Various Artists

British Cassette-Culture: Recordings 1975-1984

Genre: INDUSTRIAL / WAVE / ELECTRO

8LP + 2x7" Boxset

Boomkat Product Review:

Vinyl on Demand go behind the curtains and between the cracks of British Cassette Culture - Recordings 1975 - 1984 to present an unprecedented haul of little known but totally amazing tapes on vinyl for the first time ever...

Having already ticked off American and German cassette cultures, the series now fine-combs the pivotal British tape scene to fill in the collective blind spots in our rearview with blinders such as Ron Crowcroft’s febrile Mundane Recordings, the wigged-out synth razz and eldritch chamber music of Those Little Aliens, or the space disco frolics of Stephen Cadman. And we won’t lie; we’ve never heard any of their names before, either.

Perhaps the only name we do recognise is Legendary Pink Dots, whose wonderful mix of Canterbury pop, jazz-funk and chemically-influenced experiments in Premonition (1982) makes for a big highlight, but half the fun in these comps is being schuled on the niches you never knew existed, and that’s also where they excel this time.

From the certifiable psychedelia of Kevin Harrison’s pineal rabbit holes, to the lustrous pastoral panoramas of Ron Berry, thru All The Madmen’s punky drum machine funk and the charming variation of Carl Matthews - covering sci-fi black holes to proto-techno daftness - we can almost guarantee very few people even know of their existence, let alone have heard them.

Again, we doff our caps to V-O-D for introducing us to another batch of amazing music from the margins, and can’t recommend it any higher to diggers, completists and curious souls alike. It's surely one of the most far-searching collections of the British electronic underground of the early 80's and as such serves as an indespensible primer for any of you with an interest in the most fertile period of British D.I.Y. culture.

The box set includes:

- Those Little Aliens / This Little Alien (Ian Dobson / Gordon Hope) (1Lp plus 7inch) Recordings 1980/81, Flowmotion and Un-Ltd Abilities-Label

- Ron Berry Where Dark Forced Meet (Flowmotion, 1982) (1Lp)

- Legendary Pink Dots Premonition (Flowmotion, 1982) (1lp plus 7inch)

- Stephen Cadman Big Smith Stays in Bed, Flowmotion, 1981) (1Lp)

- All the Madman Early Recordings (1Lp)

- Carl Matthews Tape-Recordings 1979-83 (1Lp)

- Kevin Harrison Recordings 1975-1985 (1Lp)

- Ron Crowcroft Mundane Recordings 1980-1983 (1Lp)

8LP + 2x7" Boxset (8)

Epic 8LP + 2x7” set housed in canvas box with foil embossed printing. Edition of 333 including individually numbered inserts. All the material is on vinyl for the first time ever.

Play All 8LP + 2x7" Boxset (8)