Camberwell Now The EP Collection Black Vinyl Edition

The Camberwell Now is an experimental rock band formed 1982 by Charles Hayward after the breakup of This Heat. Although they only made one album before dissolving, they did many live gigs showcasing their highly original 'analog sampling' techniques, developed by Stephen Rickard. Taking inspiration from seafaring and imperialism, and the fact that the music was created within close proximity to the meridian line in Greenwich, the Meridian EP was originally intended to be a project for This Heat. The group’s departing member Charles Bullen plays on the opening track, “Cutty Sark”, named for the famed British clipper ship. The second EP, 1987’s Greenfingers, was their final recorded work and, according to Hayward, “it’s possible to hear the group atomising and preparing to go its separate ways” within its grooves. The only This Heat or Camberwell Now recording not to have been produced at Brixton’s Cold Storage studios, it was recorded as a DIY exercise and – unusually for either of the groups – was not pored over laboriously for a great deal of time. The EP also saw the addition of a new member, Maria Lamburn, primarily on sax, whose “Element Unknown” was inspired by her experiences in the nuclear protest camp at Greenham Common. Comprising tracks that overlapped between This Heat and Camberwell Now, the EPs concerned themselves with information technology, surveillance, propaganda and what Hayward describes as “day-to-day, hand-to-mouth survival” – all pertinent concerns in a fractured Britain under the rule of right-wing “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher, and perhaps still as pertinent today in fractured, recession-hit, isolationist Britain. The whole recordings have been re-mastered from original analog tapes. The record is housed in an expanded gatefold tip-on jacket with restored art, 8 page booklet with track notes by the artists, lyrics and archival photos and a download card.