Independent Woman Records

Midnight Mines - Great Disturbances In Your Mind
I.W.R. CD005 2 x CD. 300 copies.

Fishschool - Live 1983
I.W.R. Cassette. 40 copies.

Witchblood - Maleva
I.W.R. Cassette. 30 copies.

Punctured Corpse
I.W.R. Cassette. 30 copies.

Chow Mwng - Mollip & Reptile
I.W.R. Cassette. 25 copies.






New Zealand label Independent Woman Records came in to view when I heard they were releasing a Ceramic Hobs single and then I found out that there was only going to be a 20 copies lathe cut job. A Peter King lathe cut job of tiny quantities that I have no chance of owning. Life goes on. While down in my cups I scanned more of their desirous items via the wonders of the web and found choice items by the likes of Smegma, The New Blockaders, Kleistwhar, 8 inch lathe cuts, 12 inch lathe cuts now all happily settled with owners who aren’t me. They also do cassettes in small quantities and CD’s of larger quantities which is where this lot came in. All the way from New Zealand in a Maori inked jiffy bag to West Yorkshire.

Biggest surprise of the lot is discovering that Punctured Corpse is your scourge of the south coast actual Jason Williams. My draw dropped a degree at the discovery of this fact. You have to assume that you’re in for some Head Down No Nonsense Death Metal Scribble Backed Denim Jacketed Mindless Boogie at the sight of such nomenclature but actually its all six foot thirteen of yer man doing what he likes to do best which is making an unholy racket. A good heft of it on show here too. A C55 filled to the gubbins with lots of short tracks that include lots of bottle smashing and general all out ear racket. Some of the live tracks are actually pretty stupendous with the chaos being greeted by much audience hilarity. During one live track it appears that the venue alarm went off and its to be assumed that none of the audience could decide for themselves whether it was part of the performance or not. Legend. 

Fishschool are a trio from where I know not who cant make up their minds whether they’re the Talking Heads, Slint or early Velvets. Still, it was 1983 so we can let them off. In 2019 it still sounds pretty good in an all over the shop kind of way and will prove vital fodder for those who seek out obscure bands from the early 80’s. Wherever they come from. Then I went for Witchblood which I thought might be more Head Down No Nonsense Death Metal Scribble Backed Denim Jacketed Mindless Boogie but is more aligned to what Charlemagne Palestine creates with the repetitive hammering of piano keys recorded in a lo-fi manner so as to create drones. With the addition of some much admired tape wobble I left feeling sated. Chow Mwng I’ve not listened to since risking my arm on a download a few months back and finding myself in raptures. Oh how I chastised myself and made promises not to be so harsh on the inbox. If memory serves what I got then were songs as recorded by somebody who only had access to the cutlery drawer and a bent acoustic guitar with two strings missing. This is maybe even more experimental, like something recorded in Hungary in the 1950’s by an electronic pioneer in a studio full of expensive looking equipment when in actual fact its Chow Mwng pulling sellotape, drilling imaginary holes and singing along to irritating squeaks all while surreptitiously recording his try outs in the Moog shop. Superb stuff. A man trying to make interesting sounds with whatever comes to hand and succeeding.

The release that's been played the most and the one that you are more likely to get your hands on is the double CD set by Midnight Mines. I know nothing about them except that there are two of them, Private Sorrow and Baron Saturday and that they’re described as ‘improv attacked with a primitive garage band mentality’. Apparently they record ‘spontaneous compositions’ before reworking them in the studio adding dubs, beats and the occasional synth slaver. I can vouch for their success. Disc One is a collection of their first three cassettes with Disc Two bringing unreleased material to the feast. Here you can chow down on all manner of guitar rawk beat box synth barrage burble with the occasional vocal going backwards. Like an early Ashtray Navigations going through more distortion boxes or a more rudimentary Ramleh [rock version obvs]. Vocals are few and far between and when they emerge they’re more like anguished wails than actual words which is fine by me. I found the cover intriguing; riot police breaking up a demonstration which judging by the haircuts and dress of the people involved must have taken place in the ‘70’s or ‘80’s. So why that particular image? It must have some significance for as riot police breaking up demonstrators goes its a fairly ho-um image. If you enter ‘riot police breaking up a demonstration’ in to an online image search the vast majority of returns are of recent unrest photographed up close by brave photographers not photographs taken from a building across the way like we have here. Then I saw what I think must be the reason. If you look very closely at the figure exiting the image on the extreme right they’re wearing white socks with sandals. Quelle horreur.


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