Peter Hope returns!

One of the most-represented artists on this blog has been industrial soul growler Peter Hope: as the frontman for Sheffield skronkmeisters The Box, in partnership with David Harrow for the Sufferhead EP, lead singer of Chain and Flex 13, and in collaboration with Jonathan "Jono" Podmore, about which he writes, "I am proud to say that, for my money it remains one of the most compromising & uncommercial albums of all time." (You can listen to it here... and then buy it!) Noisy, visceral, and vital, Peter Hope's music marries punk, free jazz, and electronic avant-garde, and is some of the most exciting music of the late 20th century. But this is all by way of introduction to the following announcement:

I am overjoyed to report that Peter Hope is back! The short version is that he is once again excited about the music scene and has moved to Glasgow from a self-imposed exile in the Outer Hebrides to start his own label, Wrong Revolution, for the purpose of reissuing music from his own extensive catalog (under the Exploding Mind moniker) and also releasing "material by NEW & ESTABLISHED bands & artists with a focus on the EXPERIMENTAL & CHALLENGING end of the Sonic Spectrum" (as Wrong Way Up). (See Pete's full statement here.) The first two Exploding Mind releases are out now: a cassette called Loud/Wrong/Proud (about which more later), and a CD called Hoodoo Dance. Hoodoo Dance is a generous 17-track sampler of both released and unreleased material spanning Pete's entire career (so far), with tracks from Hoodoo, Soup, The Box, Peter Hope/David Harrow ("Too Hot", one of the best songs of the 80s IMO), Flex 13, White Trash, Chain, and two solo tracks. A lot of the material on it I have never even heard before! Hoodoo, Soup, and White Trash are all new to me, and it's great stuff! I can't help thinking this is what Tom Waits thought he was doing on Bone Machine. Anyway, Hoodoo Dance is up for streaming and digital download purchase on Bandcamp, and a CD is available from Klanggalerie. And since Bandcamp streams are embeddable, here it is to listen to right here:

Nort - G.O.D.A.M.B.

Sheffield's mighty "industrial funk" movement of the 80s fizzled out by the end of that decade. Cabaret Voltaire went house and then split up; Eric Random went AWOL; Chakk and Workforce disintegrated; and the band that best embodied the whole genre, Hula, disbanded despite securing a US record deal with Wax Trax. Hula's catalog has thankfully been reissued in digital form in recent years, but here is a related item that has not. Nort was Hula's drummer, and he put out a solo album in 1988 on Ediesta Records, Games Of Dance And Muscle Blood, usually listed in acronym form as G.O.D.A.M.B. Nort provides drums, percussion, voice, tapes, samples, bass guitar, treatments, sequencers, and keyboards, and is supported by a rather large cast of musicians:

• Justin Bennett - drums, percussion, violin, samples, treatments, keyboards
• D. I. Anii - drums
• D'Silva - saxophone, keyboards
• Sara - Voices
• Alan Fisch - samples, treatments
• Barry Harden - bass guitar
• Dave Heppinstall - keyboards, voice, treatments, percussion
• Sarah Morrell - trumpet
• Alan Russell - guitar
• Phaedre Selmes - voices
• Phil Wolstenholme - kazoo

It's not quite a Great Lost Hula Album, but about half of it could be: the opener "It's A Dream" could almost fit on Voice, the short "Luther's Scream" sounds like Murmur-era Hula, and there are a couple ambient tracks that would sound at home on Hula's improvised Shadowland LP. Three other rhythm-oriented tracks are in the distinctive Sheffield funk vein but are more akin to Workforce's uptempo "Back in the Good Books." Which leaves a few tracks of odds and ends somewhere between ambient and rhythmic. G.O.D.A.M.B. is thus an essential record for, well, anyone who follows this blog! Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Nort has been active in two bands of late, Yonni and The Cherokees. He has also published an autobiography, A Kill Ease, through Lulu.com.

The cover of G.O.D.A.M.B., while it has some interesting elements, is a bit of a mess. It was designed by Metroviral Visuals, which was Anthony Bennett, now a respected sculptor (and MBE awardee) whose bronze tribute to Beatrix Potter now stands in Bowness-on-Mere.

Peter Hope - Kitchenette, Leather Hands, Surgeons 12-inches

I have had little time for ripping lately, but I do have an exciting external contribution to present: three 12-inch singles by Sheffield wild man Peter Hope from the heady 80s. Many thanks to reader Alex for passing the rips along! They are:

Peter Hope & the Jonathan S. Podmore Method - Kitchenette (1986)

1. Kitchenette
2. Toilet (non-LP track)
3. The Unknown Industrial Fatality

Peter Hope & Richard H. Kirk - Leather Hands (1985)

1. Leather Hands (Master Mix) (ten minutes long!)
2. Leather Hands (Radio Mix)
3. Leather Hands (Crash Mix)

Peter Hope & Richard H. Kirk - Surgeons/N.O. (1988)

1. Surgeons (12inch mixxx)
2. Surgeons (Beats)
3. Surgeons (Resurgancy)
4. N.O. (12inch mixxx)
5. N.O. (Dub Beats)
6. N.O. (Giant Dub)

Each record is in its own folder, all three folders in one .zip file: get it here or here. Links removed: Kitchenette to be reissued soon!

Surface Mutants - You Take Me Somewhere Strange

This time the Lost In the Grooves blog has a summary (by Erik of Cult With No Name) upon which I cannot improve so I will simply paste it in here:

smalltime Sheffield combo Surface Mutants only managed one standalone EP, but nonetheless warrant special mention as one of the better obscure bands to record at Cabaret Voltaire’s legendary Western Works studio.it’s hard to resist confirming that ‘You Take Me Somewhere Strange (and you leave me there)’ does anything else than just that. the Cabs’ tinny, scratchy production gives the EP a quite pleasant, if decidedly dissonant, ambiance. the simple bass lines, frequent drum fills and taught guitars of ‘Train’ and ‘Help Below’ rely heavily on varying degrees of phaser, delay and reverb, with additional electronics hissing randomly in and out of the mix. the creepy title track, by contrast, abandons the undanceable funk for something that sounds nothing short of the early Cabs attempting to cover ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’, complete with anguished, largely indecipherable, vocals. complete with ill-fitting goth cover art to (somewhat) mislead you, this record is certainly far from superficial.

The year of release was 1982. "You Take Me Somewhere Strange" has always reminded me of "Bela Lugosi's Dead," so I'm glad to see someone else feels the same way about it. Band member Pete Mutant replied to the blog entry:

Blimey. Just for verification, Kent had left to join the Chant, Nort [later of Hula] was with us on Drums and noises, Jules had left, Christine Parker was on sax, Angie Birkett on keyboards (and very good too). Richard [Kirk] was responsible for many of the indecipherable vocals.

Another reader found that Angie Birkett (now Holmes) is now active in the band Siiiii. Get the Surface Mutants vinyl rip here or here.

John Stuart - Summer Breeze

At the height of their success, Sheffield band Chakk had two singers, Jake Harries and John Stuart. Harries had the gritty voice, Stuart the soulful croon. According to Burl Veneer's Music Blog:

Richard Hawley is currently riding a wave of popularity in the UK as the "Sheffield Sinatra," but in 1987 he played guitar behind velvet-voiced ex-Chakk singer John Stuart on Stuart's only solo single, a cover of Seals and Crofts' "Summer Breeze." You will never hear a lusher version. (There's that unmistakable Designers Republic graphic style again.) Rounding out the backing band, billed as The Heavenly Music Corporation, are Dee Boyle (drums, also from Chakk), Darrell de Silva (sax), Jon Quarmby (keyboards), Justin Bennett (percussion), and Heather Allen (backing vocals), with production by Rob Gordon. Alas, that was all from The Heavenly Music Corporation as such. Stuart would go on to be a member of the Lovebirds (with Hawley) and Magic Bullets. He now lives in Barcelona and continues making lovely music as one-half of Forgetting, and on his own as, once again, The Heavenly Music Corporation.

Presented here is "Summer Breeze" and the B-side, "Black and Blue (Parts 1 and 2)"; get the vinyl rip here or here. (Please let me know if the Rapidshare caps downloads at 10 grabs; I am not happy about this new limitation and am looking for workarounds.)

Flex 13 - Candy

Here's a belated return to my Peter Hope discography project. This time we have Candy, the second CD recorded by Peter Hope and his bandmate from The Box, Charlie Collins, as Flex 13. (See here for the first, Paint My Legs.) Recorded in 1998 and 1999, Candy is a livelier affair than Paint My Legs. "Nothing Starts" is a dead ringer for early Clock DVA (Charlie Collins period), and ex-DVA and Box-man Paul Widger adds guitar to "Leader of the Pack" (co-written by John Wills, who plays on that track and the other one he co-wrote, "Back of Your Mind"). Also guesting is Jonathan S. Podmore, a.k.a. Kumo (a.k.a. Jono), who plays theremin on "Picking Up Speed." Here's the full track list:

1. Listen Doctor
2. Nothing Starts
3. Birdman Falling
4. Uptown Crank
5. Grease Junkie
6. Picking Up Speed
7. Your Drugs Are Killing Me
8. Leader of the Pack
9. Ditch I'm In
10. Back of Your Mind

It's a fine addition to the Hope/Collins opus, and the last one that I'm aware of. (If you know otherwise, please let me know in the comments.) Get the CD rip here or here.

Flex 13 - Paint My Legs

Peter Hope and Charlie Collins of Sheffield no-wave band The Box (and Clock DVA, in Collins' case), who broke up in 1985, resurfaced in 1998 as Flex 13. They released a CD on Liquid Records called Paint My Legs, which is described on the back cover as "A recording of sonically degraded cinemorphic sidewinder blues... (Flex) 13 uneasy listenings for the escalator down." (Because there are 13 tracks.) Hope is credited with "voice/instruments/theft," Collins with "instruments/boxes/wires." It's a much lower-key affair than The Box; the joyous, frenetic cacophony is gone, replaced by slow to mid-tempo blues and dub beats, often sampled and looped (I assume that's the "theft"). Hope's vocals rarely rise above a murmured growl, with none of the yelping and bursting energy of his 80s work. It's not bad; it seems to have come out of the whole chill-out craze of the 90s, but it has more character than most music in that genre, as you can see from the song titles:

1. Blind
2. Trip To The Root
3. Schizophrenic Lover
4. Give Me Wings
5. Ghost Run
6. Nuthin'
7. Burning Arms
8. (conscious withdrawal)
9. Lucky
10. Black Air
11. Wheelhouse
12. 5:53 Madness
13. (broken)

The variety of instrumental sounds is also interesting; in that respect it bears some similarity to Dry Hip Rotation. No Peter Hope collection can be complete without it. Get it here or here.

(This is the most recent recording of Peter Hope I've been able to find. If you know of any newer material, please let me know in the comments.)

The Box - Great Moments In Big Slam

This post is made possible by a generous gentleman from Sheffield, who donated his copies of two records by The Box to fill in the gaps of the blog's Box discography. In 1983 Go! Discs released "Old Style Drop Down" from the Secrets Out album as a single; presented here is the 12" version, with an extended mix on the A-side and the original mix on the B-side, plus the non-LP track "Momentum." Then in 1984 The Box recorded the 8-song mini-album Great Moments In Big Slam and came as close to success as they ever would: their label Go! Discs had struck a distribution deal with Chrysalis. Unfortunately the increased marketing muscle could not sell the general public on The Box, who (thankfully) had not made any concessions to the mainstream in their recordings; on Great Moments In Big Slam Peter Hope and the crew are as skronky as ever. The Box were subsequently dropped from Go! Discs and went on to make just one more studio record (the Muscle In EP) before disbanding. Their final release was the live album Muscle Out, which is my only remaining hole in the discography. When I get ahold of it, and it's just a matter of time, be assured that I will post it here. Until then, thanks to our donor, here are Great Moments In Big Slam and Old Style Drop Down. (Or here.) The Box's reedman, Charlie Collins, is still active in the Sheffield free jazz scene, though he plays mostly percussion instruments now. See here for more info.

Peter Hope & the Jonathan S. Podmore Method - Dry Hip Rotation

Here is another of Peter Hope's one-off collaborations after the breakup of The Box in 1985. 1986's Dry Hip Rotation, recorded with Jonathan "Jono" Podmore (who would later become known as Kumo) has Hope's trademark growl/howl and off-the-wall lyrics over decidedly unconventional backing tracks (even for Hope). Podmore supplies most of the instrumentation, which includes: half-pound baking tin, cutlery, Parkinson Cowan oven, Robot Chef, plates, Hoover Junior, Creda Tumble Drier 400, C. Z. Gate, stone, tapes, EMS Synthi AKS, stairs, harmonica, ceramics, four pound sledgehammer, prepared piano, violin, rhythm box, two foot scaffolding section, EMS VCS 3, drills, screams, and masonry chisel. Cabaret Voltaire fellow-traveler Alan Fish provides percussion on a few tracks, and there are also guest spots by Sheffield noise mavens John Janosch and Charlie Collins. All this came six years before Tom Waits would impress everyone and reignite his career with a similar approach on Bone Machine. Coincidence? Get Dry Hip Rotation here or here. (Links removed: album reissued!) Hope and Podmore recorded one more song together, "Toilet", which appears only on the 12" single of "Kitchenette." I don't have that one; if anyone can supply a rip of "Toilet" I'll add it to the DRH archive; please leave a note in the comments.

Workforce

We go back to 1980s Sheffield today for the entire catalog of industrial funk band Workforce, who put out just two 12-inch singles, but they're among the best of that time and place. The first was "Skin Scraped Back" in 1985, released on Cabaret Voltaire's Doublevision label (and that stamp of approval should carry more weight than anything I could write). The record contains two mixes of the title track plus "Heap the Blame." The lineup:

Paul Wheatcroft: Vocals Guitar Violin Keyboards
Alan Fisch: Drums Percussion Tapes/Treatments
Rod Leigh: Guitar Keyboards Tapes Voice
Tim Owen: Wind Instruments Percussion Keyboards
Special thanks to Adi Hardy Bass Guitar

The throbbing bassline really makes the song tick; Workforce comes across as a harder-edged Chakk. I found an interesting post on the Sheffield forum from Tim Owen about Amrik Rai, the NME music writer who co-founded FON Records:

He always seemed to have some project or other up his sleeve when I briefly knew him. I played in Chakk rivals, Workforce for a while [sax, percussion, keys, tapes]. Rai interviewed us for NME after our first Peel Session and single, but the NME interview mysteriously never saw the light. I put it down to the fact that he was also the manager of Chakk, and didn't want similar [although more experimental] bands such as Workforce and Hula to steal Chakk's thunder.

In 1986 Workforce released their second and last record, the "Back in the Good Books" 12-inch on Rorschach Testing.





Again, there are two mixes of the title track (which cranks the tempo up a couple notches from "Skin"), and one more song, "This Is the One," which sounds uncannily like Chakk. The lineup is the same but now three members have "programming" in their credits, and special thanks go to Terry Todd (of The Box) who I presume played bass. And that's all there is from Workforce, except for another remix of "Skin Scraped Back" from Abstract Magazine 6 (Audio/Visual), which I have included for completeness' sake. Get it here or here.

Chain - Banging on the House/Chains 12"

Here's another of singer Peter Hope's post-Box collaborations from 1985 (I think; there's no date on the record or the sleeve), this one with Mark Estdale as Chain. Estdale was an audio engineer who worked on several great Sheffield records, many by Hula (who are really my favorites from that scene, but will not be included here since they have reissued their records for paid digital download); in Chain he contributes "drums and programming." Chain only released this 12" single (Native Records NTV 2): "Banging on the House" (with Robin Markin on piano, Simon DC Markham on bass, and Elaine Mcleod on backing vocals) backed with "Chains" (with Alan Russell on guitar, a press hammer sample from Dexian Ilust, a high tom sample from Hula's drummer Nort, and bass from someone uncredited, I would guess it's Markham again). "Chains" has the edge here, working into a killer funk groove a few minutes in, another Lost Classic, but the A-side is perfectly good industrial funk as well. Links removed: track reissued on Peter Hope's Exploding Mind - Hoodoo Dance.

The Box - Muscle In

After 1984's Great Moments in Big Slam LP (which I missed getting, somehow), The Box were dropped from Go! Discs. They recorded four more tracks in Cabaret Voltaire's Western Works studio in October 1984 and released them on the Cabs' Doublevision label as Muscle In (DVR 10). The manic Box energy is still there, but Charlie Collins's woodwinds are notably more melodic; take away the vocals and some of this material could pass for A Primary Industry (or their later incarnation, Ultramarine). Richard Kirk produced "radical remixes" of two of the tracks for a promotional 12", DVR P1.

According to brainwashed.com this was a very limited edition, with as few as 200 copies pressed. Fortunately I have one of them, so I've included the so-called Muscle Mix 12" as well. Links removed: track reissued on Peter Hope's Exploding Mind - Hoodoo Dance.

Peter Hope & David Harrow - Sufferhead EP

After the demise of The Box in 1985, vocalist Peter Hope embarked on a number of one-off collaborations. I'm not positive of the chronology, but I think the first one was the Sufferhead EP (Ink Records, 1985), his project with synth whiz David Harrow (now known as James Hardway). The A side, "Too Hot," features a slamming breakbeat and some memorable lyrics from Hope, and is a genuine Lost Classic of 80s industrial dance music. The B side contains three songs: the rhythmic (but undanceable) "Buckle Down," and the more abstract pieces "(Excerpt from) Bright Boys" and "Snakes Washed In." Get it here or here. (Links removed at artist's request: look for reissues!)

Chakk - 10 Days In An Elevator

Chakk, the industrial funk outfit from Sheffield, only released a single album, 10 Days In An Elevator, on MCA in 1986. They got signed to MCA on the strength of their singles on the Doublevision on FON labels (and presumably some demos), got a huge advance, spent it building FON Studios, and proceeded to record the album. However, somewhere they lost the special ingredient that made their singles so spectacular (available here), and 10 Days is a bit of a sprawling mess of funky basslines, tape manipulations, sax riffs, and shouted slogans that never quite comes together. On the plus side, there's plenty of it: packaged with the 8-song album was a bonus 4-track EP. It's far from terrible, in fact I quite enjoyed listening to it again to prepare this post. In advance of the album's release, "Imagination (Who Needs a Better Life)" was released as a single, with three different mixes on the 12". But with no clear followup single* the album stiffed and Chakk were dropped from MCA. They posted a strong return to form, once again on the FON label, with the "Timebomb" single (also available on my first Chakk post), but without enough success to keep the band together. Here, then (or here) is the entire 10 Days album plus the EP, and all three mixes from the Imagination 12", which exhausts my Chakk collection until I get ahold of the legendary Clocks and Babies cassette. Anyone?

* I stand corrected (said the man in the orthopedic shoes): a quick search on GEMM reveals that "Big Hot Blues" was the followup single, then the album sank. It also shows a 12" single of "Brain" with album track "Years I Worked" as the B-side, released on FON, presumably after being dropped by MCA but before Timebomb. There's another one to track down...

The Box - Secrets Out

Continuing the catalog of Sheffield band The Box, composed of ex-Clock DVA members Charlie Collins (sax, flute), Paul Widger (guitar, vibraphone), and Roger Quail (drums), plus Terry Todd (bass) and Peter Hope (vocals), here is their first full-length LP, Secrets Out (Go! Discs VFM4, 1983). I've already written about The Box here, so I won't repeat it, except to reiterate that The Box's version of skronk/no wave is second to none. Pete Hope sounds like a cross between James Brown and Tom Waits after a triple espresso. Now that I've thought about it for a week, I've found a good comparison band for The Box: the Fire Engines. The Box produced the same kind of aggressive, abrasive, free-jazz/rock hybrid music, but took it even farther afield. Secrets Out contains a generous helping of twelve songs, though only one of them is over three minutes long. Get the album here or here.

The Box

Despite the critical success of ClockDVA's 1981 album, Thirst, bandleader Adi Newton (Gary Coates) sacked the rest of the band and assembled a new one with the intention of going in a funkier direction. As Mick Fish tells it in Industrial Evolution:

One of Newton's new lyrics was the appropriately titled song "Bone of Contention". That's exactly what the newly proposed direction became. "We're not fucking playing that sort of stuff," was the reaction from the rest of the band. Newton, being from the same Sheffield soul boy clique as Oakey, the Cabs et al, was still obsessed with white boy funk. It was obvious that there was no way Newton was going to drag Paul [Widger, guitar] or Charley [Collins, sax] away from Captain Beefheart and towards James Brown. The end, when it came, wasn't so much a firework display as the fizzling of a spent sparkler. "Oh look, we've got a gig in Brighton," Paul noted on browsing the music papers. What the singer had in fact failed to tell them was that Clock DVA did indeed have a gig, but that a whole new band of musicians were being invited along for the ride.

Widger, Collins, and drummer Roger Quail recruited bassist Terry Todd to form The Box. Fish again:

The Box tried a number of singers, one who sort of whooped like a Red Indian chief but couldn't sing in tune. They even played two gigs with Mal [Stephen Mallinder of Cabaret Voltaire] on vocals -- a marriage of styles that was quite successful in its own way.... The Box eventually advertised for a singer. By far the best response came from Pete Hope from Hertford. Vocally somewhere between Tom Waits and Howlin' Wolf, he moved up to Sheffield with his young family.

(See Destroyed By Gods on Noise Heat Power for an amusing anecdote about Pete Hope in the notes to Track 14, and be sure to download the Sheffield mix from the same page.) Skronk may have originated in New York, but no one did it better than The Box. They became the first band signed to Andrew MacDonald's Go! Discs, which would later find great success with the Housemartins, Billy Bragg, and Portishead, among others. There is no Peter Hope or Box material available on the web other than a four-song live set on Pandora's Music Box, so I'll take it upon myself to remedy that by offering up the first release by The Box, a self-titled five-song EP from 1983 (Go! Discs VFM1). Also highly recommended to fans of The Pop Group. Get it here or here.

Abstract Magazine 6: Audio/Visual

The late Rob Deacon's Sweatbox Records was another top UK label of the 80s, not in terms of sales but in terms of assembling a roster of cutting-edge postpunk bands. He started out publishing Abstract Magazine, which had the bonus of having an LP attached to it with songs by the bands covered in the magazine (often exclusive tracks or remixes), the LPs giving birth to Sweatbox. I've had a request for Abstract 6, Audio/Visual (1986), and as I had it handy from ripping the Chakk Theme, I've done up the whole thing in 192k mp3. It's a great collection focused on Sheffield and Manchester bands, my personal favorites being the industrial funk of Workforce, Chakk, and Hula:

A1 In The Nursery Breach Birth (Blockade Mix)
A2 Workforce Skin Scraped Back (Remix)
A3 Xymox Moscoviet Musquito (Remix)
A4 Blurt Gravespit (Live)
A5 Clair Obscur Smurf In The Goulag
B1 A Certain Ratio Sounds Like Something Dirty
B2 Anti Group, The Ha (Remix)
B3 Chakk Theme
B4 Hula Motor City Nightmare
B5 A Primary Industry They're Biting

Get it here. For a better view of the cover art and packaging, see discogs.com.

Chakk indie label singles

This blog is going to be harder than I thought. I planned on sharing many of the vinyl rips that I've made for myself over the years, but as I get ready to upload an album I keep finding that another blogger has already done it. Eric Random's fantastic Ishmael mini-LP? No Longer Forgotten Music posted it last August. Mekanik Kommando's It would be quiet in the woods...? Mutant Sounds posted it last May. Belfegore's A Dog Is Born? Mutant Sounds again. Phoenix Hairpins and New Romantic Rules likewise cover a lot of material I have. Still, I have a few rips that I haven't seen elsewhere, and I have some more in the pipeline. Here's a collection of Chakk's independent-label 12" singles, i.e. before and after their one-album association with MCA. Chakk was the funkiest of the 80s Sheffield bands and should have made it big. Included here are:

Pre-MCA:
Out of the Flesh 12" (Doublevision, three mixes)
You 12" (the first release on FON, two mixes of "You" and two of "They Say"),
Chakk Theme from Abstract Magazine 6 (Audio/Visual) on Sweatbox

Post-MCA:
Timebomb 12" (FON, three mixes)
Bloodsport 12" (FON, three mixes, as backing band for South African band the Swanhunters; sounds just like Chakk, though)

14 tracks in all, mp3@128, 70.2 M.

According to discogs.com, Chakk put out an album-length cassette in 1982 called Clocks and Babies. If anyone could hook me up with a copy (or a rip) of that, I would be eternally grateful!

New links: Get zip file here or here.
Chakk on MySpace.