We haven't got anywhere near unwrapping the mysteries on Oxford's Camp Blackfoot yet - there's a lot to be digested... we were hooked the minute the demo tape hit our eager ears - various Organ readers and underground movers had been telling us we'd love The Blackfoot!!  Some of you know us far too well! We loved the tape.... So we have a track from that demo tape on Organ Radio Five, and we have a seven track split EP featuring three hard boiled tracks from that demo session and four tracks from Cardiacs (yes, that's right, they're the kind of band who are interesting enough to feature on a split EP with the best band in the world and still hold their own). We're still unwrapping their mysteries, they keep dropping in these little things when we talk to them, little snippets of information - "Gaultier is doing the new shirts", we haven't got to the bottom of what they've been doing with Thursten Moore or all these singles they have floating around Europe and little things they've been up to with the Flying Luttenbackers or U.S Maple - they seem to have far more of a reputation outside their native UK. It's almost impossible to work out the peculiar life cycle of this strange beast - it is exciting though, we want to go shouting from roof tops about Camp Blackfoot, this is why we run a record label, you can't beat the adrenalin rush of a demo tape like the one Camp Blackfoot landed on us.... 

Brilliant music, turned out to be (another) nightmare of a band! We were all ready to release their album, however they somehow managed to sort out releasing it with several other labels at the same time and didn't seem to see that that might be a problem!!! Oh well, great band, one of the very best - a total musical treat, the album eventually came out on a French label called Pandaemonium and to be frank nowhere near as good as the potential albumwe heard - then the band disapeared... oh well

Camp Blackfoot existed from 1996-2001. They released one album, "Critical Seed vs. The Spartan Society", on Pandaemonium in 1999. At that time, the line-up was:
ALEX WARD: guitar, vocals, alto sax.
BENJAMIN HERVE: vocals, guitar, bass
LEX FONTAINE: bass, guitar
LUKE BARLOW: keyboards
GREIG STEWART: drums
 

Nothing could prepare you for the assault of Camp Blackfoot though. Simply nothing. The stage is somewhat crowded with slightly interesting-looking men, led sometimes by a tall young guy with fluffy hair; most of the time by a short angry man in a black shirt and a red tie, who lurches back and forth, screaming and panting and crying out the words, in and out of time with the startling music. They open with the hideous lunging 'Red Mist', and from there on things only get darker, uglier and even pronkier. Depraved noise, the songs are wild and unrestrained, inward-collapsing sonic supernovas that deal in sick bemusement. One second they're Mike Patton-fronting-the-Cardiacs hardcore mental prog; then a hand-break turn, and they've morphed into headcase free jazz Flying Luttenbachers screwballs. Camp Blackfoot create truly the most indescribable, unbelievable noise there is. After 40, 50 minutes of this, you're left in utter enthralment, and without a clue whether or not that's even a good sign. I still can't tell. Frightening. Scream for your lives. Raging, dazing, pure noise. Experience this, then you can say you've lived." (Pete Flynn, Skippy's Cage) 
 

ORG056  Split single   CDep  CARDIACS meet CAMP BLACKFOOT featuring four CARDIACS tracks plus THE RED MIST/THE BLUE HOOD/THE OTHER GIACONDA

Releases elsewhere on other labels: 
Their rather raw debut album Critical Seed vs. The Spartan Society eventually came out on French label Pandaemonium.