Man Amplifiers

ClockDVA - Man Amplified

Ripped from a compact disc album released on Contempo Records (CONTE 182CD) in 1992 to high quality lossless flac audio.

1  Man-Amplifiers
2  Techno Geist
3  Axiomatic And Heuristic
4  NYC Overload
5  Transitional Voices
6  Bitstream
7  Fractalize
8  Final Program
9  Dark Attractor
10 Memories Of Sound

Plug'n'Play

ClockDVA - Transitional Voices

Recorded direct from the mixing desk at a live performance in Bologna, here is a lossless rip of the Transitional Voices compact disc. Just as they are these days, rare ClockDVA performances since reformation were heavy on the video art, with Newton growling menacingly at the audience behind dark glasses. I have always been intrigued as to how much of this was live performance, and how much of it was just a backing tape.

Ripped from a compact disc released on Interfisch/PIAS Records (IF-SETH 018C) in 1990 to high quality lossless flac audio,

1 Transitional Voices
2 Sound Mirror
3 Syntactic
4 N.Y.C. Overload
5 Fractal 9
6 Technogeist

Buried Dreams

ClockDVA - Buried Dreams

The fourth regeneration of DVA has maintained in form since its conception in 1989. Newton reinvents himself as a technogeist with limited success, but ClockDVA did find a new following with heavy euro-tech beats and inlay books full of wank-speak (a lingering hang up from the Anti-Group days). We were supposed to listen to the music (weren't we?) rather than strain our eyes and brains with the techno-babble on the printed paper. Here are the singles from the first stage as well - all ripped from CD. I am not too sure we need all these mixes of The Hacker, The Act and Sound Mirror but here they are.

Buried Dreams: Ripped from a compact disc album released on Interfisch Records (IS SETH 017C) in 1989 to high quality lossless flac.

1  Buried Dreams
2  Hide
3  Sound Mirror
4  Velvet Realm
5  The Unseen
6  The Reign
7  The Act
8  The Hacker
9  Connection Machine
10 The Sonology Of Sex I
11 The Sonology Of Sex II (Le Comtesse De Sang)
12 The Hacker (Video Mix)

The Hacker/The Act: Ripped from a compact disc released on Wax Trax Records (WAXCD 8068) in 1990 to high quality lossless flac audio.

1 The Hacker
2 The Act
3 The Connection Machine
4 The Hacker (Hacked Version)
5 Re/Act
6 Sonology Of Sex
7 Re/Act 2

The Hacker (Hacked): Ripped from a compact disc released on Big Sex Records (BIGSEX 001CD) in 1989 to high quality lossless flac audio.

1 Reprogrammed (1) (1)

2 Reprogrammed (1) (2)

3 Reprogrammed (1) (3)

Sound Mirror: Ripped from a compact disc released on Wax Trax Records (WAXCD 9105) on 1990 to high quality lossless flac audio.

1 Sound Mirror I

2 Sound Mirror II

3 The Sonology Of Sex (Le Comtesse De Sang)

4 Hacker (Hacked) Reprogrammed

Advantage Plus

ClockDVA - Advantage

It was mooted a few years back that Mute were planning a reissue of ClockDVA's Advantage album. This has never happened and Adi has now gone quiet on the subject. That gives me more than a reasonable excuse to revisit this classic in 24-bits. This time I can expand to include all the Polydor era singles and remixes (all carefully re-ripped), plus the album demos recorded at Strawberry studios in late 1982.

Advantage is very much a concept album, like a film noir tribute to avantgarde jazz, with funk overtones and experimental soundscapes to which Newton's gravelly tones are incredibly well suited. It's not as good as Thirst, but is more accessible and represents another delve into Newton's dark, and occasionally twisted conscious. Advantage was recorded with a different band to Thirst after the original DVA abandoned Newton en masse to become The Box. For Beautiful Losers everywhere.

Ripped from a vinyl LP released on Polydor Records (POLS 1082) in 1983 to high resolution 24bit flac audio.

A1. Tortured Heroine
A2 Beautiful Losers
A3 Resistance
A4 Eternity In Paris
B1 The Secret Life Of The Big Black Suit
B2 Breakdown
B3 Dark Encounter
B4 Poem

Advantage Plus
01 Sons Of Sons
02 Theme From (I.M.D.)
03 Don't (It's Taboo)
04 Noises In Limbo
05 High Holy Disco Mass
06 High Holy Disco Mass (Dance Macabre)
07 The Voice That Speaks From Within (Triumph Over Will) Part 1
08 Resistance
09 The Secret Life Of The Big Black Suit (Instrumental) The Suit Walks On (Size 7)
10 Breakdown (Remix)
11 Black Angels Death Song

Advantage Demos
From a tape dated 10th November 1982, these are demo tracks for Polydor Records, recorded at Strawberry Studios. All these songs eventually found their way onto the Advantage album, but here they are in their purest, fledgling form - unpolished and still in keeping with the experimental edge that Clock DVA had before signing to a major label, the recording is of a mixing desk quality in 16bit.
01 Tortured Heroine
02 Beautiful Losers
03 Eternity In Paris
04 Breakdown
05 Secret Life Of A Big Black Suit
06 Dark Encounter
07 Resistance
08 Poem

North Loops

ClockDVA - Thirst

Did somebody mention Clock DVA? Thirst has appeared twice before here, but never in 24/96000 quality. I began cleaning up my original UK pressing on Fetish late last year with a view to a post just after Christmas. Various issues got in the way, but save for a tiny bit or two of indiscriminate light crackle, this is as good as it gets.

Is this a masterpiece? Yes it is! Is it the finest deleted album never to even get a hint of a proper reissue in all these years? Oh yes indeed!

Ripped from vinyl album released on Fetish Records (FR 2002) in 1981 to high resolution 24-bit FLAC audio.

A1 Uncertain
A2 Sensorium
A3 White Cell
A4 Piano Pain
A5 Blue Tone
B1 North Loop
B2 4 Hours
B3 Moments
B4 Impressions Of African Winter

Return Of The Black Suit

Clock DVA - White Souls In Black Suits

To round off the recent flurry of all things DVA, and what would be the third appearance of this album among these pages, here is a re-ripped re-post of White Souls In Black Suits. I used a mixture of CD and LP for the last post about two years ago, but finally got around to cleaning up my old record and ripping it on a better turntable (my six month old Project Debut Carbon). Whilst the pressing isn't great, this is the original 1982 Italian album with un-tampered audio and it really sounds a whole lot better than any CD. Most of you will already have this, but I'd say it is a huge upgrade from my last attempt. If you haven't already heard this, then you are in for a treat.

Ripped from a vinyl album released on Italian Records/Expanded Music (EX 24) in 1982 to high quality lossless flac audio.

A1. Consent
A2. Discontentment (Parts 1 & 2)
A3. Still/Silent
A4. Non
B1. Relentless
B2. Contradict
B3. Anti-Chance (Soundtrack : Keyboards Assemble Themselves At Dawn)

Ghost Sonatas

Clock DVA - Fragment

Another recreation of a historic Clock DVA tape, and the first as a full band with Roger Quail on drums and Charlie Collins on sax. These tracks were recorded at Cabaret Voltaire's Western Works Studio in the Autumn of 1979, just before they recorded for Industrial Records. There is a unique sound to these recordings, the band are low in the mix and everything is veiled by a curtain of treated synth, clarinet and sax. There are four DVA classic's among these tracks, No.2, Cage, You're Without Sound and Brigade were band tracks proper, featuring prominently on live recordings when the newly expanded Clock DVA began touring in 1979. Remixed versions of some tracks appeared as Group Fragments a few months later.

Originally self-released as a cassette album DVATION 003 in 1979. Re-imagined here in high quality lossless flac from analogue sources.

1. Ghost Sonata Extract
2. No.2
3. Cage
4. You're Without Sound
5. Brigade
6. Formlessness
7. Prepared Piano

Throbbing Sweeping Obscene

Clock DVA - Black Words On White Paper (revised)

From a grey market Italian compact disc and book set on Contempo came Black Words On White Paper. Two tracks were taken from the 1979 sessions for the debut Clock DVA single Coil on Small Wonder Records. The single was never to appear and I have never heard the title track, and unfortunately it seems long lost. The other two CD tracks were actually from earlier DVA sessions (Otto M and Alien Tapes), so I have left them off this post. To fill the void you can have another version of For You - now called The Edge, the pounding beat of Pop Hell (probably the only DVA track ever to include a lengthy guitar solo), which seems to fit well with the classic 7 DC and the disturbingly brilliant Throbbing Sweeping Obscene (oops.. including another guitar solo!). These are all real gems. Enjoy!

Re-imagined here from a compact disc EP on Contempo Records, but recompiled from analogue sources.
1. 1.23
2. 7 DC (Seven Day Cycle)
3. The Edge
4. Pop Hell
5. Throbbing Sweeping Obscene
6. Antigone

The Texture Of Tapes

Clock DVA - 2nd

Eons ago I upped some old tape transfers from very early Clock DVA, most of which were from multi-generation cassette tape copies and were lacking any proper form or order, but also featured a lot of hiss and distortion. The recent Lomticks Of Time was an attempt to begin to put everything in order, and offer the opportunity to those who have been eager to hear these properly and in decent quality.

The original 2nd was a self-released cassette from 1978 and only comprised six tracks, but by adding other tracks from the same period of DVA's work, the whole piece can take on the shape of an album proper. This is classic early industrial noise with as much distorted guitar and bass as there is electronic trickery. Clock DVA were on the way to becoming a band proper by this time, so tracks such as For You, 1958, and the electro-punk classic Constructivists adopt what could be considered basic song structures with verse and chorus. The ghostly Mass is eerie, majestic and strangely melodic (in a John Carpenter sort of way), Otto M, which borrows heavily from early Kraftwerk, is featured in its complete thirteen and a half minutes. The powerful Now Haag is a revelation and has to be considered as an industrial post-punk classic, in the same league as, if not better than, Nag Nag Nag.

Originally released on a cassette tape on Dvation (DVATION 01) in 1978. Re-imagined and expanded here in lossless flac audio from analogue resources.

01. For You (Edge)
02. 1958
03. Sonambulist
04. Female Mirror
05. Mass
06. Constructivists
07. Le Voil
08. Otto M
09. Sexual Overture
10. Now Haag
11. Reel 1
12. The Texture Of Two Tape Recordings

Newton's Law II

T.A.G.C. - Meontological Research Recording [Record One]

Two sides comprising 23 minutes each of manipulated electronics, noise and taped loops recorded in Berlin in 1986. I ripped this as an mp3 years ago and have finally gotten around to re-ripping to a lossless format on a decent turntable. The Anti-Group were rarely known for their use of melody, harmony and rhythm and these recording were among their last before Adi Newton resurrected Clock DVA as an electronic beat group a few years later.

Ripped from a vinyl album released on Sweatbox Records (SAX 013) in 1987 to high quality lossless flac audio.

A. Sonochemistry
B. Synthesis 54 (Burning Water)

Newton's Law

Clock DVA - Lomticks Of Time

Some rare and very formative stuff from Adi Newton's original Clock DVA with collaborator Steven Judd Turner. This is the cutting edge industrial sound of 1978 Sheffield with plenty of treated electronics and rhythms, tape loops and early electronics. The Extreme Frequency Manipulation Experiment twists, distorts and turns you inside out, just as the title suggests. Film Of Our Death has the feel of a long lost John Carpenter soundtrack, the title track almost has a melody, interspersed with tape loops and distorted bass, Newton's voice is first heard on the minimal Clockverge and Oedipus, followed by a bizarre cover of And Then He Kissed Me. Alien Tapes is designed to disturb and the bleeps of Antipathy are early proof of Newtons fascination with the anti.

Originally released on a privately distributed cassette tape in 1978, but re-imagined here as a complete project from analogue sources in lossless flac.
A1. Extreme Frequency Manipulation Experiment
A2. Film Of Our Death (Intro Sequence)
A3. Lomticks Of Time
A4. Clockverge
A5. Oeudipus
B1. And Then He
B2. Plastic
B3. Alien Tapes
B4. Art Mechanics
B5. Antipathy
B6. Film Of Our Death (End Sequence)

More Songs About Black Suits

Clock DVA - 4 Hours (Original Single)

Forgot I had this. I have just been working a few re-rips (and a few other things) from my singles boxes and pulled this out. Gave it a good clean and it ripped quite well - though I have never been too sure what difference there is between this and the album version given that both the a-side and Sensorium claim to be remixes. This was also the first time I had taken time to listening to Sensorium through some decent headphones - the treated guitar in the right channel is a revelation.

Ripped from a 7" vinyl record released on Fetish Records (FET 008) in 1981 to high quality lossless flac audio.

A. 4 Hours
B. Sensorium

Schlock Horror!

ClockDVA - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

With thanks to another blog follower, here is a tape circulated in 1977/78 under the ClockDVA guise which features a cut-up sound collage from the film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The four members from the 1977-era DVA line-up are credited on the tape, though very little else is know. We are aware that in 1977 the band did focus on producing tapes, many of which have found there way into the recent Horolgy LP set, but this one did not. A very unusual artifact, I'm sure you'll agree and if anybody can provide more information about it, then please get in touch.
Also included in the archive are some rare and mostly unseen images of the band from 1978. The tape itself has been ripped as is (with hiss) from cassette tape to lossless 16-bit FLAC.

After A Passion

Clock DVA - Passions Still Aflame

Most will agree that this EP deserves a high resolution rip, so here for likely the first time ever is Clock DVA's major label debut in 24bit/96000Hz audio. Lovingly coaxed from a 30 year old 12" vinyl single, all four tracks sound amazingly crisp yet dark, brooding and ever so slightly funky.

Ripped from a 12" vinyl EP released on Polydor Records (POSPX 437) in 1982 to high resolution 24-bit FLAC audio.

A1. Sons Of Sons

A2. Theme From (I.M.D.)

B1. Don't (It's Taboo)

B2. Noises In Limbo

High Holy Disco Mess!

DVA - High Holy Disco Mass

The Clock DVA split resulted in Adi Newton signing to a major. He unleashed this slap bass and horn driven (with Beggar & Co.) 12" single as just DVA. The term disco in the title is quite misleading because I just can't imagine this going down well in any nightclub - it is virtually impossible to dance to.

Don't let that put you off because it is a great track, featured on the twelve inch single in two full length versions combined with the abstract film noir jazz that is The Voice That Speaks From Within.

Ripped from a 12" vinyl single released on Polydor Records (POSPX 499) in 1982 to high quality and high resolution 24-bit FLAC audio.

A. High Holy Disco Mass (Extended Version)

B1. High Holy Disco Mass (Dance Macabre)

B2. The Voice That Speaks From Within (Triumph Over Will) Part One

Clock DVA - White Souls In Black Suits

Happy New Year to all blog followers. To kick off 2012, this is not so much a vinyl rip - it is more of a painstaking reconstruction from multiple sources. I have two versions of this release, the 1982 vinyl and one of the many unofficial CDs which snuck out of Italy on Contempo. The vinyl is as crackly as hell and the Italian CD masterings leave much to be desired. The original version of this album was as a cassette on Throbbing Gristle's Industrial Records released in 1980. It features contributions by several members of Cabaret Voltaire.

I think you'll agree that this stuff should be heard at its best, so until Vinyl On Demand get around to their much vaunted DVA vinyl boxset, here is the result of my work, all caressed with love & care from vinyl and CD. The result is a fuller and warm sound (no limiting required), with space and depth in the mix. It works well and breathes life into what was essentially a fifteen hour jam cut down to an album of work. This is hardly music for iPod and deserves to heard lossless.

This is Clock DVA under going a change. Under a metamorphosis from industrial tape loops, noise and electronics to more natural instruments with sharp stabbing guitars, plucked bass, sax and flutes. Two or three of the tracks can actually be described as songs. In places, it becomes warped neo-jazz improv, in others, a post-punk drone. Adi Newton even finds time for poetry. This new direction was eventually to evolve on to the band's first proper album, Thirst.

White Souls In Black Suits : ripped from a vinyl album released on EXpanded Music (EX 24) in 1982 and a compact disc released on Contempo Records (CONTEDISC 157) in 1990, and lovingly polished and wrapped up in glorious lossless FLAC audio.

A1. Consent

A2. Discontentment (Parts 1 & 2)

A3. Still/Silent

A4. Non

B1. Relentless

B2. Contradict

B3. Anti-Chance (Soundtrack : Keyboards Assemble Themselves At Dawn)

Clock DVA - Live Tour 1992

Ripped from an unofficially released CD album on Smurf Records (SMURFCD 92-01) to high quality lossless Flac audio.

1. Intro

2. Man-Amplifiers

3. Technogeist

4. Axiomatic & Heuristic

5. Bitstream

6. Fractalize

7. NYC Overload

8. Final Program - Decoded

9. Encore Attend

10.Sound Mirror

11. BitstreamRemix

12.The Hacker

Clock DVA - Voice Recognition Test

Very much my favourite output by the final line-up of Clock DVA, Voice Recognition Test is a great vehicle for Newton's gravelly tones and works well as a techno dance track, but as usual has little commercial crossover appeal. I suppose it would sound great over the right soundsystem in the right club. The flip Cypher is rather good too. The superb mix (here in lossless FLAC) is slightly ruined by clipping during the compact disc mastering process. I wish I bought the 12" vinyl instead.

Voice Recognition Test : ripped from a 5" compact disc single released on Contempo Records in 1993 (TEMPO 224CDS)

1. Voice Recognition Test
2. Cypher
3. De-Cyphered



Test

Clock DVA - Advantage

And here is Advantage. I've often doubted the quality of the various CD reissues of this 1983 classic album. The sound quality on the CD is flat, lacking space and dimension - often tinny sounding in places. I'm sure they are all bootlegs.

So here is my painstaking reproduction from my own rather well worn UK vinyl pressing on Polydor. There are just a few clicks left after a hefty 5 or 6 hours work but I think it does sound great. No EQ'ing - just ripped at 32bits, balanced, normalised and declicked.

Advantage is very much a concept album, like a film noir tribute to avantgarde jazz, with funk overtones and experimental soundscapes to which Newton's gravelly tones are incredibly well suited. It's not as good as Thirst, but is more accessible and represents another delve into Newton's dark, and occasionally twisted conscious. Advantage was literally recorded with a different band to Thirst after the original DVA abandoned Newton en masse to become The Box. For Beautiful Losers everywhere.

Advantage : ripped from a 12" vinyl LP released on Polydor Records (POLS 1082) in 1983
A1. Tortured Heroine
A2. Beautiful Losers
A3. Resistance
A4. Eternity In Paris
B1. The Secret Life Of The Big Black Suit
B2. Breakdown
B3. Dark Encounter
B4. Poem

Hear

My original MP3 rips of all the Clock DVA 12" singles are here

Clock DVA - Advantage Demos

Re-upped, but this time in lossless flac audio. From a tape dated 10th November 1982, these are demo tracks for Polydor Records, recorded at Strawberry Studios. All these songs eventually found their way onto the Advantage album, but here they are in their purest, fledgling form - unpolished and still in keeping with the experimental edge that Clock DVA had before signing to a major label, the recording is of a mixing desk quality.

1. Tortured Heroine
2. Beautiful Losers
3. Eternity In Paris
4. Breakdown
5. Secret Life Of A Big Black Suit
6. Dark Encounter
7. Resistance
8. Poem

Hear