Includes digital pre-order of NoHo EP: Turning The Crank.
You get 2 tracks now
(streaming via the free Bandcamp app
and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the
complete album the moment it’s released.
shipping out on or around May 10, 2024
edition of 300
Purchasable with gift card
€18EURor more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
**offer available until 10/05/2024** Bundle of "NoHo EP: Turning The Crank" vinyl 12" + "Turning The Crank: The NoHo Scene 1978-1982" book. Note: this will only be shipped when the book is ready. We expect to have the final version by the end of May.
Includes digital pre-order of NoHo EP: Turning The Crank.
You get 2 tracks now
(streaming via the free Bandcamp app
and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the
complete album the moment it’s released.
digital album releases May 10, 2024
item ships out on or around May 31, 2024
edition of 50
Purchasable with gift card
€25EURor more
Book/Magazine
68 pages, A5. Risograph in greyscale.
English language.
Includes a download code for "Noho EP".
Northampton, Massachusetts. The Five Colleges. Hampshire College. Forward-thinking education. Electronic Music studies. A vast student population created and sustained a vibrant cultural scene. This is but a snapshot of a fraction, but a fertile and significant one that impacted the lives of many who came in contact with it. The book follows a tight group of people who got together, made music, promoted and released it, created the conditions for others to record and release music, booked bands and then scattered throughout the Midwest and East Coast.
First person memories and memorabilia from Christopher Vine, Craig O'Donnell, Elliott Sharp, James Whittemore, Nicholas Brown, Sean Elias and others, patch up a story of joyous action, firm and enthusiastic DIY endeavours to make things happen as they would like them to happen. It is about a local scene and some key protagonists and it communicates values and methods that are still current — and probably will always be in some form or another among young people with a serious drive to act upon their artistic inclinations. This is also a depiction of what was in fact a model of a music scene. A complete ecosystem was in place during this period. Northampton, sure, but extended across the whole of Pioneer Valley in Western Massachusetts. Bars, music and record stores, live music, College radio, electronic music studios, written press and a lot of energy going into creative work. The immediate "punk effect" motivated the appearance of numerous bands, many short lived, others evolving into New Wave / Power Pop territory, eventually crossing into Post-Punk experimentation.
Turning The Crank is also a companion to an EP of the same title, including music played, produced and recorded in Northampton between decades (1970s going into the 1980s) by different combinations of individuals resulting in The Higher Primates, The Scientific Americans and Human Error. Music in turns mechanical and austere, gorgeously loose, in love with Dub.
...more
shipping out on or around May 31, 2024
Purchasable with gift card
€12EURor more
Streaming + Download
Pre-order of NoHo EP: Turning The Crank. You get 2 tracks now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.
Purchasable with gift card
releases May 10, 2024
€5EUR or more
1.
Human Error - Clandestinator
2.
The Higher Primates - Auto Music In The Disco Dub Style
With this EP an attempt is made at documenting the vibrant action happening during the late 1970s and early 1980s in the Pioneer Valley area of Western Massachusetts, US. The story is richer than the snapshot we present here, and a more detailed account is to be found in the accompanying book that can be purchased separately but also comes as a limited edition with the first 50 copies of the EP.
The Five Colleges in Hampshire County congregated a vast student population that inevitably interacted with the towns in the area. Bars, music and record stores, live music and a lot of experimentation and free thinking. Hampshire College, especially, promoted new approaches to teaching, subjects that might be considered radical by some even today, although a more favourable context would now surely exist for openly debating such topics as American Indians, Kayak Design, Black Oral Tradition, Food Management, etc. And the music? The immediate "punk effect" motivated the creation of numerous bands, many short lived, others evolving into New Wave / Power Pop territory, eventually crossing into Post-Punk experimentation. What is captured in "Noho EP" is a more electronic disposition, favoured by the existence of EMS gear and other equipment at Hampshire College and University of Massachusetts. We chose to focus on a group of musicians who, for a time, played together in different combinations under the loose umbrella of the Tekno Tunes label and the structure around it.
These musicians come from very different backgrounds and the nucleus portrayed here consisted of Christopher Vine, Elliott Sharp, James Whittemore and Nicholas Brown.
Of the several line-up changes The Scientific Americans went through, it was actually only the duo of Chris Vine and Jim Whittemore who recorded "Among Bodge Watt". Never before released, it is a companion piece to their track "El Salvador" available on the 1981 ROIR tape-album "Load & Go!". The Sci Ams were founders of the Tekno Tunes label and also created the Tekno Tours "concert promotion agency", under which name they exposed local audiences to bands such as The Stranglers, The Slits, Pylon, Pere Ubu, The Psychedelic Furs, The Bush Tetras, Steel Pulse, etc. Their own sound kept progressing but at its best there's a solid dub undercurrent, pretty obvious in "Among Bodge Watt".
Human Error was born out of a collective jam by Chris Vine, Elliott Sharp, Jim Whittemore and Nick Brown. Elliott Sharp had moved to Northampton in August of 1978 and naturally became involved in the local music scene, hooking up first with Whittemore at a hi-fi audio store where he worked at the time. Basement jams followed stimulating conversations, and other musicians joined the sessions. "Clandestinator" sounds gorgeously loose, an effortless groove coming from a quasi-dub set-up. Nothing here seems calculated, the music just flows, contagious and irregular as the handclaps in the mix.
The Higher Primates later evolved into a "proper" band but started as Nick Brown's solo project. The Primates only ever released a (now sought-after) 7" single in 1980 (on the Tekno Tunes label, precisely). Both tracks on "Noho EP" were recorded the following year and never released until now. "Auto Music in the Disco Dub Style" is self-explanatory, with a steady, mid-tempo TR808 beat running through, supporting synth squelches, echoes and reverbs, a fat bassline, dissonant melodic lines and odd vocal snippets. Kind of a DJ tool when the concept was barely in place. The more uptempo "Teresa Variations" adds a Fender Jazz bass and Selmer sax to the electronics. It actually sounds more "Disco", even with the robotic, unintelligible vocals. On top of this, the vibe is sealed by the overall Radiophonic Workshop analogue strangeness applied to a dance beat.
credits
releases May 10, 2024
A1 / Human Error - Clandestinator (1979)
Elliot Sharp (bass and bass clarinet)
James Whittemore (synths and hand claps)
Christopher Vine (guitar, hand claps and "short" vocals)
Nicholas Brown (guitar and synth percussion)
Recorded in 1979 in Northampton, Massachusetts.
A2 / The Higher Primates - Auto Music in The Disco Dub Style (1981)
Written and performed by Nick Brown. Mostly sequenced with TR808, Arp 2500 and EMS Synthi "A. Micro Moog and Aries Modular also used. Initial tracks on a TEAC 3440 bounced down and finished on a Scully 280 and mixed to a Scully 180 half track. Previously unreleased.
B1 / The Higher Primates - Teresa Variations (1981)
Written and performed by Nick Brown. Selmer Mark VI saxophone (borrowed) recorded with a Neuman u86, Fender Jazz bass (also borrowed), Micro Moog and Aries Modular synthesizers. Initial tracks on a TEAC 3440 bounced down and finished on a Scully 280 and mixed to a Scully 180 half track. Previously unreleased.
B2 / The Scientific Americans - Among Bodge Watt (1981)
On this track, The Scientific Americans were Mr. Downbeat (Chris Vine) and Luthor Maggot (Jim Whittemore).
This instrumental was recorded in a basement in Northampton, MA, to a TEAC 3340S 4-track reel-to-reel using an EMS Synthi AKS, Roland CR-78, a few pieces of a drum kit, Minimoog, guitar, bass, and some external analog processing with phase shifters, MXR rack flanger/doubler, and a Korg Stage Echo. Never before released, it is a companion piece to their track "El Salvador" available on the ROIR label full-length 1981 album, "Load & Go!".
Mastered by Dougie at Conscious Sounds.
Artwork by Márcio Matos.
On their 10th record, the Glasgow-based group serves up more wonderfully menacing, gothy synthpop, perfect for dungeon dancing. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 19, 2023
Catchy, super-danceable EBM from Keaton Khonsari (Razorbumps, Narrow Head) turns an eye to the bleakness of the modern world. Bandcamp New & Notable Jan 17, 2023
St. Louis group The Mall make a debut as a two piece with dark, driving, and near-demented synth punk. Don't sleep (they won't let you.) Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 1, 2022
The Mall's fantastic debut LP, moody synth pop with shadowy edges and punk grit, gets a lovely vinyl pressing via Fixed Grin Records. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 16, 2021
Culled from unreleased recordings from her recent "Light Sleep" and "Voice Hardcore" releases, Hiromi Moritani's latest showcases the softer, less harrowing side of Phew’s sound Bandcamp Album of the Day Sep 2, 2020
