MUMMIES AND MADMEN
Grow Dark in the Sun
(Winter Hill/Adventures in Reality)
Mummies and Madmen were Coventry kids kicking against the pricks, living their best Burroughs cut up lives, coming together for one afternoon to record the avant-noise session which became 1984 release Grow Dark in the Sun. Jah Wobble inspired bubbling brook bass, scratchy reverb drenched guitars, primitive drum machines and synthesizer feedback filled out the small Chapel Fields terraced house. I'm still wondering what the neighbours made of it all (answers on a postcard, obviously, please). Back then a sample of birdsong on an indie budget meant a BBC Sound Effect LP borrowed from the library or a microphone stuck out of a kitchen window in hope. There was a never a plan for a band or even a one-off live performance. Alan Rider, who talks about the project here, was already immersed in his early industrial label, Adventures in Reality and his electronic duo, Stress; Bob Oliver was working on small world dom. with cassette label Slob Tapes and the third figure, the mysterious, shadowy, Cryptic Z. Mostmen, well, what what can truly be known?
Originally released through Slob tapes (Slob 008), the set has been lovingly restored to it's original dishabille form thanks to the efforts of Winter Hill records, which for some reason I just associated with new age music, not now old age experimentation. This is going to be a bit of a shock for Yanni fans when they open up their monthly Winter Hill CD subscription club package.
What follows is what happens when two people think messaging apps are an adequate means of communication.
[10:51 am, 17/07/2024]
Ancient Champion: Can we begin by getting directly to the end. What made you want to rehabilitate these recordings now? Is that a fair question to begin!? How was the media that you were working with... I mean there's worry isn't there, that audio tape, can atrophy. What was the original media?
[10:58 am, 17/07/2024]
Alan Rider: There is a bit of a story to this (there always is!). About 4 years ago I found my copy of the original 1984 cassette releases, which I had thought lost. The cover looked pretty cool so (as you do) I posted a picture of it on my Facebook page. Within a day, Richo from Fourth Dimension got in touch and asked if he could issue it on vinyl on his reissue side label, Winter Hill. I agreed of course, and got in touch with the other member of Mummies and Madmen I was still in contact with to agree to that. Then Covid happened so it all went on hold until this year when we resurrected the idea, but as a CD and a joint release with my label, Adventures in Reality. That came out late April. Listening to it again, it stood the test of time, especially the 'Grow Dark..' track, so we both felt it merited a reissue, as so few heard it first time around.
[10:59 am, 17/07/2024]
Ancient Champion: What did it feel like in '83. I mean in terms of relevancy to the culture of the era, musical and otherwise and does this music, still fit, have meaning now, or has the original intent changed and adapted itself, sort of morphed through with time? I think, when you are based in a city, in this instance Coventry, the culture of a place informs everything, its initially a more narrow window... Are you transported back and forth by working with this music?
[11:02 am, 17/07/2024]
Alan Rider: The original media was cassette, and despite all those years having passed, it survived well so I quickly digitised it, and it was remastered by Sion Orgon, who is also a musician and has done soundtracks for the BBC and others, so has a good feel for these things. Cassettes can deteriorate though, that's true. Last week I dug a cassette demo out by a spin off band from In The Nursery to digitise, but when I played it, it snapped and tangled up beyond repair. It happens, which is why it is good to re-issue these things to save them from that fate!
[11:05 am, 17/07/2024]
Ancient Champion: Are you an advocate for, in this digital age, archiving everything? When you wrote about Rema Rema(→) it seemed both a curse and a blessing that so little material was available... Is there any joy at all in a tape of In The Nursery being well, lost, but also preserved only in memory, and that is not to denigrate memory?
[11:10 am, 17/07/2024]
Alan Rider: They were philosophical about the loss of that tape. An industrial accident was how they described it, and it's too late now to get upset about it of course. It is always worth archiving these things if you can. Its then up to others to decide whether there is any actual value in what has been archived. With an act like Rema Rema, a big part of the appeal is in that rarity and the fact they seemed almost hidden from history, so when an old demo or photo is found, it feels significant. Mummies and Madmen is like that. It existed for just one day, like a rare moth, and there are only those two tracks, three photos and the cassette artwork and that's all that survives.
[11:11 am, 17/07/2024]
Ancient Champion: What about the process, what are the machines in use, can you remember what you sampled? Did you ever perform this?
[11:13 am, 17/07/2024]
Alan Rider: As it says in the sleeve notes, it was a creatively fertile time, not just in Coventry but all over. That has sparked an ongoing interest in everything that came out of that period. It's not that it is necessarily any better than music that is being produced now, but it is quite interesting because this was all part of developing sounds and techniques that are now widely rehashed and copied, but then they felt new. Well, they were new! There is a nostalgic element of course, and I have very good memories of the people, events, and places, as well as some not so fond ones too, but the biggest thing was that we had to use such basic equipment and struggle to make it work. It's almost like having to chisel these things out of rock, it felt that hard at the time. It's much easier now!
[11:16 am, 17/07/2024]
Ancient Champion: This is a lovely quotable quote "Its almost like having to chisel these things out of rock, it felt that hard at the time."
[11:23 am, 17/07/2024]
Alan Rider: As I said, the equipment was basic. A guitar, a bass, a Wasp synth, a Watkins Copicat tape echo, a microphone, a couple of cassette decks to create loops and a Teac MT44 four track to record it on. Samples were not really that. Birdsong was recorded out of the window and mixed in. The only performance of this was when we recorded the track. No gigs or anything. It really was a flicker of the candle flame, then it went out. It was never intended to last any longer than that. We all had other groups we were in.
[11:26 am, 17/07/2024]
Ancient Champion: Is it too weird to ask, how should a listener approach something like Red Front? What should the listener hear? What should the listener feel. Do you know?
[11:28 am, 17/07/2024]
Alan Rider: I don't actually know. It wasn't thought through like that and the track Red Front I helped with recording but the other two in the band created that track. It's best to treat both tracks as sound sculptures rather that songs. They have a mesmeric quality to them if you allow it.
[11:29 am, 17/07/2024]
Ancient Champion: Within music I always think there is an unhealthy tendency to overly deify and lionize the past, but somehow I never feel that way about sound art musicians or pieces of which I would say Mummies and Madmen fit. This is pioneering work. When unearthed, like Mummies here, they are always new. There's an excitement that I associate with Burroughs cut up dimension, found art in other disciplines. But it also feels like it owes something to the french revolutionary spirit too. Burning down the past. Like Metzger. Burning art. I guess it is a seriously non-comformist approach, is what I am getting at.
[11:32 am, 17/07/2024]
Alan Rider: Yes, there is that Burroughs cut up influence but also Dada, Musique Concrete, or in the case of Mummies and Madmen, a big Beefheart Trout Mask Replica influence. Even "in the studio" is probably an exaggeration. These were recorded on 4 track. It was fun to do at the time and we risk retrospectively overlaying too much on to this. It worked because we were in the right frame of mind at the time. Getting stuff to sound any good on basic equipment will always be a challenge of course, but that's just the way it was then. But, absolutely, they are what they are. There is no legend here. We are not superstars or even influential on anyone else, but it's a snapshot that retains its value regardless of what decade you listen to it in. It's better to listen to it as a new piece rather than a reissue, if you can.
[11:36 am, 17/07/2024]
Ancient Champion: Grow Dark in The Sun - what about the maxim, never work with animals or children? I love the birdsongs... I mean I love quite a lot more but lets talk about that... How to get them to comply. They don't necessarily sound like urban birds?
[11:38 am, 17/07/2024]
Alan Rider: It was a hot August day so the windows were open and the birds just joined in! They seemed keen so we recorded them.
[11:39 am, 17/07/2024]
Ancient Champion: I have a couple of other questions. You are probably surprised as this seems Outsideleft ad hoc, our own Bearwood-styled sprezzatura. What of this do you think informs your composition, if we consider your career as a composer, your technique today, I kind of ask because when you record with Senestra(→) are there sometimes aspects that are familiar or owe a debt to the early 80s in Coventry?
[11:56 am, 17/07/2024]
Alan Rider: Senestra has a lot in common with Mummies and Madmen, and of course we all carry our past with us. In some ways, difficult though it was creating on virtually no equipment, its harder creating with lots of equipment. I have far too much choice and that is a real barrier. Less is definitely more! My technique hasn't changed a lot. I still record on a portastudio, albeit a digital one now, prefer old analogue synths over digital ones, and I don't sequence or automate very much so I play everything rather than let the machine do it. That may mean the timing isn't always spot on, but it leaves much more room to vary and improvise, which keeps it human.
[11:59 am, 17/07/2024]
Ancient Champion: If there was one question you would ask yourself about all of this, what would it be?
[12:00 pm, 17/07/2024]
Alan Rider:The question I would ask is whether I think music produced today has become too safe, too bland, too corporate? I would answer that the environment has changed so much since the time Mummies and Madmen existed. I genuinely think we didn't really care too much about whether anyone liked what we were doing, or saw the need to attempt to be liked or make things more commercial. Everyone is so desperate to get online approval and 'likes' now that it makes them more cautious. There is still plenty of good, challenging, music being made, but it does so in an environment where popularity matters so much more. Pissing people off doesn't seem to be as much of a thing now!
Essential Information
Main Image l-r Alan Rider, Bob Oliver, Cryptic Z. Mostmen
Mummies and Madmen Grow Dark in the Sun is available from Winter Hill/Adventures in Reality. Find it here→ or look a little harder.