Monday, November 29, 2010

PRIMITIVE VOODOO ELECTRONICA

"Flowmotion: an album of contemporary and electronic music," a various-artists comp released by a British 'zine of the same name in 1982, was one of my favorite boyhood albums. It certainly was the most obscure - I was quite proud of the fact that the booklet that came with the album stated that I had copy #137 of 500. Oh yeah, chicks dug me!

I don't have anything to post by the recently deceased
Peter Christopherson, whose Gristle Throbs no longer, but this album does kick off with a selection by two of his band mates, Chris & Cosey - a song that, according to the booklet, was meant to conjure up a primitive voodoo session, perhaps a reflection of their interest in exotica music. Kinda silly song, really - I preferred the next tune, by Those Little Aliens, who were, in fact, the album's compilers. Their song is in the "Another Green World" vein of ambient pop, with evocative backwards wind-chimes adding to the gentle celeste melody.

It's hard for me to now objectively evaluate an artifact of my youth, but I can tell you that I used to be endlessly fascinated by songs like the mutant disco of
David Jackman's orgy of overdubbed Casios, and the one vocal number on the album, The Legendary Pink Dots' "The Hanging Gardens," which was seemingly the greatest tune that Syd Barret never recorded. Colin Potter's "Rooftops" was sheer Moogy bliss.

Much of "Flowmotion" is cosmic electronics in the Tangerine Dream/early Vangelis mold, but a
punk influence was felt in the D.I.Y. production and the general air of no-holds-barred experimentation. Eno, again, seems to have been a big influence. Plenty of ambient stuff here, from moody to wistful.

When the Mutant Sounds blog originally posted this, I downloaded it and sold my album, only to later realize that the download was encoded at only 128 kbs. Oops, that'll learn me. It's fine tho, really - this stuff was recorded under fairly lo-fi conditions to begin with, and in any case, it still sounds better then when I used to play it on my crappy old record player. Since the Mutant Sounds copy is now off-line, and commenters have been requesting it, here's 'tis:

Flowmotion

A1 Chris & Cosey - Devil God

A2 Those Little Aliens - Ismalia

A3 Eyeless In Gaza - Dusky Ruth

A4 Eyeless In Gaza - Through Eastfields

A5 David Jackman - Do The Dog

A6 Ian Boddy - Follow
A7 Legendary Pink Dots- The Hanging Gardens

B1 Ian Boddy - Skylights

B2 Paul Nagle - A Journey In The Dark

B3 Carl Matthews - As Above, So Below
B4 Colin Potter - Rooftops

Thanks to the original poster.

6 comments:

Wayne Davidson said...

I just checked the booklet in my copy, I'm number 360. We should try and track down the other 498 people that have it....... or not.

bipolar_jesus said...

Thanks for posting this! I love this kind of stuff, and probably could not acquire it otherwise.

Anonymous said...

Great blog! I've been looking for this album for ages but the links are dead. Any chance of a re-up? Thanks

Mr Fab said...

it's back!

Anonymous said...

Awesome! thanks again.

Dirk Bill said...

Whoops, down again...