biting tongues
ltm catalog

LTM are pleased to present definitive CD reissues by Biting Tongues, the Manchester post-punk avant-funk band who recorded for several cult labels including Factory, New Hormones and Cut Deep. For full band biography click here. To purchase Biting Tongues CDs click here. To read detailed Tongues interview click here.

"Like many of their contemporaries, including the Pop Group, Cabaret Voltaire and Clock DVA, the Tongues' music was a maniacal melange which drew on John Cage, JG Ballard, Captain Beefheart, WS Burroughs etc, co-opting and inverting the exhuberance of funk to provide an agitated, cut-up and noirish yet vivid critique of a society apparently on the verge of 1984 for real... The dialectical wheel has come full circle and the Tongues, in the present day context, in which we've unlearned how to take them for granted, are as exhilarating and urgent as ever." (David Stubbs, The Wire, July 2003)



AFTER THE CLICK (RETROSPECTIVE 1980-89) LTMCD 2371 £10
After The Click offers a comprehensive career overview which draws from all phases of the Tongues' career between 1980 and 1989, and includes several cuts (*) not be released on any other CD. Stand-out tracks include Heart Disease, Compressor, Double Gold St Paul and the live cut Everywhere But Here, never studio recorded but here performed live at The Venue in April 1983. The 70 minute CD was compiled by Graham Massey and features a detailed band memoir. Full tracklist: RROR, Heart Disease, You Can Choke Like That, Reflector, Denture Beach, Dirt for 485, Iyahbhoone*, 44, Aair Care, Evening State/Lock Up State*, Feverhouse Pt 1, Meat Mask Separatist, Compressor, Double Gold St Paul, House of Hatchets*, Everywhere But Here*.

Reviews: "For a true sense of what the Tongues were about, ATC is indispensible, with the excellent, exhaustive sleevenotes we've come to expect from the LTM label" (Uncut, 11/03); "Staggeringly fine" (Magnet, 03/05); "An essential document, not to mention a reproach to those pop historians who caricature 1980s music as all poodle-haired hedonism and daft Goth, airbrushing out the the sort of harrowing and exhilarating undercurrent of which Biting Tongues were a part" (The Wire, 9/03); "It's the sound of early 80s Manchester, where punk was being beaten up by funk, with the musical punch-ups being recorded by the Tongues and their peers, bands like Clock DVA and Cabaret Voltaire" (DJ Magazine, 8/03); "An early 1980s soup of jazz-funk rhythms, spoken word lyrics and cripsy production sound that has aged remarkably well. There's something darkly attractive about their music - uncompromising is the word, but without bands like this music cannot develop" (Leonard's Lair, 7/03); "A perfect introduction. What appeals to me most about their sound and other appealing contemporaries like 23 Skidoo, A Certain Ratio, James Chance and Liquid Liquid is the loose attitude, vibrant energy, tight rhythm section, and a sparse arrangement that doesn't cloud the sound with too much junk" (Brainwashed, 05/03)


COMPRESSED (LTMCD 2373) £10
Compressed compiles their material recorded for Factory Records between 1983 and 1986. The first eight tracks are taken from their two 12" eps for the label, Trouble Hand (1985) and Compressor (1986), which saw the second version of the band heading in a denser, more polyrhymic direction lead by Graham Massey and Howard Walmsley. The 73 minute CD also includes the full soundtrack to the noir-ish 1984 film Feverhouse, released on video and album by Factory the following year. Perhaps the best known yet least understood Tongues album, it has survived down the years in the boxes of the UK's more adventurous electronica DJs. Scripted by onetime Tongues vocalist Ken Hollings and directed by Howard Walmsley, the film soundtrack was praised by Sounds ('Magnificent') and the NME ('The Tongues have always excelled in delivering ominous voodoo thumpings and clickings, loosely bound by tape-doctored brass. Far more than avant garde wallpaper'). Full tracklist: Compressor, Troublehand, Panorama, Meat Mask Separatist, Boss Toyota Trouble, Probate, Black Jesus, Black & White Jesus, Feverhouse Pts 1 to 10.

Reviews: "Critically overshadowed by groups like Cabaret Voltaire and 23 Skidoo, Biting Tongues were one of those groups crudely labelled 'industrial' who were sampling before the machines were available and the phrase coined, bristly purveyors of Burroughs-influenced funk-noir, turning the supposed hedonism of dance music inside out" (Uncut, 11/03); "To think that this vibrant music was routinely dismissed as grim and joyless back in the 1980s. Black Jesus is an unlikely amalgam of proud Fela Kuti brass stylings, woozy dub and a seven beat riff that is pure Magma. The starkly beautiful collage devised for their own noirish 1983 film Feverhouse stands up better than superficially similar soundtrack experiments generated by their Sheffield-based contemporaries like Hula and Cabaret Voltaire" (The Wire, 3/04); "Feverhouse is an atmospheric art-film soundtrack by rhythmic tape experimenting rock musicians, while the later Factory eps feature machine-like drums, hypnotic bass, looplike vocals, dark melodies and killer horn riffs" (Brainwashed, 05/03)


RECHARGE (LTMCD 2376) £10
Recharge is the Tongue's legendary last, lost album recorded in late 1988, by which time the band had been reduced to a duo of Graham Massey and Howard Walmsley. At the same time and place, Massey was also recording the second 808 State album Quadrastate, resulting in a degree of overlap occurred. Yet whereas Pacific State went on to conquer the charts, the adventurous dance and electronica cut for Recharge found itself out of step with early club culture, while having all the DNA of a future about to be unravelled. Sadly in 1989 it ran into the sand at the test pressing stage when label Cut Deep ceased trading. Massey: "A few white labels of Recharge have circulated for years as the holy grail of fans of early 808, due to the fact that it was recorded in the same sessions as Quadrastate. If it wasn't for Howard leaving his soprano sax in the studio overnight, Pacific State might have been another story…" Full tracklist: Double Gold St Paul, Recharge, Love Out, Neckwork, Increase, Take the Back Right Off, One Angel, Surrender, Love Out 12" (brainwash mix).

Reviews: "A prototype for 808 State" (Uncut, 11/03); "An interesting historical addition to their ouevre. Much of the Tongues' cult reputation revolves around the idea that they presaged the electronica of Aphex Twin, Autechre et al" (The Wire, 3/04); "Blueprints outlined for 808 State" (Brainwashed, 05/03)


SHADOWPLAYERS LTMDVD 2391 £12
Graham Massey of Biting Tongues is interviewed in this feature length (two hour) documentary DVD, which traces the early history of iconic Manchester record label Factory Records between 1978 and 1981. Shadowplayers features new, candid interviews with Anthony H. Wilson (Factory founder), Peter Saville (designer), Peter Hook (Joy Division/New Order), Martin Moscrop (A Certain Ratio), Vini Reilly (Durutti Column), Simon Topping (A Certain Ratio), Howard Devoto (Buzzcocks/Magazine), Vin and Larry Cassidy (Section 25), Lindsay Reade, Richard Boon, Chris Watson (Cabaret Voltaire), Alan Hempsall (Crispy Ambulance), Wally Van Middendorp (Minny Pops), The Names, Annik Honore (Factory Benelux), Richard Jobson, Killing Joke, Graham Massey (Biting Tongues/808 State), Ann Quigley (Swamp Children) and Stanton Miranda (Thick Pigeon), For further details click here. To purchase DVD click here.

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