Tape Delay: Confessions from the Eighties Underground

Rating:
Summary: The mood
Review: Tape Delay has a mixed quality of interviews. Most are good, the bad ones are either too short, or contain rather pointless or poorly thought out questions. Still, badly phrased or thoughtout questions are minimal, and the author manages to draw out the collective mood of these closely or faintly related artists. For example, many of them are interested in the possibilities of technological or chemical advances like psychoactives, subliminal messages, multi-media effects on psychology, sound and light waves beyond perception, and the interaction between audience and artist in a live context. How these impact on politics and the sense of self is a major theme in this collection. Many of the artists are also concerned with radical forms of spirituality, psychology or philosophy like those of Aliester Crowley, William Blake, Timothy Leary, or Friedrich Nietzsche. The book is especially good at drawing out the musical geneaology of some of the major bands, how groups like Coil, Chris and Cosey and Current 93 came from Psychic TV, who in turn developed from Throbbing Gristle. Neverthless, these mutual influences and history could have been explored more. Another good touch to the book is artwork enclosed by some of the musicians. So if you want to hear Genesis P-Orridge's theory of how TV will give you cancer, find out who Diamanda Galas perfect man is, or wonder why Nick Cave hates his audience, this should interest you.

Rating:
Summary: Confrontational artists
Review: This is quite a voluminous collection of interviews with unusual writing and artwork by the featured artists and musicians. As such it is an ambitious attempt to link all of these underground performers together and provides a comprehensive introduction to the most prominent confrontational artists of the eighties. It includes most of the New York No Wave movement (Michael Gira, Lydia Lunch, Sonic Youth, Swans) but reaches wider to also feature similar artists and groups from the UK (Marc Almond, Cabaret Voltaire, Chris & Cosey, The Fall, Psychic TV, Mark Stewart) and Germany (Einstürzende Neubauten). It is noticeable that a large number of these musicians were considered "industrial" and are also found in Andrea Juno and V. Vale's "Industrial Culture Handbook." My favorite band, Swans, features in a very informative interview and founder Michael Gira has some coprophiliac pieces of prose scattered throughout the book. There is also a chapter on COUM Transmissions that relates to Psychic TV and Cosey Fanni Tutti of Chris & Cosey. The black and white illustrations include portraits of most of the artists and the book ends with five beautiful esoteric montages by Genesis P. Orridge. Together with the aforementioned Industrial Culture Handbook, Tape Delay is an indispensable source for the history of the real alternative culture of the eighties. My one complaint is the lack of an index; it would have made the book more accessible and useful for cross-referencing.