DEAD MIND RECORDS 2023
For orders or info: controlvschaos@hotmail.com
Plus Instruments – 79/80 LP (20 EURO)
While she was still a member of Nasmak, one of the leading bands of the Dutch ultra-movement, Truus de Groot started Plus Instruments in 1978 with herself as the sole member. When the project evolved, she found a wide range of rotating collaborators like Michel Waisvisz, Lee Ranaldo and James Sclavunos. Plus Instruments was about freedom and the live performances were largely improvised. The sound minimal but captivating. The music always came from within, but De Groot was also triggered by bands like Red Crayola, Suicide, DAF, Wire, Per Ubu, Devo and the No Wave scene in NY. She was always experimenting with primitive multi-track recording and whatever crappy gadgets she could find. Always looking for a gritty, dirty sound and bizarre overtones.
At a young age she travelled to New York and began to immerse herself in the nightlife of the city that never sleeps. Here she found true creativity, passion and expression. The club scene was alive but highly competitive, so this fearless Dutch girl would just knock on promoter’s doors to get gigs booked at places like CBGB’s, Peppermint Lounge, Underground and the Pyramid. De Groot eventually settled in the United States and never stopped experimenting with sound. In recent years she reinvented Plus Instruments and led the group into new territory.
The recordings for this LP were made by De Groot at home and the music is experimental, minimal, industrial but also playful, sounding nothing like most of the later material. 14 tracks in total of which 8 are taken from the elusive and impossible to find self-released debut cassette as ‘Truss Plus Instruments’ which was sparingly distributed by Nigel Jacklin and his legendary Alien Brains fanzine in 1980. The remaining 6 tracks are from the same period (1979-1980) and were carefully selected from the vast archive of De Groot. We are glad to present this anthology that serves as a long overdue testimony to the formative phase of a unique female pioneer of electronic music.
200 copies on black vinyl with insert. 75 copies on purple vinyl with a signed and numbered print, an envelope with 4 small prints and a cassette with 2 archival live performances from the same period. A Truus de Groot solo performance at Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven (1980) and a performance with Michel Waisvisz and original Plus Instruments member Bregt Camphuijzen at the Notre Dame Hall, London (1979).
Robert Turman – Distant Dosage LP (SOLD OUT)
Turman first came onto the industrial scene in the late 70’s as the ominous ‘other half’ of legendary noise outfit NON. Shortly after recording the classic 1977 single Mode of Infection, Turman went on to pursue his own unique vision as a solo artist. Fusing every possible influence at his disposal while laying his ideas down on self-released cassettes like Flux (1981), Spirals of Everlasting Change (1987), Way Down (1987) and the massive Chapter Eleven cassette box set (1988). After a hiatus Turman resurfaced in 2005 to team up with seminal noise musician Aaron Dilloway. Since then, he has been gradually adding new titled to his already impressive discography.
For this archival release Turman selected 7 tracks that were recorded between 1980 and 1984. A welcome supplement to his library of avantgarde music that was released in the 80s. This album fits in nicely between the early industrial noise, the long-form minimalism of Flux and the rhythmic industrial of Way Down. Focusing on slowly shifting hypnotic loop-based layers of sound, it covers a specific side of Turman. It feels like there’s a direct link to his earliest works but it’s also a precursor to some pieces that were recorded much later. A missing link that finally gives us the opportunity of a complete overview of his early audio work.
All 7 tracks on this album have a connection to the written word in the form of a poem. Scans of the original typewriter poems are included together with collages and drawings from this specific time frame to create an essential and singular piece of art.
225 copies on black vinyl with insert. 75 copies on red vinyl with extra insert and numbered postcard.
Enno Velthuys – Ontmoeting LP (19 EURO)
Ontmoeting (Encounter) from 1982 marks the beginning of the published audio works of Enno Velthuys. When Rob Smit of Kubus Kassettes first visited Enno to discuss the possibilities of releasing a cassette, he was open to the idea and gave Smit access to his tape archive of recorded tracks to cherry pick his favorite pieces. Initially Enno felt the selection didn’t do justice to his broader musical spectrum, that also included more rhythm orientated guitar pieces, but in hindsight it probably gave him a new sense of direction.
On this album, a mixture of spacious ambient and synth-leaden music, we hear Enno in transition. Experimenting, searching for his own voice. Some pieces are reminiscent of a classic dungeon explorer game while others have a more surreal, cinematic feel. Although 40 years old, Ontmoeting still sounds incredibly fresh today and stands as a pivotal ambient release from the early 80’s.
400 copies on black vinyl. 100 copies on blue vinyl with a fold-out poster, 2 extra inserts & a small sticker. Included download card.
Enno Velthuys – Landscapes in Thin Air LP/7" (23 EURO)
Landscapes In Thin Air is Enno’s third album and was initially released by Kubus Kassettes in 1985. When Rob Smit decided to stop his label activities shortly after publishing this cassette, Hessel Veldman published a second edition on his label EXART.
Compared to his second album, Glimpse of Light, it has a stronger presence of rhythm and a more melodic use of synths. These 10 cinematic sketches have a clean, caressed calmness about them and seem to depict a specific time, feeling or location. A light atmosphere, the sky warming up during sunrise, a sense of discomfort and finally, the city cooling down when night falls.
It’s hard to imagine Enno producing this majestic album by himself in his bedroom. All his trademark arrangements in place, framed by a tight controlled aesthetics and a strong metaphorical presence. Meticulously recreated from the original cassette masters, we are proud to reissue this ambient masterpiece.
500 copies on black vinyl. Included download card.
N.E.R.F. – Ivinenn / Skavenn 2CS (SOLD OUT)
N.E.R.F is a collaboration project of longtime comrades Peter Zincken (Odal) and Johnny van de Koolwijk (Zyrtax). Using vintage field recordings from the Odal vaults as a foundation, adding fragments of improvised live recordings, analog synths, loops & vocals they recorded 2 albums over the last 2 years. Drawing inspiration from nature, mystical rituals and the ancient world in general, these 16 tracks capture the struggle of survival in a modern society. A journey to the end of our world, to overcome weakness and honor forgotten fragments of the past. Regression instead of progression.
Both N.E.R.F. albums are now released for the first time in physical format as a double cassette housed in an old school thermoform box limited to 30 copies. Comes with an additional booklet.
Something Vile - Suicide Souvenir CS (10 euro)
After a random discovery on Bandcamp I kept returning to the dirty, rhythmic synth noise of Something Vile. An unknown project to me at the time that turned out to be the brainchild of Alex Ford, a restless soul spinning his own web in a dark corner of the noise, industrial & power electronics scene. Operating his label, Deathbed Tapes while using different monikers for his own musical output.
For his latest release he produced a mixture of primitive, distorted beats and layers of screeching noise to create an intense experience that feels like being hit in the face with a sledgehammer, leaving you knocked down on the floor begging for more. Pure bummed out lo-fi industrial using analog drum machines and FM synthesis through fuzz pedals and bit crushers. Sounds like SPK and Maurizio Bianchi going back in time to perform at a caveman ritual.
75 copies, with handmade slipcase and a numbered insert.
Organ of Corti - Incus / Malleus 7” (10 euro)
Born out of a common interest in the repetitive, challenging and intense the three-headed dragon Organ of Corti is a new collaboration project between Swedish sound experts Joachim Nordwall (IDEAL Records, The Gagmen), Mattias Gustafsson (Altar of Flies) and Dan Johansson (Sewer Election, Enhet för Fri Musik). Inspired by tape music from the 60s, minimal music, early industrial and collective creativity their sound is unique and unheard of. Organ of Corti is about hearing, about how to be affected through sound and the power of reaching other states of consciousness through composition and deep listening.
While Gustafsson and Johansson deliver their trademark crumbling tape loops, Nordwall adds spacious analogue synth layers. Carefully mixing these bare elements into a hypnotic journey. In the slipstream of their debut cd on New Forces we’re proud to return to our favorite physical format to present their first vinyl edition, containing 2 fresh injections of superior sound manipulation.
250 copies, with hand stamped labels and insert.
Kjostad - Captive CS (SOLD OUT)
New York City-based Kjostad is the moniker of Stefan Aune, who is also involved in Form Hunter and Breaking the Will, in addition to running the New Forces label. Capturing highly personal sounds focusing on northern Minnesota, Aune adds layers of electronics and magnetic tape, weaving an organic tapestry of man-made and natural sonics.
Captive explores the physicality of organic sound and the productive tension that arises when it is captured via analog and digital machines. Composed in 2020 and 2021 and refined through several live performances in New York City, it translates and renders audible the solitary manipulation of wood, rock, metal and other materials.
100 copies, with handmade slipcase and a numbered insert.
Enno Velthuys – Different Places LP (SOLD OUT)
Continuing the reissue campaign of legendary synthesizer artist Enno Velthuys, we are proud to offer the Different Places LP. The original tape from 1987 was the second tape Enno produced for EXART and it was his last work before he disappeared into obscurity. By this time, he became disillusioned by the cassette network and his mental condition sadly deteriorated. With Hessel Veldman, label owner of EXART, getting more interested in experimental music, they were both moving into different places and eventually lost contact.
Willem de Ridder and Enno stayed in close contact. Enno composed background music for some of his radio shows. Willem would release some of these recordings through his own label, Radio Art Foundation. For the limited version of this LP 4 cassette covers, drawn by Peter Pontiac, are added as additional prints.
Enno was a perfectionist, always looking for better equipment. When listening to the original master tape of Different Places it turned out it had a real nice, clean sound. Definitely an improvement over some of his earlier material. While mastering these songs for vinyl in 2021 we tried to stay as close as possible to Enno’s original intentions. Different Places is probably his most coherent work and includes some magical chord progressions. Shades of Erik Satie and Hiroshi Yoshimura mixed with immersive, spacious, cosmic ambient. Melancholic but less claustrophobic when compared to predecessors Glimpse of Light or Landscapes in Thin Air.
While the LP was in production, we were contacted by someone who just bought a framed 1967 drawing from a thrift store, made by Enno. In the 60’s he was playing guitar for various bands and although his father was a famous illustrator of children’s books nobody knew he was also doing these large drawings back then. We are very pleased that we were able to add this amazing piece of art to this publication as an insert.
350 copies on black vinyl, 100 on orange vinyl with 4 extra prints, 200 copies on green vinyl (repress) with extra print.
Enno Velthuys – Glimpse of Light LP (SOLD OUT)
The 2019 Stroom〰 split EP with Hessel Veldman marked the long-awaited vinyl debut of Enno Velthuys and served as a teaser for a reissue campaign of his work, shared between different labels. Finally!
In 1984 Velthuys released his classic tape ‘A Glimpse of Light’ on EXART, the label of Veldman, who stayed in close contact with Enno after hearing one of his private tapes being played on the radio by Willem de Ridder in 1980. During a live-broadcast event random tapes were played. “From Enno Velthuys, The Hague”, was written on the package. Willem introduced the tape, played it and a serene silence filled the studio. Present was a friend of De Ridder, Rob Smit, who visited Enno and his mother a few weeks later. This eventually resulted in Enno’s first release ‘Ontmoeting’ on KUBUS Kassettes in 1982. In those years, Enno was living a solitary life and rarely left his mother’s apartment. He managed to release 6 tapes of introvert, melancholic music from another dimension. Atmospheric melodies backed with sparse percussion, showing an excellent handling of the synthesizer.
The gifted musician with two souls silently passed away in 2009. Now we present, with involvement of the few once close to him, the first reissue of probably his most beloved work. Using the original master tape from the EXART vaults, carefully transferred, edited and remastered. Just Enno with his stripped-down compositions and fragile ambient sounds. An intimate experience celebrating bedroom-music and the glory days of do-it-yourself counterculture.
Limited to 500 copies, 100 on white vinyl.
Mario Marzidovšek – Brutal Alter Minimal LP (18 euro)
Mario Marzidovšek (1961-2011) was a member of the international mail-art network, painter, poet, cassette culture pioneer and a key figure of the Yugoslavian underground scene. Influenced by the electro-acoustic avantgarde he began to explore electronic music in the late 1970’s. Like an erupting volcano he released numerous tapes between 1984 and 1987, before aborting his musical activities to move on.
Marzidovšek was truly living an industrial lifestyle as an employee of a chemical factory. His Minimal Laboratorium, filled with homemade devices, old instruments and tape recorders, was the central part of his musical creativity. Using limited equipment forced him to be resourceful and made sure the raw punk-spirit was always present in his electronic music, slowly shifting from harsh industrial polka to lo-fi wave, ambient and barbaric techno.
Brutal Alter Minimal is a collection of tracks from 1985, using the master tapes send to Nihilistic Recordings the same year as source material. Authorized by the Marzidovšek family, this compilation stands as a testimony to a true legend expressing his sheer creative powers. Limited to 300 copies, 50 on blue vinyl. Includes printed insert.
Hans van Eck – Blind Area LP (18 euro)
Hans van Eck started composing music in 1976 and was trained in electronic music at the Institute of Sonology by Jaap Vink, Frits Weiland and Gottfried-Michael Koenig. He studied Musicology at the University of Amsterdam and received lessons in composition by Daan Manneke. His works are performed all over Europe by his own Schreck Ensemble and others.
The Blind Area cassette, released in 1987 by Decay International, compiles several of his early electronic compositions. They serve as an evocation of the blind areas of our minds where only fantasy, intuition and imagination can guide us. Music as a means to illuminate the hidden parts of our soul to discover the mythical world behind everyday life.
For this reissue, 3 central pieces of the original tape are complemented by 2 more recent compositions of somber timbres. Industrial undertones, open spaces and slow waves of pure, refined sound are the key ingredients, but Van Eck adds a subtle, narrative structure for a hypnotic, haunting and elegant experience. A self-contained world with echoes of predecessors like Jean-Claude Risset or Guy Reibel. Limited to 250 copies.
Joe Colley – Chapel Action CS (SOLD OUT)
Joe Colley is a visual artist and composer. He investigates audio phenomena using field recordings and electronics. He records also under the moniker Crawl Unit and is the founder of the label Povertech Industries.
Chapel Action documents a 5-hour durational performance at Chapel of the Chimes, a columbarium in Oakland California. Spontaneous text is spoken into a small room and mixed with tones and sounds of amplified writing. Reflections of the room’s architecture become increasingly dense over time as meaning is eroded and words decay. Written pages from the action accumulate on the floor as the performance progresses.
Each silkscreened box contains a signed and numbered original page from the action, a hand cut meditation object and a booklet with photos of the performance and a full transcript of the written pages. Limited to 50 copies.
La Gomera CS/art-box (60 euro)
The idea for this release started years ago while listening to a tape from the Slowscan archive containing a radio broadcast about the Otto Mühl commune on La Gomera, Portugal. Later, while working with William Levy, a close friend of Mühl, on his 2016 LP on Slowscan Records the idea arose to combine forces for an Otto Mühl LP, documenting some of the stuff from the personal archive of Levy. He send me an English version of his book ‘Unser Freund, Otto Mühl’ to be included, but the project was abandoned as Levy’s health declined and it remained unclear who was holding the copyrights for the material.
Years later I was listening to the radio broadcast again and thought it’d be nice to release this as a special edition tribute art-box. I asked renowned Dutch artist Aaron van Erp to contribute as I knew he’s also a fan of Mühl’s work. He gave me a series of drawings to be printed as a booklet together with 2 hand screened, numbered and signed prints. Van Erp has become a rising star of the art world since his graduation in 2001. His surreal and absurd paintings have been acquired for numerous collections in the Netherlands and abroad, including the trendsetting Saatchi collection.
Besides the tape, booklet and prints we included another booklet containing a selection from ‘Unser Freund’ and several small multiples and items. Housed in a silkscreened wooden box in a limited edition of 25 copies and sold as an exclusive mail-order item only.
Alice Kemp - Sweetly My Blacken Doll CS (SOLD OUT)
Sweetly My Blacken Doll is a collection of musical compositions created with recordings of woodwind, voice, sine wave and countryside. All sounds are performed, recorded and assembled by Alice Kemp, with additional sound on track 3 performed by Dark Mother Wood. The music here suggests a genre somewhere between tape noise, classical, blackened chant, electra acoustic and other.
Handfuls of hair, and the English countryside is in shadow. Pointed heads describe themselves, figures settle into their proper place, just on the edge of vision.
Each silkscreened box contains a set of 4 prints and a companion made from beech wood, with human hair, nylon stockings, waxed and mixed thread, hand dyed and mixed fabric, jute string, paint and secrets. Limited to 25 copies.
Mysogyny – Skrag CS (SOLD OUT)
After the passing of Keith Brewer last year, I talked with Peter Zincken of Nihilistic Recordings about what happened. Taint was among the first noise projects I discovered and I’ve been faithfully following wherever Keith went. This journey turned out to be highly rewarding as Taint and later Mania became a great source of inspiration.
In 1989 Keith released his first tape as Mysogyny on Big Body Parts in The USA and Nihilistic Recordings in the EU. The master from Peter’s archive blew me away and includes a few short tracks that are lacking from the Big Body Parts version I heard. We decided to reissue this version as a tribute to Keith. A collection of raw, crude sounds that lay the foundation of what later became a true harsh noise legend.
2 editions of 50 copies.
Depress/Regress & Slave Labor – Seeing Trip’le CS (SOLD OUT)
Dave Gilden & Richard Ramirez created Slave Labor in 1993. With this project they performed live in Houston at Deadline's Noisefest in the same year. Also, at this festival Gilden debut his project simply known as DEPRESS (not long after to be renamed Depress/Regress). Gilden & Ramirez continued to work together in Black Leather Jesus & Lingula. Although troubled as an individual, Gilden's work shows what an impact his legacy has left us as part of the American noise scene.
This tape was mixed by Gilden in 1997 for New Noise Records and includes 3 untitled Depress/Regress tracks, 3 variations of tracks from the Slave Labor – A Sick Cow tape and Seeing Trip’le; an unused Depress/Regress compilation track.
2 editions of 50 copies.
Dave Gilden – Narcotic (Various Noise Works) 3CS (SOLD OUT)
David Steven Gilden was an artist from Houston, Texas, active in the local underground since the late 80´s, recording under varied aliases. Besides his violent and vile sounds, he was also known for his wild live shows and excessive drug abuse, all of which contributed to the legendary aura around him, until he sadly died on April 6th, 2008.
The tracks on this 3xCS set are taken from 4 masters that were sent to New Noise Records back in 1997, which were shelved and never used until now. One master was labelled ‘Narcotic’, the others simply had ‘Various Noise Works’ written on them, as an indication of what to expect. These labels were all David left us to hold onto in an otherwise anonymous and chaotic heap of top-quality harsh noise. In collaboration with New Noise, 19 untitled tracks were edited into this release, hopefully serving as a testimony of the greatness and authenticity of Gilden´s craft, for both old and new listeners.
Limited edition of 100 copies in association with Narcolepsia. 3 cassettes in a special case and 4 panel J-card. Comes with fold-out poster and slipcase.
Jeph Jerman – Cobbled 2CS (SOLD OUT)
Jeph Jerman started recording and performing in 1986 under the moniker Hands To. Most of his early soundwork was sampler and tape loop based, though slowly evolved from electro-acoustic pieces to environmental recordings with very little to no manipulation or electronic processing using only natural found objects like stones, shells, bones, driftwood, pinecones, etc.
The Hands To - Cipher 7” from 95 was an inspirational release for me personally and I always considered Jerman as a key figure in the grey zone between academic sound art and primitive noise. After seeing Jeph perform live a couple of years ago I was impressed by the sound spectrum he created with just a few humble materials and it reinforced my enthusiasm for his work which eventually led to this publication.
Limited edition of 50 copies. Double cassette housed in a handmade silk-screened wooden box. Comes with a booklet with information and photographs, a bag with 4 small stones and a hand numbered print.
Marie Goyette - Stone Memorial CS (SOLD OUT)
Born in Montréal, Marie Goyette studied the piano in Montréal and London. After residing in Europe, she moved to Berlin in 1989. Inspired by the city's lively and unorthodox art scene, she started a second career and expand her activities from traditional concerts to the fields of performance and radio art. In the early 90’s Jan van Toorn saw her perform with Michael Waisvisz at Apollohuis (Eindhoven, The Netherlands) and asked her for a publication on his label, Slowscan Records. Then the master tape got lost in his archive to be rediscovered 30 years later. It turned out it was the only surviving source of these electronic pieces capturing a short experimental rush from 1989-1991.
Later Goyette spent several months at STEIM in Amsterdam and produced radio plays such as 'Transatlantique' (1993), worked on theatre projects and directed her own works. She collaborated with various artists like Christian Boltanski, Dagmar Krause, Chris Cutler and Heiner Goebbels. She’s happy we found her message in a bottle and I’m more than happy she agreed to have this tape published after all, as a document of an artist trying to redefine her voice in a restless city.
Limited edition of 50 copies. Comes in a silkscreened box with a booklet and a plastic bag containing 3 pieces of broken glass, a piece of wire and a signed card.
Contagious Orgasm - Products Unconscious CS (SOLD OUT)
“I’m Hiroshi and I like beer” were the first words Hiroshi Hashimoto spoke to me when I picked him up from an airport in 2006. For the next 2 weeks we travelled together in old car I borrowed from my parents. Just like his records it became an interesting and rewarding journey with unpredictable twists and turns.
Hiroshi has been active as the sole/primary member of Contagious Orgasm since 1987 and rapidly became a truly dedicated and unstoppable force within the underground, covering a broad spectrum of experimental electronics including noise, industrial and ambient. For this release he delivers 2 long, dark, industrial tracks creating a feverish dream sequence.
Limited edition of 50 copies. Comes in a handmade velvet bag holding the cassette, an envelope with 4 prints and a pair of white, black or pink lace panties (one size fits all).
Odal - 1986-1989 18CS (SOLD OUT)
2 years in the making this comprehensive project documents the creative outburst of legendary sound collector and noise addict Peter Zincken in the late ’80. After his discovery of the underground tape culture he quickly started his own label, fanzine and obsessively recorded and manipulated sounds under the notorious Odal moniker. He never lost focus and 30 years later he still is a central figure in the international tape network. Odal always has been hard to categorize and overlooked because of a disinterest in creating a coherent discography and refusal to live up to the expectations of others. These tapes capture a broad spectrum of underground electronics ranging from lo-fi rumblings, field recordings, anti-social noise to politically incorrect power electronics. When 2 lost mastertapes returned from Vis A Vis Audio Arts we expanded the project from 16 to 18 cassettes to present this complete and final overview.
Limited to 30 hand numbered copies. Comes in a silkscreened wooden box and includes a booklet with a lengthy interview, additional artwork & complete discography. Also included are 2 silkscreened cards.