Minutes LTM V:XV

While we are on the subject of James Nice and LTM - I'll also offer up Minutes, a compilation which only James could describe adequately so I will allow his words to do so:

"Minutes was intended as a modern literary and 'intellectual' review combining spoken word and music, and owed a heavy debt to early Crepuscule collections such as From Brussels With Love and Fruit of the Original Sin. At the time I think I fancied that I was bringing high culture to the masses. Today I struggle to find any rationale to the project at all...

Both Richard Jobson poems were taped live in Holland with Steven Brown of Tuxedomoon guesting on piano, and in fact the musical accompaniment to Anonymous is a Tuxedomoon piece, Lowlands Tone Poem. Jobson also provided a tape of the two Jean Cocteau poems, recorded with the Dan Parrish Jazz Orchestra in 1929, which had in turn come from Bill Nelson. The Winston Tong track was culled from Like The Others (then a limited Crepuscule cassette-only release long deleted), which combined skewed versions of Euro ballad Going Out of My Head with (apparently) the Yardbird's For Your Love. A cross-channel trip to collect the mastertape at the end of 1986 marked my second visit to Brussels, and my first encounter with Michel Duval of Crepuscule. A lesser influence was the el label, whose Mike Alway proved a constant source of help, inspiration and amusement. The Louis Philippe track had already appeared as an el single, and served to add to the European flavour of the project, whereas Bid of the Monochrome Set offered a choice of three spare tracks. For some inexplicable reason I passed on a live take of The Lighter Side of Dating and an unheard demo track (Something About You) in favour of a distinctly ropey accapella track, written (if you please) by their sound engineer. Since neither Philippe nor the Set were writers I can only assume that they must have been intellectuals.

The treated Burroughs tracks had previously appeared on a Fresh Sounds flexi issued with a US magazine called Talk Talk, while the Jacques Derrida section was little more than a conceptual joke. In July 1986 the seminal modern philosopher and deconstructionist had appeared at a seminar at Glasgow Strathclyde University, the organisers of which had made a tape of an English language Q&A session. Having seen Ken McMullen's impenetrable film Ghostdance I guessed correctly that Derrida would consent to a fragment appearing on vinyl, and edited down an exchange in which an Australian academic become increasingly lost in the corridors. Derrida had no idea why I should want to include him on record, and in truth neither did I.

The sleeve was the first commissioned by LTM from a professional designer, namely Thomi Wroblewski. Thomi had a studio in Soho above John Calder Publishers, and was then working steadily both for Calder and for el. According to my diary, February 23rd 1987 saw me 'round to Thomi's studio in Brewer Street to finalise sleeve designs, me rejecting his favourites in favour of one he considered "far too obvious"'.

Disaster struck on release in April 1987. Although 1000 copies had been ordered from the pressing plant, just 500 were delivered to Rough Trade Distribution. This passed unnoticed until the first run had sold out, with the result that by the time the error was corrected (and the album re-pressed) the initial momentum had been lost.

Although Minutes failed to sell out, the presence of Derrida and Burroughs sparked considerable press interest. The NME puzzled over a 'bizarre compilation of contemporary and archive material', the overall conception of which was 'difficult to decipher', while Underground praised 'a strange collection gathered round a teetering coffee table to impress the intelligentsia' and Blitz 'one huge plane-crash of a record'. For once the reviews had been fair.

Minutes proved to be the last release on LTM for more than two years, since in June 1987 I moved to Brussels, and began working for Crepuscule two months later. Futurism and Dada Reviewed, on which I had been working for some time, was eventually licenced to Sub Rosa. Nevertheless, in 1988 the album was revamped and re-issued as Minutes to Go! on Interior Music, becoming more of a hommage to William Burroughs. Louis Philippe, Jobson and the Monochrome Set vanished, to be replaced by Cabaret Voltaire, Tuxedomoon and The Anti Group. A CD version was licenced to German label Interphon, together with the Hommage a Duras set."

James Nice, June 1997.

listen to Minutes