Living In The Heart Of The Beast

This is the second album done for Recommended Records by the Surfers. (Title taken from the a track on the album In Praise of Learning by Henry Cow song -composed by Tim Hodgkinson ) Long before sampling became mainstream the Surfers were using cut up bits of radio broadcasts, political speeches and making drums loops with 1/4 inch tape, scissors and sticky tape. Working on an Otari 8track tape machine in a mobile studio it took hours to put these pieces together. Recorded at the Shifty mobile in 1985 it came to the attention of the British music press and received good critical response. Here is an exerpt from the New Statesman reveiw: ” …it works because it is a formal success: cut up Botha speeches and Afrikaans-speak are set against hi-life and reggae rhythms, while viciously critical (and historically intelligent) lyrics are sung over ..settings that often recall early Zappa….it’s possible to underestimate the powerful symbolism of a record that mixes the rhetoric of white supremacy with black rhythms and thereby undercuts it.” Jon Savage

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Living In The Heart of The Beast

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