Anthonys post-Slapp Happy output, for years an underrated-to-outright unknown quantity, achieves a new dimensional plane with this third archival release from his personal tape library. Home of the Demo triangulates upon the art-pop qualities found in his previously unreleased 1976 LP OUT, and 79s new wave-adjacent Flying Doesnt Help, finding Anthonys early/mid-80s home recordings drifting whimsically in and out of the actual mainstream.

Anthony Moores post-Slapp Happy output, for years an underrated-to-outright unknown quantity, achieves another dimensional plane with this third archival release from his personal tape library. Home of the Demo triangulates upon the art-pop qualities found in his previously unreleased OUT (1976, officially issued 2020) and the new wave-adjacent Flying Doesnt Help (1979, reissued 2022), finding Anthonys early/mid-80s compositions drifting into the actual mainstream, just moments before it began giving way to the inevitable Next Waves….

London, circa 19781984! Zoom in on a small, pleasantly rundown Victorian house in Whitechapel. Just one among many in a working neighbourhood, with natives and immigrants alike simply trying to get bythe synagogue and the mosque side by side. Folks who keep themselves to themselves and dont make much fuss over some wild-eyed fellow making a ruckus in his basement most evenings.

Having a hard time picturing it? Well, it actually happened, and Home of the Demo unpacks ten tracks from what we might otherwise call a lost era.

Subtitled from the dawn of bedsit recording (and further attributed with on the cusp of the analogue-to-digital shift, 7884), this collection largely represents something nearer to DIY than wed hear from any of your fancy modern kit! As Anthony remarks in his liner notes, We are talking about a few hundred quids worth of gear balanced precariously on bookshelves and table tops in bedrooms and basements.

And yet, the tracks sound right dreamy. Forty-some years on, we find them marvellously mellowed by time (and latter-day mastering). Anthony was a songwriter and musician whose first decade-plus in the music business had brought him outside-in, through experimental/avant projects into the pop music world hed loved as a youngster. He was an old hand at getting sounds as well; distinctly 80s elements that might abrade the ear instead benefit from his tactile deployment of that gear stacked up on tables and bookshelves in the basement. In this manner, he produced well-appointed, ambitiously clever songs for himself and others, such as his friend David Gilmours band, who used a couple pieces on Home of the Demo for their 1987 comeback album.

Amidst the assiduous work of writing the Next Big One, a relaxed, almost playful mood prevails throughout the pieces assembled hereas one might imagine at home demo sessions where one man plays all the parts. Its also true for the numbers that feature special guests, such as the ominously monikered Page The Oracle on lead guitar (!)or the singer simply dubbed, Guestno doubt a safe alias for a hot young Bunnyman rising to his commercial peak in those halcyon days!

In the years since, Anthonys managed to continue on in all the far-flung areas of his interest, with modern composition, improvisation and pop songs all playing an important part in his ongoing work. The unique journey of this earthbound misfit through the fringes of the late rock and roll era tells us much of value about the eras secret historyperhaps not so much secret as too extra for the basic cut of the proceedings at the time. Drag City, a curious fellow-traveller along this slow-setting arc, as well as to the subsequent/current Directors Cut era, are happy to be responsible for hawking this particular Extra. As ever, let the inconvenient truth loose!