à;GRUMH...
Blàck Vinyl Under Cover

Listening notes

Released in 1987 on Play It Again Sam Records, Blàck Vinyl Under Cover by the Belgian act à;GRUMH... carries catalog number BIAS 72 and sits within the EBM, electro, and broader electronic genres. The title's explicit reference to vinyl is worth noting for collectors approaching this record as a physical artifact, though what that framing meant to the group at the time of release is not something the available facts can settle.

The record spreads ten tracks across two sides. The A-side opens with "Bach Catalogue" at two minutes and forty-two seconds, moving into the longer "Hammam" at five minutes and forty seconds before shorter entries "Generation" and "R.L.P.K." bring the runtime down again. The side closes with "The Bumf (We Know What Life Is)" at three minutes and fifty-eight seconds, a title that suggests a particular attitude without the available facts permitting further interpretation.

The B-side offers a notable contrast in track lengths. "Countrol" opens at four minutes and eleven seconds, followed immediately by "Yesterday" at sixteen seconds — a duration short enough to function as an interlude or transitional moment, though its purpose here cannot be confirmed from the facts provided. "The Drive" then runs to five minutes and fifty-six seconds, the longest individual track on the record, followed by "M.D.A." at four minutes and fifty-eight seconds. "An Island Called..." closes the record at four minutes and thirty-nine seconds, its incomplete title punctuated by an ellipsis.

Play It Again Sam, operating out of Belgium, was during this period a label associated with electronic and industrial-adjacent acts, which places Blàck Vinyl Under Cover within a recognizable institutional context for the genre without overstating what that context demonstrates about this specific release.