Neil Campbell (musician)

Neil Campbell (born 19 May 1966) is a British musician, notable for his vast catalogue and his many collaborations. In 2005, The Wire declared that he, Richard Youngs and Matthew Bower had "provided the map co-ordinates for much of what passed for a post-punk UK underground during most of the 80s and 90s".

Early years

Campbell was born in Scotland. He began making music in 1979 using whatever came to hand, having already developed a firm belief in improvisation, and that virtuosity would negatively impact upon the results.

In 1984, he first made contact with Richard Youngs when his Kettering based group ESP Kinetic applied to appear on a cassette compilation on Youngs' Jabberwok label. Although unsuccessful, he persevered for a while with ESP Kinetic and its successor, Redemption Inc, before extending his range outside the rock band format. Initially and indeed, typically for the period, much of Campbell's work was released on small tape labels or by Campbell himself and it is nigh-on impossible to document all of his releases.

From the "A" Band to Vibracathedral Orchestra

However, it was as a constant member of Nottingham's A Band that he met several future collaborators and first came to the attention of the international underground with an album "Artex/A Lot" being issued on Siltbreeze in the US. One reason for the A Band's growth in numbers is that, for each of their performances, he refused to appear onstage unless there was a new member. In 2007 Campbell was again involved in the revived A Band's recording and live activities.

As well as this, he often collaborated with UK noise music/art unit Smell and Quim under the alias D. Foist whilst also recording with Scottish DIY punk-improv duo Prick Decay on several occasions.

Towards the end of the 1990s Campbell hooked up with Julian Bradley to record 5 cassettes and an LP before they asked Michael Flower to join them, adding Bridget Hayden and Adam Davenport to form Vibracathedral Orchestra, who recorded and released prolifically, with many self-released items joining their US CD releases on VHF and Giardia. Campbell, of course, still found time to guest with Matthew Bower's groups Total and Sunroof!, work with people like Stewart Walden (especially as SWANC - the name taken from their initials), Rob Hayler, Phil Todd (of Ashtray Navigations), Universal Indians and (perhaps inevitably) Campbell Kneale and to record solo albums such as These Premises Are No Longer Bugged and Sol Powr. He also finally made a duo album with Richard Youngs called How The Garden Is. He took to the CD-R medium as enthusiastically as he did the cassette and many limited releases appeared on labels in the UK, U.S., New Zealand and Australia.

Astral Social Club

Campbell left Vibracathedral Orchestra in 2006 and now concentrates on his Astral Social Club project. He has released several CD-Rs, with a "best of" CD compilation culled from the first 7 volumes released on VHF Records last year. He also issued a MP3 disc containing 256 kbit/s files of all the tracks from those 7 albums as well as a vinyl only LP for Qbico entitled Star Guzzlers. He also performs live under this name, securing the services of his friends Richard Youngs and Tirath Singh Nirmala for a performance in Glasgow in April 2006, and those of Arttu Partinen for a performance in Manchester. As of 2015 Neil is working on setting a chapter of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake to music, for the Waywords and Meansigns project.[1]

Music Mundane

In 2007, Campbell launched Music Mundane, a new label, with the first two releases being an expanded CD reissue of his "Sol Powr" album and a revised CD-R edition of his friend Stewart Walden's limited edition cassette "Cucumber Sandwich", the first 25 copies of which come with a 3" CD-R containing remixes of the album by Astral Social Club. In 2008, he released an archive CDR of ESP Kinetic material, entitled "Fleck-Nor"

Discography

As stated above, a complete discography would be virtually impossible to compile. This list is an expanded and updated version of a select discography which originally appeared in the Perfect Sound forever interview. As Neil was a core member of the A Band, their discography should be referred to also.

Solo work

Astral Social Club

As stated above, a majority of ASC music has been issued across a series of eponymous CD-Rs, all self-released by Campbell in limited numbers. At time of writing (June 2008), this series is now up to 17 volumes and includes live recordings with Tirath Singh Nirmala (also known as John Clyde Evans), Richard Youngs and Stewart Keith. For the Model Town In Field Of Mud LP, ASC was a duo of Campbell and Evans.

Vibracathedral Orchestra

A Band

ESP Kinetic/Redemption Inc

These 1980s bands recorded several tapes but it is doubtful that any will be found without searching eBay. Campbell had a boxed set of ESP Kinetic cassettes placed on the shelves of Kettering Library after asking the library to order it. ESP Kinetic titles include: "Dance As Hallucination", "The Message Is No Message", "Mission", "fleck-NOR" and "Songs for Drowning Men". A CDR entitled "fleck-NOR" was issued by Campbell in 2008. Redemption Inc released a self-titled cassette and one entitled "Further Down The Spiral". There was also a cassette by Meat Your Mother entitled "Meat Dreams" which was also mainly Campbell's work. The track " Store Keep / Reward Report from the Head", which was originally released by ESP Kinetic in 1985 on cassette was featured on Unassimilated Sounds radio in 2015.[2]

Smell & Quim

A prolific noise unit, Campbell is known to have appeared on the following releases:

Julian Bradley/Neil Campbell

Matthew Bower

Campbell appears on the following recordings by Total:

Campbell appears on the following recordings by Sunroof!:

Richard Youngs

Neil Campbell/Stewart Walden

Prick Decay/Decaer Pinga

Decaer Pinga are Prick Decay by another name.

Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck & Schimpfluch-Gruppe

One-off collaborations

Campbell has recorded with several bands and individuals on a one-off basis:

References

  1. ↑ "Punk News article". Retrieved 2015-04-10.
  2. ↑ "Unassimilated Sounds with guest Neil Campbell". https://unassimilatedsounds.wordpress.com/2015/07/23/unassimilated-sounds-with-guest-neil-campbell/. External link in |website= (help);
  3. ↑ https://radiofreemidwich.wordpress.com/the-oto-tape-archive/
  4. ↑ "Unassimilated Sounds with guest Neil Campbell". https://unassimilatedsounds.wordpress.com/2015/07/23/unassimilated-sounds-with-guest-neil-campbell/. External link in |website= (help);
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