This album is split between pure free improvisation (often with texts) and electronic manipulation of pre-recorded voices and instruments, in other words, music that is as far removed from the immediacy of improvisation as possible.
[2008]
11 tracks. 76.07 mins. 12 page, full colour booklet. Notes, lyrics and song descriptions in CD booklet. Cover by Andy.
After Rock In Opposition Phase 2, our venture into the avant garde increased at a rate occasionally beyond our collective technical abilities. This album is split between pure free improvisation (often with texts) and electronic manipulation of pre-recorded voices and instruments, in other words, music that is as far removed from the immediacy of improvisation as possible. The major achievement here is Roads – Bridges – Space, a 23 minute exposition on a text in English and Cantonese where live and pre-recorded performers (voices, saxophone and flute) are mixed, juxtaposed and weaved in a hypnotic sound-scape hidden in a cloud of bird song recorded in Epping Forest. Unusually, every group member plays almost every instrument available to us at some time during the album, regardless of their proficiency. This whole album can be construed as a massive homage to Resonance, the radio station that has continually assisted and supported us since 2005. However, because the music on this album is by its nature extremely uncompromising and unequivocal in its mode of expression (there is no rock or pop music here and usually no melody, harmony or rhythm in the conventional sense), U-J suggested we release this album for half the price of our usual new releases, to which the groups’ agreement was unanimous. Achoi rates this as his favourite UNIT album. Trung calls it a boring, tedious racket. You decide!
The CD label is by Carol Zac Lewis and Malcolm Lewty who provided a beautiful image at short notice.
UNIT is currently a trio of musicians, artists and film makers who consist of Luc Tran (that’s me), Cheung Yiu Munn (a.k.a. U-J) and Andy Martin. We’ve just released our 13th CD but the spine on it says it’s our 10th album. No, I haven’t quite sussed that out yet either. I don’t like all the music we’ve done – but I can’t think of a single track that isn’t interesting or unusual.
The first phase of our career saw Lawrence Burton, Nathan Coles and Peter Williams join forces with Andy Martin and Dave Fanning, both of whom had previously been in an unsuccessful performance art group called The Apostles in the 1980s. The intention was not only to venture into the avant garde territory that Andy and Dave had investigated during the early years of the 1990s but also to record again, properly and with professional production values, nearly all the works previously committed to old fashioned vinyl by The Apostles. However, much of the decade was spent producing Smile magazine with music definitely taking a subservient role at this time.
From 1994 to 1997, UNIT released their records under the name Academy 23 to avoid confusion with a fairly successful German avant garde group who were also called UNIT. This outfit disbanded early in 1997 so we reverted to our original name with the 7″ EP Richard Dawkins Is Together With Us. After 2000, we elected to concentrate mainly on writing, performing and recording new music in as many different styles and genres as we could manage, given the technical limitations of certain group members. Our only tenuous link with the previous format of the group (and The Apostles before that) was our deliberate hostility toward capitalism and the commercial music industry and our support for Class War, the paper and the idea.
Most people understandably think of UNIT as ‘that group with all the Chinese lads in it’ but this only applies to the second phase of our career which commenced in 1999 when Ngo Achoi, Lang Kin Tung and Gieng San Man joined Andy Martin and Dave Fanning to form what was really a new group. It is this group with which most people are familiar, thanks to the tireless promotion and distribution of our work undertaken first by Achoi and then by U-J, who set up our e-mail account and website. When ‘Sons Of The Dragon’ was released it heralded our intention to put Chinese people on the independent music map. We wanted to prove to the world there was more to us than cooking and kung fu. Rap music had Jin Au Yeung in America and LMF in Hong Kong but in the sphere of pop music, the avant garde and punk rock, the demographic remained resolutely white…so we decided to change all that, despite the open hostility directed at us by certain people in the UK such as Fracture, Idwal Fissure and Head Wound who clearly didn’t want a bunch of Chinkies spoiling their scene.
Two other group members deserve a shout out: Chinese guitarist and vocalist Garlen Lo and Vietnamese saxophonist Thanh Trung Nguyen. Garlen stayed for just over a year but left the group because he wanted to play only twee little pop songs – nothing wrong with that, of course, but it’s not what we’re about. Trung, like Garlen, comes from a wealthy background and so, also like Garlen, found our struggle to save up enough money to pay for studio time and release CDs, inexplicable and strange. His musical origins are in jazz, especially the big band jazz of the 1930s – very odd for a 16 year old! He managed to stay with us long enough to appear on all four Rock In Opposition albums and he played at most of our prestigious concerts in 2006 and 2007 but his parents objected to him being in a pop group and they most definitely objected to Andy (many people do) so by the end of 2007 we became a trio.
If it had not been for Hackney Chinese Youth Club in Ellingfort Road (which, sadly, closed in 2006), UNIT would not exist, at least not in its present state. That was where I met U-J and Andy and that was how I came to join UNIT as a drummer and keyboard player. Garlen Lo is in fact the only member of UNIT who doesn’t originate from HCYC. The famous Birmingham poet Andy Nunn introduced us to the Kill Your Pet Puppy chat room. Through that I discovered the history behind the UK punk scene and I learned about the whole Crass / Class War divide, the miners strike, Margaret Thatcher, Greenham Common, the Poll Tax riots and all the rest of it. To think there was a time when people my age used to go on demonstrations and start riots when the government gave us shabby treatment. Now we just turn on our laptops, plug in our I-pods and download another programme to keep us amused.
Luc 2008
UNIT have donated these CD's as a benefit for Active, which we appreciate and will help us continue to do free stickers and posters etc.
