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:

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!

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.

David Harrow - The Succession

Before coming up with his James Hardway and Technova aliases in the mid-90s, David Harrow had already been recording under his given name for about 15 years. According to obscure.co.nz:

His first recordings were created in Berlin in 1981/1982 when he was working with a woman called Anne Clark. The sound they created was soon termed new beat or industrial and along with DAF they kick started the European electronic dance scene. When Harrow visits Germany today, he is still hailed "The Godfather Of Techno".

Later in the 80s and into the 90s, Harrow would collaborate heavily with Genesis P-Orridge, Jah Wobble, and Adrian Sherwood. He also recorded an EP with singer Peter Hope of Sheffield band The Box in 1985, posted here. Often overlooked, though, is the solo album he recorded in 1983 for release on Red Flame/10 Records , The Succession. Harrow assembled quite a band for the occasion: John White, a.k.a. U.V. Pop (!), on guitar and saxophone, Roger Quail (of The Box and the original ClockDVA lineup) on drums and percussion, Gary Malkin on bass (who? can't find any more info on him), and Janice Chaplin (?) on backing vocals. Harrow is credited with vocals, keyboards, guitar, and percussion. He is obviously not very comfortable as a singer: he tries out several different singing styles throughout the course of the album, but none quite fit. His compositional and instrumental skills, on the other hand, are already fully developed even on this early record. The track listing is:

• A1 Introduction
• A2 Without Sin
• A3 Driving Force
• A4 Our Little Girl
• A5 Here
• B1 Kick
• B2 Still Optimistic
• B3 Civilised
• B4 Belief

Get the vinyl rip here or here. (Links removed at artist's request: look for reissues!)

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.

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!)

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.