer than any other of the genre's records. While only modestly successful at its release, it has become enshrined as one of the essential albums to have come from the UK punk scene of the late 1970s. It may have taken some time for the band to get a record on the shelves, but it sure was worth waiting for.
 

PHASE IV @ 50

 

Celebrating its 50th anniversary today is the classic science fiction macro-photography masterpiece, Phase IV, which had its theatrical release on September 6th, 1974. Inspired by an H.G. Wells short story from 1905, Empire of the Ants, the film featured groundbreaking cinematography of its insect stars, and may have provided the instigation for the crop circle phenomenon to boot!

The idea for Phase IV was apparently hatched over cocktails in 1971, when Peter Bart at Paramount had dinner with Raul Radin and asked him, "What's cooking?" Radin responded, "an ant story", though he actually had nothing. Radin subsequently called graphic designer, Saul Bass, who had a friend who worked with ants and they quickly agreed to work together. Bass was hired as the film's director, though he was mostly known as a graphic artist, creating title and credit sequences and posters for feature films, with a list of credits that included such major releases as Psycho, Spartacus, Ocean's 11, West Side Story, and dozens of others. Ken Middleham, the wildlife photographer who shot the insect sequences for Phase IV, also shot the insect sequences for the documentary The Hellstrom Chronicle. Both feature extensive use of macro-photography of insects.

The film tells the story of an isolated research station in Arizona that comes under siege by a colony of mysteriously evolved intelligent ants. This hive mind organism begins creating megalithic architectural structures in the desert and engaging in tactical assaults on the research station in response to its various provocations and experiments. The activities of the ants are depicted in striking macro-photography scenes, where real ants are shown performing a variety of seemingly intelligent behaviours, many of which beg the question of how they were coaxed to perform so perfectly on cue. There's even a scene where the ants create a crop circle, the first known appearance of such a construct on screen. The film predates by two years the first modern reports of crop circles in the United Kingdom and it has been cited as a possible inspiration or influence on the pranksters who started this phenomenon. Though the setting is in the US, actual principal photography was done at Pinewood Studios in England and exterior locations were shot in Kenya. In addition to the spectacular insect photography, the film is also notable for featuring real computer systems, like the GEC 2050, rather than faked props.

While the film was a solid flop in its theatrical release, it began accumulating a cult audience as it made its way onto TV movie night broadcasts, and further solidified its cult standing by being featured in an early episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Contemporary critical reviews were mixed, with Jay Cocks of Time saying the film was "good, eerie entertainment, with interludes of such haunted visual intensity that it becomes, at its best, a nightmare incarnate", while A. H. Weiler of The New York Times wrote, "For all of its good, scientific and human intentions, 'Phase IV' cries for a Phase V of fuller explanations." Perhaps it didn't help that an extended ending montage showing the post-revolution impacts of the new "ant empire" was chopped out of the final edit for the theatrical release and lost for decades before being rediscovered and included as bonus material on later HD remastered discs and streaming releases. As a result of its box office failure, it was the only feature Saul Bass ever directed.

I saw the film as a kid on TV in the mid 1970s and immediately fell in love with it. The idea of an evolved, intelligent hive-mind ant colony was a totally unique conception for me, long before the Borg would appear on Star Trek, and it remains a theme that has stood the test of time quite well. I've recently watched it again in a lovely HD version and it retains a maturity and sophistication that make it an essential title in the realm of '70s science fiction classics. The astounding insect photography alone is worth the price of admission, and a cracking good story to boot makes it all a worthy viewing experience.

HAWKWIND - HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN GRILL @ 50

 

Celebrating its golden jubilee today, hitting the half century mark on its journey through deep space, the forth studio album by space-rock pioneers, Hawkwind, Hall of the Mountain Grill, was released on September 6th, 1974. The album saw the group going through one of its many lineup changes, with with lyricist/vocalist Robert Calvert and electronic effects wizard, Dik Mik departed and replaced with Simon House on synthesizer, Mellotron and electric violin. Future Motörhead founder, Lemmy Kilmister, was still with the band, though this would be his last time working with them before he got dumped while on tour in the US.

Despite the turbulence of the personnel changes, particularly significant without the conceptual guidance of Calvert, the album is still considered by many as a career highlight. In the wake of Robert Calvert's departure, lead vocals for the album were performed by Dave Brock, along with Lemmy on "Lost Johnny" and Nik Turner on "D-Rider". The band's line-up would continue to shift during the year. Del Dettmar left prior to the release of Hall of the Mountain Grill to live in Canada, and Alan Powell joined as an additional drummer. Science fiction author and friend of the group, Michael Moorcock, stepped in to read poetry at their concerts.[

The album's title was a nod to Edvard Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King", and to a Portobello Road cafe called The Mountain Grill (now closed), which was frequented by the band and their contemporaries from the Ladbroke Grove scene in the early 1970s. Hawkwind's frequent solo support act and occasional live guest musician Steve Peregrin Took had a song "The Ballad of the Mountain Grill," released in 1995 on a Cleopatra Records CD under alternative title "Flophouse Blues (in the Mountain Grill)". At one point, underground newspaper International Times had its print-works in the upstairs of the Grill.

Hall of the Mountain Grill reached number 16 on the UK album charts and number 110 in the US. Retrospective reviews have been generally positive. Though they were critical of the title track, AllMusic called Hall of the Mountain Grill "The band's best studio album" and "the quintessential guitar-oriented space rock record". Head Heritage were far less impressed, contending that the departures of Robert Calvert and Dik Mik were losses that Hawkwind could not remotely compensate for, and that the entire album "has the undeniable feel of a stop-gap album released half-desperately to keep the machinery of Hawkwind's constant touring well-greased". Regardless of the lack of critical consensus, it's one of the band's albums that I can return to repeatedly for a proper dose of their patented intergalactic musical excursions.

FRONT 242 - NO COMMENT @ 40

Marking 40 years on the shelf this month is the sophomore LP from Belgian EBM pioneers, Front 242, with No Comment being released in September of 1984. The album contains the actual first documented use of the term "electronic body music" in the album's credits, which included the phrase "Electronic Body Music Composed and Produced On Eight Tracks by Front 242", a reference to their use of an 8-track recording device. Although Cabaret Voltaire had arguably cut the first stylistic swath into the EBM genre with their Crackdown LP from the previous year, Front 242 codified the style on this release.

The key elements for this music came from the new generation of synths, drum machines and sequencers that were taking over the gear racks at the time. The introduction of digital sample based drum machines allowed for a much tighter and tougher drum sound than what was typical with earlier analogue machines, while the more sophisticated digital "composer" style sequencers allowed for much more complex arrangements than the primitive step sequencers that preceded them. There was also the introduction of a new generation of synthesizers, incorporating "FM" digital synthesis, which also broadened the musical palettes available to electronic artists. This trifecta of innovations directly fed into the evolution of EBM as the dominating alternative variant on the dance floor in the mid 1980s. No Comment became a blueprint for a genre that has continued to thrive in various branches over the past forty years.

BOURBONESE QUALK - HOPE @ 40

 

Celebrating its 40th anniversary this month is the sophomore LP from Bourbese Qualk, Hope, which was released in September of 1984. Bourbonese Qualk began in Southport (UK) in 1979 when Simon Crab and his brother Ted began working together to create experimental music. By the recording of Hope, the band were a trio consisting of Simon Crab: Instruments and electronics, Julian Gilbert: Voice and electronics and Steven Tanza: Drums. Although they get lumped in as part of the second wave of the UK "industrial" scene, their style was diverse enough that the fit into that box was always misleading, though their style could come close to early Cabaret Voltaire in terms of their penchant for funky grooves combined with strange noises.

Like their punk counterpart, CRASS, they were highly politically active and, by the time of recording this album, had squatted a large abandoned building, The Ambulance Station, converting it into a studio and communal artist space. Working independently, they released their albums on their own label imprint, Recloose Organisation. Though Hope was their second vinyl LP, the group were also extremely active in the cassette tape exchange culture, where they released a number of cassette only titles. Hope saw the group expanding its musical palette to incorporate a wider variety of styles and instruments.

During the 1980s the group were quite visible as they were often contributors to numerous compilation releases of the time. That's where I first encountered them, on releases like The Elephant Table. They fell into neglect after their peak in the mid 1980s, though they continued to release albums sporadically up to 2003, mostly with Simon Crab as the principal contributor. I'd nearly forgotten about the group through the 1990s and early 2000s, but found myself rediscovering them at the beginning of the new millennium. Their entire catalogue was initially archived on their website and available for free for many years, but a reissue campaign in recent years has helped revive interest in the band as their albums can now be purchased via Bandcamp.

NURSE WITH WOUND - CHANCE MEETING ON A DISSECTING TABLE OF A SEWING MACHINE AND UMBRELLA @ 45

 

Marking its 45th anniversary this month is the debut album from Nurse With Wound, Chance Meeting On a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and Umbrella, which was recorded in September of 1979. In addition to introducing the world to one of the UK's most unusual post-punk experimental concoctions, it provided collectors of strange music with one of the most useful laundry lists of artists ever assembled.

Prior to forming Nurse With Wound, Steven Stapleton was an avid record collector with a refined penchant for the strangest and most unusual music he was able to track down. As a graphic artist, commercially employed as a sign painter, he'd developed a passion for surrealism and sought out music that reflected that aesthetic. The founding of Nurse With Wound (NWW) then came about as a bit of rather serendipitous fortune, due to one of Stapleton's sign painting jobs for an independent recording studio. While on the job, Steven got to chatting with one of the engineers, Nick Rogers, who began lamenting his boredom with recording commercials and voice-over work, musing how he would love to be able to work on something more adventurous and creative. That twigged Stapleton, who immediately offered Rogers the opportunity to record his "band", an entity that didn't actually exist at the time. It was a moment of seizing an opportunity, with the practical aspects being left to work themselves out, after the fact. Stapleton immediately contacted two of his close music collector buddies, John Fothergill and Heman Pathak, instructing them to get hold of instruments for a recording session, thus establishing NWW's first official lineup.

The trio booked a six hour session for one day in the studio and showed up with their gear and no idea of what they were going to do, as they'd spent no time rehearsing or planning anything. For the recordings, the "group" was Stapleton on percussion, Fothergill on guitar (with built-in ring modulator) and Pathak on organ. Engineer Rogers also contributed what was credited as "commercial guitar". The studio's piano and synthesizer were also used. The session consisted entirely of on-the-spot improvisations that shook out into three different movements that were subsequently edited slightly and given a few minor overdubs before they were able to walk away with a finished mix of their debut album at the end of the session.

The trio then decided to release the recordings via their own newly minted label imprint, United Dairies, utilizing a vinyl pressing plant that normally specialized in classical recordings, to ensure the quality of the pressing was best able to capture the recording's dynamic range. 500 copies were pressed for its first run. The group's name came from a scene in the film Battleship Potemkin, and the album's title is a quote from the surreal poetic novel, Les Chants de Maldoror, by Uruguayan-born French author Isidore-Lucien Ducasse, written under the pseudonym Comte de Lautréamont. Stapleton designed the cover utilizing images pilfered from pornographic magazines, which resulted in some outlets insisting on the album being concealed in a brown paper bag, though some of the more adventurous outlets, like Virgin and Rough Trade, were happy to let it be seen in all its kinky glory. Here, I've cleverly plastered a NWW logo over the offending portion to thwart Facebook filters!

The original hand-numbered 500 copy pressing was sold within weeks. Among those who bought the album were Tim Gane, later of Stereolab, and William Bennett of Whitehouse, both of whom would later work with Stapleton. Critical response to the album was also surprisingly positive, if not a bit confused. Sounds summed up their response by abandoning their usual star rating system to award the album a full 5 question marks! In later reviews, the album has been lauded as "one of the more glowing examples of late-70s industrial noise" (All Music), and FACT magazine ranked the album at #51 on their list of "The 100 best albums of the 1970s".

One of the most influential aspects of the record's packaging was the inclusion of an A4 printout of the now infamous "Nurse With Wound List", a veritable "who's who" of experimental musical performers from the era prior to the record's release, all of whom were considered influential by the band. Dozens of artists were cited in the list, which has become an invaluable resource for collectors of strange and unusual music from that era. Having been mentioned on the "List" has become something of a guarantee that avid collectors will likely be hunting for your records, and has undoubtedly resulted in numerous reissues of rare releases in the ensuing years since its first publication.

Chance Meeting... has subsequently seen a number of represses and reissues, some of which have expanded its contents, like the 2001 CD special edition that added the fourth track, "Strain, Crack, Break", which consists of a heavily cut-up recording of David Tibet reading the "List". Though certainly a notable example of experimental improvisation, the album is not particularly indicative of what NWW would soon become. The lineup for the band would quickly diverge, leaving Stapleton as the sole proprietor of the venture by the third album. His techniques and approaches would rapidly develop over the course of those early releases as well, with the album, Homotopy to Marie (1982) being the release where the true NWW sound and aesthetic, in all its sophistication and complexity, would first come into its full flower. Since then, NWW has involved innumerable collaborators and a vast range of approaches and styles, with its output continuing to rank as some of the most collectible artifacts of the underground music scene. 

The "List" included with the album is documented here...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurse_with_Wound_list

The album can be streamed and purchased from Bandcamp.
https://nursewithwound1.bandcamp.com/.../chance-meeting...