System Planning Korporation* – Information Overload Unit

2024 remastered reissue with new liner notes by Graeme Revell on Old Europa Café.

Is there an original inner sleeve with the first press?

I can provide scans of the inserted booklet "Dokument I", so if interested just pm me.

Garageland Records was my shop in Bristol back in the day. Mike Wilkins came into the shop (then in Princess Victoria St, Clifton Village) with a few crates of records he wanted to sell from his time working at Industrial Records and playing in the IOU era SPK. It was a remarkable assortment of oddities and collectibles from the early days of Industrial and experimental recordings. I it included his own copy of the TG 24hrs cassette box set with artwork all signed to him. As a bonus it included a number of extra cassettes that never made it to the other boxes. There were aussie originals of the SPK 7" singles. I seem to recall multiple copies of the TG 'The Kill' & Death Factory 'original' 1st pressings. There were multiple copies of all the early industrial recordings with test presses and mocked up artwork etc...A real treasure trove
Then he said he had 23 original pressings of IOU still in the pressing plant delivery box. As it was 10 years after the original release he was interested in putting these out with an updated version of the document to reflect what had changed in the intervening 10 yr period. He gave each it's own handmade cover and numbered them 1-23. I seem to he kept No1 for himself. Though he may still live in Bristol I never saw him again for the remaining 10yrs or more that I had the shop.
As an aside to this and as a result of suddenly un-earthing all these little treasures and word spreading among kindred spirits, I was paid a visit by Bristol's other maverick....Philip Best of Consumer Electronics & Whitehouse notoriety. On hearing there was an interest and people prepared to pay good money for rare electronica in he strolled with a box full of all the original Whitehouse albums. That really was a strange few months and happy memories.

The comment from Knuckles is misleading. The version with the black cover is the original issue from 1981 with a different cover than the 1985 issue on Normal. Mike Wilkins did make an additional 23 copies in 1991 each with a different collaged cover and insert, though there is not a specific Discogs page for it. The Dokument 1 insert was apparently issued with all the copies on Side Effects though it is hard to come by. Amazing LP.

The first of what might be described as the 'Three Ages Of SPK' begins with "Emanation Machine R. Gie l9l6", and establishes it's 'musical' leaning from early on - this is an extreme, Pure Noise effort, taking the alienated factors of the earlier Industrial artists & turning it into an alienating noise. Listening to this, a mass of churning grey/white noise over a distant Latin American rhythm, sets the nerves a-twitching. "Suture Obsession" opens with spoken voice, builds gradually on a drum machine rhythm & bassline, but is filled with waves of echoing noise, like extremely irate spirits, screaming in the air. Unlike the opening track, this has a little more space to breathe, a more varied sound, while avoiding 'tune' or 'subtlty' "Macht Schrecken" opens with spoken words in both sexual & horrific subjects. The fuzzed mass of distorted sound twists into amorphous configurations in the background, seeking a clawhold in structure, crawling through the massed groupings of snarling sound & trash detritus. A non-beat piece used as a backdrop for 'found' voice. "Beruftverböt" has a drum rhythm not unlike something from "20 Jazz Funk Greats" after being dragged through the primordial ooze of discarded machinery. it has a leaning towards regular composition which, although raucous & mind-scratching, has a certain control. It also has vocals - a shouted roar like the last words of a man drowning in treacle. "Ground Zero: Infinity Dose" has a rhythmic structure which might be found in some futuristic war zone - explosions of noise over a slowed-down "Discipline"-like drum pattern, surrounded by a nasty swell of grey distortion. Vocals on this track also lean towards the strange - muffled, asphyxiated words, as if the last will and testiment of a man buried in the war zone rubble. A sound which drives through the ears like a steel nail brings WHITEHOUSE to mind. "Stammheim Torturkammer" is a slower, less dense piece based on a fractured drum rhythm over which noise of much distorted guitar & screech combine with ive voice to create a 'tune' out of non-tuneful sounds. And it works! "Retard" opens quietly with distant turn-on/turn-off machine sounds, computer talk in blanket rhythm, 'found' voice all brought together in a surprisingly composed way. "Epilept: Convulse" is perhaps the most 'advanced' piece an the whole album - based on a sharp-but-mute rhythm pattern, it takes found tape, spoken word & weaves them around various machine-like noises, most prominantly a sharp sound ascending through the sounds like with a steel shark's fin. "Kaltbruchig Acideath" closes the album; a subtle piece held way back, musted down into a groundswell of Industrial noise. Heard over the top is the spoken confession of a self-istered abortion - creepy and disturbing as almost anything THROBBING GRISTLE ever made, this finally shows they don't need extreme noise to get their message across.
Dating back to 1980, this is a noisy & primitive album which perhaps influenced groups/artists like MERZBOW, THE NEW BLOCKADERS, THE HATERS etc. to take the sound even further. It has moments of grim clarity amid its snarling cacophony, but its heart rests in Pure Noise.

Originally reviewed for Soft Watch.

These were made by Mike Wilkins, former member, who sold them through Garageland Records, Bristol in the early 90s and was, to my knowledge, the only port of distribution for this issue.