This Is Only A Test!

 

The Anti Group Singles

I thought I would end the short run of electronica by revisiting some of the works by The Anti Group, also known as TAGC. These are the three singles in my collection, which I last ripped a good few years back on a ProJect Debut Carbon fitted with a 2M blue. Fast forward to 2021, and I can now present these complex and detailed records in much higher quality, recorded on a Classic SB turntable, Shibata stylus and all the trimmings - for those with ears of a wolf, there are also some 174.6kHz files kicking around.

Allegedly the project began back in in 1978 featuring Adi Newton and Steven James Turner from Clock DVA. When Newton split DVA after the Advantage album, literally by just not turning up to the recording sessions for their second Polydor album. The rest of the band decided to record the instrumental tracks without him - I am sure these are already out there hiding away on the net somewhere.

Adi rekindled The Anti Group with a live performance in Berlin in early 1985 and changed his name to Adolphus Newton (no chortling at the back now please). Ha /Zulu was the first single recorded as a six piece with Stephen Mallinder and Richard H. Kirk from Cabaret Voltaire assisting on post-production.

This lavish 12" was released in a glossy die-cut embossed sleeve on the important Sweatbox Records label, my copy comes with an eight page of Adolphus Newton 'scriptures' with associated artwork (which I currently don't have the means to scan). 

Big Sex followed - essentially a  huge throbbing twelve inches of sweaty grunting & panting from Adolphus and the boys in two very differing versions backed with the more gentle The Ocean which is one of my favourite Newton compositions.

Sonically, these two singles are mixed and mastered to the highest standard. Newton certainly put as much detail as possible into the final mix which is represented here in stunning clarity. 

The Anti Group were to become more of a side project when Newton rekindled Clock DVA as a heavy electronic project with a varied line-up of worthy assistants. Two years after Big Sex, we got the mighty Broadcast Test single, released on the German Big Sex label and Wax Trax! in the USA.  Much less subtle that the earlier singles, Broadcast Test is pounding electronica using a simple hook under which Newton constructs a post-industrial technobeat rhythm - which would no doubt have gone down well in pvc-laden Berlin alternative clubs.

The Anti Group - Ha / Zulu [SOX 009 UK 1985 24-Bit FLAC]

A1  Zulu

B1  Ha

The Anti Group - Big Sex [SOX 011 UK 1987 24-Bit FLAC]

A1  Big Sex

B1  Big Sex

B2  The Ocean

The Anti Group - Broadcast Test [WAX 9104 USA 1990 24-Bit FLAC]

A1  Broadcast Test Transmission 1

B1  Broadcast Test Transmission 2