May Reissues: Max Guld, No More, Carlos Peron

This May Dark Entries will be releasing records from 3 underground European artists from the 1980s. Max Guld made one cassette of bedroom avant electronics in 1985 and faded in obscurity until 30 years later when we press his debut album on vinyl for the first time. No More are a German no wave/post-punk outfit formed in 1979, who explored musical minimalism experimenting with sequencers, drum synthesizers and rhythm boxes. They released their debut 7″ ‘Too Late’ in 1980 and the follow up ‘Suicide Commando’ in 1981 then their debut mini-album ‘A Rose Is a Rose’ later that year. This compilation adds up their first 3 releases plus bonus tracks. Carlos Peron is a founding member of the legendary synth-pop outfit Yello (who left in 1983). We are proud to present a 4-track EP of proto-techno, EBM, New Beat styled songs from his early 80s output.

DE-091 Max Guld – ‘For Enden Af Corridoren’ LP
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Max Guld was a post-punk musician from Glostrup, Denmark one of the western suburbs of Copenhagen. In 1983 he formed a band called Den Forspildte Elite with a friend from high school taking inspiration from experimental art punks The Residents. From the beginning of 1984 to the beginning of 1985, he recorded a solo album in his 30 square meter apartment. The result was a 40 minute cassette titled ‘For Enden Af Corridoren’ released in 1985 on Hub Records that was limited to 100 copies.

Six of the eleven songs on the album are instrumentals ranging from ‘For Enden Af Corridoren’ was written, produced, recorded and performed by Max without the involvement of any others. Influenced by the avant-garde electronic sounds of Brian Eno and Kraftwerk, Max created eerie synthesizer driven songs with intricate guitar work and mechanical vocals. More than half of the album are instrumentals. All songs were recorded using a borrowed Moog Prodigy, Roland Organ/Strings, Korg KPR-77 rhythm machine, Gibson Les Paul De Luxe and a Rickenbacker bass. A spring reverb from a TV was also used and an old reel to reel for effects like echo. No sequencer, equalizer or noise reduction was used.

All songs have been remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The jacket is a replica of the original cassette artwork resized for a 12” LP and laid out by Eloise Leigh. Each album includes an double-­sided insert with photos, lyrics and liner notes by Max Guld.

DE-092 Carlos Peron ‘Dirty Songs’ EP

Dark Entries is honored to release a 4-track EP by Swiss musician Carlos Perón, founding member of Yello. Carlos was born in 1952 in Zurich and began collecting music at a young age. Inspired after attending a concert of Karlheinz Stockhausen in the 1960s, he began to compose Musique Concrete pieces using a 4-track reel to reel and found sounds. In 1979 Perón founded the trio Yello with musician Boris Blank and vocalist Dieter Meier. Yello released their first album in 1980 and the following year Carlos released his first solo album ‘Impersonator’. In 1983 Carlos left Yello in order to pursue a solo career and released the soundtrack to “Die Schwarze Spinne” and 1984 his second solo album “Nothing Is True; Everything Is Permitted”. In 1988, Belgian label LD Records released a 4-song EP of instrumental tracks from 1984 that predated, influenced and became staples in the New Beat scene.

“Dirty Songs” is a collection of songs from Carlos Perón recorded between 1980 and 1986. The recordings were made with the core set up of an ARP 2600, Roland’s Drumatix, TB-303 and TR-808. “Nothing Is True; Everything Is Permitted (Instrumental)” recorded in 1984 is a slow burner with dark, gloomy atmospherics, presented here in an extended version with a bonus intro. The song was inspired by William S. Borroughs’ “Naked Lunch” and paints a bleak futuristic landscape. “Breaking In (Instrumental)”, from 1984, is a crossover of electronic body music and pitched down Chicago acid house featuring overplayed snares by hand though an Ovomaltine Box. Originally featured on the soundtrack for “Die Schwarze Spinne”, the song is about breaking into a large pharmaceutical company to steal drugs. On the B-side is “A Dirty Song (Instrumental)”, originally recorded in 1986 and released by Play It Again Sam in 1988. The song uses one of the earliest Roland SH synthesizers, the SH-1 A, as a solo instrument and is strikingly aggressive with percussive rhythms. “Et” was recorded in 1980 on a 4-track and later and remixed to 8-tracks in 1984 for the “Frigorex” EP, which is where this extended version comes from. Featuring eerie, cut up vocals and Dadaist lyrics by Isa Nogara atop a proto-Techno beat.

All songs have been remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The jacket features a never before seen black and white photo of Carlos taken in 1988. Each album includes an double-­sided postcard featuring the cover art from the “Frigorex” EP. Prepare to make your own movie to the Swiss John Carpenter soundtrack vibes of Carlos Perón.

DE-084 No More ‘A Rose Is A Rose’ (LP + 7″)

No More are a band from Kiel, Germany, founded in the summer of 1979. Their music is rooted in early Post Punk / No Wave. No More began as a quartet with Andy A. Schwarz (vocals, guitar, bass), Tina Sanudakura (synthesizers), Christian Darc (drums, vocals) and Thomas Welz (bass, vocals). They self-­released their debut 7″ four song EP “Too Late” in 1980. The EP was reviewed in the German ‘Sounds’ magazine as “strangely, archaic music, a brute sound that seems to be recorded with a purposely damaged 4­-track”.

After the departure of Thomas Welz at the end of 1980, No More worked as a trio until the end of 1983. As a trio the band explored musical minimalism and experimented with sequencers, drum synthesizers and rhythm boxes. There were no studios involved in the recording process. All recordings were made in bunkers, laundry rooms, cellars and rehearsal rooms. In 1981 the band released their second single “Suicide Commando”. The song spread internationally over the following years and became the band’s biggest success. In 1982 No More released the mini­-album “A Rose Is A Rose” on 10”, described by NME as “made by a trio of young Germans who appear to have fallen out of Lou Reed ́s ‘Berlin’ album”. Songs on this mini­-LP convey the desolate and bleak attitude of German youth in the early 1980s. This reissue compiles all 8 tracks from the mini­-LP, both tracks from the “Suicide Commando” 7” plus 3 demos from 1982. As a bonus each LP includes the original “Too Late” 7” EP remastered and housed in an exact copy of the original jacket.

All songs have been remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The jacket is a replica of the original “A Rose Is A Rose” 10” artwork designed by Stefan Brose, resized for a 12” LP and laid out by Eloise Leigh. Each album includes an 11×14 double-­sided, fold­out poster insert with photos and lyrics. As DJ duo Optimo said of “Suicide Commando”: “A song that refuses to die. A couple of years after these Germans recorded this it spread like a virus to become a cult classic. The virus is still spreading to this day.”.