toytown tekno 6 of ?

This is a tune I know from my first days of trying to get to grips with / get my mitts on Ardkore.  I picked up some mixtapes in Portobello Market - a little stall nestling at the foot of the Westway flyover. "The Ice Cream Van From Hell" was on a tape called Hardcore Mayhem (see below). But it's misidentified as hailing from the Major Malfunctions EP and is here titled "Ice Cream Van". (I've looked and there's an artist called Major Malfunction, who recorded for Djax-Up, initially as Major Mal'fun'ctions. But no sign of a Major Malfunctions EP).

 

It's a fairly poxy tape in both selection and sound (dubbed at high speed presumably). D.J. Not-Ace more like. But this  tune was one of the few that caught my ear.  

The toytown element is the children singing "I scream you scream we all scream for ice cream" and the tinkling bell of the ice cream van. Otherwise it's a moody slice of acieeed breakbeat. 

Earth Leakage Trip seem like an interesting, somewhat anomalous bunch - rather like Holy Ghost Inc., in so far as they coexist with, or pass through, the Ardkore but are not really of it. 

Claims to fame for the duo include doing the very first release on Moving Shadow, the Psychotronic EP from 1991, whose lead track is the awesome "No Idea" (a favorite of Moon Wiring Club). And this too qualifies as toytown techno - it includes samples from a 1975 children's record, Happy Monsters - Adventures in the Land of Oog. (I think there is also a little girl's voice from Poltergeist.). It's like darkcore a year or two ahead of schedule.

But talking about not quite fitting, looking at the pic of one of Earth Leakage Trip -  Neil Sanford, I think - I don't know if this is from back in the day or from nearer now, but he looks like someone who'd make Robyn Hitchcock / Martin Newell type music rather than tripped-out, slightly creepy techno. 

But that was what was great about this moment: all kinds of unlikely types with untypical and non-dance backgrounds passed through the zone, or had a go. Like 80s neo-psych chap Nick Nicely being half of Psychotropic. Or for that matter, Richard Norris, with his Bam Caruso / Strange Things freakbeat background, being in Jack the Tab and The Grid.... 

Well, actually, looking at this Test Pressing interview with Neil Sanford of Earth Leakage Trip, I'm not entirely off-base - although he started out with electro, he had a long period of listening to psychedelia and things like Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd:

"We were inspired by Pink Floyd and the kind of music that would have a psychedelic effect on you. There are a lot of elements of British psychedelic music within that track. There's the comical aspect, which is, again, quite British. When we were with Rising High records, I think the NME called us the Pink Floyd of techno. They recognised that a lot of the music was coming from Detroit or whatever, but we gave it a British twist."

There's also stuff about a Spiral Tribe connection - the Spirals heard Psychotronic and tracked the group down, and Simon, the other chap in Earth Leakage Trip, ended up joining the Tribe and going on the road with them.  The name Earth Leakage Trip itself has an affinity with the Spirals's "Terra-Technic" / Tecno Terra notions. 

The original cover for Psychotronic (Shadow 1) - designed by Neil Sanford. 

Oh look, last year the Psychotronic EP was reissued by Blank Mind. 

Here's the release rationale: 

“The doors are where the windows should be, and the windows are where the doors should be”. 

If you had been in one of the more open minded all night raves in the early 90s you are likely more than familiar with Earth Leakage Trip’s ‘No Idea’.

You could write several pages about the 'Psychotronic EP' and still not nail it as well as Discogs user covert_operative's description of 'urban, British psychedelic music.' The Acid House narrative is all about ecstasy, but for many, especially outside of London, there was a lot of LSD involved. Things were edgier, too, with parties in derelict, liminal spaces. By the time this record came out in 1991, the rave was properly diverging from its house music beginnings.

The Psychotronic EP was the first release on the legendary Moving Shadow label. Its lead track 'No Idea' is both the perfect entry point to the catalogue and something of an outlier. Neil Sanford had been writing music for a few years before playing some demos to Rob Playford in his car outside a nightclub in Wood Green. Simon Carter got involved, and the pair went to Playford's studio to manifest the madness they'd been sketching with rudimentary gear.

'No Idea's use of samples was wholly inspired and far more surreal than so many of the dark-side tracks that were to follow it. A friend of Neil's had given him a record called 'Happy Monsters' and the lead track, 'Adventures in the Land of Ooog,' lent the unforgettable children's vocals. Neil initially had his doubts. Had they gone too far? However, while working on the track, Rob Playford's girlfriend ran in shouting, "you HAVE to use that!" And so it came to be.

As a footnote, the track did prove to be strong medicine, with at least one documented account of a promoter having to be talked down by his friends after hearing it when psychedelically altered.

The Psychotronic EP is a truly visionary piece of work, standing poised on the edge of the rave's burgeoning future and entirely outside it. As such, it's never not been a cool record, as appealing to lysergic adventurers as it is to house heads, hardcore ravers, or experimental music pioneers. And it has now been lovingly reissued by Blank Mind, for which I'm eternally grateful, seeing as my copy is battered beyond belief.

- Piers Harrison

Then they did a record for Rising High 

And what do you know, another little bit of toytown tekno vibes, with what sounds to me like a sample from Bagpuss

A YouTube playlist of their early stuff