various | neon signs in a dralon sky

the first release from fisheye, the label from paul wild, who ran the distro of the same name. for a while there fisheye was the best source of decent underground tapes, records and zines in the uk. and the label released some quality stuff too.

unsurprising then that this cassette represents a pretty decent snapshot of that scene, with sounds both noisy and tuneful from the uk, us and down under.

it features: children at play, paste, tea culture, prick decay, brown tower, omit, the shadow ring, hood, scaredy cat, calvin party, goosewind, wizard ho ho, moist, refrigerator, polyp, 70 gwen party, derv, lichtenstein girl, superfluous, bucknalls, jack geek, my deviant daughter, earl + osram, the golden mile and w.o.r.m.

for a full tracklisting view the discogs page.

tape released by fisheye in 1994.

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70 gwen party | the optical glass empire

the second and equally hard to find album.

again, rip courtesy of SirHenry67 - thank you!

lp released by snape in 1992.

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70 gwen party | devil wrapped & ginsung buried

first album, second release, from victor n'dip and lurgin pin.

rip courtesy of SirHenry67 - thank you!

lp released by snape in 1990.

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various | deliberately lo-fi

this is the first thing i ever released, and in time-honoured tradition it's a mixed bag, with some bands you probably know (hood, boyracer, 70 gwen party) and tons that (perhaps rightfully) you don't.

listening back now for the first time in a long time, on balance i'd say it's not bad for a first effort. not great, but not terrible either. a bit like the label as a whole.

this was ripped from the master tape, but still very much lives up to its title.

tape released by kylie productions in 1995.

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70 gwen party | the killing of victorian britain

70 gwen party's last record. noam noam noam.

7" released by snape in 1997.

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70 gwen party | scorching the antichrist

a particularly apocalyptic single this, even more bleak than usual, if that's possible.

7" released by snape in 1992.

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70 gwen party | the searl brothers

definitely one of my favourite 70gp records, like depeche mode if dave gahan had been savagely murdered (er sort of).

7" released by snape in 1993.

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70 gwen party | through the heart of sunday

their second to last 7" release.

7" released by snape in 1995.

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70 gwen party | howard hughes

two angry stabs of anti-murdoch/nme/etc rage. delicious.

7" released by snape in 1994.

grrrr.

70 gwen party | knee deep in evil

deliciously abrasive and uncompromising single from victor n'dip and lurgin pin.

7" released by snape records in 1992.

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70 gwen party | peel sessions

i once asked victor n'dip of duo 70 gwen party to write a recipe for my fanzine, speeder, so he did beans on toast, which was pretty much what you expect, apart from the stipulation that the toast had to be burnt. that sums up the band pretty well: quintessentially english, but slightly bitter.

fiercely independent, largely ignored and generally commercially unsuccessful, the band released a raft of 7" singles and a couple of lps on their own snape label. most of the singles had text-only photocopied sleeves, largely devoted to useful underground contact lists and rants against the mainstream media's bias towards those bands that advertise in their pages.

fortunately, john peel suffered no such bias and had them in time and time again. here's the sessions.

released by snape in 1995.

beans a la toast.