Nocturnal Emissions
Nocturnal Emissions is an experimental music group from England . Musically this project can be assigned to the post-industrial .
Band history
The group was founded around 1980 by Nigel Ayers (born 1957) in London . Other founding members were his then partner Caroline K. (1957-2008) and his brother Daniel Ayers (born 1964). Nigel Ayers has been running the project alone since 1984, but often works with other musicians. B. with the media artist Stanza , Ben Ponton from Zoviet France and Fiona Harrold.
The first recordings appeared on cassette in editions of less than twenty copies. Nocturnal Emissions rejected a contract with a major label from the outset and instead brought out most of the records on the band's own label Sterile Records, which existed in London from 1979 to 1986. The first LP Tissue of Lies with the label code "Emiss 001" was released on this label in 1980 . In addition to his own works, Sterile Records also released sound carriers and video cassettes by artist friends such as Konstrukivits, Lustmord, Controlled Bleeding and Maurizio Bianchi . The output of the group is very high, almost 90 records have been released to date. The original Sterile sound carriers from this period are now sought-after collector's items. These early recordings were later re-released by Soleilmoon, Staalplaat and Dark Vinyl. In 1987 Nigel Ayers founded a new label called Earthly Delights.
The group has always been very active politically and clearly part of the left, anti-monarchist camp. With this in mind, their first concert took place in April 1981 in the London borough of Brixton to support the protests during the riots in the neighborhood. Projections and underground videos were regularly used as visual accompaniment for the other appearances. Nocturnal Emissions performed live a number of times, not only in the UK , but also in the rest of Europe and the US . With the advent of the Internet , the Nocturnal Emissions project found the ideal platform for itself to present artistic creation, which in addition to records and CDs also includes the publication of videos and various manifestos . The World Wide Web also offered Nigel Ayers a reliable platform for his more recent projects.
style
The musical style of Nocturnal Emissions can be divided into three phases: the post-industrial from 1980 to approx. 1985, the electronic phase from 1985 to the nineties and finally the esoteric- atmospheric phase until today.
Post-industrial
The group was formed when the then art student Nigel Ayers was looking for new forms of musical expression under the influence of industrial and punk . He was particularly fascinated by the new possibilities of electronically generated music. Nocturnal Emissions understood music as a kind of social control and often dealt with the phenomena of the information society such as information overload , conditioning , brainwashing and subliminal advertising . At the beginning the sound of the group was very experimental, dissonant and with a threatening mood in the style of noise industrial . A lot of work was done with sound collages and cut-up techniques by cutting up tapes and rearranging the snippets. Even at this time, rhythmic and musical influences from other cultures were found in some tracks . This aspect should then become more and more dominant later.
Electronic phase
In the mid-eighties, under the influence of electronic dance music, the pieces finally became more melodic, the phase of the noise industrial ended by 1985 at the latest. The greater turn to accessible, electronically influenced pieces began in 1985 with the release of the LP Songs of Love and Revolution . As a result, the track Never Give Up contained on the album was a hit that is still played today. The new musical direction was also expressed in the founding of the new label Earthly Delights in 1987. Nigel Ayers had used his collection of his own and other people's recordings with thousands of sounds and songs early on. He was increasingly interested in the psychological effects of music: New arrangements of sounds were intended to influence the perception of time and space, which has been reflected in CD titles such as Practical Time Travel . Other influences on music were frontier sciences , space and ethnic music traditions.
Atmospheric phase
In the following years Nocturnal Emissions dealt increasingly with esoteric topics such as magic , paganism , shamanism and extraterrestrial life. This found its expression in the use of environmental recordings, sound finds and atmospheric instrumental music. Musically, the ambient was also an important influence. The pieces should create a positive atmosphere, in contrast to the previous negative mood of Nocturnal Emissions. In the course of these developments, the music of the last few years has taken on a very minimalist and atmospheric character.
Others
- From 1990 to 1992 Nigel Ayers dealt with the Japanese Butoh dance theater and worked with the choreographer Poppo Shiraishi. The result was the CD Music for Butoh .
- He is also involved in the Association of Autonomous Astronauts , which should enable everyone on earth to travel into space.
- Today Nigel Ayers works not only as a musician, but also as an installation artist and book author.
Discography
Longplayer only, no side projects, label and year of first release
| title | Label | year |
|---|---|---|
| Tissue of lies | Sterile Records | 1980 |
| Fruiting body | Sterile Records | 1981 |
| Deathday | Sterile Records | 1981 |
| Whiskey 5/23/82 | Sterile Records | 1982 |
| Order emergency | Sterile Records | 1983 |
| Viral shedding | Illuminated Records | 1983 |
| Live At Ritzy Brixton 9 June 1983 | Cause for concern | 1983 |
| Drowning In A Sea Of Bliss | Sterile Records | 1983 |
| chaos | Cause for concern | 1983 |
| Dyskinesia | Sterile Records | 1983 |
| Songs Of Love And Revolution | Sterile Records | 1985 |
| Shake Those Chains Rattle Those Cages | Sterile Records | 1985 |
| ICA London 9th August 1985 | Sterile Records | 1985 |
| The World Is My Womb | Earthly Delights | 1987 |
| In transmission | Earthly Delights | 1988 |
| Spiritflesh | Earthly Delights | 1988 |
| Duty Experiments (1982-1984 Years) | Soleilmoon | 1988 |
| Stoneface | Parade amoureuse | 1989 |
| Invocation Of The Beast Gods | Staalplaat | 1990 |
| Mouth Of Babes | Earthly Delights | 1991 |
| Beyond Logic, Beyond Belief | Earthly Delights | 1990 |
| Energy Exchange | Earthly Delights | 1991 |
| World Turning SSS Productions | SSS Productions | 1991 |
| Cathedral | Musica Maxima Magnetica | 1991 |
| The Seminal Works | Earthly Delights | 1992 |
| Blasphemous rumors | Staalplaat | 1992 |
| Magnetized light | Musica Maxima Magnetica | 1993 |
| The Quickening | Earthly Delights | 1993 |
| Imaginary time | Soleilmoon | 1994 |
| Glossalalia | Soleilmoon | 1994 |
| Binary tribe | Staalplaat | 1994 |
| Duty experiment | Soleilmoon | 1995 |
| Autonomia - The Portland Album | Soleilmoon | 1996 |
| Friction and Dirt | Staalplaat | 1996 |
| Tharmuncrape An'goo | Soleilmoon | 1997 |
| Sunspot Activity | Soleilmoon | 1997 |
| Practical Time Travel | Earthly Delights | 1998 |
| Electropunk karaoke | Earthly Delights | 2000 |
| Futurist Antiquarianism | Soleilmoon | 2000 |
| Omphalos! | Soleilmoon | 2000 |
| Collateral salvage | Soleilmoon | 2003 |
| Live in Vienna | Earthly Delights | 2005 |
| Ophiuchus | Earthly Delights | 2006 |
| Timeslip | Earthly Delights | 2006 |
| Nightscapes | SmallVoices | 2006 |
| Command emergency / Shake Those Chains | Sound gallery | 2007 |
| Read We Forget - Work In Progress 1979–1988 | Vinyl on demand | 2008 |
| Live In Vienna 2009 | Bleak net label | 2010 |
| Gargoyle Mechanique | Earthly Delights | n / A |
Web links
- Official site of Earthly Delights
- Nigel Ayers blog
- Complete catalog at Discogs
- The Sterile Records Story