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This Heat
File:Thisheat.jpg
Background information
Origin Brixton, London, England
Genres Experimental rock, industrial rock, post-punk
Years active 1976–1982
Labels This Is
Rough Trade
Associated acts Dolphin Logic, Friendly Rifles, Camberwell Now, Flaming Tunes
Past members
Charles Bullen
Charles Hayward
Gareth Williams

This Heat were a British experimental music group formed in early 1976 in Camberwell, London by multi-instrumentalists Charles Bullen (guitar, clarinet, viola, vocals, tapes), Charles Hayward (drums, keyboards, vocals, tapes) and Gareth Williams (keyboard, guitar, bass, vocals, tapes).

This Heat were active in the ascendancy of British progressive rock and punk rock, but stood apart from those scenes due to a radically inventive approach that touched on numerous different styles and genres, but was always confrontational and politically charged. Their commercial success was limited, but This Heat are widely considered a missing link between progressive rock (especially krautrock) and such later experimental genres as post-punk, industrial music, post-rock, and noise rock.[1] This Heat’s influences included Can, Lee "Scratch" Perry and Throbbing Gristle.[2]

Contents

Band history [link]

This Heat's first radio airplay came in early 1977 from legendary DJ John Peel, to whom they sent a demo tape recorded in the top room at Hayward's parents' house in Camberwell as this was before they had moved into their 'Cold Storage' studio, which they converted from a disused cold storage room which was part of an "Acme Studios" artists studios complex in Brixton. During this time, they also recorded a session with Ghanaian percussionist Mario Boyer Diekuuroh, parts of which later appeared on a 1982 split cassette with Albert Marcoeur, released by the French experimental rock magazine Tago Mago.

Their self-titled debut album was recorded between February 1976 and September 1978 in various studios and venues, and was released in August 1979. It was characterized by heavy use of tape manipulation and looping, (especially on the track "24 Track Loop" which was a loop actually on the 2" master tape) combined with more traditional performance (including quite a lot of live stereo microphone in the room recordings) to create dense, eerie, electronic soundscapes. Shortly thereafter, This Heat released the Health and Efficiency EP, which foreshadowed the more rock-oriented sound of their subsequent album.

Deceit, the band's second and final album, was produced with help from noted reggae mixer Martin Frederick and released in 1981. Deceit found the band incorporating more influence from punk rock, and consolidating the world music influences in their work. Although, like all of This Heat's releases, it sold poorly, Deceit is now seen as a classic of the post-punk era comparable in quality and invention with Closer, Chairs Missing or Metal Box.

Legacy [link]

This Heat split up in 1982 after completing their final European tour with bassist/vocalist Trefor Goronwy and keyboardist Ian Hill joining Bullen and Hayward, as Williams had departed for India. Hayward went on to form Camberwell Now with Goronwy and Stephen Rickard, and remains musically active. Bullen had a solo venture called Lifetones, and released one record, For a Reason, in 1983 on his Tone of Life imprint and in 1998 released the album Internal Clock under the name Circadian Rhythms.

In 1993 a new album of previously unreleased This Heat recordings was unearthed. Repeat featured three long tracks, including the title track, a 20 minute remix of "24 Track Loop". Out of Cold Storage, a box set of all the band's official recordings, was released in June 2006 on This is!, a new Recommended Records sub-label set up by Hayward and Bullen to re-release This Heat's back catalogue. The set comprises This Heat, Deceit, Health and Efficiency, Made Available and Repeat, plus Live 80/81, a CD of concert recordings.[3]

Gareth Williams later formed Flaming Tunes with Mary Currie and released a cassette of new material, in a much "gentler" style than that of This Heat... This has been released on CD for the first time in mid 2009. In December 2001 This Heat tentatively rehearsed (with Williams) however nothing came to fruition as Williams died later that month of cancer.[4]

Discography [link]

References [link]

  1. ^ Critic Andy Kellerman describes their second album as "[O]ne of the most expansive, imaginative, and remarkably wild records to have been produced during the [post punk era] -- and very possibly the last three decades. [...] It ends up hardly resembling anything it takes cues from. [1]
  2. ^ "This Heat" in The Rough Guide to Rock (3rd ed.) edited by Peter Buckley,Rough Guides Ltd., 2003 (pgs. 1076-77).
  3. ^ Cutler, Chris (2006), box set booklet, Out of Cold Storage by This Heat. Thornton Heath:Recommended Records LC-02677
  4. ^ Baxter, Ed (7 February 2002). "Gareth Williams". London: The Guardian. https://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2002/feb/07/guardianobituaries. 
  • Strong, Martin C. The Great Alternative and Indie Discography

External links [link]


https://wn.com/This_Heat

This Heat (album)

This Heat (often referred to as Blue and Yellow) is the debut studio album by English experimental rock band This Heat. Recorded between 1976 and 1978, it was released in September 1979 by record label Piano.

Reception

Dean McFarlane of AllMusic wrote: "There are very few records that can be considered truly important, landmark works of art that produce blueprints for an entire genre. In the case of this album, it's clear that this seminal work was integral in shaping the genres of post-punk, avant rock and post-rock, and like all great influential albums, it seemed it had to wait two decades before its contents could truly be fathomed." Steven Grant of Trouser Press wrote: "Though insolent and withdrawn, the music is adventurous and, in its own peculiar way, engrossing." Peter Marsh of BBC Music called it "one of the strongest and strangest debut records of all time. Seemingly born out of the fervent experimentalism of the UK post-punk scene, This Heat's beautifully skewed mix of improvisation, lo-fi tapework and stretched, ghostly songform actually had more in common with maverick longhairs like Henry Cow and Faust. [...] The music here seethes with an economy, invention and power that still shocks a quarter of a century on.".Pitchfork named the album's 2016 reissue as a "Best New Reissue".

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Deceit

by: This Heat

'we hold these truths to be self evident, thatall men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their creator
with certain rights, that among these are life liberty
and the pursuit of happiness that to secure these rights,
governments are instituted among men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever
any form of government becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it'




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