condition (record/cover): VG+ (some surface noise) / VG+ (bumped pocket edge)

Kaiser Nietzsche was the Toronto electroacoustic trio of John Kamevaar, Thomas Handy, and David Scurr, active from 1987 through the early Nineties and tied to the Canadian Freedom In A Vacuum label across most of their cassette output. Heterology, released in 1989 on the Japanese imprint Noctovision (catalogue NCVLP-01), is their only proper LP and the best-circulated document of the project.

The group's name derives from the way Friedrich Nietzsche signed some of his late-period letters (Kaiser Nietzsche, Nietzsche Caesar) during the slide into his famous breakdown. One of these letters is recited on the album. Nine pieces across the two sides: "Apartment," "Teien," "Triage," "View From Chamber," "Quantum Sufficit," "Backup" on the A-side; "Paint," "Epoché," "Sprechen Sie Zarathustran?" on the B.

The sound sits inside the late-Eighties turn of industrial toward musique concrète proper (contemporary with THU20, P16.D4, Children's Music). Kamevaar played drums and electronic keyboards concurrently with the Toronto free-music collective CCMC (with Michael Snow and others), and the trio's compositional ear reflects that parallel education. A genuinely singular Canadian document, and one of the more unusual items in the Noctovision Japanese catalogue.