B.F.E.34 – INSTANT AUTOMATONS “Sincerely Making A Noise” LP (Sold Out)
B.F.E 34 – 300 copies. Sold Out
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“People Laugh at Me (Coz I Like Weird Music)”–The Instant Automatons
The Instant Automatons were leading figures in the largely cassette-based U.K. Bad Music scene (a British DIY movement whose adherents made their music available on cassette for free) of the late ’70s.
Between 1977 and 1982, using a bedroom full of homemade gear plus some conventional instrumentation, core members Protag (later of Alternative TV, Blyth Power and Zounds) and Mark Lancaster (“somewhere between Cooper Clarke and Mark E. Smith”) forged a warped hybrid of traditional songcraft and lo-fi primitive post punk. Although cassettes were the band’s native medium, they also appeared on several vinyl releases, including their own EP and various compilations featuring similar weirdos.
“The Instant Automatons mixed the experimental and the conventional, with relatively traditional song structures often lurking beneath the surface weirdness–unlike some of their post-punk contemporaries who deconstructed the concept of “the song” itself. Again, Lancaster attributes some of this to practical considerations: “We were only just learning to play our instruments and our equipment was deficient, so even our best efforts to play ‘properly’ sometimes turned out quite bizarre.” The band was never short of skewed rock and pop oddities, most memorably “John’s Vacuum Cleaner”–a weird tale of love, betrayal, appliances, obsessive housework, and suicide.” Perfect Sound Magazine
For fans of the Messthetics compilations (Hyped to death released the Another Wasted Sunday Afternoon compilation Cd),Urinals, Homosexuals…
Curated by Lancaster, “Sincerely Making A Noise” dusts off curiosities from the Instant Automatons archives (Peter Paints His Fence EP, Angst In My Pants EP, No Platform For Heels LP, Love Not Devotion LP, Tape Transport cassette …)
Tape Heads: A Brief History of the Instant Automatons (Perfect Sound Forever magazine): www.furious.com/perfect/instantautomatons.html
Artwork by Guille Roam (www.cargocollective.com/guilleroam)
Released Beat Generation. B.F.E. Records.
Remastered/ 180 gr vinyl / 300 copies
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Instant Automatons fueron una de las bandas más originales surgidas a finales de los setenta en Inglaterra. Liderados por dos seres extravagantes: Protag (más tarde estaría en Alternative TV, Blyth Power y Zounds) y Mark Lancaster (un cruce entre Cooper Clarke y Mark E. Smith), dieron rienda suelta a sus fantasías sonoras que fueron rastreando desde comienzo de la década con proyectos primerizos donde había elementos que definirían su personalidad musical posterior, un cortocircuito que aunaba elementos de clásicos fumetas lisérgicos como Hawkwind o Gong, con la vertiente más experimental alemana como Faust o Can.
Cuando la llama del punk hizo acto de presencia vencieron sus complejos de ineptos y junto a grupos, muy cercanos musicalmente a ellos, como The Desperate Bicycles, The Thin Yoghurts o Tone Deaf and The Idiots, apostaron por la filosofía de grabaciones caseras en un recóndito escondite con apenas instrumentos y equipos rudimentarios. Registraron y diseminaron un montón de grabaciones de descacharrante lo-fi primitivista con olor, a eso que llaman ahora, postpunk. Un montón de cintas editadas, un EP, “Peter Paints His Fence”, y diferentes colaboraciones en recopilatorios fueron su legado.
Este disco, “Sincerely Making A Noise”, editado entre Burka For Everybody y Beat Generation, rastrea y recopila entre su ingente y diseminado trabajo un apasionante revisión de unos iluminados que apostaron por el auténtico espíritu de “Háztelo tu mismo”.
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