Category Archives: Gum

In 1986, an Australian fellow by the name of Andrew Curtis posted an advertisement in a couple of record shops around Melbourne expressing a desire to start a band with somebody who shared his interests in Industrial music. The only person who answered the ad was Philip Samartzis, who has since gone on to international acclaim for his pristine electro-acoustic compositions published through Staalplaat, Synaesthesia, and Dorobo. Back in the late ’80s, the Curtis and Samartzis collaboration resulted in the aurally volatile project simply called Gum. With little expertise or training, the two gathered up what objects they were familiar with, in particular thrift store turntables and soiled records. Eschewing their original attraction to the giants of Industrial Culture, Gum quickly developed an aesthetic privileging the caustic rupture of skipping records and smouldering surface noise, pre-dating the current avant-turntablist aficionados like Philip Jeck, Janek Schaefer, and Otomo Yoshihide. Within a handful of recordings made during the brief span between 1986 and 1990, Gum piled thick layers of electrically charged static channelled from their locked grooves. These spiralling repetitions and arrhythmic palpitations were suspended in the instant moment of ecstatic release as an infinite crash of over stimulation. Vinyl was released on vinyl by ? (DEX154E) in 1987. First edition of 500 numbered copies, second edition of 500 copies had a vinyl 7″ glued on front cover, third edition came in simple b/w sleeve. This is the second edition. All sounds on this record were made from other records – scratched, looped, or untouched. No tapes, no samples.

Tracks:

1. Stormy Weather
2. Testicle Stretch
3. Injected By A Certain Amount Of Charisma
4. Sporadic Acts Of Violence
5. Smooth Torture In Exile
6. Involuntary Orgasms During The Cleaning Of Automobiles
7. Outfits For Agony
8. Stomach Irritations
9. Fear
10. Arm Fuck

“Download”

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