From 1986. A cassette..  ...  a little bit of HISS-tory !
By now it’s been proven time and again the HDR digital internet world highlights the desirability of blurred films of yesteryear. The hi-res pixels are more than enough ( even at a lowly 44khz ) to contain the grain of frugal oxide alignments ( you can almost count the filaments with the naked eye FFS! ) The reverse is not true materially or statistically BUT strangely the modern material, in it’s Hi-Rise library the size of a finger nail, often gains more from the supposed loss of bit range. The trick, as ever, is to select the FUNDAMENTAL frequencies and try as far as possible to select only clashing or interfering frequencies to show the door when economising. There’s just less distraction. Rescuing things from the mud can be rewarding, you have to jettison presumptions of technological competence brought by a combination of affordable beyond ‘pro’ level tools and self explanatory user interfaces we access now. There is simply no excuse now to make an attempt at recording something without the unavoidable awareness that your audience could have heard virtually every form of ‘recordable’ music produced during the last 150 years. But what about back ‘then’ , the 80’s, arguably a boon time for technological manifestation in the music field and from the beginning of the decade that started to trickle down, bringing recording and mixing into the bedroom and more importantly bedrooms of the not so wealthy or professional dabbler. No admonishing paper clip, no planet wide wiki, no video tutorial, unless Tony Hart/ Vision On counts. No... Barry Bucknall never plugged his Uher or Brenell in, sharpened his blade and demonstrated the pertinent pages of Terence Dwyer’s Composing with Tape Recorders on the BBC, though you might have caught StockyHoos or Kraftverk showing off their costly machinery on Tomorrow’s World from time to time.

considered “half lost” for over 3 decades, this 1986 cassette release from W2F ( witness to fatigue,, and yes... long long before WTF became a ‘thing’, though that is a nice coincidence ) resided in one of my many 80’s cassette cases in only a ‘final’ version of the sleeve with a sony cassette with aprox 26 minutes of mixdown material used in the final release. Labeled, appropriately enough: “Mixdowns”. I’d often pondered on where the other half of the master audio - “the stuff with the dialogue” went and whether it would be impossible to ‘recreate’ it. The only other complete source known was the northern tape label Artaman who had been in contact re a previous release and had put 2 tracks from The Southern Vegetable Mystery on a compilation featuring NWW, Die Todliche Doris, X-ray Pop, The Grey Wolves etc, this release was pretty much the only reference to W2F on discogs or indeed the WWW until recently, but Bob knows where those persons might hide out these days.

Another possible source but even more unlikely to be traceable today was the excellent gentleman working in the local Copy Shop on Elm Grove, Southsea at the time. His curiosity about the various odd photocopying jobs i brought in lead him to introduce himself, though his name is lost to my leaky memory now, it seemed our tastes for the weird in music coincided. He offered up the state of the art typography machine that he worked on when not dealing with customers there, for free even!! hence the final polished version of the folding sleeve. We also traded cassettes, one of which he gave me was my first introduction to Pierre Schaeffer, Cinq Études de Bruits ... he’d labeled it 1948 .. it sounded like some kind of raw Zoviet France stuff!!? surely this must be a put-on, i thought ironically considering what i was fabricating myself, my knowledge of music concrete history and the late 40’s experiments with looped wax cylinder recordings etc being restricted to a second hand John Appleton folkways LP at the time but not for long. The Copy Shop guy also furnished ‘pro’ type for the 4th and final W2F release “We Help” a double cassette with extensive booklet, that one seems completely lost on the audio front, though i still have a copy of the booklet and the packaging somewhere, the outer being a biohazard bag, an idea later resurrected for Stock, Hausen & Walkman’s “What’s Up!” cassette. Wherever and whoever he is, I owe him twice over and raise my hat to him.

Fast Forward to a visit mid 2019 to mr Stern Humbles residence in Bristol, him having recently given some lodgers the bums-rush and relocated from Chipping Norton back to his house there, it appeared that his particular ‘cassette hoarder’ condition saved the long dead day. In one of the many attic boxes he was sorting through was this early dupe of the entire SVM - finally reuniting the two halves.

Inspired equally by Dadaism via Roussel's Impressions of Africa, King Kong and all it’s differing quality sequels, Tarkovsky’s Stalker and a headline article in an old copy of Pravda found in a second hand book store. Musically chomping on the heels of The Residents, Zoviet France, Renaldo & the Loaf with touches of Dome and Hafler Trio with maybe the ritualisms of Codona at the fringe. I don't know why but at times Shill & Millers Moomins soundtrack also comes to mind! This was the 3rd & penultimate cassette release from my 1980’s W2F outfit. Previously and most often a collaboration with mr Stern Humbles ( cf: Stretchmarks ) but from time to time Fiona T. Wardle had a background hand in the bedroom 4 track cassette fumblings. In this instance I had moved from Manchester to Portsmouth ( Southsea to be precise ) following an urge of the heart and was holed up in a single room bedsit with a sink, shower and oven squeezed into the Jarryesque attic space.

The Jarry-attic was at the very top of 34 St Edwards Road, fourth floor, St Edwards rd ran off Great Southsea St, i didn’t discover until my last weeks there , from an address printed at the back of a Touch Cassette, that was the street Renaldo & the Loaf made their noises on. All the time i had presumed them to be weird Americans due to the Ralph Records connection. Again naïveté? or just the pre-internet info starved times?
Mr Wardle made his way down from the northern wastelands to deliver some desperately needed hashish and surrealist companionship for a long weekend. The smoke burnished evenings and nights of this mini break were spent outlining the plot to a “lost” film by the unsung auteur Ernst Sample and then, with nothing but a Dr-55 drum machine, echo box, descant recorder, * and 2 tandy PZM microphones stuck back to back to furnish a rudimentary ’ambisonic’ stereo pick up we attempted to make the murky soundtrack to this mental interior cinema classic. The rest was our own voices, frying pan percussion, microphones placed under the mattress for the BIG tribal drum sounds, t.v. switched on randomly for cut-in dialogue prompts and my naive mixing skills with the Tascam244 cassette 4 track, a prized 2nd hand possession only affordable by making a spurious ( but successful ) back rent claim from the DHSS in retaliation against a dodgy landlord who had made off with my dole cheques the previous summer.
The title came from a basic attempt to translate the headline to the Pravda article with what we considered the most obscure picture to accompany it. The Southern Vegetable Mystery?? the plot came pretty much wholesale and with some speed from our opiated discussions.

- general synopsis -
A scientific expedition by ship to an obscure tropical island headed by anthropologist Dr Zone.

Discovery of a warren of tunnels dug into the side of the dormant volcano that dominates the island’s skyline.

Attempting deep earth excavations in the tunnels scattered with obvious ancient and sacred relics from a presumed long dead tribal civilisation.

Detection of anomalous but ‘regular’ subsoil sounds inside the labyrinthine tunnel system. Almost as soon as they are detected and whilst attempts are being made to record the sounds they cease.

The Island experiences torrential rain and terrible flooding which encroaches the tunnel system jeopardising the teams equipment.

Once the floods have abated Dr Zones team return to the tunnels and discover the floods have washed away a substantial amount of earth uncovering a large biological mass. Testing equipment is set up to establish if the mass is of vegetable origin or some kind of mammalian flesh-like creature.

Meanwhile members of the expedition not assigned scientific duties scout the island and unexpectedly encounter an indigenous denizen of the island long thought extinct. The tribes person takes the team members to the hidden volcano side village, all seems friendly and welcoming, food and "entertainments" are offered.

On further inspection of the tribal encampment approximately a third of the village population seem to be occupied manually operating a complex lever system built into the hillside.

On enquiring with the Chief 'Elder' of the village - Ovoshchnoi - an explanation is given: the entire population worship some kind of vegetable deity buried deep within the volcano, the main tenet of this religion being that if the vegetable is not kept entirely free from moisture it will attempt to relocate to some other, dryer, location and it's ancient roots, now being so intertwined with the foundations of the volcanic island, will destroy the whole archipelago and the villagers with it. The elaborate lever systems are deep pumping mechanisms designed as defences against the regular threat of flooding on the island and to keep the tunnel system moisture free and hence protect the villagers way of life.

The scout party return to the tunnels and find Dr Zones 'meatactic litmus tests' all but complete with Zone firmly convinced that the 'vegetable' is in fact sentient. One of the scout party, Sokolovo, overhears an argument between 'famous guide' Zurbriggen and Dr Zone in which Zone plans to electrically connect his consciousness with that of the Vegetable, to discover as much of the ancient knowledge of the earth as possible: " For the benefit of all the carnivorous nations!! " and is insistently warned against doing such by Zurbriggen, stating strongly and in no uncertain terms that such a thing could only bring cataclysm on the team and the island as a whole: " I did NOT lead you to this place to wrought more tribulations and wretchedness upon the world! "

Sokolovo, being not only a man of 'conscience' but also partially smitten by one of the tribesmen, stealthily makes his way out of the tunnels and to the village to warn Ovoshchnoi of Zone’s bizarre 'tuber-morphosis' intentions.

The villagers lead Sokolovo into the tunnels via hitherto completely camouflaged entrances. Whilst making their way through the labyrinth various seismic events violently shake the island causing rock falls barring the way down certain passages, the whole thing turns into something of a mouse in a lab maze experiment as routes collapse and become impassable.

It is clear that Zones experiments are causing the ancient vegetable thing to stir and the earthquakes and rockfalls are a byproduct. By the time the tribesmen reach the centre of the volcano and take the expedition members prisoner it is too late.... Zone has already been completely absorbed by the vegetable. Famous guide Zurbriggen relates Dr Zones final words, he describes the intense look of fear mixed with a mysterious "all knowingness" that invaded his features as he uttered the phrase - " Retune now! Genuine insight.... two ice rinks and a carousel !! " as he merged into the fleshy wall of vegetation that made up the cavernous chamber.

As the expedition members are escorted out of the tunnels and down to the village, members of the tribe seal up the subterranean entrances leaving Zone to his vegetarian fate and the sound of the pumping recedes.
A closing shot as dawn breaks over the now peaceful island as the expedition ship makes it way out of the natural bay harbour into the horizon, Sokolovo's impassive face as he waves uncertainly from the upper deck to the object of his affections on the shore. the end

It all feels very Guy Maddin in retrospect though it would be another 2 years in 1988 before he would make and i would watch with great joy his first feature Tales from the Gimli Hospital after moving back to manchester.

So... why release such a thing three and a half decades after it’s original context and the audience it might have been meant for? certainly it will be enjoyed or, more likely, reviled by a substantial number more listeners, though that may be exponential in tens rather than thousands. The fiction of the thing was never going to convince any but the most completely slack jawed, even back then in such naive times, but then that wasn’t ever the point. Music works better in darkness. So making a distant island, the unlit jungle floor, strange cultures and beliefs and deep tunnels into a living hillside the central spine to hang vegetable brained ‘music’ onto would seem like a plausible endeavour. various precedents for this spring immediately to mind and, of course, many descendants. Is it the by now old story of fascination with restrictions and mind sets of yesteryear, an innocence we can neither recapture nor bestow upon our current plugged in youth? After all this time the rare commodity that such an agenda free attitude actually IS, finally trumps any embarrassment at the sheer skill free callow amateurism and drug induced indiscipline on show. But maybe most of all it’s worth making public as a testament to times of great friendship, to any adventures shared by two or more people even when they occur, as they more often do now, only in the depths of our minds and in the shuffling oxides of audio tape.

Mr Fiona T. Wardle puts it this way:
“ Naive? Hell yes, and so much the better for it. “

*ok.. so also a bass guitar and small 6 knob percussion synth ( JHS D-2 mini synth ), a casio SK-1 for rudimentary sampling and weedy keyboard sounds. Junk that became gold years after i’d let them slip through my fingers for a few desperate pounds or an exploitative part-exchange.
- mw august 2021 -

acknowledgements in hindsight: Fiona T. Wardle of course, Stern Humbles, Sebastian Weetabix, David Padbury, David A. Thompson-Curran. Elm Grove Copyshop guy, WorkSanE, Zoviet France, R&TL, Ruth Rose, J. A. Creelman & The guy from across the road that would paint until 2 or 3 in the morning then, noticing my light on, would seek refuge from the paint thinner fumes in my bedsit, talking nonsense until the effects wore off.