[Main ESTWeb Index] [Directory Index]
KORM PLASTICS (PO Box 11453, 1001 GL Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Having started out in 1984 as a cassette-label, and gradually developed upwards through the formats, Korm's recent association with Staalplaat allows them to introduce a series of Introductionaire Paperbacks. Confusingly, these are CDs, not books, and they aim to introduce artists with few major releases to their credit, at an affordable price. The first release is Maeror Tri's Multiple Personality Disorder. Future artists will include Brume and Det Wiehl.

L'ENCYCLOPEDIE DES TENEBRES (14 rue Grandval, F-54000 Nancy, France) EDT is home to Les Nouvelles Lectures Cosmopolites, whose Lost Sand Divinities CD I said nice things about way back in EST #1. Their catalogue includes plenty of NLC stuff (including limited editions), as well as material by Julian Ash and Triste Nuit Pour.

LA FACULTÈ (38 Square des Chenes, 59510 Hem, France) Another mail-order source for weird, post-industrial and underground music. It's not as comprehensive as, say, Odd Size or Artware, but has plenty of good stuff. Obligatory sampling of names: Paul Schutze, Etant Donnes, Blackhouse, Hafler Trio, Non Aggression Pact.

LA NUIT DES SAURIENS (Patrick Pincot, 10 rue Carnot, 89100 Sens, France) Patrick hosts a regular radio show on 90.1 FM featuring a lot of the stuff you can read about here. The Hat Shoes, The Residents, Brume, Somewhere in Europe, Strafe F.R., Alboth etc.

LES AMOUREUX DU 24 (Valérie Cantin, B.P. 1115, 59012 Lille Cedex, France) They have une tres petit catalogue of fanzines and music, mostly cassettes in a gothic-industrial vein. Their own zine has featured Costes, Death in June, Current 93, Brume and like-minded people.

LES FLEURS DU MAL (Nicola Catalano, Via Marconi, 92 (parco Angelica), 80046 S. Giorgio a Cremano (NA), Italy) A one-man attempt to network in the areas of post-industrial and experimental musics, he publishes a list of addresses useful for promotional purposes, does a radio show, and helps organise events and festivals.

THE LAUGHING ESKIMO (Box 311 26, 400 32 Goteborg, Sweden) A mail-order firm with a wonderful line in industrial music. They carry lots of books (Burroughs, Dick, Crowley, "21 Techniques of Silent Killing", "Post Mortem Procedures" etc) and fanzines, plus a good range of vinyl, cassettes, CDs and videos (Arcane Device, Current 93, Shinjuku Thief, Monte Cazazza's True Gore, SPK's Live London 1983 etc). Their label has a new Merzbow album on offer, Noisembryo. Choose from the 1000 copy limited edition, the 50 copy special limited edition, or the ultimate single-copy collectors item, a Mercedes Benz car (with Merzbow plates) with the album in the car CD player, modified to ensure the CD can never be removed ...

LA LEGENDE DES VOIX (21 rue du 8 mai 1945, 37270 Montlouis, France) Label responsible for the startling Mouvements compilation (now reissued by Soleilmoon), and material by Brume, Jim O'Rourke, Syllyk and Arsenije Jovanovic. In preparation, they have a split CD by Syllyk and Alain Basso.

LIMUR (Grindvakten 13, S-442 39 Kungälv, SWEDEN) Indie Swedish label providing us with a variety of electropop and slightly more experimental sounds.

LONDON MUSICIANS COLLECTIVE (Unit 3.6, Third Floor, Lafone House, 11 - 13 Leathermarket Street, London SE1 3HN) The LMC is a voluntary group of persons dedicated to promoting new music (mostly improvised or experimental) in the capital. Annual membership is £12 (£7.50 concessions), which gets the monthly newsletter, irregular Resonance magazine, and reduced admission to gigs. Members tend to be active participants rather than just couch potatoes.

LONDON PSYCHOGEOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION (Box 15, 138 Kingsland High Street, London E8 2NS) The L.P.A. will send you the next four issues of their newsletter in return for six second class stamps. What about? Oh, you know, psychogeography.

LOWLANDS DISTRIBUTION (Jaak Blockxstraat 15, B-2640 Mortsel, Belgium) The March 1993 Lowlands catalogue covers a fairly similar area to the old Recommended Records catalogue: labels like RéR, RecRec and AYAA are accompanied by others like Cuneiform and Metamkine; artists like Fred Frith, John Oswald and Jeff Greinke. There's plenty of information on the recordings and the catalogue is very well put together.

MARK PAWSON (PO Box 664, London E3 4QR) Yes, as well as all those eccentric artists books, badges and t-shirts, Mark Pawson stocks lots of Church of SubGenius stuff: stickers, badges, a t-shirt, postcards, Stark Fist zine etc (he's only in it for the merchandising, he claims). Other stuff: a book researching the field of toy moustaches, Smile magazine, "Aggressive School of Cultural Workers" stickers and t-shirts etc.

MATCHLESS RECORDINGS (2 Shetlock's Cottages, Matching Tye, near Harlow, Essex CM17 0QR; tel 01279 731517) Eddie Prévost's label is devoted to improv music by the likes of AMM, himself, Organum and others, and a fine label it is too. Try Forced Exposure, ReR, Cadillac, Impetus and These for distribution. A book of critical writing by Prévost has been published this year on their Copula imprint.

MEMENTO MATERIA (Odengatan 1, S-361 30 Emmaboda, Sweden) Independent label mainly producing CD compilations featuring electronic artists (technopop and electronic body music), all unknown to me.

METAMKINE (13 rue de la Drague, 38600 Fontaine, France) A fine musique concrète and electroacoustic label; they also distribute similar and dissimilar music on labels like INA/GRM, Phono Suecia, Empreintes Digitales, Matchless, PSF and La Legende des Voix. Selective and all the better for it. (Several Metamkine releases were reviewed in EST 5).

MIDIAN BOOKS (Chestnut Cottage, 6 Deene End, Weldon, nr. Corby, Northants NN17 3JP) A fine catalogue of secondhand erotic, occult and literary books all at what seem to be reasonable prices. Includes stuff like Scalping and Torture Warfare Practices Among North American Indians and the Rev W Cooper's Flagellation and the Flagellants, a History of the Rod. It's not all so unusual, but there's plenty of interesting material.

MIND SCAN ELECTRONIC TAPES (c/o Robert Maycock, 71 Millmead Road, Margate, Kent CT9 3QJ, U.K.) Everybody's favourite minimalist label. Minimal quality of presentation and minimal price that is. Despite appearances, there is some very worthwhile music to be found in their catalogue, which includes cassettes by the likes of Pessary, Satori and Siegmar Fricke.

MINUS HABENS RECORDS (via Giustino Fortunato 8/N, 70125 Bari, Italy) Techno-industrial label with a taste for occult and S&M imagery. Dark cyberpunk stuff by Sigillum S, Lagowski, Dive and others. They do their own mail-order and publish a magazine in Italian, Neural, about virtual reality, UFOs, future music etc.

MONGOLIAN TOURIST BOARD (Richard Clarke, 76 Sullivan Court, Fulham SW6 3DB) "Hardcore, experimental and psyche", reads the flier. You may not have heard of many of the artists on this cassette label, although Koven-oe is better known as Scanner, and others like 46000 Fibres and Tonal D also work in a post-industrial, experimental genre. If they aren't of interest, you could always try The Barretts, who do cover versions of Syd's songs; or Digital Satan's "post-indie grindtrip".

MOTHER SAVAGE (c/o Joseph Roemer / Rodger Stella, 1180 Colgate, Monroeville, PA 15146, USA) The flier says "extreme explosion of harsh power electronics", and I hate to disagree with a blurb. Mother Savage's defining release is the two-cassette compilation, Noise War, which introduces material from the harshest of the harsh: C.C.C.C., Emil Beaulieu, Solmania, The Haters, Onomatopoeia, Sudden Infant, Masonna etc. If you want to dip a toe in the water (and are positively looking forward to being scalded) look no futher. They also supply plenty of cassettes by their own band, Macronympha.

MULTIMOOD RECORDS (Box 53095, 400 14 Göteborg, Sweden, Phone/Fax: +46-31-814737) Multimood are now distributed by Staalplaat. They concentrate on high-quality CDs of innovative music in ambient, experimental and post-industrial genres: people like Asmus Tietchens, Peter Frohmader and Paul Schütze have released music on Multimood.

MUSIC AND ELSEWHERE (6 Farm Court, Farm Road, Frimley, Camberley, Surrey GU16 5TJ) Home to the space-rock band Magic Moments at Twilight Time, and their zine, the Mmattrix. The place to go if you want info on the band or access to any of their nineteen tapes, but even more noteable is M&E itself, wherein they make available a phenomenal 186 cassettes culled from throughout the international networks. For as little as £3.50 you can hear people like Doc Wor Mirran, Galactic Lilah or Sabotage (all of whom I've heard), or instead people like WF & The Question, The Third State or The Fiends of Zacharia (none of whom I'd even heard of). A donation of £1 (payable to S J Taylor) sounds about right for the full 26-page catalogue.

MUSICA MAXIMA MAGNETICA (Luciano Dari, C.P. 2280, 50100 Firenze, Italy) MMM concentrate on releasing music of ritual and/or post-industrial nature, including groups like Sleep Chamber, Vasilisk, Nocturnal Emissions, Ordo Equitum Solis, Raksha Mancham, Cranioclast and The Anti-Group. Forthcoming releases will include the CD reissue of Vasilisk's Acqua, a video by O.E.S., and music by Theatrum Chemicum, Raksha Mancham, and a Raksha side project, 1,200,000 Dead Tibetans. Distributed in the UK by Cargo.

MUSICIANS INTERNATIONAL TAPE EXCHANGE (7675 E. Sutton Dr., Scottsdale, AZ 85260, USA) Set up with the aim of attracting interest and sales for musicians and groups who lack the backing of large labels, the M.I.T.E.'s new catalogue lists over 75 items, almost all on cassette. The majority seems to be pretty commercial, from "lite country" to "alternative rock" or "instrumental metal fusion", but they also list quite a few things that would appear to fit within EST's various limits: experimental guitar music or "somewhat industrial" dance music, for example. Prices are generally very cheap too, but outside the USA I'd ask for specific information on postage costs.

MUTE RECORDS (429 Harrow Road, London W10 4RE) Their Grey Area sub-label reissuing copious back catalogues of Can, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, SPK and many others tends to obscure much of the other great material available on Mute. Offshoot Blast First has been responsible for great stuff by the likes of Sonic Youth, Glenn Branca and Band of Susans, and a pile of fine Disobey releases, while the label proper has brought us Non, Mark Stewart, Bruce Gilbert, Diamanda Galás, Recoil, Einstürzende Neubauten and many more.

MYSTERY HEARSAY (Mystery Hearsay International c/o Mike Honeycutt, P.O. Box 24O131, Memphis,TN 38124-0131, USA) As well as distributing products by many other labels, Mystery Hearsay have 25 of their own cassette releases. These include post-industrial / experimental music by We Be Echo, Mental Anguish, Andrew Lagowski and others. More recent activities include a radio show etc.

THE NATIONAL SOUND ARCHIVE (29 Exhibition Road, London SW7 2AS) A part of the British Library, the NSA houses collections of books, magazines, records and sound reproduction equipment. As well as music, there are extensive spoken word collections, recordings of theatre plays, industro-mechanical sound, you name it. There are large archives of BBC radio material, but if my experience with their indexes is anything to go by, their collections, although enormous, are actually pretty patchy (either that or my musical interests are even more obscure than I had thought). Their quarterly bulletin, Playback, is available for free. It's an excellent resource for historians, journalists, researchers, even just the music fans.

N.D. (PO Box 4144, Austin, Texas 78765, USA; for a UK source try Cheeses International) It seems that nobody's content to just do one thing and do it well any more; not content with an excellent magazine, N.D. has developed into a flourishing label, with CDs by PBK, Vidna Obmana, John Watermann and others; tapes, 7"s, a video etc etc. The broad coverage of the zine is reflected in their musical releases, although personally I think a bit more focus wouldn't hurt.

NETWORK 77 (P.O. Box 4713, Cape Town 8000, SOUTH AFRICA) Music distributor and cassette label, N77 has fourteen of their own releases, and also carries others by people like Zone, David Prescott and Peter Frohmader. A distant outpost or merely the tip of the iceberg?

NONSEQUITUR INC. (PO Box 344, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87103, USA) The umbrella foundation acts as home to ¿What Next? Recordings and the compilation CD series, The Aerial, which has featured excellent work by artists as diverse as The Hafler Trio, Derek Bailey and Nicolas Collins. ¿What Next? have releases by the chronically undervalued Deep Listening Band, improvisors Ikue Mori & Tenko, the excellent Annea Lockwood, and others. Forthcoming releases will feature Jerry Hunt, Gamelan Pacifica and Tom Guralnick, plus the long-awaited Aerial 6. They also distribute other items recorded by these artists. All high quality stuff, with hands in several avant-garde pies.

NUIT ET BROUILLARD (B.P.212, 59029 Lille Cedex, France) NetB's aims are to promote new music through their weekly 90 minute radio programme, compilation cassettes with booklets, and distribution of other labels. Groups like Brume, Vox Populi and Geins't Nait have appeared on the comps, and their mail-order catalogue includes more underground, post-industrial stuff from Sleep Chamber, Test Dept, Illusion of Safety and tons of more obscure names.

ODD SIZE RECORDS (24 rue de Laghouat, 75018 Paris, France) As a label, they have some fine releases to their credit, by people like Nox, Asmus Tietchens and P16D4, with new recordings on the way (including a reissue of the Massemensch compilation, featuring Nurse With Wound, P16D4, DDAA and others). Their mail-order catalogue runs to over 130 pages, with a wide variety of industrial, experimental and avant-garde recordings (including labels like Subterranean, RRR, Staalplaat, United Dairies, Sub Rosa and Multimood) and publications, taking in avant-jazz, musique concrete, and even On-U Sound along the way. Recommended.

OFF SCALE (Jörg Thomasius, Auguststr. 19, D-10117 Berlin, Germany) Mail order source for electronic music by Thomasius, Conrad Schnitzler, Lars Stroschen (of Propeller Island) and others, on various labels. See review of Tonart Vier in EST 6, or of Tolling Toggle in EST 3.

OLD EUROPA CAFE (V. le Marconi 38, 33170 Pordenone, Italy) Long-running post-industrial cassette label with releases available from lots of well-known names; Lt Caramel, De Frabriek, Kapotte Muziek, Deutsch Nepal, Maeror Tri, Doc Wör Mirran etc. Plus limited vinyl, some CDs (Brume, Inanna, and forthcoming from Maeror Tri, Illusion of Safety, Randy Greif etc), and videos featuring The Haters, Big City Orchestra, C.C.C.C., Archon Satani, Con-Dom and more.