After reopening in Winston-Salem, the duo of Nydegger/Beauchamp took upon quite a few local clients. This was in fact a largely painful process, but it went to a good cause. From these sessions, they managed to save up for a cdr duplicator; coveted technology of the times. This resulted in the Radon Studio label, cranking out copies of early Radon artists, and a host of projects from the European underground, and of course some staples of the hometaper cassette trading community.
There was a great number of releases, and the originals are lost to the void, but some of them have been chased down.
The Radon Collective Archive presents this first batch of albums from the Radon Studio label with the hopes that many more will be on the way soon.
Sam Lohman’s snare drum and effect pedal arsenal 36 was one of the first to record in the original Radon Studio, and the following year, one of the label’s first releases. In the opening seconds you hear the snare vibrate against the bottom head as the noise begins to build, and you are quick to infer the “musical” journey you are about to embark upon.
Screeching feedback, disco-inspired blips and bleeps, chaotic thawaking and
plenty of “generic noise filler”. All the hallmarks of the 36 sound are present.
36 had been formed in Japan, and announced its arrival in the States with 36 Stars on the Radon studio label.
The duo behind Liquorball were on a journey as chaotic as their sound, when en route to the Tora Tora Tora festival in Atlanta, they found themselves temporarily stranded in a Las Vegas airport. The gear had been misplaced, and they were on the phone, looking for a drummer.
Alas, they made it to the event, organized by Tom Smith, and hosted by the famed dive bar Dotties. Behind the drum kit was none other than Ed Wilcox of Temple of Bon Matin.
They ripped through a 40 minute set of noise rock improv that was thankfully captured for the ages. About 5 years later when they met up with Radon, the set was finally released on cdr with artwork by Ed Wilcox , on the Radon studio label.
From a basement in small town Iowa where the began their existence, to a basement in small town North Carolina where Radon began, the story of Exit was always an improbable one.
Though to some they may be know for noise rock assault of their early work, they evolved into a project that reflected the diverse musical tastes shared by the group’s founders, Scott Nydegger and Dave Wren.
Yet, for their final album, a whole other musical territory was established as part of the Exit catalog. This was in no small part due to the pair of collaborators who joined in for these sessions: Paul Beachamp on synth and Sam Lohman on drums. Tipping the hand to an affection for 80s British post-punk and goth, the self titled release by Exit was a fitting finale to their 7 year run and was released on Radon Studio shortly after completion.
Karl Ray’s alter ego, Rick Gallagher was one of the trio of weirdos behind New Jersey based Two Foot Tall Jerk. They releases cassettes on the Burn Music Productions imprint and while the other members would make the escape, Gallagher would burrow in deeper to the Jersey wilderness and team up with studio mastermind 0781kt to create Karl Ray.
It is a powerful combination of drum machine and guitar that takes on the sound of a live rock band. He would make appearance on album and stage with many of the early Radon projects, but the true essence of the Karl Ray musical vision is found on these early cdr releases, which usually came dripped in paint, and packaged with some kind of rabbit on the cover, available from Radon Studio.