The Death And Beauty Foundation

On 29th April 1982, the final year degree show at the Royal College of Art in London gave birth to a project that had no clear precedent. The Death and Beauty Foundation, initiated that day by Val Denham alongside Mike Wells, Nick Coombe, Stuart Jane, Elita Denham, and Antal Nemeth, began as a performance/action group with experimental sound. The first recordings — the "Darlington Tapes" — were made by Denham and Andrew McKenzie of The Hafler Trio in 1982, establishing a connection to the wider British industrial underground while maintaining a sensibility that was entirely their own. As the group evolved, the sound became dominant; visuals receded. Denham, who would later transition and become a significant figure in what she called "TranArt," had also been designing record covers for Marc Almond and Some Bizzare Records, and collaborating with Genesis P-Orridge. The Death and Beauty Foundation later slimmed to the duo Silverstar Amoeba, who produced completed albums with finished artwork in editions of two copies, one each for the creators, before popping up as support act for Psychic TV and Einstürzende Neubauten.

This double LP (We Are Young and Stupid, VOD132.1/2) collects the essential recordings from across the Foundation's active period — a body of work that is simultaneously raw and carefully considered, moving between experimental tape collage, minimal synth, and something close to free improvisation. The name is not ironic: there is a genuine vulnerability and directness to the best of this material that separates it from the more forensic strands of the British industrial underground.