INTERCHANGE MAGAZINE

 

Interchange was a magazine dedicated to electronic and experimental music that ran for four issues between 1982-1986. These postings reproduce all the issues, made from scans of the original masters, together with a few anecdotes regarding how each one came into existence. The online images are low resolution but you can also print out your own copy of the magazine via a link to a hi-res PDF. A short piece on the genesis of the magazine and scans of Interchange 1 can be found HERE; Interchange 2 HERE, Interchange 3 HERE and Interchange 4 HERE. 

    There were also three cassette releases. A c90 compilation tape Inter 01, a c60 by The Adventures Of Twizzle, The Great Waster and a c46 by Ward Phillips, Cyclades. I discuss (and post the artwork for) Inter 01 HERE and The Great Waster HERE).

WARD PHILLIPS:

CYCLADES (c46 cassette)
 

A FEW OBSERVATIONS...

    As I have stated elsewhere in my posts, Ward Phillips was the vehicle of my own musical offerings. I was very keen to distance my musical work from the magazine mainly because I liked the idea of the project being anonymous and that nobody I knew would feel obliged to say that they liked (or of course hated) it.

    As I hope it is obvious, the name (and the titles) reflected my obsession with the life and works of the American author HP Lovecraft, Ward Phillips being one of Lovecraft’s own pseudonyms.

    Lovecraft was undergoing something of a revival at the time and a number of artists were inspired by his work; for example there was Cthulhu records in Germany, the Uncommunity were producing cassettes directly inspired by the author and Coil’s own label Threshold House was a reference to him. Their record logo was designed by a member of an occult/literary group called the Esoteric Order Of Dagon which drew members (including myself) from a number of disciplines and was loosely associated with both the Typhonian and Chaos schools of Magick - which I also was involved with, either personally knowing members or by writing to them.

    Lovecraft also had more personal resonances with myself and a number of my friends. For was he not, like ourselves, a gentleman of independent but impoverished means (we were unemployed or on student grants), nocturnal, a person who railed against contemporary society and it’s destruction of the old, and an author whose works were permeated with the unusual and bizarre? It is thus hardly surprising that his influence permeated my music.

    Of the sound sources themselves I still prefer to say very little other than that locational ambience was important, and instead offer this contemporary (but I believe unpublished) sheet that I probably prepared as ‘publicity,’ though I don’t think I ever actually did any. The ’studio’ I mention was my living room. The illustration that accompanies it was a piece of ‘automatic painting’, a subject I was inspired to try after seeing the works of the Surrealists and especially those of the artist/occultist Austin Osman Spare. A few other pieces of mine are reproduced as part of the cassette package. My current book project Side Real Press is also a nod to Spare and its logo another piece of automatic artwork.
 

    The cassette itself came in two formats, one with photocopied inserts and the other ( a limited edition of 7) with the same artwork, but as original larger format screen prints. The sticker on the plastic bag containing it all was also screen printed but unfortunately the ink had no flexibility and thus inevitably flaked off very easily. I think the screen prints were made at the same place I printed Interchange magazine.

    The scans are made from the original masters.  The online images are low resolution, but you can print out your own copy of the cassette cover and accompanying artworks via the compressed hi-res PDF HERE.

    The music is free to download from the Ward Phillips soundcloud account HERE. There you can also find the piece ‘The Call of Cthuhlu’ from the Inter 01 cassette. I discuss that cassette release HERE.

    Music from the same location and time period as ‘The Call of Cthuhlu’ was recently released on Harbinger sound HERE.

   Ward Phillips also contributed to a Hafler Trio release Inoutof (info on that HERE) and was a celebrant at various Metgumbnerbone rites, some of which are to be found on their double cd release HERE.

CYCLADES

  
ARTWORK, IN BOTH SIZES, INSERTS AND CASSETTE

BAG

  

  


PLASTIC BAG AND INSERTS


 

ARTWORK