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Horn of Plenty

APOSTLES - Best Forgotten

“Best Forgotten comes in a hand stamped, stickered and assembled edition of 500 numbered double black vinyl copies and includes an A3 poster and 32 page A4 zine collecting archival photos and images from The Apostles tapes & zines along with liner notes and reflections on the tracks written by Steve Underwood (Harbinger Sound), Chris Low (former Apostles drummer) and The Apostles frontman Andy Martin, who gave this project his full support.

Horn of Plenty presents Best Forgotten, the first-ever survey of early tapes by avant-anarcho-punks The Apostles.

Founded in London in 1979 by a rotating cast of characters who came and went around its eventual frontman, Andy Martin, The Apostles were a product of their moment; a group of friends grappling with the political, racial, and cultural tensions of the time. Embracing unfettered creative experimentation, while exploring the personal as poetic, themes of queer liberation, radical leftism, and anti-racism, Best Forgotten - drawn from tapes recorded within the limited means of bare necessity in Islington & Hackney squats between 1981-1983 - offers a rare window into this lost world. 40 years on, within an eerily similar political and economic climate, its message remains as relevant and urgent as it was then.

Imbued with immediacy, the artefacts of lo-fi and DIY, and the spirit of chance, the material comprising Best Forgotten captures a fledgling band evolving through various line-ups, styles, and techniques with the means at hand: ramshackle instruments, rudimentary electronics, basic tape recorders and boom boxes, bookending a period of constant experimentation that defined their early years. While associated with other anarcho-punk bands of their moment like Crass, Poison Girls, Conflict and Flux of Pink Indians, this 86 minute collection of rare material - incorporating the early tape collages of fellow traveller Ian Rawes (later famed for his London Sound Survey project) and other avant-garde practices and approaches - sits more comfortably with the output of experimental post-punk bands like Lemon Kittens, Alternative TV or The Door & The Window.

While interest in the Apostles’ activities has only grown over the years, particularly after being namechecked by Ty Segall in a 2014 interview, these early explorations have largely remained inaccessible until now. In a 2009 article charting the band’s history, Andy Martin gives these early tapes a mere footnote and stated that, in his opinion, they are ‘Best Forgotten’. With respect, we beg to differ.” - Horn of Plenty.

 


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After nearly a decade of false starts, multiple game plans veering off the rails, and a handful of shattered hopes and/or dreams, the odyssey is finally complete—the new Fusetron site is here.

This is the first phase of a multipart rollout that will span the next few months: the currently browsable stock includes miscellaneous new releases from the past 8+ months (we have a lot of catching up to do), plus approximately a third of our backstock. Note that we’ve reduced/slashed prices on many titles and will continue to do so in order to make room for new stock. We’ll also be expanding / tweaking / improving / debugging the site itself (for example, we still have work to do on the automated international postage system, not to mention the inevitable inventory discrepancies that come with transferring an ancient and massive database to a new system).

Over the next few months, as we take inventory, clean house, and delve into our storage, we will be uploading thousands of additional items, gradually, on a near-daily basis. This will include the majority of the LPs, as well as many titles, in all formats, once thought long-gone. Many currently “sold out” items are likely to resurface.

Finally, once our general backstock is up (probably in the next two or three months) we’ll begin making our extensive stockpile of rarities available online for the first time: tons of random out-of-print titles, "deadstock," warehouse finds, secondhand collectibles, etc., accumulated over the past few decades.

Frequent/returning customers will be getting early access to these items. Details to follow on how this will work (a priority mailing list? a 'frequent flyer'-like program?), but it will not be based on dollars spent. We want to reward those who consistently support us, especially in the discogs marketplace era (to those who show up trying to poach five copies of a one-off rarity, and nothing else, ever… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).

So—we suggest you take some time to dig through the site—even we’ve been surprised by what’s been turning up, and there’s much more to come.
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