Teste - Graphic Depictions (2020)

The cult techno outfit "Teste" digs up and re-transmits sonic archives forming a new 2xlp for L.I.E.S. Full story below.....Artwork licensed from legendary NYC street photographer Richard Sandler in appropriate fashion....lp comes with a giant screened newsprint poster as well.

Teste was still-born by the mid-90’s and with the ensuing PTSD I had become a SHUT IN working on the Amiga Computer for Audio and Video and completely immersed in grisly, depraved art-house cinema. This release pays homage to that time in NYC when I frequented Mondo Kims daily to rent the trashiest films I could find. Things like Richard Kern’s “Fingered”, Nick Zedds’s “They Eat Scum”, Makavejev “Sweet Movie”, Merhige “Begotten” all the classicks! The 42nd Street Mind forever! In retrospect I can’t believe they gave me a membership card! Wish I still had it!

MICRO BUDGET, DISCONTINUED FORMATS. All of the tracks on this release are sourced from decaying tapes (VHS, 4-track, DAT, MD) some of which were encoded to early digital formats to add another layer of artefacts and grit. I can emphatically proclaim these ideas have taken three decades to come to fruition at my present Partner in Teste (Goner) Berlin Facility. One chapter closes and another unfolds!

One day it’s 1992 playing absurd Teste gigs in a Sports Bar (Tailgate Charlie’s!) in scenic Hammer Onterrible opening up for Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials! You could just feel the love in that room! Referred to as the “Toilet Incident” by unsuspecting attendees. From that debacle another unfolded in an infamous “final” appearance at the Pure Party in Glasgow Barrowlands 1994 -which proved an unceremonious demise to the first incarnation of Teste… Details like most things from that era are foggy… No insta stories or tweets! Just instant cameras that didn’t always make it out of the rave!

After the Teste fallout then embarking on another Techno adventure for an extended stint in NYC from ’95-97. This proved a pivotal time to say the least. HUREN becoming a solo entity and the lasting shockwaves with Zhark which was a New York label in those days. Also in retrospect I can say I experienced the end of the NYC of old right when the “NO DANCING” by-laws were coming in. R.I.P Strange?, Sonic Groove (Manhattan),Liquid Sky/Temple, Save The Robots, Soundlab, Tunnel, Twilo, Limelight and others that slip the memory banks…

All I knew of NYC when I got off that Greyhound the first time in Port Authority in 95 after an 11 hour drive was from movies. I thought the city was like what I had seen in Abel Ferrara films “Driller Killer”, “King of New York’ “Bad Lieutenant” or the Schoolly D, or Wu-Tang Clan videos! Turns out I wasn’t too far off in a way as this was the era of the Club Kids depravity.

Upon reflection my formative clubbing years had an element of Crime in them as I’ve been in the proximity of two very well known serial killers. First in the 80’s when I attended a club Paul Bernardo used to Frequent in Ontario and later on the Limelight NYC with Michael Alig. Definitely casts a sinister tinge to some of the memories. Curious coincidence the party I performed at in NYC was called KILLER… And I myself was almost murdered in 2012 but that’s another story…