12" vinyl LP special limited signed edition of the Oryx_ release, with custom printed inner sleeve, signed by the band members.
In the mid-late 1980’s, the underground cassette networking scene brought artists in contact through exchanges of cassette tapes sent through the mail. Taking the Punk ethos of “learn 3 chords, now form a band” into independent distribution “get two cassette recorders, now make a label”.
Addresses and contacts gleaned from the back pages of indie music fanzines led to endless conversations, exchanges, collaborations and friendships which fed back into the scene.
My own cassette label, SoundImage released compilation tapes of the electronic, ambient explorations that I sourced from calls for contribution posted in fanzines like Vital, ND, Factsheet Five.
I promoted mail art exhibitions and concerts by some of the cassette scene artists in Windsor, UK. Even connecting Richard Leake’s The Butterfly Effect group with researchers from the nearby EMI R’n’D lab who recorded their concert with a prototype binaural dummy head system.
This was the fertile ground of sound and thought that the music of “Invocation” was created from. Undoubtedly innocent but that was part of the message: we were just there, around the global campfire trying to shape an organic, electronic musical voice.
We were there, right in the middle of a moment where ambitions for a global World Music drifted through the UK festival, DIY and rave scene. A curiosity for spiritual experiences took dancers from parties in empty industrial warehouses to search for something more contemplative.
Taking cues from what we knew of European experimentalism, I worked with Mykl O Dempsey on music for theatre, art exhibitions, our own surround sound installations and psychedelic-inspired live performance.
The “Invocation” duo with Richard Clare operated as a separate unit, touring small music clubs in London and the south of England. After this album, we would all come together to form the trio TUU.
Originally recorded in the late ’80's, with contributions from Mykl O’Dempsey, Ramesh Singh and Phil Escott these songs were the first approaches of Martin Franklin and Richard Clare before embarking on the TUU project.
The TUU trio went on to define a strand of global ambient sound throughout the 90’s with releases on SDV Tontrager, Amplexus, Beyond Records, Waveform and Hearts Of Space offshoot, Fathom Records.
Originally released as a hand-made cassette edition on the band’s own label, Soundimage in February 1990. This is a remastered vinyl reissue, limited to 300 copies.
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