Denkmal : Old Dog./ No Tricks.

Label details : Graphic Death Industries J.D. 0024. Year : 1992.

An unusual release from Denkmal, a.k.a. Andru Clare of I'm Being Good. The b&w Xeroxed paper sleeve is printed inside and out and claims that the disc's a limited run of 500, "pressed on recycled vynil", though I'm not certain how many were actually made, how many other folk were damfool enough to purchase one... I know my friend Hassni has a copy.
For this, Andru used singles discarded from the record library at our local BBC Radio station (not sure what it was called then, due to various name changes - Radio Sussex; Sussex and Surrey; or Southern Counties), discovered in a skip outside Marlborough House, Brighton. He hand-painted the labels black, and scratched a Red Cross-style cross in outline into each side, inscribing the words "ONE" and "TWO". Each side was gouged by hand on top of the existing music using a Swiss Army knife.
It's an interesting mixture of multiple and one-off : each copy has an identical sleeve save for the number within the edition (mine's 003), yet each disc was not only a different record to start with but has been individually carved. A record designed to wreck one's stylus should one decide to give it a spin just to see how it sounds. The inside of the sleeve has what I take to be a fake German address, and mentions a "vynil neutralisation device", giving spoof technical details. Denkmal are described as, "introducing current re-cycling trends into the recording industry and helping to preserve the world's diminishing vynil reserves."
Unfortunately I'm unable to identify the single used to create my copy of Old Dog./ No Tricks. as it's just too well disguised, though I'd guess from the big "4" (of "45") visible beneath the paint that it's an EMI release (matrix on side one reads "45 - something R 4533-1"). Lots of jumping around, as you'd imagine, with several sticks providing obstacles to the stylus's journey on the topside; with the flip causing the needle to traverse the surface nimbly, in a matter of seconds, before it reaches the end and is hurled back again and again. This single is very satisfying to the touch, and might give different effects depending on the equipment used to play it on... if you dare.

Edit, Saturday 24th October 2009 : Research shows that for my Denkmal single Andru used a copy of Gene Pitney's Looking Thru The Eyes Of Love (Stateside SS 420), the matrix number of the top side being 45KR-4533. I tried to work it out from the matrix numbers on another Stateside single I had, and was wondering if it really could have been a rare Mary Wells 45 (SS 415), which I'd quite liked to have had in its own right. Studying a label discography today after trying to find a photo of the label of that one, it seemed more likely to be something far more common with a catalogue number not far off the M.W. record. eBay photographs confirmed that it was the Pitney 45. Hassni says that his copy was originally a Julie Covington record.

Detail of groove on one side of the Denkmal single :