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CD
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WHO 019CD
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Compiled by Ken Hollings, Clear Your Screens is a series of battle re-enactments from Manchester's least celebrated post-punk group Biting Tongues. Their tritone tribalism, mixed with intense language flow and layers of tape concrète, was perhaps a bit too much for the early 1980s when they released records with New Hormones, Factory, and Beggars Banquet. Always an astonishing experience live, the classic early line-up returned to the stage near the start of the 21st century with the musical and performance experience accumulated over another twenty years working apart. Applying modern digital mixing techniques ten years later to these live recordings reveals the rare blood chemistry of a team of specialists who have only grown more passionate over time. Surely a worthy part the 20th century musical canon even if they have handed in their homework late. All songs written by Hollings, Graham Massey, Colin Seddon, Eddie Sherwood, and Howard Walmsley. Tapes remixed and produced by Graham Massey. Limited edition of 250. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu.
Biting Tongues were: Ken Hollings - celebrated author, academic and broadcaster #exorcist #cut_up_oracle; Graham Massey - electronic music pioneer, 808 State, music producer and broadcaster #pre_and_post_guitar_landscapes #weird_woodwind #shit_trumpet; Colin Seddon - band leader and music educator #biblical_bass lines #lord_of_the_trichord; Howard Walmsley - film director/producer #muscular_beef_sax #transistor_organ_fist; Eddie Sherwood - music educator and band leader #reverse-wired-bespoke_voodoo_drumming.
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LP
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CACHE 022LP
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From the same studio that brought us 48 Chairs (Gerry & The Holograms), The Fall, and The Blue Orchids, while following the bona-fide bloodline between Danny And The Dressmakers, Toolshed, and 808 State, the "difficult second album" by Biting Tongues (released on a minuscule cassette run by The Buzzcocks' vanity label) has since become a near mythical artifact of Mancunian DIY. Cementing the path between the Absurd label's kitchen sink synth assaults and Factory's 99 informed downtown aspirations, Biting Tongues' bass-driven, pounding-sounding, schizo-skronking, squat-pop put the emergence of punk-funk under a blinding interrogation bulb then hid 'round the corner evading secret police. Pouring three letter words like "ESG", "DAF", "PIL", and "ACR" into Ken Hollings Scrabble bag would result in a unique form of wordy dictaphone agit-rap and closed-circuit commentary to Graham Massey's overqualified punk ensemble, laying foundations of future Manc activity using uncertified sand and gravel tactics, only to be safety checked every 38 years, or thereabout. Live It, the lost Biting Tongues album, still breathes. Including what the original members of this pioneering post-punk platoon unanimously consider their greatest work, Biting Tongues seldom-heard, second roll of the dice was presented to The Buzzcock's own label New Hormones to coincide with full-length DIY debuts by Ludus, Dislocation Dance, and a distinct tightening of purse strings. Recorded on half-price studio time (in the midst of a multi-track repair session) and duped on to compact cassettes to keep pressing costs down, the album Live It even entirely bypassed the non-existent art-department before landing in the hands of a small readership of peculiar-punk die-hards, instantly slipping into obscurity, evading official band future discographies, and reaching an imaginary status in the history of unchartered Manc-manufactured messthetics. Now available, on vinyl, with two sleeve variations and extensive notes from Graham Massey and Ken Hollings, Live It is a welcome misplaced release and an essential addition to Finders Keepers' Cache Cache catalog. Biting Tongues make wise heads!
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Cassette
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TTW 091CS
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Biting Tongues were formed in 1978 to improvise a soundtrack to the screening of a 16mm experimental film of the same name at Tony Wilson's original Factory Club in Manchester. A core membership was soon established that was to last until 1984: Howard Walmsley - sax; Ken Hollings - texts; Eddie Sherwood - drums; Colin Seddon - bass; and Graham Massey - guitar and noise. Their performances, an unpredictable "post-punk avant-funk" mix of spoken word, percussion, random tapes, films and free-form soloing, were mostly confined at this time to clubs in Manchester and London. The release of their first three albums Don't Heal (1981), Live It (1981) and Libreville (1984) widened their audience, and Biting Tongues found themselves performing more in theatres, arts venues and galleries. Still On Hawaiian Time captures two Biting Tongues performances from this later period. The Library Theatre in the center of Manchester was a large seated venue with an even larger stage, meaning that the group members could spread out more and incorporate additional percussion, tapes and electronic devices. It also shows Biting Tongues cutting up and rearranging themes from different recordings - the performance also anticipates their work on Feverhouse: their full-length experimental feature film released in 1984 by Factory Records's video offshoot IKON The improved facilities available in a theatre venue, including greater space, better acoustics and more time for a sound check, meant that Biting Tongues could concentrate on the performance, producing some of their most aggressive and demanding work. During the early 1980s, Biting Tongues excelled as a live band, always seeking to challenge both themselves and their audiences. These two recordings are fascinating documents that convey some of the immediacy and commitment of their performances - something that can still be felt in these old tapes some thirty years after they were first recorded. Personnel: "Library Theatre, Manchester 16.6.1983": Colin Seddon - bass guitar, drums, percussion; Eddie Sherwood - drums; Ken Hollings - voice, clarinet, percussion, tapes; Graham Massey - guitar, trumpet, trombone, clarinet, drums, Astroban, iguarglaphon, voice, percussion; Howard Walmsley- tenor and soprano sax, glockenspiel, percussion, voice; Barry Seddon - pick-axe handle. "Riverside Studios, London 5.6.1982": Colin Seddon - bass guitar; Eddie Sherwood - drums; Ken Hollings - vocals, Hohner Pianet, percussion; Graham Massey - guitar, clarinet, reed cornet, trumpet, iguarglaphon, Morello loop, diary, percussion; Howard Walmsley - tenor sax, voice, percussion, Hohner Pianet. Edition of 150.
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