Ramleh

Named after a decisive Crusades confrontation, the Croydon, England noise unit Ramleh operated as an intermittent venture headed by guitarist Gary Mundy, most frequently alongside vocalist Philip Best (also active in the groundbreaking electronic outfit Whitehouse) and drummer Stuart Dennison. Ramleh began, along with Whitehouse and Best’s earlier project Iphar, within the “power electronics” splinter of industrial music, a confrontational and aggressive strain of the form intended to provoke and disturb through both sound and visual presentation. Its debut cassette-only outing, 21/5/62/82, carried a title said to mark the date of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann’s execution. (Groups working in this vein, including Ramleh, sometimes employed right-wing totalitarian imagery purely for provocation; Mundy and Best have since renounced the tactic and rejected any connection to hate organizations.) Four further cassette-only titles appeared from the group in 1982—Onslaught, Live to Thereisenstadt, Live New Force, and Live Phenol—material from which was later excerpted on the vinyl compilation Neuengamme that same year. Three additional live cassettes surfaced in 1983—Live McCarthy, Live at Moden Tower 12/10/1983, and Live at Prossneck 1/10/83—alongside the full-length A Return to Slavery and the EP The Hand of Glory.

Ramleh’s initial lineup disbanded in 1984, though Mundy maintained his Broken Flag label and distribution network, issuing works by kindred artists as well as archival Ramleh material such as the second sampler LP Statement, the rarities cassette 104 Weeks, and the expansive 1985 live cassette box set Awake! The project resumed activity in late 1986 via the cassettes Hole in the Heart and Nerve, followed by 1987’s Pumping and the 1989 LP Grudge for Life. After another two-year hiatus, Ramleh resurfaced in 1991 with the three LPs Blowhole, Caught from Behind, and Crystal Revenge/Paid in Full, the last a split release with MTT. Productivity remained high in 1992, which brought Shooters Hill and Shout from Hand into the catalog. Homeless arrived in 1994; the following year saw the three-volume CD retrospective We Created It, Let’s Take It Over—assembled from early-’80s cassette tracks and titled after Patti Smith’s closing declaration on her live reading of “My Generation”—plus the new studio album Be Careful What You Wish For.

Mundy issued the 1995 split CD Adieu, All You Judges under both the Ramleh name and that of his parallel project Skullflower; the two sides are essentially the same, implying the Ramleh endeavor may have reached its end. Following the anthology Works III and one last set of original recordings, 1997’s Boeing, Mundy discontinued use of the Ramleh moniker.