Tape Delay: Confessions from the Eighties Underground

By Charles Neal

Contributors to Tape Delay include: Marc Almond - Dave Ball - Cabaret Voltaire - Nick Cave - Chris & Cosey - Coil - Einsturzende Neubauten - The Fall - Diamanda Galas - Genesis P. Orridge - Michael... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0946719020
• ISBN13: 9780946719020
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: S A F Pub Ltd
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Confrontational artists of the 1980s

This voluminous collection of interviews (with brief introductions) and photographs plus exclusive writing and artwork by the featured artists and musicians was compiled by Charles Neal and designed by Jon Wozencroft who explains the aim of the book in the Foreword. An ambitious attempt to link a variety of 1980s underground performers on both sides of the Atlantic, Tape Delay has succeeded remarkably well in capturing the essence of a highly influential scene that thrived outside of the commercial mainstream. The book provides a snapshot of an era by highlighting the most prominent confrontational and/or controversial artists of the eighties. These include many of the New York No Wave characters and bands like Michael Gira, Lydia Lunch, Clint Ruin, Sonic Youth and Swans, and their equivalents in the UK & Europe such as Psychic TV, Cabaret Voltaire, Chris & Cosey, Marc Almond, The Fall, Mark Stewart, Einstürzende Neubauten and Laibach, most of whom had emerged in the 1970s. Other prominent figures include Diamanda Galas, Coil, Henry Rollins, Nick Cave, The Hafler Trio, New Order and Stevo. A number of these musicians were considered "industrial" and Cabaret Voltaire as well as Psychic TV, Genesis P. Orridge and Chris & Cosey (these last three under Throbbing Gristle) are also covered in Andrea Juno and V. Vale's Industrial Culture Handbook. There is a chapter on COUM Transmissions that relates to Psychic TV and Cosey Fanni Tutti of Chris & Cosey. My favorite band, Swans, features in a very informative interview whilst founder Michael Gira has several pieces of prose scattered throughout the book. Others like Ms Lunch, Cave, Mark E Smith and Stevo contribute both an interview and a page of prose/lyrics or a photo montage in the case of Richard H Kirk. More than 60 black and white illustrations & photographs include portraits of most of the artists and the book concludes with five beautiful esoteric montages by Genesis P. Orridge titled Thee Key, Thee Door, Thee Room, Thee Person and Thee Idea. Together with the aforementioned Industrial Culture Handbook and Roni Sarig's Secret History of Rock, 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 work more accessible and useful as a reference source.

The mood

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.