Since 1995, Very Good Records has operated out of Dortmund, Germany.  Run by Thomas Eicken, it releases vinyl-only artefacts which to some extent mirror the cassette culture scene.  But the label has a deranged ethos of its own which makes it further out than any of its competitors in my view.  I'm writing this guide to the label because: (a) the records usually carry no catalogue number; (b) the records are hard to find out about and even harder to find copies of; (c) Herr Eicken seems fittingly eccentric about how he'll reply to mail enquiries—you may get a courteous and swift reply, you may get no reply, you may get a rude note 6 months later, or you may get a huge parcel of free records.  Many of the records I'll talk about are long since deleted, but for some of them your best bet is Betley Welcomes Careful Drivers.

VERY GOOD 1 - Goosewind Hypnos/Come Smoke a Cigarette LP (500 copies, 1995)  I know very little about this band, apparently once very active in the US cassette underground.  This LP is stranger than strange—I'm not sure if it was intended to sound like this or if there was an accident in the recording process, but what you hear for most of the album is thick layers of murky tape hiss through which voices and primitive percussion are occasionally discernible.  An eerie and even disturbing listen in the right (wrong?) circumstances.  At the end of side two Goosewind turn into a rock band and find a tape recorder that (sort of) works to record a liver version of a Mudhoney song.  Go figure.

VERY GOOD 2 - Goosewind Model's Sink 7" (200 copies, 1995)  This is Goosewind as some sort of ‘rock band’ only all the instruments and vocals seem to have been recorded at different speeds.  There's a girl singer who doesn’t sound very happy—in fact the whole disc stinks of psychotic depression, through to the cover design depicting "the Netherworld".  A record that doesn't fit in anywhere and is all the better for it.  I can sense coffee, pot, malfunctioning 4-tracks were involved in the production process.

VERY GOOD 3 - TUOB Don't Fight at Gigs! 7" (500 copies, 1995)  A British couple, Syd and Lexi, once active on the home-taping scene, although they seem to have disappeared now.  A single more like an LP (lots of tracks) with various styles—casio pop, guitar freakouts, and great tape loops, which can either really annoy you or put you in a psychedelic trance.  Heavily politicised.  Came in at least two different cover designs.

VERY GOOD 4 - Enno Rhese's Fritzodelia LP (100 numbered copies, 1995)  Archive tapes from 1988 of Herr Eicken himself making some hideous noise with a primitive tape player and turntables set-up.  Like a lo-fi take on CCCC or Hijokaiden perhaps?  My father heard me playing this record and launched into a frenzied tirade about "What idiot would do thus stuff".

VERY GOOD 5 - Stilluppsteypa Car Dirty with Jam on a Busy Street LP (500 copies, 1995)  The best record I ever heard by this Icelandic answer to the Boredoms.  Great varied material from a stunning opening accapella screaming session to Cramps-style surf guitar songs to metal-bashing workouts.  Shame this band seem to have turned into some sort of drone/"art" outfit of late.  Shockingly, the LP’s label art featured the catalogue number.  Beautiful fold-out cover.

VERY GOOD 6 - Band Of Pain Phoenix 7" (300 copies, 1995)  This fairly well known Herne Bay one-man-band do their patented dark, droney, sampley thing—nice enough but not really fitting for Very Good, somehow.  Cover shows incriminating evidence of "graphic design".

VERY GOOD 7 - Prick Decay Guidelines for basement Non-Fidel LP (300 copies, 1995) At the time of this LP's release, Dylan and Lisa were about the coolest people in the scene—unsurprisingly, this LP was, I believe, Very Good’s quickest-selling product.  A stunning handmade cover with tin foil, cloth, and pornographic Seymour Glass sleevenotes houses one of PD’s best ever releases—a completely out-there, fractured collage of improv, random sound and loops that pisses all over anything Nurse With Wound have done in the last 15 years.  Plenty of guest stars too: Phil Todd, Andy Bolus, the Blowhole guy, the other half of macronympha, etc.  If you  listened to this record not knowing anything about it you'd be as likely to say it was from a modern classical or free jazz background than from a rock or noise base.

VERY GOOD 8 - Cock ESP/Dogliveroil split 7" (500 copies, 1995)  These two well-known noise projects do their usual thing, nicely enough, if a tad predictably.  The ESP side ends with a great ‘misogynist’ sample from 60s UK film The Knack (And How to Get It), while the DLO side opens with a silly-sounding ballad from about the 1930s, I reckon—the kind of thing Anton La Vey suggests possesses occult power in his entertaining writings.

The catalogue numbers above were taken from a flyer circulated in 1995.  From this point on no catalogue numbers at all exist and I’ve had to resort to examining pressing plant matrix numbers to determine the order of release.  From this point on, Very Good—which at the time had a chance of developing into a financially viable label specialising in underground music—upped the stakes and went all-out mental.

Tenzenmen Quarrychase LP (100 copies, 220 gm pink-ish vinyl, 1996)  An Australian one-man project (apparently—I know nothing about him and the sleeve gives very little information).  Each side follows the same pattern—an opening collage of "found" voices/sounds in a similar style to, say, Stream Angel’s work in this vein, followed by a section of acoustic guitar with the tape sped up to perhaps three times its recording speed, with a noise workout (using what sound like killer effects pedals) concluding each side.  Deeply mysterious—a classic Very Good release.  The song titles would seem to suggest a sense of humour is at play here.

Sof Tillin’s And The Sof Tillin’s Very Good Misrepresentation LP (No. of copies?  Year?  Your guess is as good as mine)  Sof Tillin’s And have done some pretty good tapes in an improv/noise/collage vein.  So I imagine the album title was Ben’s disgruntled comment on the material which Very Good chose to release—horrible early demos of repetitive guitar "grooves" with clunking bass, clueless attempts at sampling, and despicable "ethnic" rhythms.  An awful record by anyone’s standards.  Big up to Very Good for releasing it!

Steve Andrews Sound of One LP (No idea how many, 1997)  Shockingly, a "proper" sleeve and material recorded in what sounds like a real studio!  This eccentric songwriter, well known in the fanzine/mail art/cassette underground, presents a heartfelt selection of his songs in styles ranging from psyche-rock and acoustic folk to some surprisingly successful attempts at  techno.  One or two songs really grate—a campfire singalong, "Reality Song", springs to mind—but there’s plenty of melody throughout and a touchingly honest approach.  I’m very fond of this album—the guy’s certainly "talented" enough to be a famous rock star, but is probably too genuine a bloke for it to ever happen.  Another record that doesn’t fit in anywhere—hence it fits perfectly on Very Good.

Ottomatik Akt LP (100 copies, 220 gm black vinyl, 1997) Packaged in what looks like a pizza box—heavy cardboard with info sheets affixed.  Possibly a numbered edition, although that might just be some serial number form the cardboard box used for my copy!  Some unknown German guy splurging guitars and effects pedals in a coffee-fuelled psychedelic mish-mash over the length of the album.  This is the sort of record 4-tracks were invented to help make.  Ok, but small fry when compared to . . .

Ottomatik Pizza-A-Go-Go LP (100 copies, 220 gm yellow vinyl, 1997)  All-time classic "What the fuck?" item—basically a recording of a party (music vaguely discernible in the background at times—Faust or Neu?—but it’s mostly just German speech, laughter, clinking glasses, etc.) with mild and not over-done panning and delay effects added.  Oh, and brief snippets from "Teach yourself English/French" records at the beginning and end of each side.  Comes not in a pizza box, but in a stunning colourful hand-painted cover.  An amazing item and it makes surprisingly interesting ambient, trippy listening.  If you don’t like it you could always use it to make your neighbour think you’re having parties every night, I guess.

D.A.R.K. Excited by Gramaphones LP (100 numbered copies, 220 gm blue vinyl, 1997) A project not dissimilar to band of Pain—maybe more minimal—by some refugees from Headbutt.  Allegedly made entirely from sampled old records, not that you can tell—it’s just long quiet stretches of eerie drone which goes down very nicely.  Warning: there’s a horrible loud screeching sound suddenly at the end of one of the sounds, which I always forget about.

Warser Gate Endless Run LP (200 copies, 1998)  A co-release with another interesting German label, Catatonic.  You’ll know what to expect from this Nottingham band—improvised, poorly recorded "rock"-based stuff.  I do enjoy their somewhat stubborn and bent approach—as if they’re deliberately goading the listener on occasion.  This album does contain one "song", and a lovely one it is too. ("Virus Trials on the Huntdown").  Apart from that I recommend listeners to concentrate on the drummer and try to ignore the singer.

Appendix One
There are at least three records I’ve missed from this survey, because I haven’t got copies and information is scarce to say the least.  A 7" comp. EP of German punk bands was apparently released on Very Good in 1996, but I’ve no further info.  Towards the end of 1998 there was an album in a pricey 100-only edition by someone who was invloved with Cluster—again, I can’t supply any more info, even the name of the artist!  And in early 1999, an album by Phonophobia called 1979–1983 was released—apparently "a compilation of works by ‘lost’ German experimental band . . . analogue synths, voices, found sounds, and home made instruments" (this is from a recent BWCD catalogue).  I haven’t yet got a copy so can’t comment.

Appendix Two
Very Good has been responsible for at least two subsidiary "bootleg" releases:
1. Agitation Free At Last Agitation Free Is Alive on Purple Tulip Records, 1995, an edition of 300 in three different covers—radio recordings from 1974 by this Krautrock band.  Long psyche instrumentals with some great guitar playing.  Since issued (legitimately?) by some other label on CD.
2. Asperando-A-Go-Go—at least I think it was Very Good behind this release on Styrophon Records.  A compilation of No Wave-era German bands, including Luxus, Permutative Distortion, Boss & Beusi, Phonophobia, Saab, etc.  I haven’t got a copy, although it seems to be still available.

Appendix Three
During 1996 it looked like a split Ceramic Hobs/Ashtray navigations album was going to get a release on Very Good, called Psychiatric Underground.  We got all excited and decided it was going to be Very Good 10, but it never happened for some reason.  Ceramic Hobs kept the title and original cover art for the CD we finally released in 1998—tracks 1, 3–8, 10, 11, 27, and 28 are from the original "lost" album.  Mr Todd decided to shelves the Ashtray Navigations material, although it sounded fine to me—a live 120 Rats instrument-trashing session, a drone section courtesy of Remora, and some nice bells at the end.  Oh well . . .

Very Good Records is currently located at:
Lagerhausstrasse 39 
44147 Dortmund, Germany
Good luck.

If you can provide any more info on any of these releases then please drop us a line.