culver/total | untitled

limited to just 50 copies, this is an early collaboration between lee stokoe and matthew bowers, 3 pieces of superb atmospheric noise. i remember lee telling me at the time that he liked to lie down and let the noise wash over you, revealing itself in layers, and i can totally see what he means from this.

i subsequently offered to release a 7" by the duo, but sadly the kylie empire collapsed before this happened. i still have the master though so perhaps i should post it up here.

tape released by matching head in 1996?

get.

various | way-out: the sound of um

the point of this compilation was to collect a bunch of bands whose music makes you go "umm!". in reality this means a whole bunch of noise from the tape underground, a genre that i dabbled in as "label boss" but never fully embraced. let's face it, the scene was completely overwhelmed with dodgy noise bands - people recording any old distorted shit and calling it music - that you had to work hard to find the good stuff.

i think i got some of both here.

::: cefodie - two years today
::: children at play - sandhopper ina storm
::: culver - replace position
::: expose your eyes - acceptance feature
::: expose your eyes - acceptance feature no 2
::: hoom - headwaters
::: the infant cycle - -
::: kjetl d brandsdal - joustra
::: labrador - wot a downer
::: lee milan - untitled
::: melanchthon - different kind
::: mlehst - 100 ways of saying no
::: phlegm - ringing [i did this - it's rubbish]
::: realm of dreams - alien grounds
::: schizoid wikler's - pink punker
::: schmrtz - play it again sam
::: shimmer - space
::: sideboard radiator - china in your hands
::: the speeding peters - insulin kens
::: tenmaka - nice man
::: tuob & leigh smith - blyth, lexi & syd
::: wand packer - wave theme
::: zarathustra - klasikal

get it.

various | the condition of muzak

the beauty of the tape compilation is that you had 90 minutes to stuff it with whatever you fancied. sure that means there's normally a fair amount of crap to wade through till you find the oysters, but so often the oysters aren't where you'd expect.

cakehole was one of the better tape labels, one that seemed to actually have some kind of quality threshold. and this comp was their fiftieth release, a kind of "state of the label" release if you will. and if the title is anything to go by, then clearly we need to redefine our expectations of what is actually music.

::: cakehole - intro
::: rarb terb - even steven's
::: realm in dreams - as the scalpel cuts
::: hood - worrying about getting old
::: father - sex & ten
::: bleekmen - h-bomb versus a-bomb
::: they have stayed too long in the forest - sulky nectar
::: eastnmoor ambient group - extract
::: strip - mary 1
::: gary & the cro-magnons - untitled i
::: i hail taxis - me nag nug's a-naggerin'
::: stewart walden - song from the back of ian's record collection
::: children at play - the swollen testicles of jesus christ
::: splendid palatial retreat - difficult 2nd novel (a rock opera)
::: crayola summer - monkey island
::: the mike hunt set - living off the fat of tape hiss
::: children at play - wok noise
::: kostas d'lary - caruso '95
::: bovine over sussex ne - rok & choc
::: father - frog balloon
::: the starfire lounge - redwood yard
::: scooter - all these people
::: gary & the cro-magnons - untitled ii
::: stonebody - freak not born
::: rosa lee state - clip twist (holding one's breath mix)
::: johnnie mitchell - contact
::: drug masturbation - oh yoko (ono is the nigger of the world)
::: bleekmen - fluffer
::: orange sunshine - the truth about carrots
::: i hail taxis - you've made your bed
::: geoffrey sick - improvisation for xaphoon & tape xaphoon
::: peter buckley - a long time ago
::: culver - lectchin
::: vileda - night birds
::: novemberer - census '66 (appropriate music no. 1)
::: stewart bloody walden - snare hater

tape released by cakehole in ???

side 1.
side 2.

culver | route of aesthetic

culver is the main guise of lee stokoe, who can currently be found recording with matthew bowers on the latest skullflower records. "route of aesthetic" was his debut album "proper" - depending on your view of tape releases - and unsurprisingly given the title, it's a thing of beauty, both sonically and visually.

lee always had a way with drones, these dense layers of sound conjured from the simplest sounds. and on this record the drones shift from the whine of a train ripping past you to the ominous growl of a mechanised monolith approaching immeasurably closer as time slips by. lie back and let yourself drift and all sorts of sounds start to appear, little pops of tones, sound waves forming, merging, colliding.

whle generally culver is generally considered "noise", on this record at least think of lee as a 4-track version of john clyde-evans.

the sleeve is screen printed on clear plastic and the record is one of peter king's lathe cuts. nice.

once upon a time i was going to release a collaboration 7" between culver and total, and it was going to be a real beauty, but sadly both my finances and motivation went tits up and it never happened. bummer.

lp released by matching head some time in the mid-to-late 90s i think.

eeeeeeeeeee.

p.s. lee also plays bass in mazuraan. deliciously heavy.