Richmond, VA had a vibrant art-rock/experimental scene brewing for decades, and the Artifacts/yclept label documented some of the sounds circulating around their hometown. In anticipation of a 3-CD sampler titled Necroscopix (1970-1981), we recently posted three full albums from this era to the Free Music Archive (click the album art to grab 'em) as well as an Artifacts sampler.
1979's Test and 1980's Phantom Limb were the first two official releases by Bomis Prendin, an experimental collective from Washington DC. These 9'' flexidisks came silkscreened, wrapped in a PVC bag "for protection", and their avant-industrial living room tape sounds inspired mail from the likes of Jandek and WFMU's own Irwin Chusid. They're also cited as the two records that earned Bomis Prendin a spot on the mythical "Nurse With Wound" list. A tracks off each album was later compiled as part of Hyped 2 Deaths' Homework #110 compilation, and an official CD release is available here along with more recent Bomis Prendin recordings (BP writes that releases reconvened in 2001, "after we gained the necessaries to make our own CDs, having started digitizing and archiving our hundreds of tapes in 1999"). So there is much mind-melting Bomis Prendin music to be heard, in addition to these two groundbreaking releases. Here's "N.Y. Nightmare" off Test and "Doppler Shift" off Phantom Limb:
Bomis Prendin's mutating lineup centered around its eponymous core member, along with characters like "Corvus Crorson", Candeee, and Miles Anderson. One of the players on Test is Bill Altice, who wrote the liner notes for the forthcoming Necroscopix retrospective. Earlier this year, Bill Altice introduced us to Shinjuku Birdwalk, a previously un-heard gem of an album recorded in 1981 by Richmond's Karen Cooper Complex...
Karen Cooper Complex -- like Bomis Prendin -- traces its lineage to Richmond's early 70s avant-pioneers Titfield Thunderbolt and Big Naptar. Karen Cooper herself had been part of I Saw a Bulldozer, where she was one of the "three or four female vocalists who wrote Surrealist-style 'Exquisite Corpse' lyrics and chanted them in unison in front of a band, coming across something like a female, beatnik version of the Last Poets, who were more interested in art than politics." Bill Altice's liner notes also observe that four of the group's eight members were DJs at Richmond's local independent radio station, where they ingested local freeform radio signals and regurgitated them through a warped mess of re-imagined psychedelic free jazz and Pretty Things, like this track...
Given the improvised nature of these recordings (which Altice calls 'more Bitches Brew than Grateful Dead'), it makes sense that Artifacts went on to release music that included guest appearances by Tom Cora and Fred Frith in the later 80s. But back to the early 80s -- and as far back as 1970 -- keep an eye and an ear out for that Necroscopix 3CD retrospective, with music from Bomis Prendin, Baby Gherkin, Tom and Marty Band, Titfield Thunderbolt, Beatnik Worship, I Saw a Bulldozer, and more key players in the greater Richmond VA universe. And in the meantime, many of these artists can be heard on Artifacts Vol. 1, a compilation originally released on red flexidisc in 1976:
Please also enjoy Bomis Prendin's Test / Phantom Limb and Karen Cooper Complex's Shinjuku Birdwalk. And here's a brand new fan-made music video for KCC's "Jerkin' Pretty", by ludditemusing
I was there. It was amazing. Titfield Thunderbolt was a favorite. Once, a member was in Baltimore and phoned in his parts - the phone mounted on a mic stand. They opened for a really big national act and the keyboard player used live lobsters to plunk away at the keys. Heaven.
Posted by: TS | May 17, 2010 at 09:42 PM
Geoff Travis was travelling through the States prior - I think - to launching Rough Trade Records in 1978. "The Doppler Shift" eerily predates Cabaret Voltaire's "Seconds Too Late", released on RT in 1981.
Of course. The locked groove might just be entirely coincidental.
http://www.siblingshot.com/2010/05/bomis-prendin-seconds-too-late.html
Nice piece, Jason. Both here and on FMA.
Posted by: ib | May 18, 2010 at 07:30 AM
I'm on my way by train from Glasgow to London and found this blog, most interesting listen! I was wondering, is Richmond, Va still the Capital of the Confederate States?
B.
Posted by: B. Brown | May 18, 2010 at 09:38 AM
I still have Artifacts Vol. 1, somewhere . . . has it really been that long? I'm grateful for the years of vocal experience I had at WJRB. --VDP
Posted by: Vince D. Phillips | May 18, 2010 at 11:33 AM
Thanks for this post, Jason!
Posted by: WmMBerger | May 18, 2010 at 02:09 PM
I saw the record test when I was 17-18 and bought it , I still have it and it's in great shape, I was always afraid to play it for it's on a very flimsy floppy piece of plastic, similar to something off of a cereal box but more like a record you would have gotten inside a national geographic , very thin flexible plastic, You would not believe the thrill it gave me that this treasure has been found elsewhere , I thought I was all alone in the world in liking this , my personal favorite '38 angry tigers'
Posted by: Oreoboots | May 24, 2010 at 10:30 PM