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.

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.

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.