Harsh Reality Music Home
HR015 — Where To Now? #1— Various Artists — C60 — 1985
HR015 — Where To Now? #1— Various Artists — C60 — 1985
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REVIEW by Jerry Kranitz
The second Harsh Reality compilation (in a row) is also the first of two volumes. It’s also the first to feature non-U.S. artists (the full length Konstruktivits tapes notwithstanding).
The Quiet Room (Lansing, MI) opens with catchy Gothic pop electronica songs. They use a simple drum machine but it’s nicely recorded, impressively produced, and have a good singer and fantastic wailing guitar sound.
Speaking of Gothic, the first Skoptzies contribution to this set starts off with a Gothic flavor, despite the anger in the lyrics. Then they add strumming rock guitar and there’s an overall noisy vibe, but the underlying Goth atmosphere attempts to hold its own.
The Unopened Present (Huntington Beach, CA) offer up a decent New Wave pop tune. There are no synths and it’s really more like REM, Pylon, etc. Nice melody and good vocals.
Eternal Concessions is a Memphis band with Chris Phinney, Mike Honeycutt, and Richard Martin. The 11 minute ‘Sex Ghouls’ would show up on their soon to be released HR017 full length ‘Cleanest Rooms’ tape. This is free-wheeling space/noise/punk/electronic improv, with vocals that are very much like what we’ve heard from Phinney on the Skoptzies recordings. He’s doing his ranting spoken word, in this case expressing his desire to hang out in sex bars, never work a job, and wonder what’s going to happen to the human race (among lots of other things). The ‘Ghouls’ part of the song comes in the form of the howling, moaning backing vocals.
The A side ends with a short Skoptzies tune that is probably the sparsest I’ve heard from them. Sounds like just a bass, drums and vocals.
The Konstruktivits’ entry features a dose of their classic spaced out, darkly Gothic, nicely freaky electronica. I like the droning minimal synth foundation and jamming bubbly trip guitar.
Mental Anguish offer up ‘Death Of Stench’, from the HR013 ‘Shot In The Dark’ tape album. Phinney does his manic poet ranting thing, screaming “Death of stench! Death of stench!” I love the bizarre but seamlessly flowing blend of video game soundtrack, angelic melody, lo-fi symphonic keys, clickity clackity rhythms, and vocals that are both ranting and demonic growling.
From Belgium, the always wonderful Bene Gesserit, the amazing duo of Alain Neffe and Nadine Bal, do their synth pop magic on ‘Funny Toy’.
The Louvre (Huntington Beach, CA) are not unlike The Unopened Present, though this is even more mainstream New Wave-ish pop. Both notably come from the same Purple Robe Records label.
If, Bwana is Al Margolis’ solo project. Al ran the legendary Sound of Pig tape label. The music is a really cool blend of free-improv experimentalism and darkly atmospheric New Wave song. I like the combination of sqronking sax, bashing noisy electro percussion, crowd samples, and various other cavernous pulsations.
Macroglossia is Chris Phinney and Richard Martin, who first cropped up on their HR003 full length tape. ‘Methyl Isocyanate’ is an upbeat electronica and percussion workout that playfully trips along. The electro percussion rocks out as the synths wail and swirl. Nice jam tune.
INTERVIEW with Chris Phinney by Jerry Kranitz
JK: Your next release was another compilation. The first ‘Where To Now?’
CP: Electronics. I had to get into the electronics.
JK: Konstruktivits notwithstanding, this is your first tape to include a non-American band, Bene Gesserit. Of course you had already been communicating with Alain Neffe (Insane Music label) and I think you had already been on one of his compilations, right?
CP: Yeah, I’d been on one. ‘Noisy But Chic’ (An excerpt from HR004 Pungent Odor’s ‘Homosexual’ was included on ‘Home-Made Music for Home-Made People Vol. 1: Noisy But Chic’). We were on there. I solicited everybody for tapes and this is what I got.
JK: Lots of variety here. Like The Quiet Room from Lansing, Michigan….
CP: My daughter texted me and asked me, someone was asking her about Mitchell Wells. I have no idea where he is. Mitchell Wells was the singer in The Quiet Room. He WAS The Quiet Room.
JK: Was he someone who had sent you a review tape for Malice?
CP: No. I just saw his name and sent him a letter and asked him if he wanted to be on the tape. I think we traded tapes too. I’m sure we did.
JK: There’s these two bands, The Unopened Present and The Louvre… they had cool songs but sound surprisingly mainstream. Purple Robe Records in Huntington Beach, California.
CP: It was weird.
JK: I keep asking this but were they someone who sent you review tapes?
CP: They were trades. We had traded and I asked them if they wanted to be on the comp.
JK: You also have Eternal Concessions here, with the ‘Sex Ghouls’ track that would end up on the Cleanest Rooms tape. You, Richard Martin and Mike Honeycutt were recording but did you know you would be releasing a full length at the time of this compilation?
CP: No, not at that time. We hadn’t finished the whole tape, or that we even would. You never know.
JK: So it only came together as a full tape after this compilation.
CP: Right.
JK: Ok, we’ll get deeper into it when we get to Eternal Concessions. I see you have Macroglossia on here. Was this a new recording?
CP: I think it’s on that other tape. HR031. I’m not sure. I think it was something we recorded and then I put out later.
JK: So this goes back to the recordings you made that were released as HR003?
CP: Except for Stuart Locke being on 031. Stuart Locke wasn’t a musician. He came over here and we were jamming and we said come on in and jam. We made him jam (laughs).
JK: Was there a theme to the two ‘Where To Now?’ compilations?
CP: The ‘Where To Now?’ themes were graveyards. Those are graveyard pictures on the front. You’ll see graveyard pictures on quite a few things.
JK: Ok, I get it now. I’m looking at the covers while you’re describing it.
CP: I used to shoot photos of a lot of graveyards. I took tons in New Orleans, for catalogs and covers. An above ground tomb in New Orleans concrete had eroded, metal casket in it had rusted and I stuck my camera in the dark hole not knowing what I would shoot. That one ended up being a skull and bones. I got good photos from Calvary Cemetery here in Memphis. But we’ll get into that when we get to (Viktimized) Karcass.
The second Harsh Reality compilation (in a row) is also the first of two volumes. It’s also the first to feature non-U.S. artists (the full length Konstruktivits tapes notwithstanding).
The Quiet Room (Lansing, MI) opens with catchy Gothic pop electronica songs. They use a simple drum machine but it’s nicely recorded, impressively produced, and have a good singer and fantastic wailing guitar sound.
Speaking of Gothic, the first Skoptzies contribution to this set starts off with a Gothic flavor, despite the anger in the lyrics. Then they add strumming rock guitar and there’s an overall noisy vibe, but the underlying Goth atmosphere attempts to hold its own.
The Unopened Present (Huntington Beach, CA) offer up a decent New Wave pop tune. There are no synths and it’s really more like REM, Pylon, etc. Nice melody and good vocals.
Eternal Concessions is a Memphis band with Chris Phinney, Mike Honeycutt, and Richard Martin. The 11 minute ‘Sex Ghouls’ would show up on their soon to be released HR017 full length ‘Cleanest Rooms’ tape. This is free-wheeling space/noise/punk/electronic improv, with vocals that are very much like what we’ve heard from Phinney on the Skoptzies recordings. He’s doing his ranting spoken word, in this case expressing his desire to hang out in sex bars, never work a job, and wonder what’s going to happen to the human race (among lots of other things). The ‘Ghouls’ part of the song comes in the form of the howling, moaning backing vocals.
The A side ends with a short Skoptzies tune that is probably the sparsest I’ve heard from them. Sounds like just a bass, drums and vocals.
The Konstruktivits’ entry features a dose of their classic spaced out, darkly Gothic, nicely freaky electronica. I like the droning minimal synth foundation and jamming bubbly trip guitar.
Mental Anguish offer up ‘Death Of Stench’, from the HR013 ‘Shot In The Dark’ tape album. Phinney does his manic poet ranting thing, screaming “Death of stench! Death of stench!” I love the bizarre but seamlessly flowing blend of video game soundtrack, angelic melody, lo-fi symphonic keys, clickity clackity rhythms, and vocals that are both ranting and demonic growling.
From Belgium, the always wonderful Bene Gesserit, the amazing duo of Alain Neffe and Nadine Bal, do their synth pop magic on ‘Funny Toy’.
The Louvre (Huntington Beach, CA) are not unlike The Unopened Present, though this is even more mainstream New Wave-ish pop. Both notably come from the same Purple Robe Records label.
If, Bwana is Al Margolis’ solo project. Al ran the legendary Sound of Pig tape label. The music is a really cool blend of free-improv experimentalism and darkly atmospheric New Wave song. I like the combination of sqronking sax, bashing noisy electro percussion, crowd samples, and various other cavernous pulsations.
Macroglossia is Chris Phinney and Richard Martin, who first cropped up on their HR003 full length tape. ‘Methyl Isocyanate’ is an upbeat electronica and percussion workout that playfully trips along. The electro percussion rocks out as the synths wail and swirl. Nice jam tune.
INTERVIEW with Chris Phinney by Jerry Kranitz
JK: Your next release was another compilation. The first ‘Where To Now?’
CP: Electronics. I had to get into the electronics.
JK: Konstruktivits notwithstanding, this is your first tape to include a non-American band, Bene Gesserit. Of course you had already been communicating with Alain Neffe (Insane Music label) and I think you had already been on one of his compilations, right?
CP: Yeah, I’d been on one. ‘Noisy But Chic’ (An excerpt from HR004 Pungent Odor’s ‘Homosexual’ was included on ‘Home-Made Music for Home-Made People Vol. 1: Noisy But Chic’). We were on there. I solicited everybody for tapes and this is what I got.
JK: Lots of variety here. Like The Quiet Room from Lansing, Michigan….
CP: My daughter texted me and asked me, someone was asking her about Mitchell Wells. I have no idea where he is. Mitchell Wells was the singer in The Quiet Room. He WAS The Quiet Room.
JK: Was he someone who had sent you a review tape for Malice?
CP: No. I just saw his name and sent him a letter and asked him if he wanted to be on the tape. I think we traded tapes too. I’m sure we did.
JK: There’s these two bands, The Unopened Present and The Louvre… they had cool songs but sound surprisingly mainstream. Purple Robe Records in Huntington Beach, California.
CP: It was weird.
JK: I keep asking this but were they someone who sent you review tapes?
CP: They were trades. We had traded and I asked them if they wanted to be on the comp.
JK: You also have Eternal Concessions here, with the ‘Sex Ghouls’ track that would end up on the Cleanest Rooms tape. You, Richard Martin and Mike Honeycutt were recording but did you know you would be releasing a full length at the time of this compilation?
CP: No, not at that time. We hadn’t finished the whole tape, or that we even would. You never know.
JK: So it only came together as a full tape after this compilation.
CP: Right.
JK: Ok, we’ll get deeper into it when we get to Eternal Concessions. I see you have Macroglossia on here. Was this a new recording?
CP: I think it’s on that other tape. HR031. I’m not sure. I think it was something we recorded and then I put out later.
JK: So this goes back to the recordings you made that were released as HR003?
CP: Except for Stuart Locke being on 031. Stuart Locke wasn’t a musician. He came over here and we were jamming and we said come on in and jam. We made him jam (laughs).
JK: Was there a theme to the two ‘Where To Now?’ compilations?
CP: The ‘Where To Now?’ themes were graveyards. Those are graveyard pictures on the front. You’ll see graveyard pictures on quite a few things.
JK: Ok, I get it now. I’m looking at the covers while you’re describing it.
CP: I used to shoot photos of a lot of graveyards. I took tons in New Orleans, for catalogs and covers. An above ground tomb in New Orleans concrete had eroded, metal casket in it had rusted and I stuck my camera in the dark hole not knowing what I would shoot. That one ended up being a skull and bones. I got good photos from Calvary Cemetery here in Memphis. But we’ll get into that when we get to (Viktimized) Karcass.