JOHN BENDER

Memories of mindless mechanical monologues 1976-1985 (New Edition)

Genre: INDUSTRIAL / WAVE / ELECTRO

7LP Deluxe Box Set

Boomkat Product Review:

**Deluxe 7LP set in a sublime foil stamped box - limited to 200 individually numbered copies with certificate and bonus 7". A holy grail for all wave riders - so damn good** John Bender is commonly referred to as the "godfather" or "inventor" of minimal wave electronics. Thanks to some proper detective work, Frank Maier and the Vinyl-on-Demand team reassert the reclusive auteur's rightful status with this comprehensive collection, reissuing his three self-released LPs on Record Sluts and his four official tapes for the first time, together with previously unreleased material recorded pre and post his short lived but influential period 1980-83. It comprises a genuinely unique body of work; a strangely affecting voice and artfully purified avant-pop aesthetic which evolved in relative isolation and whose influence pre-saged myriad strains of minimal acid, techno and esoteric electronic expression. Perhaps of most interest to the longtime fan are the three previously unheard sides. Dating to 1976, 'Boom Ober Babasooma' is the most conventional work here, bearing obvious influence from Robert Wyatt's pop work with The Soft Machine in seven surprisingly well-developed experiments. But it really starts to get interesting as he begins to unlearn the rules and develop his taste for dissonant timbre and queered pitch on the six tracks of 'Beep Squeek Hum Squawk', whose relative primitivism is subsequently cast into sharp relief against the avant-pop intuition of the side-long 1985 soundtrack extract 'Johnny Vortex'. Joining the dots, (chronologically, at least) we find his run of work produced and self-released between 1978 and 1983. From the sharply-contoured rhythms, concise structuring and soured synth tones of his debut LP 'I Don't Remember Now / I Don't Want To Talk About It', matters get crucially urgent with the lean and itchy experimentalism of 'Plaster Falling'. And we discover his very rarest, practically impossible-to-find material on the run of cassettes; in the pinging quicksilver refractions of 1982's 'Packing List', and later with absolute must-haves like the martial bounce of 'Galacial' from '83s 'Pop Surgery'. Packaged together, this can be considered a definitive root for the possibilities of stripped down and futuristic electronics, and comes with the strongest recommendation to anyone interested in that nexus where the likes of Tara Cross, Veronica Vasicka and Blackest Ever Black congregate. A final note - it might be pricey, but it's nowt compared with 2nd hand costs!!! This is just an incredible find - don't miss out.

7LP Deluxe Box Set (3)