It all started back in 1977 when young tearaway, RT Ripper aka Rat The Ripper aka Ewen, walked out of school aged 15, and never went back. He teamed up with Mike Kane (who was still at school) and formed The Bastards. Rat had no interest in playing instruments in the conventional way, instead opting to explore the sounds they made by bashing them about, mutilating the tuning and generally deconstructing their original use.This approach fitted in perfectly with Dundee noise guru's, Vex, Flux and Novus, of which he was a member.
I have 2 tracks of RT Ripper's solo work from the early 80's below - both, nuggets of darkness!
The 1st track called "Asterisk" is a spooky wee beastie, who's haunting drone lasts 2.40 minutes. Swiftly followed by "Return From The Land Of The Dead", a scary shrieking monster with a really menacing voice. Some of you may be glad it lasts only around a minute - I would have liked more!
If Jack The Ripper had been a musician, he may very well have sounded a little like this..!!
