This island is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not, and 'tis Mark Flunder (his complexion is perfect gallows) that hath set out to preserve them all; He hath brought forth this Tempest of a thousand still-vexed Bermoothes and - the spirits torment me - planneth more!

It's something of an insubetatioal pageant, I'm afraid, melting into air with the shoddy "Adventures in Bereznik", a rather inauspicious debut for John Arbon's Jerry and the Chairs. Most of the rest is rather sloppy and uninspiring, patched together in an obvious hurry. The Get (14) have a touch of the Marine Girls but don't suffer the same sea change, Paul Rixon's "Attic Waltz" is the kind of drunken whine you wouldn't even expect from Stephano and Trinculo on a bad day and you have to hear The Pink Shades' attempt to sound like The Jam playing "Waiting for the Man" to believe how bad it is. Bill Clarce, a Magic Kite in this incarnation, has obvious talent, but on "No Room Tidy" he's denied a medium to display it through - but if the ill spirit hath so fair a house, good things will strive to dwell with't etc. etc.

Most scurvy monsters are Onslaught, who have been taught language and whoos olnly profit on't is to know how to curse, as they demonstrate admirably on a cacophonous "punk" thrash complete with obligatory "F*** the System" sloganeering. Aha, I do begin to have bloody thoughts... strange how so-called "Anarchist" punk listened to by overprivileged teenagers in leather jackets and (*) badges who waste their brains, sounds so similar to Nazi Oi! Oi!, listened to by underprivileged teenagers in big boots who have been told they havn't got any brains, and both sound remarkably like sexist Heavy Metal, listened to by teenagers with no brains anyway. There's only room for one band to produce this kind of stuff - they are called The Crass and they know what they're doing - and the rest is less about Anarchism, more about making a very ancient and fish-like smell for the sake of it. Let us hope Onslaught take suggestion like a cat laps milk and try and really do their own thing.

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows, and Mr (Jerry) King's sitar solo (a traditional Indian raga entitled "Disarm Now", probably a Ghat and Tan in Chanchar or a Chicken Tandoori or something) is a blessed diversion after a thousand twangling instruments humming about one's ears, though I doubt that it, and his other hippy ditty "Simple Things in Life", will do much to endear him to the sunburned sicklemen that go down Music for Heroes. By far the most worthwhile tracks are Portion Control's "Sweet Julia" (on this occasion, at least, they do their spiriting gently) and The Elusive Diplomats' "Bohemian Tricycles". Thought it appears here in slightly adulterated form (whoops, howls, whistles and sundry other onomatapaeic interjections), it's still jaunty and fresh and deserves better treatment than it gets.

Flunder hopes The Tempest will come out regularly (gasp) so let us hope future reviews can begin, "this tape would cure deafness" or "Oh Brave New World that has such people in't" or "this is such stuff as dreams are made on" But for this first edition (counting our pun) they promised us anything could happen in the next half hour... and it didn't.

© HIP 1981

Digital assistance and credit: Phil Barnad