On page 12 of the enclosed booklet, Charles Bullen asks "How long can you keep saying to yourself and anyone else that you are a non-musician?"

The ideas that in fact began to so radicalize more popular forms of music in the 1970s were ideas -- or at least attitudes -- about the creative process, including our place in culture, society and the world, that had been breaking down traditional forms for most of the twentieth century. The crux was at once one of reacting against tradition by leaving recognized techniques behind and the equally crucial effort to subvert the expectations and perceptions of both artist and audience. The revolution took longer to reach music than other forms simply because the music of the likes of This Heat became completely entangled in a new kind of process reliant on far more than a pencil, eraser and blank manuscript -- in this case, imagine sitting down to write a violin concerto prior to the invention of the violin. It would not, as had already been done and done again, be enough to cut and paste tape. Capturing and reassessing sound and its value as music; reinventing instrument roles; setting aside musicianship in favor of accident; inviting the studio to become an active participant rather than passive witness; relieving the artist of absolute responsibility for any given piece; all these and other issues became elements of the operating principles essential to generating new work. There are few better examples of this new work to be found than within the catalog assembled by This Heat.

As Bullen's question implies, you might begin outside the medium, completely free of the teaching. But in short enough time the dedication to your ideas will direct you to become a new kind of musician. Not the self-taught variety so much as driven by invention to ravage the pre-existing context. And rather than artificially eschewing "Music" ( in this sense, akin to Eno's early insistence on "dilettante" status), the opposite occurs: the artist's work, effort and understanding fundamentally and profoundly expand the musical vocabulary. The change, once realized, shifts our comprehension as listeners, fills in all those wanting gaps of perception and literally forces our ideas about what we hear and how we hear it to grow. Which makes This Heat and this box all the more important.

With any luck you already have the limited edition from ReR MEGACORP which includes the mini "Nivelles". If not, don't hesitate to get a copy of this release. In an instance in which remastering actually serves the music instead of merely serving the sound, listening to the complete catalog is no less overwhelming today or tomorrow than when this work first appeared. And in reading their running conversation as published in the accompanying booklet, it almost hurts to realize that such remarkable work could only result from almost exhausting dedication, days of conflict and the group's singular talent for the self-imposed rigors of critical evaluation, and for the use and reuse of their own material. In willing sacrifice, these guys lived and breathed this stuff. After all, beautiful sound was and is all around us. But fewer still could ingest, transform and subsume the aural surround -- here comprised of the random and the organized, the mundane occurrence as well as the circulating currents of ideas -- as did This Heat. Fused to an uncompromising social and moral perspective, their aesthetic produced this music in a way that both defines the period and remains one of the few valid perspectives on mapping the seeming chaos we invent simply by being and doing.

Great box set. Fans of the "Blue and Yellow" and "Deceit" albums should get this for the "Made Available" (Peel Sessions) and "Health & efficiency" discs, which are both awesome. "Repeat" and "Live" discs are also pretty good. Accompanying booklet has interesting interviews on history and music-making technique. For the unitiated, This Heat were pretty much English Krautrock. Vocals and lyrics are of the post-punk political variety. Music features great drumming and edgy guitars, with textural layers of tape loops and organ. Sounds kind of eastern at times. Not very song-oriented (except on Deceit) but had a high tune quotient for this sort of music. It was kind of ahead of its time, but I guess this would mean that the bands This Heat copied (Can etc..) were WAY ahead of their time.