Monday, February 19, 2018

Toll - No Doubt

In 1984 Ramleh took a break willing to discover more musical areas and gathering new ideas. That's when Toll were formed and served as a first step for Gary Mundy's evolution from the "conservative" early power electronics. This evolution will continue in various forms like playing in Breathless, participating in Anne Clark's albums, and creating the eccentric Hole In The Heart (which is in a way a missing link between early and late Ramleh), thus experiencing and experimenting different aspects and musical forms.
Well.. that's at least how I see it..

Croydon based Toll were Mundy, Tim Soar and Matthew Frith (which for my understanding was initially a recording guest), and together they released Christ Knows (cassette and LP) and No Doubt (cassette only), both in 1986, featuring wide vary of directions within the noise-industrial-ambient-soundscape spectrum and even some minimalitic post punk vibes, and while some is as harsh as early Ramleh, it is much more "musical".
Recordings of the "studio-written tracks with no pre-planning" included few other guests (mostly of the Broken Flag rooster) such as Tim Gane (Stereolab, than- Uncommunity), Paul Lemos (Controlled Bleeding), Pierre Jolivet (Pacific 231), Zag Ring and Gavin (thank you for your violin whoever you are).

Christ Knows was re-released on CD in 2006 by Cold Spring Records, and you can and should get it through their bandcamp or the online shop. Remastered and with three bonus tracks off of the second Toll cassette titled No Doubt.
For a reason which is beyond my knowledge (please enlighten me), both cassettes, shares pretty much the same tracks, some in different versions, so I've left out of the file all the tracks that appear (with better sound) on the Christ Knows' re-release. So don't act surprised, the file is only partial!:

1. Broken Frame (Instrumental version)
2. There Must Be More Than This [Released on Ohrenschrauben compilation, Also re-recorded for Ramleh's Grudge For Life]
3. As We Live And Breathe
4. Forge
5. Parch (Parched instrumental different version)
6. Out From Your Shell
7. Matter of Fact (Instrumental Version)
8. Perfecting Naivety
9. Radio Moscow
10. Unfinished (A bit longer version, ends different)
11. Matter Of Fact
12. Christ Knows
13. Broken Frame (Dub)
14. Brute Freeze (Dub)
15. Out From Your Shell (Dub) [Released on Riposte compilation, titled Out 2]

As said, all bolds are unique for this cassette, the rest of the tracks included in the re-release
No Doubt (128kbps, sorry), enjoy.

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