Cleaners From Venus - Follow The Plough

Cleaners From Venus - Follow The Plow 

Cleaners From Venus' poetic jolly defiance looking towards whimsical optimism or something more ecstatic is always good on a gloomy wintry day. Their spirited daydream-y anthems fit my glad to be gloomy/Happy when it rains vibes. I used to call overcast rainy winter days in Melbourne during June "Joy Division days"...  in the 90s me and my housemate would get some red wine and watch Withnail & I on such days. 

Anyway I discovered an odds and sods German only Cleaners From Venus compilation tape today called Winter (1988) and it has this version of Follow The Plough. This is a slightly different "brighter" mix from the one on the Living With Victoria Grey tape. 

Cleaners From Venus in their jangling 80s, Rickenbacker drenched, heavenly pop (non) hit stride. 

Peak Newell.

    

The Living With Victoria Grey mix. Interestingly it's grey in Victoria today... hello from the Antipodes.

Cleaners From Venus - Winter (1988)

The whole shonky un-remastered lo-fi cassette.

A1 Prince Of The Winter recorded 1985, previously released on Various - Reynard The Fox.

A2 When Fire Burns Dreams recorded 1986, previously released on Modern Art/Cleaners From Venus - Souvenir.

A3 Amateur Paranoic recorded 1982/83, previously released on the cassingle Two For The Winter. 

A4 She's Checkin You Out recorded 1982/83, previously released on the cassingle Two For The Winter.

A5 Albion's Daughter recorded 1986, previously released on Modern Art/Cleaners From Venus - Souvenir.

A6 Ilya Kuryakin Looked At Me recorded 1986. Originally appeared on the Victoria Grey cassette. This version is a special mix for Color Tapes with different instruments (real drums, different guitar mix etc.)

B7 Sunday Afternoon recorded 1987
B8 Ilya Kuryakin (full version) recorded 1987. This is the vinyl version from Illya Kuryakin Looked At Me.
B9 Black And White. recorded 1987. Previously released on Illya Kuryakin Looked At Me.

B10 Follow The Plough recorded 1985/86. Originally appeared on the Victoria Grey tape. This version is a more "transparent" Mix made for Color Tapes.
B11 Soul Monday recorded 1984/85. Originally appeared on the solo cassette Martin Newell - Songs For A Fallow Land. Different mix.

B12 Julie Profumo recorded 1984/85. Originally appeared on the solo cassette Martin Newell - Songs For A Fallow Land. Rather different mix.

Martin Newell - Amateur Paranoiac [Two For The Winter - Cassingle] (1983)

Wonky post-punk psychedelic dub poetry kinda thing. Top stuff.

Cleaners From Venus - Julie Profumo (1985)

Back to the pastoral paisley... Pure perfect poetic pop!

Autopilot - Love Is A Process

[1979]

Cult post-punk single of the highest order... you love your Magazine, The Fall. Wire, Homosexuals etc. well now you can add Autopilot to the list. Quite possibly the greatest one off post-punk single of all time out of Britain, it's so ace it's hard to believe it didn't become a chartbusting hit. 

Forced Vengeance - William Goldstein

[1982]

Incredible opening sequence and score to Forced Vengeance. Layers of spectacular thickly textured synthesisers, oriental vibes and anthemic drama. As previously stated in the post about William Goldstein's score to Eye For An Eye, many of the best soundtracks are for movies you don't know or care about.

Film · The Church

More soundtrack-y goodness from legendary 80s bands. An instrumental of immense lyrical charm. Gorgeous profoundly emotional stuff. I dunno if it ever got used in a film or tv show... 

Elegia · New Order

Epic.

On the evidence here New Order should have become massive soundtrack composers. Alas that was not to be. This track however has been used numerous times on soundtracks for 80s teen movies, video games, documentaries, cop shows and several Netflix series. 

Elegia is Italian for elegy which makes sense as this sombre and mournful instrumental is dedicated to Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis, their former bandmate who killed himself. 

I didn't even know a 17 minute version of this existed but apparently the five minute version on Low-Life (1985) is edited down from this lengthy original.  

The Ogre Theme - Simon Boswell

From the dude who produced 23 Skidoo's Coup (1984) and did the brilliant score to Richard Stanley's cyberpunk flick Hardware (1990) comes this slice of soundtrack gold. A sombre slow-crawling dystopian vibe here that is actually for an Italian telly movie directed by Mario Bava's son Lamberto. 

The Ripper - Rod Slane

[1985]

Once again a soundtracks to a z-grade 80s horror flick that outshines all other contributions to the film. Rod Slane's The Ripper OST has never been released. This 11 minute suite extracted from the movie and edited together by Fish Man starts out eerily sad quickly becoming cinematic with compounding layers of suspenseful sound and soon enough alarming atmospheres are achieved. At 3:00 those incredible chiming synths enter rippling kaleidoscopically outwards eventually deforming. More sonic layers are insidiously added, the pile up reaching immense density and aural capacity. Thick textures  of dramatic synthetic sound are deployed to great effect and by 6:30 some über-80s guitar tones arrive then it's back to dark tones before ending with a tropical neon nights synth jam. 

Fabio Frizzi - City of the Living Dead

Fabio Frizzi - Apoteosi Del Mistero (1980) 

It's a remake of his Zombie theme. More like a cleaned up, more uplifting version. Peak mellotron choir goodness. Creepy heroic.  

Fabio Frizzi - Zombie 2 Main Title (1979)

I think I prefer this though. There's something a bit more grime-y, drowsy and unstable about it, quite torpid compared to the above remake. Funereal zombie stoner synth.

 

Fabio Frizzi - Paura Nella Città Dei Morti Viventi (1982)

It's pretty hard to go past this here, the original Beat Records soundtrack LP of City Of The Living Dead though. One of the all time great Italian horror scores. Amongst the gorgeously mournful analogue synths, epic ghostly mellotron choirs, tenebrous atmospherics, there's even some acoustic guitar and quite possibly the most emotional use of a fretless bass ever in the history of recorded music on the unbelievably poignant Paura E Liberazione.

Graveyard Productions - Grab My Mask

Graveyard Productions - Grab My Mask (1995)

The daisy-age gone sour. A deranged criminal tale set to sweet innocent music. So it's not the usual 90s Memphis underground horror movie samples, it's a lovely tranquil Isley Brothers sample of Highways Of My Life mixed with Graveyard Production's melodic chorus that has fermented into something off key sickly sweet and absurdly unsavoury. It's a bit of creepy fun, lo-fi used to delirious perfection. They tread a fine line on Grab My Mask: Always verging on satire of hip hop's glamorisation of nihilistic ultra violence and yet it's still often unsettling. "Don't make me get my OJ gloves" is a particularly menacing line that's probably also black comedy genius. I'm pretty sure there's also a conflicted Robin Hood-esque moral tale lurking in amongst this complex barrage of words too.    

DIY outsider halloween music.

Strap Like An Army Tank - King Goldi (feat. Lil Wako & Skimask Troopaz)

King Goldi - Strap Like An Army Tank (Video incorrectly titled) - [1996]

Insane underground lo-fi psychedelic horrorcore* 90s Memphis stylee with some rockin' guitar samples and screwed techniques. That cheap creepy synth is something else. The music here has more in common with Chrome or The Residents than say 1996's rising stars of rap Jay Z or The Fugees. 

*I feel like 90s underground Memphis Rap with morbid, horror, satanic and dark psychological themes was never properly named or in fact given a proper sub-genre term to seperate it from other Memphis rap and Horrorcore from other geographical areas. Using the term horrorcore with 90s Memphis rap is somewhat misleading as it really doesn't sound anything like Esham, Gravediggaz or bloody ICP, only really overlapping in some dark psychological lyrical themes. The 90s Memphis flows and beats are an entire (aesthetic sound)world apart from these Northern counterparts. 

If they can retroactively coin the term Mid-School Hip Hop they should have no qualms about a seperate genre name for the music I'm talking about here. Bloggers and aficionados refer to it as evil Memphis shit or devil shyt. Perhaps I should try to come up with one... then again I can't stand retroactively titled genres especially if it's for music created created more than 5 years previous let alone 30 years ago. I mean is anybody seriously really using the term Zolo outside of Rate Your Music nerds?