Mark Solotroff's first band: a decade of Chicago power electronics on cassette and 7", picked up in the early 1990s by Tesco in Germany.
Mark Solotroff founded Intrinsic Action in 1984. The first tape, recorded around Chicago in 1985, came out in 50 numbered copies; the second and third followed in 1987, III taken from a concert at Batteries Not Included in Chicago that February with Pamela Lynch. Bad Jack (1988), recorded at DBD Sound, appeared on the Arbeit Group label.
Through the early 1990s the band moved to vinyl: self-released 7"s such as Male Payment (1991) and Manhattan Power Surge (1992), and two 7"s on AWB Recording. The important step was Sado-Electronics, recorded in Chicago in October and November 1990 by Solotroff and Steve Silver and released by Tesco Organisation in 1992 in 500 numbered copies. Tesco followed it with the picture-disc 12" Groupies (1993).
The last major record was a collaboration. Ensemble Sacrés Garçons, with Andrea Chiaravalli of Iugula-Thor, was recorded in Milan and New York in 1994 and issued by Old Europa Cafe in 1995, with a tape credit to Sshe Retina Stimulants. The band ended that year, and Solotroff and Megan Emish began Bloodyminded.
BloodLust! has since kept the catalogue in print: the remastered Sado-Electronics (2002), which the label says points to where Bloodyminded went next, the singles collection Peepland (2006) and Early Action (2020).
I keep Intrinsic Action at Tier III: an early American power electronics band whose real weight is as the first chapter of Bloodyminded.
VAGO · c. the Anthropocene