Total State Machinery

Test Department - Program For Progress

Ripped from a VHS video cassette released on Some Bizzare Video in 1984 to reasonable quality AVI video. Here's a tasty little but noisy accompaniment to the TD box. Something to entertain the kids on any rainy Sunday, I'd say. Enjoy!!

1 Cold Witness
2 Shockwork
3 Compulsion
4 The Fall From Light
5 Total State Machine
6 Mirbach
7 Inheritance
8 V.F.M.

Driller Killers

Test Department - Beating The Retreat

Ripped from a double 12" vinyl box set released on Some Bizarre (TEST 2-3) in 1984 to high quality and high resolution lossless 24-bit FLAC. This is a re-post so those who grabbed this first time can look away .....for now.

TD at their most original and best! Originally performed in an archway at London's Waterloo Station in 1983, Beating The Retreat is, in my humble opinion, the truest form of industrial music ever to be recorded as an album. It was actually recorded at a studio in the stockbroker belt town of Farnham in Surrey. The mike set-up in the studio must have been interesting. Pounding sledgehammers on metal sheets and girders work in sync with road drill rhythms, horn and cello overdubs add some sort of melody, taped loop samples and manic cries (and whispers), and then earsplitting grinding of metal against metal all add to the chaos. Then add in the occasional military snares and conventional keyboards (and I'm sure I can hear a harp) - there are even a few quiet melodic interludes.

My copy is one of the original pressings which was released as two four track 12" singles in a hessian box complete with literature and photographs. After cleaning the vinyl, I ripped it at 24bits and 96000hz before levelling the channels and converting to FLAC. There have been subsequent reissues as an album on both vinyl and CD, but none of them sound this good.

A1 The Fall From Light
A2 Kick To Kill
B1 Total State Machine
B2 Plastic
C1 Inheritance
C2 Cold Witness
D1 Sweet Sedation
D2 Spring Into Action

F.F.U.K.

Test Department - The Unacceptable Face Of Freedom

Ripped from a vinyl album released on Ministry Of Power Records (MOP 2) in 1986 to high resolution 24-bit flac audio. Blog follower penguinflight called this album correctly the other night as the follow up post to the Welsh miners' collaboration. Actually, it is his album, very generously donated a few years back, which I have finally found the right moment to rip and post.

This is a record which just oozes anger, it is a defiant reference to the darkest days of a Thatcher's Britain where the state machine was used to suppress the rights of those who spoke against the government's policies.

When you reflect back on the ideology some 30 years later, reflect also that we actually built stuff back then, compared to these modern times all we seem to do is sit around in offices reading/sending emails ...or serving coffee to those who sit in offices reading and sending emails. I don't want to turn this into a political rant however The Unacceptable Face Of Freedom clearly defines the transformation of Britain from an industrial powerhouse into a subservient service society.

A1 Fuckhead
A2 51st State Of America
A3 Comrade Enver Hoxha
A4 Fist
B1 Statement
B2 The Crusher
B3 Victory
B4 Corridor Of Cells

Sold Down The Yangtze River

Test Department / South Wales Striking Miners Choir - Shoulder To Shoulder

Ripped from a crackly vinyl album released on Ministry Of Power Records (MOP 1) in 1985 to high resolution 24-bit flac. The legacy of what happened in South Wales, Yorkshire, Notts and parts of Kent during the mid-early eighties is still felt today some 30+ years later. These days the fortunes,the remnants and the tatters of Welsh industrial pride have been sold down the Yangtze River. This was a very rough and ready rip of a very very knackered record. One day I'll get this cleaned up properly.

A1 Comrades In Arms
A2 Myfanwy
A3 Fuel To Fight
A4 On Barriers And Bridges
A5 Take Me Home
B1 Shockwork
B2 Stouthearted Men
B3 Comrades
B4 Roman War Song
B5 Gdansk

Killer Drillers!

Test Department - Beating The Retreat (Original Double 12" Box Set)

TD at their most original and best! Originally performed in an archway at London's Waterloo Station in 1983, Beating The Retreat is, in my humble opinion, the truest form of industrial music ever to be recorded as an album. It was actually recorded at a studio in the stockbroker belt town of Farnham in Surrey. The mike set-up in the studio must have been interesting. Pounding sledgehammers on metal sheets and girders work in sync with road drill rhythms, horn and cello overdubs add some sort of melody, taped loop samples and manic cries (and whispers), and then earsplitting grinding of metal against metal all add to the chaos. Then add in the occasional military snares and conventional keyboards (and I'm sure I can hear a harp) - there are even a few quiet melodic interludes.

My copy is one of the original pressings which was released as two four track 12" singles in a hessian box complete with literature and photographs. After cleaning the vinyl, I ripped it at 24bits and 96000hz before levelling the channels and converting to FLAC. There have been subsequent reissues as an album on both vinyl and CD, but none of them sound this good.

Ripped from a double 12" vinyl box set released on Some Bizarre (TEST 2-3) in 1984 to high quality and high resolution lossless 24-bit FLAC.

A1. The Fall From Light

A2. Kick To Kill

B1. Total State Machine

B2. Plastic

C1. Inheritance

C2. Cold Witness

D1. Sweet Sedation

D2. Spring Into Action

Test Department - Compulsion

My love of percussive music has already been hinted at in these pages. Now I feature a band who used to hit things really hard - usually sheets of metal with metal pipes and the odd mechanical tool or used for riffing purposes.

Test Department were the key UK act in this genre, Australia's SPK and German noise terrorists Einsturzende Neubauten have also featured on these pages.

Originally, they gigged in disused factories in London's East End before refining their shows to fit on the stages of the Europe's smaller venues. Compulsion is just pure brutal energy, whilst on the flip-side, Pulsations 1 & 2 feature sequencers programmed and produced by Cabaret Voltaire. I'll have a go at ripping my Beating The Retreat vinyl boxset and European Network tape soon.

Compulsion : ripped from a 12" vinyl single released on Some Bizarre Records (TEST 112) in 1983 to high quality lossless FLAC.

A. Compulsion (Machine Run)

B1. Pulsations 1 (Human Run)

B2. Pulsations 2 (Human Run)

Various Artists - Abstract Magazine : Volume 5

A lossless treat in flac. A few other sites have posted rips of this highly collectible series, so here at ESWA we set the bar higher and post a lossless audio rip.

Rob Deacon's excellent Abstract Magazine focused on indie electronic and industrial sounds, and his own love of The Wolfgang Press, who had more coverage that others. The first three were in print only and the fourth featured mostly Third Mind Records artists on an album Life At The Top. He then got a bank loan and set up his own label which was to become Sweatbox Records.

The magazine featured articles and interviews of the the bands on the records alongside numerous album and single reviews. Regrettably, I haven't included scans as my flatbed has just decided that it is no longer compatible with Windows 7.

Abstract Five is a complex and at times difficult listen with obscure alternatives by Test Department (featuring a Scottish miner and a pipe band live), experimental samples and loops by 400 Blows, as well as obscure interpretations of sound by Swans and Cindytalk (with bonus skips). Highlights have to be the slightly different working of Colourbox's Manic, the demo Nyam Nyam track and the pounding beats of In The Nursery (though unlabelled as such). Those of a more doomy disposition will find the Gene Loves Jezebel, And Also The Trees ...oh and of course The Wolfgang Press entertaining.

Abstract 5 : ripped from a 12" vinyl LP self-released (AMO 5) in 1985
A1. Fuel Foundation Of The Nation (Live) - Test Department
A2. Fire Eater (Remix) - The Wolfgang Press
A3. Fire And Water - 400 Blows
A4. Sealed In Skin - Swans
A5. Playtime - Cindytalk
B1. Manic (Remix) - Colourbox
B2. Flame - Gene Loves Jezebel
B3. Maps In Her Wrists And Arms - And Also The Trees
B4. This Is The Place (Demo) - Nyam Nyam
B5. Leaving It Up To You (Live) - The Jazz Butcher
B6. Sentient - In The Nursery

Re:Upped

Test Dept. - Peel Session 1983

I continue to share my appreciation of musicians hitting things and all things percussive. Test Department were the Britsh SPK and Neubauten but never had the critical acclaim afforded to their Australian and Germanic peers.

They were very likely one of the few bands allowed to record their own Peel session in their own studio ...or was it their own warehouse or scrapyard?? You can quickly understand why.

This tape only release was issued on the bands own Ministry Of Power label shortly after airing in late 1983.

Peel Session 1983 : ripped from a cassette only release on Ministry Of Power (no cat no.) in 1983
1. Hunger
2. Shockwork
3. State Of Affairs (Peely outro)

Be Compelled