Released in 2022 these recordings were first presented on a CD 25 years ago (1997) and recorded 26 years ago (1996). The two musicians have reflected on their time recording the original songs below:

Spider monk EE

E8 Day Tape Worm (recorded as 7 cassettes in 1996, mixed down and released as CD in 1997) kind of lies in the shadows of the 1960s and the 1970s - both punk and the psychedelic movements. It's quite strongly DIY. The methodology was established earlier on when recording tracks for Stains of the Saints (tape) where we recorded some tracks deliberately very quickly. We decided to amplify the process by having two main participants bringing in lyrics and a clean slate and letting the games begin, aiming at a completed (mixed plus artwork) tape at the end of the day. Recorded in 1996 between about April and November, the seven tapes were a semi-regular monthlyish occurrence in our fortuitous living situation and gave us plenty of sustenance. We topped that up with red wine and Supermalt, and Canadian legumes (fried sliced potato). Anna-lisa Sviatko provided the most musical support amongst a guest ensemble of those passing through and leaving a musical offering. Done in a spirit of why nottity. Mixed down with track selection in Hull. Final production before C.D cost us but we coughed up. The project was quite central to both of our lives. Musical snapshots scattered amongst the almost hollow Britpop and jungle tunes of mid-90s having a laugh. The album still gets the occasional spin as an essential relic, and with its two add-on musical guests at the end is more like miniputt than it is straight run. Best done in listening chunks, unless mash your brain a bit is the order of the day. What made it to the disc is the rainbow bile served up, but it is not all there was to offer, very arguably not even the best. Just the best fit at that time during the day of 'let's get a tracklist that flows and have some fun, okay?' True to the spirit of spontaneity.

Snake Beings

The recording was done using the ‘DayTape process’ TM - Spider monk EE and I would meet up for a full day set aside to create a tape from ‘nothing’. We did seven of these cassettes between April and November '96 whilst living in East London. That was our challenge - maybe it was called the ‘Day Tape Challenge'? Tapes were all the thing because we could make those at home - we didn’t have CD burners in those days and no one had even heard of an MP3 - DiY was a big part of the process, until later when we thought we'd hire a studio for mastering because we'd mixed it down on these big clunky speakers that had no treble, only bass.
We would meet in the morning - it was easy because we lived in the same house - a big three storied house that didn’t have windows or a back door when we moved in. It did have a dead cat in the downstairs kitchen though, the violin player Anna-Lisa cleaned it up (Maggot Chomp) but the spirit remained. We blamed the dead cat for many things, like attracting some strange characters like ‘Ray’ who would turn up and make himself at home, wearing his yellow beret and acting up in the kitchen before Spider monk EE would yell “stop that Ray, stop that” - he would put it away and we would carry on as if nothing had happened (Ray’s in Decay). It was number 20 Horton Road in Hackney, London E8 - it will be worth somewhere near one million pounds but we had the run of the place for two years for free, due to a loophole in the English law to do with fox hunting and the fact that no one was interested in buying a house in Hackney in 1996. It was a big forgotten part of the city that appeared in between three stations on a tube map, but was actually one of the biggest 'inner city' areas. Maybe we felt a little like we were living in that film Performance, or maybe more like the failed actors in Withnail and I - yes, more tragic like the second option, the dead cat in the kitchen kept us grounded and there was a feeling that it was all about to end (Bulldoze Lives) - on the edge of finding jobs, tuning televisions (Terrestrial Television) or some undefined horror (Low Ceilings) that would flatten our hair. We were living in ’The Last Nest Egg of Grunge’ and the CD collected all the influences around us. Spider monk EE would shuffle down from upstairs, I could hear him moving about from my room below. It’s Day Tape Challenge day!, the start of a long day: write, record, mix down and master the songs onto a stereo cassette and make the cover art. Usually about 6 to 11 songs are made in one day. We might start by getting Supermalt from the shop (75p - Products of Decay) and Spider monk EE would fry potatoes - we compared notes we had scratched in our notebooks, although most likely we wouldn't look at lyrics until someone had started the 4 track cassette recorder and recorded the first track - we were allowed to write some lyrics before - or we could just go through the notebooks and find something we had written whilst sitting in a greasy spoon cafe in Dalston Junction (Killed Spirits / Low Ceilings / Living Dying Life) but other times Spider monk EE would just start singing and in the first take make up lyrics on the spot (Candles Are My Friends / Achoom / etc etc). Mostly everything was just first take, the clock was ticking and anyway we didn’t really care enough to do it again, spontaneous was the approach. Sometimes we would start the song together but as the day went on most likely one of us would be recording something whilst the other was writing lyrics for the next track, making food or half snoozing. People would turn up sometimes to visit and got roped in (Human Maggots).