ANTHONY MOORE - Home Of The Demo - LP - Vinyl [OCT 25]

LP - Black Vinyl. 

Anthony Moore’s post-Slapp Happy output, for years an underrated-to-outright unknown quantity, achieves another dimensional plane with this third archival release from his personal tape library. Home of the Demo triangulates upon the art-pop qualities found in his previously unreleased OUT (1976, officially issued 2020) and the new wave-adjacent Flying Doesn’t Help (1979, reissued 2022), finding Anthony’s early/mid-80s compositions drifting into the actual mainstream, just moments before it began giving way to the inevitable Next Waves....

London, circa 1978–1984! Zoom in on a small, pleasantly rundown Victorian house in Whitechapel. Just one among many in a working neighbourhood, with natives and immigrants alike simply trying to get by—the synagogue and the mosque side by side. Folks who keep themselves to themselves and don’t make much fuss over some wild-eyed fellow making a ruckus in his basement most evenings.

Having a hard time picturing it? Well, it actually happened, and Home of the Demo unpacks ten tracks from what we might otherwise call a lost era.

Subtitled “from the dawn of bedsit recording” (and further attributed with “on the cusp of the analogue-to-digital shift, ‘78–‘84”), this collection largely represents something nearer to DIY than we’d hear from any of your fancy modern kit! As Anthony remarks in his liner notes, “We are talking about a few hundred quid’s worth of gear balanced precariously on bookshelves and table tops in bedrooms and basements.”

And yet, the tracks sound right dreamy. Forty-some years on, we find them marvellously mellowed by time (and latter-day mastering). Anthony was a songwriter and musician whose first decade-plus in the music ‘business’ had brought him outside-in, through experimental/avant projects into the pop music world he’d loved as a youngster. He was an old hand at getting sounds as well; distinctly “80s” elements that might abrade the ear
instead benefit from his tactile deployment of that gear stacked up on tables and bookshelves in the basement. In this manner, he produced well-appointed, ambitiously clever songs for himself and others, such as his friend David Gilmour’s band, who used a couple pieces on Home of the Demo for their 1987 comeback album.

Amidst the assiduous work of writing the Next Big One, a relaxed, almost playful mood prevails throughout the pieces assembled here—as one might imagine at home demo sessions where one man plays all the parts. It’s also true for the numbers that feature special guests, such as the ominously monikered “Page The Oracle” on lead guitar (!)—or the singer simply dubbed, “Guest”—no doubt a safe alias for a hot young Bunnyman rising to his commercial peak in those halcyon days!

In the years since, Anthony’s managed to continue on in all the far-flung areas of his interest, with modern composition, improvisation and pop songs all playing an important part in his ongoing work. The unique journey of this “earthbound misfit” through the fringes of the late rock and roll era tells us much of value about the era’s secret history—perhaps not so much “secret” as too “extra” for the basic cut of the proceedings at the time. Drag City, a curious fellow-traveller along this slow-setting arc, as well as to the subsequent/current Director’s Cut era, are happy to be responsible for hawking this particular Extra. As ever, let the inconvenient truth loose!

Tracklist: 

SIDE 1
1. The Ballad of Sarah Bellum
2. One World
3. Me and Neil Diamond
4. A Different Lie
5. Judy, Judy

SIDE 2
1. Lucia Still Alive
2. Midnight Sun
3. Coralie
4. Earthbound Misfit
5. Cold Love