Various Artists - Abstract No. 5

As promised, here is a new rip of the Abstract No. 5 LP from 1985 to replace the one that is no longer downloadable from Waves of Champaign. Rob Deacon started Abstract as a music magazine, then beginning with No. 4 a companion LP was released to accompany each issue, and from this project the great Sweatbox label was born. The cover touts "10 unreleased recordings," and at the time the album came out that was true, though most of the songs were eventually released by the respective bands. What is not true is that there are only 10 songs; there are actually 11, with the last track, "Sentient" by In the Nursery, omitted from all the packaging. The full track listing is:

1. TEST DEPT. Fuel Foundation Of The Nation
2. THE WOLFGANG PRESS Fire Eater
3. 400 BLOWS Fire And Water
4. SWANS Sealed In Skin
5. CINDYTALK Playtime
6. COLOURBOX Manic
7. GENE LOVES JEZEBEL Flame
8. AND ALSO THE TREES Maps In Her Wrists And Arms
9. NYAM NYAM This Is The Place
10. THE JAZZ BUTCHER Leaving It Up To You (live)
11. IN THE NURSERY Sentient

A couple are quite experimental; the Test Dept. track is a political speech on the Welsh miners' strike followed by Test Dept. accompanying the bagpipe-heavy miners' band; the 400 Blows track is a sound collage not easily recognizable as "music" but with some structure and rhythm that is revealed through attentive listening. The Colourbox track features a great guitar solo by guest William Orbit; if only he had turned toward rock instead of Madonna, then I'm sure I would have listened to more of him in the 90s. The Jazz Butcher track is a John Cale cover, which if I recall correctly was banned from the radio for its mention of Manson Family murder victim Sharon Tate. Abstract No. 5 is another great selection of cutting-edge 80s rock; ripped from oddly mottled vinyl @192kbps, it is available here or here.

400 Blows - Pressure, Runaway/Breakdown

A recent visitor left some enthsiastic comments about 400 Blows, who are part of the Illuminated megamix album Heavy Duty Breaks, so I thought I'd offer up some more. 400 Blows may be best known today for "Black and White Mix Up" (a rather ridiculous remix with Mad Professor of "Groove Jumping") on Andrew Weatherall's exquisite Nine O'Clock Drop anthology of eclectic 80s dance music, but they left a pretty decent body of work beyond that. I have always thought of 400 Blows as the poor man's 23 Skidoo, following in their footsteps from dub to electro-soul and being almost but not quite as good. Which is still really good! 400 Blows' first album, If I Kissed Her I'd Have To Kill Her First, is already available on Rho-Xs (with great albums by A Certain Ratio, Rip Rig + Panic, This Heat, and more in the same post!), but I have a couple of 12-inch singles to supplement the album. The first is "Pressure" from 1984 (and the first LP), a mostly-instrumental song with a killer dub bassline presented in three versions plus the found track "Perspective 2". The second is from 1985, the electro-soul double-A-side of "Runaway" (a Rockwell cover, of all things!) with lead vocal by Cheryl Lucas, and the original "Breakdown" sung by Linda Duggan, in two versions each (remixed from the Look LP). That's eight tracks in all, packaged in a single zip file; get it here or here.

Various Artists - Imminent 2

In 1985 and 1986 the Food Ltd. label released four compilation albums entitled Imminent 1-4. Each one was a superb sampling of UK indie acts of the day, cutting across all styles and genres of rock music. A rip of the first one, featuring exclusive tracks by Eric Random and Brilliant, among others, is available at the excellent but seemingly abandoned blog Dirk Wears White Sox. A rip of the second volume is available right here. On Imminent 2 we get skronk from Biting Tongues and Gasrattle, a shimmering synthpop ballad from Recipe, an early demo from 400 Blows, Karl Blake riffing on Bad Company (!) with the Shock Headed Peters, an extended soundscape from UV Pop, some hard Sheffield throb from Hula, grebo from Zodiac Mindwarp, and more noisy rock from the rest of the bunch. Some tracks are unavailable elsewhere, I think, though I'm not going to research each song. Here's the full list:

01 Kill Ugly Pop - Church of Bloody Deception
02 Biting Tongues - The Boss Toyota Trouble
03 UV Pop - Zuitar
04 Gasrattle - Beach Party
05 Recipe - Home's Over
06 Living In Texas - Hate Me More II
07 Shock Headed Peters - Head Thorax Abdomen
08 400 Blows - Strangeways
09 Sting-Rays - Never Had It So Good
10 Hula - Bad Blood
11 Deep Freeze Mice - Here Comes the Sun Explosion
12 Zodiac Mindwarp - Drug Shoes

Get the vinyl rip here or here. The LP came with a poster, too:

VA - Breaking the Back of Love (1985)

The Breaking the Back of Love various-artists compilation was released by Saderal in 1985, featuring the kind of Gothic funk acts that Illuminated was known for. In fact, some of the acts were even on Illuminated, and had been featured on the previous year's Illuminated megamix, Heavy Duty Breaks, an excerpt of which appears here as "Heavy Duty Brakes." Here we also have The Leather Nun's notorious fisting song, "F.F.A.," retitled as "F.F. America." But there are also some little-known gems here: Colour Me Pop's "Beat Me Till I'm Blue" chugs along nicely with some bongos and a lead bass, and Out's "Business As Usual" builds on a catchy synth hook for a song that could have been an alternative club hit if the stars had aligned right. The cover model is Lilly A.K. (I think), who has two songs on here. "Passionate Strangers" is a soaring, fast-tempo number that reminds me of another forgotten classic, "Life's Illusion" by Ice the Falling Rain (coming here soon), and "Take Me Now," with Youth, sounds like Food-era Brilliant (no surprise there). Who was Lilly A.K.? Whatever happened to her? She sings two songs on here, she sang some backing vocals on an Edward Ka-Spel album, and other than that I've turned up nothing. If you have any further information on her, please let me know in the comments. The full track listing is:

A1 400 Blows Pressure
A2 Lilly A.K. and Youth Take Me Now
A3 Portion Control Raise The Pulse
A4 Out Business As Usual
A5 Colour Me Pop Beat Me Till I'm Blue
A6 The Leather Nun F.F. America
B1 Lilly A.K. Passionate Strangers
B2 Sex Gang Children Into The Abyss
B3 Colour Me Pop Go
B4 Heavy Duty Brakes Heavy Duty Brakes
B5 Dormannu Degenerate

I've added two bonus songs, stragglers by bands already on the album : "Tough Enough" by Out (from a 12" single) and "The Girl Who Shares My Shirts" by Colour Me Pop (the A-side whose B-side is "Beat Me Till I'm Blue"). Get it all here or here.

Heavy Duty Breaks (Illuminated megamix, 1984)

Here's an album that Illuminated Records put out in 1984 that is comprised of a 15-minute label roster megamix on each side: the songs segue from one to the next without dropping the beat (with continuity provided by a beatbox). Each clip is a teaser for the full-length version. Illluminated had an impressive lineup of "gothic funk" bands; here are the songs included in the two side-long mixes:

Side 1
400 Blows: Pressure
23 Skidoo: F.U.G.I.
Out: Tough Enough
Dormannu: The Dread
Zazou: M'pasi Ya Pamba
400 Blows: Grove Jumping
23 Skidoo: Coup
400 Blows: Declaration of Intent

Side 2
Executive Slacks: Our Lady
Data: Blow
Portion Control: Raise the pulse
Data: Blow
Portion Control: Go-Talk
Power to Dream: Faith Healer
Tara Butler: Up against the wall
Power to Dream: Faith Healer
Sex Gang: Dieche

Get it here or here.