I’ve been sorting out some boxes in the back of my studio recently in preparation for moving house, and came across some copies of a couple of cassettes that I produced sometime in the mid/late-eighties for my cassette label, SoundImage.
Like many aspiring creative-types of my generation, I benefited from the Tory government’s scheme to manipulate the unemployment figures with the “Enterprise Allowance” scheme. Cynicism aside, this was a hugely successful attempt to nurture entrepreneurial culture in the UK, by validating the ambitions of young people aspiring to something other than the grey 9-5 of 1980’s UK.
With £1000 and a business plan, you could qualify for £40 a week with no hassle – a good deal compared to signing on the dole and making out that you really would be satisfied with a dead-end office job.
As I remember, my business was a combination of everything cool I could think of, letting me become an independent label, live sound engineer and sound designer for Theatre. Now I think about it, variations on these roles have actually kept a roof over my head for the last 20 years after the end of the scheme.
Seems so disappointing that the vision of this scheme has been left to rot by the incoming (and now, so publicly disintegrating) Labour government. They inherited a vibrant Art and music culture that saw Brit-Art and Brit-Pop straddle the Globe, re-establishing the UK’s creative economy in an unprecedented way.
"Premonitions" V/A (SoundImage)
But, I digress! These first two cassette compilations outlined a scene of post-Industrial, Electronic music which was about to gain critical mass under the 90’s Ambient umbrella. Still in a pre-web world, I put out calls for submissions through underground magazines, such as Factsheet Five and ND. With the Mail Art scene in full swing during these times, the arrival of the postman became an event in the day that was hard to rival, with packages of new weird stuff, fanzines, cassettes and art arriving to our house each morning.
Here then, are a couple of extracts from the work of these ernest young men, as found on my cassette releases “Premonitions” and “Spiritual“.
Firstly, Richard Leake “Entering A Clear Space” and Omega Ensemble “Piece 12″ from Side 2 of “Premonitions”
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"Spiritual" V/A (SoundImage)
Felix Jay “Avow”, Antonym “Saint Of Sorrow”, Martin Franklin “Falling Inside”, Jack Hurwitz & John Johnson “Nagaseina” from the “Spiritual” cassette.
I had another release, which was an early “dummy head” binaural recording made by some boffins from EMI in Hayes of a concert I organised by kinetic sculptor, Peter Appleton playing with Richard Leake’s Butterfly Effect group – can’t find it right now, but I’ll see if it’s around somewhere and post a clip if I find it.
Enjoy the original tape hiss of the 80’s! I wonder where all these people are now……
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