Wild Planet

Wild Planet is a listing of c. 150 bands participating in, and influences on, the “Cassette Culture” of the late 1970s to early 1980s. The piece was published across two issues of Sounds in May, 1983. Sounds, along with the New Musical Express (NME) and Melody Maker, was one of the “inkies” of the ’70s and ’80s, tabloid newspapers that brought a new seriousness (and perhaps on occasion, pretentiousness) to pop-music journalism. Sounds ceased publication in April 1991. “Wild Planet" is a key document of the Cassette Culture, and whilst the text is available elsewhere on the Internet, and the occasional scanned page, we are pleased to present here the full document. 

If making use of text from this page, please be kind enough to acknowledge Dave Henderson as author and culturalamnesia.com as place of publication.

Dave Henderson, 1983

Introduction by Dave Henderson

I ended up at the weekly music newspaper Sounds by mistake after another magazine closed. It was 1978-ish. I fell into a network of odd people who were doing odd things. Graeme Revell from SPK would come in with Brian from Lustmord; we’d go for a cup of tea. Simon Turner came in with his trousers held up by a reshaped coat hanger which he claimed were his “Bowie Diviners”. Bourbonese Qualk arrived. The Legendary Pink Dots. Nocturnal Emissions. These people weren’t spandex-wearing NWOBHM types, or battered punks trading in Oi!, it was a new, underground sub-strata, so un-Sounds.

Around the same time, there was 0an event in Milton Keynes. Robert Schroeder was playing some complex multi-layered electronic symphony, it was all very serious. But outside in the foyer, the great and the good were there manning pop-up stalls, selling cassettes and zines – Portion Control, David Elliott from MFH, Gary from Bushido/Red Sand, Attrition, the guys from Flowmotion fanzine. It was an arty scene, all of these people were just wanting to do something/anything.

“Things are happening,” I insisted to the editor at Sounds and, after some heated disagreements, “Wild Planet” arrived, an A To Z of difficult music ran across two weeks and eventually became a monthly column where exotic acts like Esplendor Geometrico, Deficits Des Anees Anterieures, Bene Gesserit and Borghesia became badly pronounced household names (in my house at least). 

Every day in the Sounds office the arrival of the mail cart was a treat. There were letters from Alain Neffe from Belgium who seemed to be in at least half a dozen bands. There were hand-written notes that looked like a spider was involved, immaculate art pieces with music secreted in the packaging, there were dark and disturbing song titles and a host of “things”, from death transfers to themed booklets, elaborately packaged singles and a string of conceptual manifestos.

And, people seemed to like it. Letters came in, one from Alan Howard, The Wanking Tapper, who suggested that all other staff on Sounds should be sacked and “more people like Dave Henderson” should be employed to write more features about this new scene. God forbid.

14 September 2026

Letter from Alan Howard responding to “Wild Planet”, Sounds, 1983