No Words, No Titles, No Meaning - The World Of Alien Brains

The strange, uncompromising world of Alien Brains, the project led by Nigel Jacklin that helped define the outer edges of the early 1980s DIY cassette underground. Emerging from a school science lab, inspired by John Cage and nurtured by the fledgling cassette network, Alien Brains rejected conventional song structures in favour of pure spontaneity, raw improvisation and a deliberate embrace of failure as an artistic possibility.

The DIY cassette scene of 1979, with its “it's easy, cheap, go and do it” ethos, provided the perfect outlet for these early recordings. Mark Lancaster of The Instant Automatons and Deleted Records recalls encountering Nigel, playing an early gig with him at his school, and releasing the first Alien Brains cassette “Menial Disorders”.

The story takes a notorious turn into the heart of the British public school system. As head of the Rock Society at Oundle School, Nigel invites Throbbing Gristle and Monte Cazazza to perform in the main hall, a collision of avant-garde industrial noise and traditional boarding school culture. We find a recording of Cosey Fanni Tutti sharing her memories of the shock induced by the performance - to teachers and pupils alike. For some it was an outrage; for others, a transformative experience. The concert recordings were released by Industrial Records on VHS and cassette tape.

Richard Rupenus of the New Blockaders recalls finding Deleted Records via an advert in the DIY Corner column of the music paper Sounds, ordering the first Alien Brains release and eventually joining the group. He describes the strange, semi-chaotic Alien Brains performance at The Basement in Newcastle in 1982, where the band added another layer to the experience by introducing pungent smells into the venue’s heating system.

Nigel picks up the thread to talk about working with non-musicians such as Neil Purvis, echoing John Cage’s belief that people without formal training can be freer of inherited constraints. He describes recordings made in unlikely spaces – a disused Second World War water tower, an out-of-tune piano in a Women’s Institute hut – and a string of performances, including a sparsely attended but historically rich show at Centro Iberico on Harrow Road in London, a squatted former school where Throbbing Gristle and Whitehouse had previously played. An excerpt from this performance would later appear on the “British Interiors” cassette, with members of Nurse With Wound among the few in the audience that night.

Philip Sanderson of Storm Bugs and Snatch Tapes, recalls habits in the pre-internet era when people simply turned up at your house if they’d found your address on a tape insert. He remembers Nigel arriving at his place and joining in impromptu recording sessions that turned everyday spaces and objects – old school buildings, gas pipes, scraping furniture – into sound sources, a UK parallel to the kind of improvised noise later associated with acts like The New Blockaders.

The network kept widening. A chance meeting at Rough Trade in London connected Nigel with the Dutch scene and led to a New Year's Eve concert in Amsterdam — the biggest Alien Brains ever played. Bendle of The Door and the Window became a regular collaborator, the two of them hanging microphones out of windows to capture street conversations, feeding urban collage into the Alien Brains machine.

By the 1985, it was over. A final performance at the Architectural Association — a mess of equipment, wires and confusion for someone's degree show — Nigel takes a taxi home and that was the end of Alien Brains.

Hosted by Martin Franklin.
Theme music "This Is Concrete" by The Happy Citizen.

DISCOVER THE VIDEO
You can find videos of cassette tapes, artefacts and unboxings from the cassette underground on our YouTube channel: youtube.com/@CassetteCulturePodcast

IN THIS EPISODE

THANKS
We have benefited from the extensive knowledge of Richard Rupenus for many elements in this episode. Including sourcing of the recording of the message left by Nigel on the Industrial Records telephone answering machine in 1980.

VOICES
Martin Franklin
Mark Lancaster
Philip Sanderson
Bendle

Cosey Fanni Tutti & Chris Carter, recorded at Rough Trade East in conversation with Luke Turner of The Quietus.

Nigel Jacklin, read by Robert Hayes.
Richard Rupenus, read by Tim Nice.

MUSIC
Alien Brains, "Blatantly Nihilist" (Fashionable Trousers 1980)
Alien Brains "Menial Disorders" (Deleted Records 1980)
"The Preparation For The Corruption Ov Oundle Public School " Nigel Jacklin answer machine message, 23 Drifts to Guestling (Iham Productions)
Throbbing Gristle at Oundle School (Industrial Records, VHS)
Alien Brains "Live at the Basement "(Aeon/VLZ Productions)
"Song" Nigel Jacklin, Snatch 3 (Snatch Tapes)
Alien Brains "British Interiors" (self-released)
Alien Brains "Der Blaunk Tepes" (self-released)
Verdansgang "And It's There" (ADN Tapes)

The excellent Alien Brains box set "It's All History Now - Tape Works 1979-1985" is released on Vinyl On Demand (Cat. VOD123)
(www.vod-records.com/-1-18-471.htm)

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Cassette Culture is produced by Martin Franklin for East Coast Studio (https://eastcoaststudio.com.au)

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