1980-01-A The Pump - Just Want To Dance

 

Artist - The Pump

Release Title - Just Want To Dance

Recording Year - 1980

Release Year - 1980

Label - Sterile Records / Pump Intelligence

Catalogue Number - SRC02

TNL Index Number - 1980-01-A

Release background - Just Want To Dance is the first tape released by The Pump which is a direct precursor

of the UK experimental group Nocturnal Emissions. Both groups were headed by Nigel Ayers who founded 

the Sterile Records label together with Caroline K, who was also a member of both The Pump and 

Nocturnal Emissions.

 

 

Sterile Records was founded by Nigel and Caroline as a platform to release new forms of underground 

music with the presentations of the releases mixing humour with inventive and thought provoking DIY 

designs. Sterile Records also included vinyl LP releases, VHS tapes and other forms of multimedia art 

projects. The label is significant for releasing the debut albums from many significant Industrial, Noise and 

experimental artists including Nocturnal Emissions themselves, Lustmord, S.P.K., Test Dept., The Haters, 

MB and many others. Whilst many of especially the initial releases on the labels were released in very 

limited editions, some of the released material got reissued. Sterile Records initially closed in 1986 as 

Nigel Ayers moved towards releasing through his new Earthly Delights label but it got reactivated again in 

the 2020s, with a new Bandcamp page being created for the rebooted label.

 

 

 

Just Want To Dance is a single sided tape containing a live recording by the group recorded at Bath Academy of Art in 1980. The Pump consisted of Nigel Ayers, Caroline K, Daniel Ayers and Ian Round. As Nigel Ayers detailed in the article "Home Taping Is Thrilling Music” in Record Collector in 2017 for The Pump he recorded all material they created continuously on tape, with master tapes being created out of many hours of recordings which then formed the tape releases he would circulate to anyone who might be interested, this also includes this tape which was released in a limited edition of only 30 copies. The Pump was named after one of Nigel Ayers’ early jobs which was a job at a petrol pump, as he told in the Noisextra episode he was featured in. There was an open mail art exhibition in Greenwich to which Nigel submitted this first The Pump tape, alongside xeroxed flyers, which got exhibited in a glass case. Sterile Records primarily got started after MB (Maurizio Bianchi) contacted Nigel Ayers and asked him if he could release his album and Nigel realized he didn’t have a record label yet. Pump Intelligence was the early name The Pump’s first tape was labeled with initially but Sterile was the actual label that Nigel continued to release music with after The Pump’s initial release. Most likely this tape itself was the first The Pump tape that Nigel Ayers started circulating in a very limited edition through Rough Trade. From there it ended up getting spread around the world, even ending up with Merzbow in Japan.

 

 

 

Review - A mono live recording (with the mono in this case sounding like the recording leans toward the 

left channel), this first tape by The Pump has a quite varied and unique kind of sound. The recording 

actually starts of with quite a lot of audience sounds and laughter as well as synth filter resonance “laser” 

bursts. The sound of the performance doesn’t seem particularly loud compared to the audience sounds in 

the beginning of the recording. Feedback like droning sounds follow. These tones keep on going subtly for 

several minutes until a surprisingly funky groove based piece starts. The music is like a strange mixture of 

this motorik drum machine, Industrial Noise patterns, a driving bass guitar and shouted quirky vocals which 

are also occasionally put through a phaser like effect. It’s all filtered through the quite saturated sound of 

the recording though distortion is also obviously used by the group itself. There’s a great polyrhythmic 

interplay between the group members which sounds somewhat between chaotic and interlocked rhythms. 

Low frequency droning sounds float within the sound mixture somewhat later in the performance with wooden 

saturated percussion entering the sonic picture earlier on. Buzzing electricity like feedback like noises enter 

afterwards as well as strange manipulated “choral” music samples. It’s a surreal mixture of hazy noise and 

straight rhythms that is minimal but has a great progression to it. I like how this recording is quite lo-fi with 

some sounds almost fully saturating the recording but not so much that you can’t distinguish the separate 

layers which are really great sounds especially for this early period of Industrial / Noise. I also noticed that 

at times the screeching feedback like noises sound like being put through a wah-wah pedal. These are 

crude textures but with such enjoyment in the performance it’s never idling into plain loops and as a 

performance it sounds like the group is somewhat searching for their sweet spot of interplay between the 

members but the journey towards it makes it an extra trippy ride.

 

A final note on the loud audience in the recording comes through a text conversation with Nigel Ayers who

told me that the audience at the art school at which this gig was taking place was “rather hostile and 

throwing things at us”. The actual text at the end was spoken by one audience member who together with 

others pulled the plugs on the band’s sound equipment and declared “I don’t know about you lot, but I just 

want to dance”. 

 

 

 

 

Sources referenced for release background:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_Records

https://recordcollectormag.com/articles/home-taping-thrilling-music

https://www.noisextra.com/2021/12/01/in-conversation-with-nigel-ayers-of-nocturnal-emissions/