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!

Black Pete - Mississippi Queen

In the late 80s industrial dance music was all the rage in alternative circles; labels such as Wax Trax in Chicago, Play It Again Sam in Belgium, and Nettwerk in Canada were putting out tons of releases, with many of the acts making the jump to major labels (Ministry, Skinny Puppy, etc.). But one of the only stabs at this genre from Baltimore that I can recall* was a one-off 12" by Black Pete, the duo of George Hagegeorge and ex-Null Set/Cabal singer Bill Dawson. A bass player was added for live shows, though I don't know if one ever happened. I think the record actually got issued by two labels somehow; here is the Calvert Street Records version. The A-side is a cover of Mountain's "Mississippi Queen" (which Ministry would cover in a similar vein 19 years later), and the B-side contains the two original tracks "Vicious" and "Ablaze". It sounds more like heavy metal guys adding a drum machine and sequencer to make industrial music rather than an electro band adding metal guitar, but whatever the case it's good for some retro cyber-headbanging. Hagegeorge is now a photographer; Dawson is now a tattoo artist based in Florida. Get the vinyl rip here or here.

* There was also Glitch. Any more?

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.

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.

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...

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.