Severed Heads are one of the longest standing bands to have emerged from the Australian post-punk and experimental scene. They began in Sydney in 1979, and were an early outfit to incorporate elements of ‘industrial’ noise-generation, tape cutting & looping and electronic sound synthesis. As the project developed, song-structures and vocals were employed in a more-or-less recognizable mutant electro pop style. After many line-up changes featuring Gary Bradbury and psychedelic guitarist Simon Knuckey, Severed Heads became the solo vehicle for composer Tom Ellard.In 1983 they released a C-60 cassette called “Since The Accident” that grabbed the attention of Ink Records, a subsidiary of Virgin in the UK.  Ellard added a throwaway track at the last minute to fill out the cassette, not wanting to leave an unseemly gap on a C60 tape. This track, “Dead Eyes Opened” was catchy enough to get a lot of airplay on the main non-commercial radio station in Sydney. The band was asked to make this song into a 12” single. For this extended version, Tom Ellard and producer Patrick Gibson went to M Squared studio and passed the multitracked recordings through various EQ’s and delays. “Dead Eyes Opened” features samples from a radio program narrated by Edgar Lustgarten, a crime journalist from England, referencing a double murder case that occurred in 1924. The rhythms are made by a TR-808 drum machine and an SH-1 synthesizer. A KORG PolySix was used for strings and additional atmospheric elements. The lead solo was a Casiotone run through an Octaver foot pedal. On the B-side are two solo compositions “Bullet” and “Mount” that Ellard recorded at Terse Tapes in 1982.

All songs are remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. Housed in the original jacket featuring the iconic photograph of a girl with a painted face wrapped in some cloth by Juilee Pryor. Each copy includes a fold-out newsprint poster with a large photo of the band wearing Art Unit skull shirts on one side and liner notes and press clippings on the other. 30 years later Severed Heads are still paving the way for powerful, imaginative, and challenging music.

Executive Slacks was spawned in the humidity of post-industrial Philadelphia by three restless art students – Matt Marello, John Young and Albert Ganss. Starting out with  performance art in subways, they soon took their  angst-ridden act to galleries and night clubs. They recorded four songs in the fall of 1982 that became their self-titled EP released by local independent label Red Records in 1983.On their debut EP Matt Marello roars and churns out white-hot shards of guitar while John Young’s short-circuited noise machines and Albert Ganss’s industrial metal drums create dramatic body rhythms. The Slacks drew their influences from contemporaries  like Cabaret Voltaire and Tuxedomoon, but also from extremes like disco and dadaism.  Songs were created using heavily modified synthesizers and various percussive instruments: industrial steel drums, a filing cabinet, metal rods, and an African drum covered in antelope skin. Executive Slacks’ unique brew of primitive electronics, harsh guitars and aggressive vocals inspired many bands like Ministry, Front 242, Skinny Puppy.

All songs are remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. Housed in the original jacket featuring a painting by Albert Ganss. Each copy includes an 8-page booklet on industrial gray and blood red paper with lyrics, photos and press clippings from the band’s archives. As James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem said of “The Bus”, “I always wanted to make a sound like that”.

Xymox was founded in Nijmegen, a city in the east of the Netherlands in 1983 by Ronny Moorings (Vocals, Guitars, Synthesizers) and Anka Wolbert (Vocals, Bass). In April of that year Mooringa bought a TEAC 144 four-track tape recorder and the duo moved to Amsterdam. They began to record songs utilizing a Yamaha CS-15, Korg MS-10 and MS-20, a BOSS Dr. Rhythm DR-550, guitar and effects pedals. They layered the drone-like tones of monophonic synthesizers alongside tape loops and rhythm tracks, then played guitar and bass, without the use of computers. The 5-song EP Subsequent Pleasures was released in 1984 and limited to 500 vinyl copies, and served as a precursor to the dark wave sounds they would champion on their self-titled debut on 4AD the following year. Also of note, the track “Muscoviet Musquito”, was later re-recorded for the compilation album “Lonely Is An Eyesore” released by 4AD in 1987.

All songs have been remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. All jackets have been silk-screened with pink and grey paint, using the original plates Anka created in 1984. Each copy includes a fold-out pink newsprint poster with never before seen photos of the band, lyrics and liner notes by Anka and Ronny. See the colors and waves in this deluxe 30th anniversary edition of a classic piece of Dutch history, highly sought after by collectors.

http://www.darkentriesrecords.com/