Description
Low Flying for Beginners is a solo album by British singer and songwriter Steve Wheeler, formerly of the British new wave combo Mark 2, self-released on cassette-only in 1984. Written, performed, and produced by Steve Wheeler. Engineered by Julian Payne.
Steve Hemlock: Old Soldier. Louise Sturtridge: Girl. Wheeler, Nick Wilkes, Gavin Ranford, and Gnome: ‘Coff Chorus’.
This is a pretty cool album of most spoken word performances. Kind of like Steve Scott, but Wheeler uses sound effects and tape manipulation more than found sound loops. For example, «Video Games» uses a bit of Noise percussion and video game sound effects. Also, don’t let the number of songs fool you – this is a short album, with some tracks under 30 seconds long (and only a few going over a minute and a couple going over 2 minutes). A couple of tracks are musical in nature – «Disco Floor» is pretty much a song (and a cool indie Crazed Bunnyz-esque one at that), and «Creative Genius» has some experimental noise/indie sounds interjected like you hear on Marc Plainguet or other projects influenced by that scene. The poems are sometimes obvious, sometimes deep in thought – a good mix if you ask me. This is the same Broken Records (UK) label that The Barking Dogs were on, and a quick search reveals two albums by Mark 2 (Stranger 7″ and Wrong Sida Life 7″) that feature Steven Wheeler fronting a band – both also on Broken Records. After doing some searching, I found a Steve Wheeler in Plymouth, UK (the mailing address for Broken Records) that is actually a big deal in my field of study (Educational Technology). Interesting. Maybe Broken Records was his label all along? But weird connection that he went into academia and is now known for a non-music related field. [Christian Tape Underground]
Cassette tracklist:
Side One – Low Side
A1. “Suffer, Little Children”
A2. “My Uncle Said”
A3. “Video Games”
A4. “Belfast Photographs”
A5. “Disco Floor”
A6. “Methylated Spiritists”
A7. “The Accident”
A8. “The Coffin Fit”
A9. “All This Must Go”
A10. “You’re Never Alone with Schizophrenia”
A11. “Paint Me Red”
A12. “I Did My Best”
Side Two – Flying Side
B1. “Low Voltage Prayer”
B2. “Key”
B3. “Newspaper Man”
B4. “Blood Transfusion”
B5. “Return to Boyhood”
B6. “Creative Genius”
B7. “Thoughts”
B8. “Nun Today, Thankyou!”
B9. “Eyes”
B10. “D-Day”
B11. “Honest Poem”
B12. “Crosspurpose”
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