Audiopile Review: Like Robert Fripp and the godlike Peter Hammill, Anthony Moore is one of those rare folks from the British progressive rock scene who managed to survive punk with their credibility fully intact. He made truly radical and prescient avant rock with Henry Cow, and almost accidentally brilliant ironic pop with Slapp Happy. In truth, though, he remains a somewhat obscure figure, so it’s great to see more of his work being brought to light. ‘Mare’s Tale’ is an electro-acoustic composition, originally created to soundtrack an experimental film. It quickly establishes a darkly psychogeographic mood, but never relies on drones or repetition. This is a constantly shifting dreamscape that even finds time to include an early version of a Slapp Happy song, apparently. Fans of everything from classic musique concrète to post-industrial ambient acts like Zoviet France will find a lot to dig on here. More than just a vital missing piece of experimental music history, this is an impressively ambitious and thoroughly enjoyable album in its own right.

In 1969, both Anthony and David were at the start of their respective careers and both were inspired by the ideas of the avant-garde and the new technologies becoming available to them. David experimented with the various techniques being explored in the medium of film making and Anthony tested the limits of what could be done with tape recorders. It was an open and co-operative exploration. The results of their first collaboration was the film Mare’s Tail — an unusually long 2:30 hour film of non-linear multi layered audio visual collage filmed in a wide variety of locations interspersed with texts coming from readings and talks, Kabalistic texts, recorded phone calls, loops, children’s voices and other found material. The musical dimension is mainly supplied by various struck objects/noise/feedback/field recordings and samples. There are instruments too and listeners even get treated to a small section of what was to become a Slapp Happy tune. The blurry dreamscape/nightmare that slowly unfolds is laden with late ’60s delirium. The original master tapes are long gone and all that remains is the audio track on existing copies of the film and various bits of the makeup tapes, most of which were used (but some not), in the final cut. The low grade 16mm audio track (a degraded source to begin with) is further worn with age, subsequent duplication and repeated screenings. It all adds to the haze — a quality that David would have most likely approved. Edition of 500 numbered copies.