Malcolm Brown

Malcolm Brown is a Scottish electronics and minimal synth artist who has been active since the late 1970s, working from council flats in West Lothian with whatever equipment he could assemble: a Casio VL Tone, electric guitar, bass, piano, a Shinei Fuzzbox, a Dual Octave Box, a WEM Copycat echo unit, a Dr. Rhythm drum machine, electronic percussion pads, an Akai GX 4000D reel-to-reel recorder, and a Hitachi stereo tape deck. His early collaborations with Robert Lawrence of Quick Stab Products in Bristol connected him to a network that included Nurse With Wound, David Jackman (Organum), Lustmord, and Gordon Hope of Flowmotion and A-Mission. His own experimental cassette label Trench Musik Kore released the compilation From a Trench (1982), one of the more significant documents of the period's British cassette underground. His 1980s project Operations: Brutal pushed further into industrial territory.

This LP (VOD131.5) collects material from across Brown's early career: personal archive recordings from a council flat in Whitburn, West Lothian (1982), previously unreleased material from the tape Battered To Sleep (1983), and collaborations with Robert Lawrence from the Quick Stab Studio in Bristol (1980). The music ranges from primitive synth constructions and rhythm machine pieces to more experimental territories that bear the marks of its DIY provenance without any compromise. Mastered by Thomas Heckmann at Trope-Mastering. Limited edition of 500 numbered copies, also available as part of the VOD Minimal Synth Wave Vol.2 box.