ReR Quarterly, Volume 1, No. 3

The Big Guns, "Card To Bernard"
Peter Blegvad - Guitar, Singing
Chris Cutler - Drums
Phil Shaw - Backing Vocals, Guitar
Peter Blegvad - words and music
Recorded at Cold Storage, London
September 11, 1985, Engineered by Bill Gilonis.


Robert Wyatt, "Pigs"
Written and performed by Robert Wyatt. Originally commissioned for the 'ANIMALS' film, but not used.

Pig Breeding - The Facts:
1) The sows spend their lives permanently in narrow crates and stalls, lying on concrete. They can never turn round, exercise, nor mix with their own kind.
2) The pigs which are slaughtered for meat will have endured a life in overcrowded, dim-lit pens where pelleted food was showered over them for them to fight for and eat off the dirty, bare concrete floors of the fattening pens
3) Some of these pigs will have been taken from their mother unnaturally early and reared for a time in three-tiered battery cages like chickens.
4) Most of the hog-pigs will have screamed their heads off while being castrated without anaesthetic.

Six MILLION pigs are slaughtered every year.
Taken from a "Compassion in World Farming" publication. Reproduced with kind permission.

ARTISTS FOR ANIMALS collects artists, musicians, writers, actors, poets etc who are against the exploitation of animals and who are putting that message over in their work to make people aware of the issue, to encourage people to think about the way humans are treating other species and to raise money to help fund the campaign for animal liberation. All monies raised go to the Animal Liberation Front. Anyone wishing to help them with recorded works, illustrations, concerts, live performances, venues, exhibitions etc can contact them at: c/o Slip Records, PO Box 18, South PDO, Manchester M14 5NB.

Roger Turner, "Sprung From Traps"
Recorded at Cold Storage September 27, 1985
As it was. No cuts. No overdubs.
Engineered by Bill Culonis.

Roger Turner is self-taught. He has a strong root in Jazz, but also has experience in R&B Ghanian (drum ensemble) and Islamic (Morocco, Turkey) musics. He also worked with the experimental 'Ritual Theatre' group. Since 1974 he concentrated and focussed his work to 'digest and shape all musical (and other) elements into a personal percussion language'. Now he does solo work, ad hoc group work with many international improvisers and more regular group work with Phil Minton (duo), Annette Peacock (duo), Lol Coxhill and Mike Cooper (trio: The Recedents),...

Kontroll Csoport (Control Group), "Little Red Bombardier"
Recorded as a demo in 1983 in Hungary.

Kontroll Csoport was formed in the summer of 1980 by singers Agi Bardos and Laci Kistamas, and guitarist Csaba Hajnoczy - close friends with experience in theatre, classical music and the visual arts, but total beginners on the Rock and Roll stage. This was a time of many new groups and the birth of a new Rock scene in Hungary, and Kontroll Csoport were a central part of it. They underwent major changes in 1981, becoming more musically sophisticated and more theatrically orientated. Their popularity grew, but they were ignored by the media and never toured - though they made concerts in other Hungarian cities. Though they recorded a demo for the national record company, no record came of it. Their music circulated on cassettes though, and they would draw 800-1000 people to a concert. Late in 1983 they decided to disband. Since then they have all continued with musical projects.

Adrian Mitchell, "Woman of Water"
Recorded at Cold Storage, London March 26, 1985. Engineered by Tim Hodgkinson

"Cassix" Fortress Project
Virtually the whole of the second side of the record is a radio-recording made as a public workshop project in 1983, as part of that year's Montepulciano Cantiere Internazionale d'Arte. The Cantiere (which means workshop) occupies some eight weeks in July and August every year, filling the tiny Tuscany town with musicians, composers and students. It began in 1976 at the initiative of Hans Werner Henze, and until 1983 it was concerned exclusively with composed 'classical' music, both ancient and positively modern). Our invitation was a first move toward Rock music and even this was made in an 'art' context: we were invited as performer-composers. Also, it was a dual project, the other sponsor being the Italian National Radio (R.A.I.), at the instigation of Pasquale Santoni. For the festival our thanks must go to Gaston Fournier-Facio who asked us, and to Franco Fabbri who mediated.

The idea was that we would record for one week, using 8-track mobile equipment supplied by the RAI. For the Cantiere this would be a workshop open to the public, for the radio it would form the basis for a programme showing the various stages of the creative process and the final results. (It was broadcast, twice, on 'Un Certo Discorso' RAI Radio 3, a 'serious' Rock programme for which there is no equivalent in Britain.)

Our 'studio' was the inner courtyard of the old fortress; a stone quadrangle open to the sky. In this space we set up our instruments and the RAI's recording equipment. It was gravel in the centre and paving under the roofing (you can hear the gravel on 'The Stanislavsky Method' - I put all my cases on it and pushed them about and threw stuff at them).

The Process: at first we had planned to do the project as three duos, but in the end Fred couldn't do it and Pino Martini (Stormy Six's bass player) joined us instead. We kept the duo idea in any case, but re-applied it by pairing off into every possible duo amongst the six of us. Each duo was to improvise, or play with a half-prepared idea for two to four minutes. This was recorded. Then we all worked collectively on the improvisations, overdubbing extra parts, words and singing etc to make them 'compositions' or songs. We gave ourselves a week ot finish twelve pieces and rehearse some of them, as well as several Stormy Six and Cassiber songs, for an end-of-project concert in the town square. We just made it. The pieces here are: Coste, Cripta, Religion, the Stanislavksy Methos, Tempo di Pace, Bari, Copy Machine, Finta di Nulla (eight of the twelve completed).

NOTES:
Coste: Duo - Franco & Me. Franco had worked out the chord sequence in advance. Melody and text written afterward. Other overdubs produced by discussion;
Cripta: Duo - Heiner & Pino, Drums and backward guitar overdubbed

Cassix:
Chris Cutler - Drums, Percussion etc
Franco Fabbri - Guitar
Umberto Fiori - Voice
Heiner Goebbels - Yamah Piano, PPG Synthesiser, Accordion
Alfred Harth - Bass Clarinet, Tenor Sax, Clarinet
Pino Martini - Bass Guitar
Recorded July 25-29, 1983, under the direction of Pasquale Santoli. Engineered by Roberto Carapellucci. Sound control by Giorgio Sala.

Nazca, "Nadja"
The mystery that lies behind the old Nazca prints in Peru has no explanation today. These huge drawings of animal and insect forms on the ground can only be seen from a great height. Who drew them? What for?

Nazca is a Mexican group formed early in the 1980's by Alejandro Sanchez, Cuanhtemoc Novelo and Carlo Nicolau. Three years later Carlos Ruiz and Jorge Gaitan joined them.

Their work is a product of a particular feelings of social unrest, they explain. They try to compose collectively, outside any established genre. So far they have given about twenty concerts - in universities, museums and small theatres in Mexico City.

Other recordings:
NAZCA (1984). An independent production on their own label (Naja)

Alejandro Sanchez - violin
Cuahtemoc Novelo - Percussions
Carlo Nicolau - piano
Carlos Ruiz - bassoon
Jorge Gaitan - viola
Recorded in Mexico City
Engineered by Bill Freyre.