Menial Disorders (Deleted Records, 1980)
Menial
Disorders almost defies classification. Jacklin has put together a deviously, disordered collage of compositions. Tape manipulation, radio, random voice, electronic effects and segments of a
live performance combine to form an industrial journey through a disordered brain. Aeon
Menial Disorders is a confused mash-up of noisy electronics and tapes. To add further confusion, it opens with a segment by L. Voag followed by a live
performance by Activity Toys butchering a ‘60s classic in front of a rather hostile audience. The singer observes, ‘There's gonna be a riot soon.’ Brave boys! The rest of Menial
Disorders is by Alien Brains, apart from a track by 391, ‘What Makes People Behave Violently?’ All-in-all a classically messy and fuzzy experience from the depths of early DIY history.
Die Or DIY
Natural Advantages (private, 1980)
Nigel Jacklin's experimental collective which on this occasion included such DIY luminaries as Mark
Lancaster (Instant Automatons) and Allen Adams (Methods Of Execution.) The non-music presented on Natural Advantages ranges from excellent tape collage
pieces to improvisations that sound like day centre music therapy as heard from a closet, or a chimps’ tea party where the tea-set is replaced with instruments. Certainly not Pop music, if it can
be called music at all; if anything its a field recording interspersed with some excellent Musique Concrete, all bunged randomly onto tape. Die Or
DIY
Live At The Basement (Aeon, 1982)
Live At The Basement has an oppressive, industrial atmosphere that is at times both disturbing and meditative. There is heavy use of various effects and echo (both natural and
synthetic) especially on the voices, which makes much of it difficult to decipher, sounding somewhat similar to the vocals on Cabaret Voltaire’s ‘Mix-Up’ LP. Live At The Basement sounds like it was recorded in a warehouse, a large hangar or a disused factory and as a result the
overall sound is rather lo-fi and at times there is little in the way of development. However, it never becomes boring, revealing constantly new variations and nuances and the atmosphere is at
times both tense and delicate. Industrial Musics
Live At The Basement does indeed sound like it was recorded in a basement – metallic squeals, languorous clanging and echoes in
excelsis. Suffused with suffocation and the mysterious darkness that only lo-fi can grant, idle whistling and muffled screams falling from the ceiling; rhythms are begun then abandoned. There is
the distinct feel in one’s hand of the rusty tubularity of iron piping, like a suite for haunted Hallowe’en housing. Each lonely sound is truer than the one that came before it. Concentrated
strangeness from one of the more remote locations on Earth one might expect to find concentrated strangeness. Hence the Alien, and the alienation. Signal To Noise
And It’s There (ADN, 1985)
Initially highly prolific in the early ‘80’s, Nigel Jacklin’s output began to decrease, ending with a final cassette credited
to Verdenskang, And It’s There, a document of collaborations between 1980-85. The credits state that it includes contributions from David Jackman (Organum), Philip Sanderson (Storm
Bugs), Meat Means Bloody Murder (rumoured to be TNB) and the mysterious Zena. The level of ‘co-operation’ of the various parties is unclear as there is no track-by-track analysis but I believe it
includes extracts from both live performances and recordings made on location at various sites including Wisbech, a South London school, Ealing
College, an abandoned swimming pool in Notting Hill and, more exotically, Puerto D'Alcala and The Valley Of Assisi. Although uneven, And It’s There is in places quite brilliant with some
exquisite drone and collage work. Mutant Sounds
It’s All History Now 4LP (VOD, 2014)
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