ESP KINETIC - Fleck-Nor

ESP Kinetic existed from 1982-1986, in alternating states of heavy obscurity and mild infamy in their native Northamptonshire. The core of the band was Neil Campbell and Andrew Watson, with the multi-talented MS Turner giving them some extra musical and conceptual backbone for their final year or so. Other local freaks, transvestites and exhibitionists came and went, most notably the giant David Bowie impersonator Dougie Smyth, who lent the whole thing a certain debauched glamour. Our influences were probably glaringly obvious - PiL, The Fall, Virgin Prunes, TG, the Velvets etc - but always tempered by remedial musical ability and general smalltown weirdness. Tapes were recorded, bemused local audiences periodically baited, and the group tapped into the worldwide mail network that sufficed to link like-minded souls in the days before email. In 1985, some of the tapes somehow found their way to a Finnish tape label we had never heard of, and have never heard from since. They asked for a tape to release, so we cut them a wildly divergent mix from our archive and some fresh works in progress, sent it off complete with artwork and the whole thing seemed to disappear into space. Did it ever get any circulation in the frozen north? Did it get lost in the post? Nobody knows. Luckily we made a handful of copies before sending the master off, so now, 23 years later, we can finally give this some kind of proper release. \r\nThe 13 tracks spread over 57 minutes holler loud and clear through multiple forms of lo-fidelity, covering a stylistic range of approaches that was meat and potatoes then, but seems pretty invigorating and fresh in this millenium of ever-narrowing generic restriction. Teenage trauma shriek, rhythmic pound, tape and electronics experiments, percussive burnout, unintelligible performance poetry, broken electro-pop and all manner of obscurist tactics permeate this collection, uninhibited by any notions of good taste or any fear of ridiculousness. For better or worse, this is the sound of growing up weird in a small town in the Midlands in Thatcherite Britain. - Music Mundane