Political Asylum

Description

Political Asylum is a seven-track cassette-only EP and the second effort by the British synth pop/new wave band The Free Zone, independently released in the UK on Cheep Records in 1987. The album was recorded April and June 1987 by Mike Saunders at S.O.S in Liverpool, England, and was arranged and performed by The Free Zone. All songs written by Tim Thwaites except track A4 co-written by Thwaites and Pete Scarlett.

The Free Zone is Pete Scarlett (drums) and Tim Thwaites (other instruments and vocals).

This demo is a lo-fi alternative music effort by a duo – one drummer and one multi-instrumentalist. Or maybe one keyboard player? I’m not sure if I hear much guitar on here. Maybe some buried in the background, but it seems that Thwaites did a lot on keyboard, especially the bass. That is an interesting combination – usually these underground one-man efforts would have programmed drums and maybe a friend joining on guitar. But live drums is a different twist. Some might not get the DIY sound here, but I have always liked to listen to people that basically put together a whole tape with just one or two people. They called their record label “Cheep” for a reason :). One review of the band referred to them as “techno punk” – not so much punk music style as punk attitude, but is seems to be a good description. This was the second of three projects – the first was called Large As Life (same year but earlier), and the follow-up to this one was Mammon in 1990. [Christian Tape Underground, December 20, 2020]

Cassette EP tracklist:

Side One
A1. “Nothing Less”
A2. “Not the Only One”
A3. “Showdown”
A4. “Benefit of Hindsight”

Side Two
B1. “Rather Say Goodbye”
B2. “Promise”
B3. “I Saw Your Face”