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LP
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MNQ 131LP
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Mannequin Records start a series of re-presses dedicated to the legendary Nocturnal Emissions, one of the best kept secrets of the industrial genre since the 1970s. Led by Nigel Ayers and Caroline K, the band was one of the first to use tape cutting, avant-garde art, and underground video works to create a stage experience that was being cultivated by like-minded artists like Throbbing Gristle, SPK, and Cabaret Voltaire. Originally self-released in 1985 for Sterile Records, Songs of Love and Revolution is the Nocturnal Emission's most successful album ever. The release marked the end of a period of more "conventional" songwriting and instrument use for Nocturnal Emissions. The first couple of albums were brooding, bleak affairs that called to mind a more sedate version of SPK. Then came a few albums that were firmly song-dominated. SOLAR was the last of the bunch, and was the most explicitly "message"-oriented and political. Songs of Love and Revolution was a big step forward for the band, having a full-color cover and turning the NE sound further towards electronic pop music. Classics such as "No Sacrifice" and "Never Give Up" have made this an essential album for every fan of electronic music. As Nigel himself reminds, "they were buying lots of equipment at the time and seemed to have naturally acquired some skill over the years so they thought, 'Let's make some pop music.' He continues: "The Miners' Strike was on and there were riots down our street in Brixton. I was convinced there was going to be a revolution. But it would probably have been quite unpleasant. All these old punks and hippies preaching revolution, I don't think we were really prepared to live with the consequences. If we actually had a revolution in this country, it would be like Iraq or something, or Syria. But we were having horrible times with Thatcher. All we could do in that sort of milieu was imagine what the alternative would be like."
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LP
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MNQ 132LP
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Mannequin Records start a series of re-presses dedicated to the legendary Nocturnal Emissions, one of the best kept secrets of the industrial genre since the 1970s. Led by Nigel Ayers and Caroline K, the band was one of the first to use tape cutting, avant-garde art, and underground video works to create a stage experience that was being cultivated by like-minded artists like Throbbing Gristle, SPK, and Cabaret Voltaire. Originally released on Illuminated Records in 1983, Viral Shedding is surely one of the most important references for the industrial/funk dance music. Between pure noise and electronic beats, Viral Shedding is creating a twisted and percussive rhythmic urge, a funky disco sound permeated by digital industrial beats. Nigel Ayers and Caroline K take their inaccessible best and thrown it into the melting pot with a set of pumping rhythms. The result is the frustrated son of mutant disco, swimming in the same waters of Cabaret Voltaire, 23 Skidoo, Tackhead, Meat Beat Manifesto, and Hula. As Nigel Ayers recalls, "Popular music picked up on what we were doing 1983-1984, which helps explain why records such as Viral Shedding sound clubbier today than they did at the time, but the technology of music making locked in a seat of aesthetics in those days that shaped pop as a whole more than industrial music itself did. Whether by synthesizer manufacturers' musical design or through engineering limitations, the more automated a band allowed their music to become, the dancer it was likely to be." Features the classics "Suffering Stinks", "Going Under", and "No Separation".
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LP
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MNQ 103LP
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Mannequin Records starts a series of re-presses dedicated to the legendary Nocturnal Emissions, one of the best kept secrets of the industrial genre since the 1970s. Led by Nigel Ayers and Caroline K, the band was one of the first to use tape cutting, avant-garde art, and underground video works to create a stage experience that was being cultivated by like-minded artists like Throbbing Gristle, SPK, and Cabaret Voltaire. Originally self-released in 1988 on Earthly Delights, Spiritflesh is a masterpiece and a major reference for the early drone/dark ambient minds. By the time the album came out, Nocturnal Emissions had already produced several albums of electronic music which varied from noisy to funky. Displaying his usual perversity, Nigel chose to ditch electronic dance music immediately before the acid house revolution and produce a series of utterly compelling atmospheric albums which are often referred to these days as being "ambient industrial". Spiritflesh was the first offering by the new shape of Nocturnal Emissions. The record "came out of a long, hard thinking, a personal examination of my own motives for working within music." Nigel Ayers played church harmonium, chime, and music box on the record, and used samples of chimpanzees, cattle, and African and European wild birds. While generally ambient, the music is not like Brian Eno's work; it is atmospheric, but impossible to relegate to the background. "There's always a dangerous intrusion of the real world into our music," Ayers said. "We're looking into the relationship between people and the environment, the kind of feedback which happens between people and locations. Underneath it all, this planet has got its own message."
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2LP
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MNQ 102LP
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Double LP version. Led by Nigel Ayers, Nocturnal Emissions was one of the first bands to use tape cutting, avant-garde art, and underground video works to create a stage experience that was cultivated by like-minded artists like Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire. The band moved on to using samplers and electronic noise in their early '80s work, creating a twisted funk sound that would go on to influence everyone from Foetus to Negativland. They still utilized their former tricks, upping the ante with extremist performance art and more professional video displays. The group avoided signing to a major label, instead focusing on releasing their own music more effectively. They followed this path into the '90s when they started www.earthlydelights.co.uk, an incredibly detailed website that promotes their various ideologies -- they are strongly against the British monarchy and believe that citizens should have unlimited access to space travel -- and constant release schedule. The band has released countless tapes and CDs of their material, and continues to unleash their noise through their website. Nocturnal Emissions is a compilation of classic tracks from the early to mid '80s. Track selection by Alessandro Adriani. Graphic artwork by Simon Crab. Audio mastering by Rude 66.
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CD
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MNQ 102CD
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Led by Nigel Ayers, Nocturnal Emissions was one of the first bands to use tape cutting, avant-garde art, and underground video works to create a stage experience that was cultivated by like-minded artists like Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire. The band moved on to using samplers and electronic noise in their early '80s work, creating a twisted funk sound that would go on to influence everyone from Foetus to Negativland. They still utilized their former tricks, upping the ante with extremist performance art and more professional video displays. The group avoided signing to a major label, instead focusing on releasing their own music more effectively. They followed this path into the '90s when they started www.earthlydelights.co.uk, an incredibly detailed website that promotes their various ideologies -- they are strongly against the British monarchy and believe that citizens should have unlimited access to space travel -- and constant release schedule. The band has released countless tapes and CDs of their material, and continues to unleash their noise through their website. Nocturnal Emissions is a compilation of classic tracks from the early to mid '80s. Track selection by Alessandro Adriani. Graphic artwork by Simon Crab. Audio mastering by Rude 66.
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4LP BOX/7"
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VOD 056LP
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Heavy duty box and immaculate presentation from VOD. "Lest We Forget is a collection compiled from the earliest recordings by Nocturnal Emissions, a group founded by Nigel Ayers, his brother Daniel Ayers and Caroline K in 1980. It is comprised of material previously only available on cassettes as well as tracks recorded under their earlier name, The Pump. The Nocturnal Emissions were active in what has been known as 'cassette culture' and explored the medium of underground cassette exchange in parallel with their better known vinyl releases and live performances. They used the available technology of the day in a spirit which seems to have anticipated modern social networking through the Internet. This series of documents offers a rare glimpse at audio sketchbooks; raw, unfinished works-in-progress and live performances by the group. It covers a wide range of musical style by a group who were committed to radical experimentation in both form and content. The box set also contains some previously unreleased tracks from the early '80s which sound surprisingly contemporary and fresh. The group has undergone several mutations since these early recordings and continued into 21st century as a solo project by Nigel Ayers. Caroline K left the group in 1984 and produced one solo album before adopting a more private life. She remained a good friend and lived in England, Sri Lanka, and finally in Italy. She married Danny Ayers in 2001. While the edit of this collection was being assembled, she took ill with leukemia and died during hospital treatment a few days later. Caroline's distinctively moody electronics, vocals and bass guitar feature strongly on these albums. We offer this box set as a tribute to her life and work." Includes Dyskinesia, The Fight Goes On/Duty Experiment, Deathday/Outtakes, Whisky/Recordings By The Pump, plus booklet.
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CD
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SOL 121CD
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"For his 25th CD as Nocturnal Emissions, Nigel Ayers has created a work that balances noise and vocal samples against a wild array of loops and rhythm tracks. It's a tantalizingly spicy cocktail that sounds nothing like an out-of-control hip-hop dump truck being driven backwards through an octogenarian's barn dance. Collateral Salvage is beat-oriented toe-tappin' music constructed from hundreds of different samples of indie guitar-pop, interspersed with fragments of song and surreal speech. Strong bass lines run throughout, and the rhythms are a blend of funk and exotic eastern promise. Subtle tonalities, acoustic guitar flavors, swingin' saxophones, flutes and horns are piled high over tabla and soaring vintage analog synthesizers. Mbiras mix with driftwood marimbas, wicky-wicky guitars and pitch-shifted sitars in a swirling belly-dance dub sock-hop. Collateral Salvage was inspired by the sounds of modern Morocco. Late at night, lying in a bath, listening to the output of three different nightclubs, each with their own blend of local music mixed with international pop hits, all in a constant struggle for dominance, with water running in and out of the ears. The resourcefulness of human endeavor in the Third World and its contrast with the luxuries and carefree wastefulness of the developed world provided the foundation for the album. This is the music of resistance against the constant war being waged by the powerful elite in rich nations against the poor. When Bush says 'you're either with us or you're against us' Ayers replies 'There is no separation. Social divides are socially constructed. A forgotten branch of the avant-garde once suggested that art can direct thought along new lines and enable us to generate more positive patterns of social behavior'."
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