Tissue Of Lies / NOCTURNAL EMMISSIONS
This album by Nocturnal Emissions (NE) was released in 1981 on NE’s own label, Sterile Records.
The sounds are layered like multiple muffled images overlapping one another.
Sounds evoking such images unfold one after the other.
The first time I heard NE was on “Shake Those Chains Rattle Those Cages," which surprisingly contained some danceable tracks, quite different from the NE work I had encountered in “Fools Mate" magazine.
However, listening to this album, I discovered NE’s raw power.
After Sterile Records, he founded the label Earthly Delight and began releasing his work through it.
I saw them live just once, in London in 1999.
Nigel Ayers, NE’s band, appeared alone.
On stage, a small, simple modular-like machine was placed on a table covered with a sperm-patterned tablecloth, from which simple music played.
Around them, Nigel sang and thrashed about in unexpected movements, making it feel more like an art performance, with everyone sitting cross-legged and listening.
There were several dozen people in the audience, and I think they were expecting the droning sounds and rhythms coming from the mountains of machinery that can be heard in NE’s work, but this live performance completely betrayed that expectation.
A member of the audience said in the toilet, “I’m disappointed," but I got the feeling that NE wasn’t originally a group that conveyed hard messages through hard sounds like Throbbing Gristle or SPK, but rather a group that conveyed refined sensations and images through their work.
The performance-like live performance was probably an action to convey the image NE had at the time.
I felt that was very NE-like in its own way.
All of the albums released by Sterile Records, such as M.B.’s Symphony for A Genocide, were excellent.
Since becoming Earthly Delight, they have only released works related to NE and Nigel Ayers.