Dead Goldfish Ensemble "Fishy Tails"

Inspired by Kraftwerk's "Autobahn," Southampton-based musician Steve Hartwell, aka The Dead Goldfish Ensemble, started to craft his own music in 1983 using sequencers and the MSX computer, which could be said as the first generation of home computers available for music production. Hartwell made a tremendous amount of recordings in his home studio until 1993, reflecting his take on minimalist music of Steve Reich and Philip Glass, it featured strange imaginative polyrhythms and friendly playful melodies that innocently bounce around. One circumstance that made this possible was the format of cassette tape publication. From the early 1980s to the early 1990s, it was the most inexpensive and easiest way to release works for independent labels and DIY musicians since it allowed them to dub copies at home, all within their production environment. Various labels in Europe, the United States, and Japan offered artists to contribute their works for compilations. As a result, a vast number of