Two 1985–1986 Dom Records compilation LPs assembled by Christoph Heemann and Achim P. Li Khan of H.N.A.S. The records through which Stapleton found H.N.A.S. and invited them to London to make Melchior (United Dairies UD 018, 1985–86).
Ohrenschrauben (DOM V 77-01, 1985) and Ohrensausen (DOM V 77-03, 1986) are a pair of compilation LPs released by Dom Records in Aachen. Dom was founded in 1983 by Christoph Heemann (b. 1965, Aachen) and Achim P. Li Khan (real name Achim Flaam) as a cassette-and-vinyl forum for the material their interests intersected with. The two also formed H.N.A.S. (Hirsche Nicht Aufs Sofa, Deer not on the Sofa) that year · a Faust-influenced collage duo working through a vein that blended Musique Concrète, Noise, Minimalism, and Dada-method avant / progressive rock. Heemann was 18 when Dom began. The compilations sit as Dom's first two vinyl statements at catalogue numbers DOM V 77-01 and DOM V 77-03, with Whitehouse's Live Action 1 (DOM V 77-02) released as the catalogue's second vinyl item between them.
Ohrenschrauben was pressed in 150 black vinyl copies in a regular sleeve, with matrix-runout etchings FOON SPECK OHOI (Side A) and LACHEN AUF KOMMANDO FOON (Side B). The nine-track running order distributes across two LP sides: Side 1 holds Whitehouse's My Cock's On Fire, H.N.A.S.'s own Christoph Yööl A (a Dada-method title with the umlaut intact), and Vagina Dentata Organ's Kill, Baby, Kill!. Side 2 holds The New Blockaders / Organum's untitled piece, Toll's There Must Be More Than This, Current 93's I'm The One, P16.D4's (Virtuell) Ausgemerzt, Nurse With Wound's The Poo Poo Song and The Haters' Crasbreak. The compilation also reached cassette form in 1985 (DOM V 77-22) and in 1986 as an Italian-licensed edition on Musica Maxima Magnetica (LC04, green-sleeve cassette).
Ohrensausen followed in 1986. Edition figures vary across sources: Dom's release newsletter announced 300 black vinyl copies; Coil's 1987 newsletter states their contract specified 200; Coil's 1990 Unnatural History booklet states 1000 total (500 black + 500 white). A white-vinyl repress followed in 1987. Matrix runouts: Side A SST “CHRYSTALE DID A TURD TODAY”, Side B “FOR ST. DEGENERATUS” SST. Three inserts shipped with the black edition (a tracklist + two adverts for other Dom releases); four with the white repress. The ten-track running order opens with Coil's His Body Was a Playground for the Nazi Elite · recorded by Balance + Christopherson as Sickness of Snakes, at the same nine-hour session as the Nightmare Culture 12-inch on L.A.Y.L.A.H. Antirecords (the track also appears later on Coil's Unnatural History, 1990,. Predator/Prey) · and runs through Asmus Tietchens, Mieses Gegonge, P16.D4 (a sequel-version Ausgemerzt (Virtuell) with reversed bracket position), Duka Bass Band, Chrystal Belle Scrodd, Nurse With Wound, Sema, Smegma and H.N.A.S.'s Speck Des Jahres.
The compilations' cross-tradition consequence is the genealogical thread to Melchior. Steven Stapleton (Nurse With Wound) became aware of H.N.A.S. through Ohrenschrauben and, recognising the method as adjacent to his own L.A.Y.L.A.H. Antirecords and Nurse With Wound output, invited Heemann and Khan to London to record an album for United Dairies. The result, Melchior (Aufmarsch der Schlampen) (UD 018), was made between June 1985 and January 1986 by the four-person studio configuration of Stapleton, Heemann, Khan and Diana Rogerson. Stapleton introduced Heemann to the studio audio-trickery and tape-manipulation methods Heemann would carry forward into the H.N.A.S. catalogue (seven albums; the Vox Populi! split LP; the Ach, dieser Bart + Willkür nach Noten sequence) and into later partnerships · Mirror with Andrew Chalk, In Camera with Timo Van Luyck, the Limpe Fuchs and Jim O'Rourke and Edward Ka-Spel and Keiji Haino and Charlemagne Palestine partnerships, the 1991 Merzbow / Masami Akita raw-material album.
The two compilations sit as one of the early-period Aachen articulations of the European experimental network the H.N.A.S. catalogue would document across the late 1980s and 1990s. The cassette and small-edition method, the Dada-method titling idiom (Lachen auf Kommando, Speck des Jahres, Christoph Yööl A), the genre-mixing programming (Whitehouse and Coil and Nurse With Wound and Smegma and Asmus Tietchens on the same record), the gallery-adjacent visual sensibility · all of these constitute the method the H.N.A.S. and Dom catalogues would carry forward. The compilations also sit as my anchor cross-references for several artists documented elsewhere in this archive: my entries on The New Blockaders, The Haters and P16.D4 each carry compilation-position cross-references back to these two records.
The 1990 Dragnet 2xCD reissue (DRAGNET04, Panteon plant codes 008 + 009) compiles both LPs as a double disc minus the Coil track. Both Dom and Susan Lawly (Whitehouse) consider this CD a bootleg: Dom states the reissue is unlicensed; the Whitehouse track My Cock's On Fire appears on the CD without Susan Lawly's authorisation. The Coil track was withdrawn from the CD edition. I keep the 1990 CD as an unauthorised reissue rather than a Dom-sanctioned edition. The original 1985–1986 vinyl LPs remain the statement of both compilations and are now collector-rare.
Citation. Ohrenschrauben and Ohrensausen are under WORKS as the central entries for the early-period Dom Records / H.N.A.S. compilation programme. The compilations document the partner-network across an unusually wide arc · English power-electronics (Whitehouse, Sutcliffe Jugend-adjacent), English experimental (Nurse With Wound, Current 93, Coil, The New Blockaders / Organum, Vagina Dentata Organ), German cooperative cut-up (P16.D4), German experimental electronic (Asmus Tietchens), American noise and avant-folk (The Haters, Smegma), and the Aachen-internal contributions from H.N.A.S. itself and the Duka Bass Band project · under one Heemann-and-Khan editorial gesture. The cross-tradition consequence (the Melchior United Dairies record) is the central cross-reference between this entry and the Nurse With Wound catalogue.
VAGO · c. the Anthropocene