Nocturnal Emissions
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Nocturnal Emissions is a sound art project that has released numerous records and CDs in music styles ranging from electro-acoustic, musique concrete, hybridised beats, sound collage, post-industrial music, ambient and noise music. The sound art has been part of an ongoing multimedia campaign of guerrilla sign ontology utilising video art, film, hypertext and other documents. The project was initiated in London in or around 1980 by Nigel Ayers (b. 1957) together with collaborators Danny Ayers(b.1964) and Caroline K (b.1957).
From early in their work, the group concentrated on the axiom of music being a form of social control, and highlighted concepts such as information overload, cult conditioning, brainwashing and subliminal advertising, in a critique of information society. Their music drew heavily on worldwide folk traditions as well as that of the European avant-garde. One of their earliest performances was in a railway arch in Atlantic Road, Brixton, while the 1981 Brixton riots raged outside.
Since 1984 Nocturnal Emissions has continued mainly as Nigel Ayers' solo project. Line-up has varied from one to a dozen musicians. Nocturnal Emissions temporary members have included net artist Stanza, Ben Ponton of Zoviet France and (somewhat bizarrely) life coach Fiona Harrold.
Nocturnal Emissions ran their own record label, Sterile Records and later worked closely with the editors of the art music label Touch, later with both the Netherlands- based Staalplaat and USA- based Soleilmoon recording labels. All three labels came to the fore as part of 1980s cassette culture. In 1990-92 Nocturnal Emissions collaborated on Butoh dance performances in Europe & the USA, with the Japanese choreographer Poppo Shiraishi. Around this time Nocturnal Emissions' Situationist-influenced practice became increasingly informed by magick, stone circles, techno-shamanism, neo-paganism, animism and Fortean research. There were many collaborations on animated films by Mancunian TV director Charlotte Bill. Bill was never an official member of Nocturnal Emissions, but admits to being one of the legion of members of The Fall (band).
Nocturnal Emissions were later to be associated with the Kernow section of the Association of Autonomous Astronauts and to feature in a best-selling story by the novelist Stewart Home.
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Partial Discography
Tissue of Lies LP (Emiss, 1981)
Tissue of Lies Revised CD (Dark Vinyl, 1990)
Fruiting Body LP(Sterile, 1981)
Drowning in a Sea of Bliss LP (Sterile, 1983; cassette reissued by Touch, 1985; CD reissued by Soleilmoon, 1993)
Viral Shedding LP (Illuminated, 1983)
Chaos (Live at the Ritzy) LP (Cause For Concern, 1983)
The Fight Goes On cassette (Staalplaat, 1984)
No Sacrifice 12" (Sterile, 1984)
Shake Those Chains Rattle Those Cages LP (Sterile, 1985)
Songs of Love and Revolution LP (Sterile, 1985; CD re-issue from Dark Vinyl, 1992)
The World is my Womb LP (Earthly Delights, 1987; Soleilmoon cassette, 1989; Soleilmoon CD, 1999)
Duty Experiment 1982-1984 LP (Earthly Delights, 1988; CD reissue Soleilmoon, 1995)
Spiritflesh LP (Earthly Delights, 1988; Soleilmoon cassette, 1989)
Stoneface LP (Parade Amoureuse, 1989; CD reissue from Staalplaat, 1994 with Spiritflesh)
Da Dum 7" (Parade Amoureuse, 1989)
Invocation of the Beast Gods CD (Staalplaat, 1989)
Beyond Logic, Beyond Belief LP (Earthly Delights, 1989)
Mouth of Babes LP (Earthly Delights, 1990; CD reissue from Soleilmoon, 1991)
Energy Exchange LP (Earthly Delights, 1991)
Cathedral CD (Musica Maxima Magnetica, 1991)
Blasphemous Rumours CD(Staalplaat, 1992)
The Seminal Works -12 tape box set (Earthly Delights, 1992)
Magnetized Light CD (Musica Maxima Magnetica, 1993)
The Quickening LP (Earthly Delights, 1993)
Glossalalia CD (Soleilmoon, 1994)
Holy of Holies - 4-hour DAT (Soleilmoon, 1994)
Binary Tribe CD (Staalplaat, 1994)
Imaginary Time LP(Soleilmoon, 1995)
Autonomia CD (Soleilmoon, 1996)
Friction And Dirt CD (Staalplaat, 1996)
Tharmuncrape An'goo CD (Soleilmoon, 1997)
Sunspot Activities CD (Soleilmoon, 1997)
Omphalos CD (Soleilmoon, 1998
Futurist Antiquarianism CD (Soleilmoon, 2000)
Collateral Salvage CD (Soleilmoon, 2003)
Nightscapes LP (Small Voices, 2006)
Collaborations
The Beauty of Pollution (with C.C.C.C.) (Endorphine Factory, 1996)
Side Projects
Oedipus Brain Foil 3xCD (with Randy Greif and Robin Storey) (Soleilmoon, 1998)
Mesmeric Enabling Device CD (with John S. Everall and Mick Harris) (Soleilmoon, 1999)
The World Turned Gingham CD (with Robin Story, released under the name Hank & Slim) (Caciocavallo, 2000)
Transgenic CD (Solo album released under the name Transgenic) (Soleilmoon, 2000)
Selected Video works
Bleeding Images (1982)
The Foetal Grave of Progress (1983)
Soundtracks
The Three Trials - Adventures in Psychotica (Randy Greif dir.) www.thethreetrials.com
See Also
