Perennial Divide - Beehead EP

How about some more Perennial Divide? 1987 saw them release just one record, the four-track Beehead EP:

1. Beehead
2. World Spread
3. Gentle As A Fawn Is Warm
4. Clamp

"Clamp" is a 40-second sound collage, so Beehead is essentially a three-song EP. But they're good songs, especially "World Spread," which after an excessively long intro settles into an energetic breakbeat groove with a popping bassline. The other two songs are the same kind of noisy, off-kilter funk that made Purge so great. Get the vinyl rip here or here. That does it for my Perennial Divide collection. There was another 12", "Burndown", in 1986, which was packaged together with a repressing of Purge; I didn't buy that one, as I already had Purge and didn't want to buy a second copy just to get a new 12". Then in 1988 there was an unofficial release of "Leathernecks," but I never found a copy. If you come across rips of either 12", please let me know in the comments.

Perennial Divide - Purge

By request, here is the only album released by Perennial Divide, the Swindon-based group active from 1986 to 1988 and consisting of John Corrigan, Johnny Stephens and Paul Freeguard. ("Perennial Divide" comes from Naked Lunch; it is Burroughs's play on the term "perineal divide," i.e. the "taint." But in the band's case it takes on additional sociopolitical meaning, evoking Britain's historical class system and the struggles of the working class for equality.) Corrigan and Stephens went on to form Meat Beat Manifesto, with Corrigan adopting the pseudonym Jack Dangers. Released in 1986, Purge was another exciting release from Rob Deacon's Sweatbox label, which grew out of his Abstract magazine and LP series. The cover art (of Swindon railway works) recalls Neville Brody's early sleeves for ClockDVA stylistically, and Perennial Divide's music explores the same realm of politically-charged noise-funk as that seminal band, though with more funk and less noise. There are some tasty basslines on this album, particularly in "Captain Swing." Purge is a bona fide postpunk masterpiece. The tracks are:

01 Blow
02 Parricide
03 Word of the Lord
04 Captain Swing
05 Rescue
06 The Fall
07 Trip
08 Tuna Hell
09 Burning Dogs
10 End of the Line

Some of the tracks run together, and I've made my best guess as to where one ends and the next begins. It won't make any difference if you listen to all the tracks in order (which you should!). Get the vinyl rip 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.

A Primary Industry - Ultramarine

Paul Hammond and Ian Cooper made a name for themselves in the 90s as Ultramarine, releasing five albums of "pastoral techno" music. Before Ultramarine, they recorded as A Primary Industry (with three additional members), releasing a few singles and compilation tracks and one full-length LP entitled Ultramarine. You can definitely hear the seeds of Ultramarine (the band) in A Primary Industry, but many tracks have a more raw and lively sound, influenced by UK post-punk funk bands such as A Certain Ratio, Pigbag, and 23 Skidoo (props to Burl Veneer for spotting some particularly heavy "influencing"), and still others fall solidly into shoegaze territory. Their contributions helped make Rob Deacon's Sweatbox one of the best UK labels of the 80s; other acts on the roster included The Anti Group, Perennial Divide/Meat Beat Manifesto, and In the Nursery. Inexplicably, Ultramarine has never been reissued, so I hope to bring more attention to this lost minor classic with a vinyl rip, here or here.