About the Book
Vital book — a complete archive of cassette culture, industrial music, and electronic sound
Vital – The Complete Collection 1987-1995 gathers all 44 issues of one of the key underground music fanzines of its period. Published by Frans de Waard between 1987 and 1995, Vital covered electronic and electroacoustic music from inside the scene itself. In collected form, the publication becomes more than a reprint. It reads as a sustained record of how experimental music communities documented, debated, and circulated their own culture.
The range of material is what gives the book its weight. Across the full run, Vital includes interviews with figures such as Asmus Tietchens, O Yuki Conjugate, Merzbow, P16.D4, Pierre Henry, Jim O’Rourke, Brume, and Döc Wor Mirran. It also hosts discussions around copyright, plagiarism, plunderphonics, house music, ambient music, cassette culture, and noise, while carrying contributions from Leigh Landy, Godfried Willem Raes, John Duncan, and GX Jupitter-Larsen.
The result is both an archive and a scene document. Every issue also included reviews of tapes, LPs, CDs, and books, which makes the volume especially useful for readers interested in the infrastructure of underground music rather than artists alone. For anyone interested in industrial music history, DIY press, cassette culture, or the pre-internet ecology of experimental sound, this is one of the strongest printed sources available.
All 44 issues, 1987–1995
- Complete reprint of the original Vital fanzine
- Documents the late cassette-culture and industrial-music era
- Includes interviews, essays, reviews, and debate
- Shows how independent music culture wrote and archived itself
- Continues historically into the online legacy of Vital Weekly
Edition details for Vital – The Complete Collection 1987-1995
- Title: Vital – The Complete Collection 1987-1995
- Authors: various authors
- Originator: Frans de Waard
- Publisher: Korm Plastics
- Edition: First Edition
- Publication year: 2020
- Format: music fanzine archive / book compilation
- Binding: hardcover
- Size: 17 × 24 cm
- Extent: 580 pages
- Coverage: all 44 issues, 1987–1995
- ISBN: 9789059398634
- Design: Alfred Boland
Product Details & Safety
Weight: 1.5 kg
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