2017-04-14

throbbing gristle and albrecht/d. - three tapes recorded in london in june and july 1976, and released by the stuttgart reflection press as unlimited editions in september 1976

though some tapes coumpiling very early recordings of throbbing gristle are rumoured to have been circulating amongst the london in-crowd in 1976, these three tapes were the first official releases by throbbing gristle as "throbbing gristle". 
in 1974 the german postfluxus artist albrecht/d. had been part of the "art into society - society into art" exhibition at the london ica; and though no evidence revealed until today, he probably met genesis and/or cosey as part of the coum operation group at this show. only a few weeks later, when coum conquered europe in 1975, he met and worked with them in kiel, gross-gerau, antwerpen and stuttgart, where coum were part of one of his many mail art exhibitions. just when coum had changed their name to throbbing gristle in the summer of 1976 albrecht/d. stayed with them for some weeks in their studio and home at 10, martello street in london. he sat in with them on drums and recorded two of their early versions of "music from the death factory" (link to discogs) on his old tape recorder on the 12th and 18th of june 1976 (you can find these recordings two posts up above in this-here blog), an hour's worth of sounds on the 23rd of july, and some more noise on the 30th of july 1976. 
in september 1976, back in stuttgart, germany, albrecht/d. took these three hours of early throbbing gristle material and released them as three one-hour-long tapes as unlimited editions on his very own publishing house "reflection press". these releases were part of his co-operation with throbbing gristle, and they were the first official releases of throbbing gristle anywhere in this old world. until his untimely death in 2013 albrecht/d. was always ready and willing to sell or give away copies of these tapes to everybody who asked for.
as i mentioned before, the june recordings can be found in an earlier poat in this-here blog; so what you'll get today are the recordings albrecht/d. executed with throbbing gristle on the 23rd and the 30th of july 1976. throbbing gristle in these days were of course cosey fanni tutti, genesis p. orridge and chris carter; if sleazy can be heard on these recordings is coumpletely unknown, mind the pun-ch!


download throbbing gristle et albrecht/d. - 23rd of july 1976
















2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you very much! This is the best copy of the recordings I've heard to date. Great to see it released into the wild with proper and correct data.

Bodhi Amol said...

Tausend Dank!
Wenn ich gewusst hätte dass ich einfach nach Stuttgart hätte schreiben können,um Tape Kopien zu bekommen....
Habe mich längere Zeit gefragt,ob die Adresse von früher wohl noch aktuell ist,bin dem aber nie aktiv nachgegangen.Stattdessen habe ich vor 10 Jahren mal eine Kopie einer Kopie (vom 3.Tape) über ebay gekauft und war letztes Jahr endlich mal im Netz bezüglich der beiden anderen tapes (als mp3) erfolgreich,aber die Qulität hier ist besser!