Here is a new, exciting, step in the discover of the genius of the English composer, pianist and tuba player John White, the maverick master of British Experimental Music, Sctarch Orchestra former member (with Cornelius Cardew, Gavin Bryars and John Tilbury). This double CD represent one of a thousand in between the musical facets of his enormous output.

As Dave Smith says in his liner notes: "Most of the pieces recorded here date from the period 1984-6. They reveal a delight in exploring areas of contradiction, particularly linear and rhythmic, within an unlikely sound-world in which parameters such as volume, timbre, texture and speed remain fixed. As a contrast, scattered through the album are five brief, apparently zany Nintentions from 1993.
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John’s attitude to electronic machinery has often been relatively lo-fi (at times, decidedly so) as demonstrated in the recordings of Livebatts! – a performing trio featuring battery-driven instruments with Jiggs Coldiron and Andrea Rocca. The sound sources used on the present recordings are closer to those of pop musicians of the time and the general approach can be considered in opposition to the laborious and expensive world of institutional electro-acoustic music."

In the words of John White: "(Electronics) It’s like flower arrangement — just picking out things which were there before you... it’s a perfect medium for irony".

These pieces are the perfect counterpoint to the visual works of Surrealists and Dadaists, whose unusual, ironic and disturbing beauty is well summarized by the infamous Lautréamont's quote: "Beautiful like the chance-meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing-machine and an umbrella".