The INSTANT AUTOMATONS -Another Wasted Sunday Afternoon CD (Messthetics #210)
The best of this classic D.I.Y. band’s immense catalog of cassettes and vinyl 1979-82, plus never-released material. The 'Automatons were not the most prolific of D.I.Y.'s cassette-culture crowd, but the lads from Scunthorpe were arguably the most influential. The instrumentation is sparse -- bass, guitar, and an assortment of home-built electronics-- while Mark Automaton contributes some of the finest lyrics in all of D.I.Y...
A bad case of writer’s block spelled the end of the band in 1982, but Mark picked up again with 391 (and solo) while partner/bassist/chief electrician Protag went on to Blyth Power, ATV…and the resurrected Zounds.

"While 'Do It Yourself' was punk's liberating credo, the Instant Automatons pushed the DIY ethic further than many of their contemporaries, with regard to how they played their music, how they recorded it, and how they distributed it...The results – often treated with a generous amount of echo – had a considerable amount in common with peers like Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, ATV, the Fall, and John Cooper Clarke. Indeed, as a lyricist, Lancaster often fell somewhere between Cooper Clarke and Mark E. Smith, although he was more subtle than the former and less obtuse than the latter…" —Wilson Neate, Dusted

6-panel folder insert with bio, track-by-track commentary and plenty of photos. $10.00

listen:
'Worcester Avenue'
'John's Vacuum Cleaner'
'Time is Tight'
'His Master's Voice'