Before the internet and the era of reprints, when musical knowledge traveled via radio, word of mouth and magazine articles and fanzinesa list of more than two hundred names took on a legendary role – albeit in a very narrow niche – for its ability to lead to the discovery of music out of the ordinary, extremely heterogeneous and reluctant to be labeled according to any genre criteria. This is the list included in the liner notes of “Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella”, the first album by British experimenters Nurse With Wound, released in 1979 by United Dairies.
Two hundred and thirty-seven artists, then expanded to 294 with the subsequent “To The Quiet Man From A Tiny Girl” (1980), covering a stylistic range that goes from progressive rock to freak psychedelia to post-punk, touching on pure avant-garde, electronics and the first industrial stirrings (a current of which Nurse With Wound were pioneers). The geographical spectrum is also broad: in addition to British and American bands, scrolling through the list you will read many names from continental Europe, in particular France and Germany, but also Italy, Spain and Sweden, and even some episodes in Japan or beyond the Iron Curtain, in Czechoslovakia of Modry Efekt, Collegium Musicum and Plastic People Of The Universe. Although the main creator of the selection, Steven Stapleton, later stated that some of the artists were invented, to date all the names included have been traced back to existing and credible projects.
The list includes artists who were already well known to enthusiasts at the time: King Crimson and Velvet Underground, Stooges and Neu!, despite subsequent mythologies, were groups celebrated by a significant part of music magazines. The names that have remained most closely associated with the list, however, are those that at the time were difficult to find mentioned elsewhere, often linked to music that even years later sounds “frontier”. And it does so perhaps even more today than in the past: if then the stylistic boundaries appeared faded and the field of possibilities was, from the inside, more plural than ever, the perspective view allowed by the temporal distance now allows us to recognize more clearly the main and aesthetic currents of the genre – and to perceive, by contrast, in an amplified way how outside the box were the chimeras with which the list abounds. Ethno-noise jazz-rock jumbles, mocking and apocalyptic progressive, electronic torments with inserts spoken wordproto-new age dirges still smelling of psychedelia, lopsided jams steeped in ritualism…
Since 1979-80, a lot of water has passed under the bridge. Thanks to the web, much more direct and analytical ways have been created to come across many of the artists covered in the list: on this site, several of them are the subject of milestones and monographs, or placed at the center of specials such as those on Canterbury Sound, kraut-rock and progressive from all over the world. Yet, the Internet has not at all deprived the Nurse With Wound List of its charm: if anything, on the contrary, it has increased its myth, making it an integral part of the imagination retromaniac.
Aware of the transformations that have taken place, this playlist tries to capture some of the aura that the NWW List still gives off today. It does so by focusing on a streamlined format: 25 tracks for as many artists – one for each letter excluding Q, not represented in the list – and a total duration of an hour and a half or little more. To try to transpose the disorienting element of the selection even today, we tried to leave aside the names known to most people, and instead populate the “cave of wonders” mainly with outsider which you are unlikely to have come across on the pages of this or other sites. For the same reason, we will avoid presenting the music of the artists involved, leaving the reader to search for information.
It has not always been possible to opt for the most incisive choices: the search for brevity, the limited presence on streaming platforms and the alphabetical restriction of “one letter-one artist” have imposed some compromises. However, an attempt was made to enhance the unusual combinations, so that the listener finds himself jumping from one style to another in a labyrinthine flow at least partly similar to that of those who, forty years ago, attempted to follow the initiatory paths of the NWW List.
Have a good trip.
The complete list of the 237 original names, followed by the 57 “additions” of the following year:
Agitation Free
Pekka Airaksinen
Airway
Albrecht D
Alcatraz
Älgarnas Trädgård
All 7-70
TV alternatives
Alvaro
Ame Son
AMM Music
Amon Düül
Amon Düül II
Soul
Annexus Quam
Arbete Och Fritid
Arcane V
Archaia
Archimedes Badkar
Area
Gilbert Artman
Art Bears
Art Zoyd III
Arzachel
Robert Ashley
Ash Ra Tempel
AssociationPC
The Bronze Ballet
Banten
Franco Battiato
Han Bennink
Jacques Berrocal
Ticket To Hell
Birgé Gorgé Shiroc
Blue Sun
Raymond Boni
Don Bradshaw Leather
Brainstorm
Brainticket
Brast Burn
Brave New World
Anton Bruhin
Bruhwarm Theatre
Franz De Byl
John Cage
Can
Capsicum Red
Captain Beefheart
Chamberpot
Checkpoint Charlie
Chene Noir
Chillum
Chrome
Cohelmec Ensemble
Jean Cohen-Solal
Collegium Musicum
Roberto Colombo
Companyia Electrica Dharma
Comm
Cornucopia
Creative Rock
Cro Magnon
David Cunningham
Dadazuzu
Wolfgang Dauner
Debris
Decayes
Daedalus
Dharma Quintet
Dies Irae
Doo Dooettes
Philippe Doray
Jean Dubuffet
Dzyan
Eiliff
Emtides
Eroc
Etron Fou Leloublan
Exmagma
Patrizio Fariselli
Faust
Fille Qui Mousse
Floh De Cologne
Food Brain
Walter Franco
Friendsound
Fred Frith
Gash
Ron Geesin
Gila
Förklädd Gud (cited as God In Disguise, translated from Swedish)
Gomorrha
Gong
John Greaves & Peter Blegvad
Fernando Grillo
Grobschnitt
Group 1850
Jean Guerin
Friedrich Gulda
Guru Guru
Hairy Chapter
Hampton Grease Band
Henry Cow
Heratius
Hero
Hugh Hopper
Horde Cataltyque Pour La Fin
Ibliss
The Infonie
International Harvester
Iskra
Island
Jan Dukes De Grey
King Crimson
Basil Kirchin
Kluster
Frank Kolges
Kollektiv Rote Rübe
Comintern
Kraftwerk
Krokodil
Steve Lacy
Lard Free
Le Forte Four
Lily
Limbus 3
Limbus 4
Bernard Lubat
Alvin Lucier
Magma
Colette Magny
Mahjun
Mahogany Brain
Malfatti-Wittwer
Michael Mantler
Albert Marcoeur
Machine No. 9
Mate & Vallancien
Costin Miereanu
Min Bul
Modry Effect
Anthony Moore
Mothers Of Invention
Moving Gelatin Plates
Fritz Muller
Thierry Muller (Ilitch)
Live Electronic Music
Music Improvisation Company
Mythos
Central Naples
New!
Nico
Night Sun
Nine Days Wonder
Nosferatu
Nu Creative Methods
Oktober
Yoko Ono
Operation Rhino
Opus Avantra
Out Of Focus
Ovary Lodge
Tony Oxley
Parker & Lytton
Pataphonie
Pauvros & Bizien
Ubu pears
Pierrot Lunaire
Plastic Ono Band
Plastic People Of The Universe
Pole
Pop Group
Michel Portal
Red Crayola
Red Noise
Reform Art Unit
Steve Reich
Achim Reichel
The Residents
Catherine Ribeiro & Alpes
Terry Riley
Rocky's Filj
Ron Pates Debonaires
Roth, Rühm & Wiener
Ray Russell
Terje Rypdal
Martin Saint Pierre
Samla Mammas Manna
Günter Schickert
Secondhand
Secret Oyster
Seesselberg
Semool
Sonny Sharrock
Silberbart
Siloah
Soft Machine
Sperm
Sphinx Tush
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Stooges
Demetrius Stratos
Supersister
Tamia
Tangerine Dream
Technical Space Composers Crew
Mama Bea Tekeilski
Third Ear Band
Thirsty Moon
This Heat
Jacques Thollot
Thrice Mice
Throbbing Gristle
Paolo Tofani
Tomorrow's Gift
Ton Steine Scherben
Trans Museq
Uli Trepte
Twenty Sixty Six & Then
Universe Zero
Christian Vander
Velvet Underground
Vertø
Patrick Vian
Michel Waisvisz
Igor Wakhevitch
Trevor Wishart
Wooden
Robert Wyatt
Xhol Caravan
Xhol
Monte Young
Frank Zappa
ZNR
Zweistein
Anal Magic & Reverend Dwight Frizzell
Aqsak Maboul
Steve Beresford
Philippe Besombes
Cabaret Voltaire
Henri Chopin
Crass
As
Deep Freeze Mice
Der Plan
Deutsch-Amerikanischen Freundschaft
Domes
Dome
Roger Doyle
Family Fodder
Luc Ferrari
Flying Lizards
Free Agents
Jeff Gilson
Glaxo Babies
Good Missionaries
Grand Magic Circus
Ragnar Grippe
Pierre Henry
Juan Hidalgo
Horrific Child
Martin Davorin Jagodic
Osamu Kitajima
Lemon Kittens
Magical Power Mako
Mama Dada 1919
Mars
Mnemonists
Moolah
Negativeland
New Phonic Art
Nihilist Spasm Band
Orchid Spreader
Poison Girls
Public Image Limited
Bomis Prenden
Boyd Rice
Claudio Rocchi
Smegma
Sally Smmit (& Her Musicians)
Snatch
Taj Mahal Travellers
Ghedalia Tazartés
Tokyo Kid Brothers
Tolerance
L. Voag
Lawrence Wiener
James White & The Contortions
Whitehouse
Wired
Iannis Xenakis
Ya Ho Wa 13
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
