Mein Glas Fabrik

In 1979, in the middle of Sheffield's post-punk and industrial ferment, Peter Bargh and Mark Holmes formed Mein Glas Fabrik and set about making two cassette albums with whatever they had to hand: tape loops, homemade synthesizers, found samples, random radio frequencies, and a Shergold guitar. The first cassette, Death TV, appeared without any information attached, entirely anonymous, and was reviewed in the local Sheffield fanzine Tigers on the Moor in May 1981: "This is a complete mystery to me except I have a sneaky suspicion that Mark Holmes of the Fatales might just know a bit about it." Exotic Percussion followed. Holmes was indeed a member of the Fatales. The duo's position in the Sheffield underground placed them within reach of Clock DVA, Cabaret Voltaire, and the Warp-era energy of the city, but their music sits at a remove from all of it: experimental, wide-ranging, deliberately uncategorisable.

This double LP (VOD163) combines both cassette albums in their first vinyl presentation, housed in a gatefold sleeve. Discogs reviewers called the result "sometimes melancholic, sometimes nervous, but always beautiful." The project's own stated ambition was a refusal of genre: "not adhering to any specific genre — expect the unexpected." Limited to 500 individually numbered copies.