Description
TWO BOX SETS, EACH BOX SET INCLUDES EIGHT LPS AND A 200 PAGE BOOK WITH A CD. THAT’S A TOTAL OF 16 LPS, TWO BOOKS, AND TWO CDS. AND TO BE ABSOLUTELY CLEAR, EVEN THOUGH THE NAMES INCLUDE THE WORD “CASSETTES”, THERE ARE NO CASSETTE TAPES IN EITHER BOX SET.
Quartz-Mirliton Cassettes was one of the most obscure experimental music labels of the 1970s. The VOD release, presented in two boxes, throws light on this mysterious cassette venture, its context and associated recordings. Closely associated with the London Musicians Collective, QMC was launched by Paul Burwell and David Toop in 1977. Produced in tiny editions with handmade covers, the cassettes largely documented live sessions and field recordings made by a close network of improvising musicians, sound sculptors, and sound poets then working with Burwell and Toop, including Bob Cobbing, Hugh Davies, Max Eastley, Evan Parker, Frank Perry, Steve Beresford and others. The manifesto of the label was uncompromising: recordings were mostly lo-fi and noises peripheral to the performance were left in because they affected the music when it was played and formed a part of its context. Obscure as they were, these cassette releases from 1977 documented a intense burst of creative energy from within the London scene.
David Toop / Paul Burwell / Frank Perry / Herman Hauge / Hugh Davies / Max Easley, Paul Burwell, David Toop, Evan Parker, Nigel Coombes, Rogter Smith, Steve Beresford, abAna Sextet, Rain in the Face, Three Pullovers