From the Top Drawer LX - Children Of The Bong

'Unlike the other acts on the Planet Dog roster, Children Of The Bong were never a part of the festival scene. Instead they met at Harrow college, where they found refuge in a 16-track studio. Discovering acid house in the late 80's made them put down the guitar. However, they were never fans of handbag house and its rigid 4/4 rhythm, they took their influences mainly from hip-hop and dub, to give their music a more human feel.

"We heard this Tibetan music and it had a track on it called 'Children Of The Bong'. We thought why not call ourselves this. But the meaning came afterwards. It's about a more open way of thinking. Music for music's sake".'  Discogs

These Children have appeared on this blog before with some introductory blurb, so I won't repeat myself with any more of that apart from posting the above text.

This particular item seems to be another demo tape that must have been recorded before their album 'Sirius Sounds' was released, and indeed it features some work-in-progress versions of some of the tunes featured on that album, along with others which as far as I know (?) have never been available before.
Recommended to folks who like electro, dub and ambient sounds...

Tracklisting -
Side One: Symbol-I/Underwater Dub/Inflight Trance/Cosmic Flash/Breathe
Side Two: Life On Planet Earth/U.V.F. (Ultra Violet Frequencies)/Symbiotic/Interface Reality/Ambient Suicide (Half An Ounce Later)

As per usual, ripped @320kbps as two side-long tracks

Download it HERE

If you fancy buying one of their official releases, please visit Planet Dog Records HERE where Michael might have a few copies left.

From the Top Drawer XIII - Children Of The Bong

Moving forward to the '90s once again, here's the 1994 demo tape from Children Of The Bong, presumably the one mentioned in this bio on the Planet Dog Records site, and the one that got them signed to that label. Most of the tracks here were re-worked for their 1995 album 'Sirius Sounds' with the aid of ace engineers Andy Guthrie and Matthew Denny, except for 'Ultrascope' which appeared on the compilation 'Quadruped V.1', and 'U.V.F.' which seems to be exclusive to this tape (ooh, one for the completists then...).

With beats rooted more in electro, hiphop and dub rather than in 4/4 techno or trance, the two Children cooked up a tasty and full-on funky stew of electronica dominated by their use of original well-programmed sounds with the lead parts played by a trusty analogue synth called the Korg MS20. As a previous owner of one of these somewhat cantankerous machines, I admired their capacity to reign in its eccentricities and tuning drifts to get it to work successfully over MIDI, no mean task. Live performances were very much in yer face/ears and hugely enjoyable, Rob on the keyboards and Daniel on the mixing desk - I remember a particularly good one at the Basement club in Brighton, the old student union bar, after which I bored Rob no end talking about the workings of the Korg! Unfortunately I had to sell mine a few years later when I was short of cash, bah...
Highly recommended.

Ripped @320kbps as two side long tracks

Download HERE