Nocturnal Emissions is Nigel Ayers" sound art project that has released numerous records and CDs in music styles ranging from electro-acoustic, musique concrète, hybridised beats, sound collage, post-industrial music, ambient and noise music. Their sound art has been part of an ongoing multimedia campaign of guerrilla sign ontology utilizing video art, film, hypertext and other media, particularly collage. The project was initiated in Derbyshire in the late 1970s by Nigel Ayers, a former art student who, during the period, lived in London, together with collaborators Danny Ayers and Caroline K. In 1979, Nocturnal Emissions also founded Sterile Records. Sterile Records’ approach was a combination of the experiments of musique concrète and Fluxus combined with the critical eye of conceptual art and the spontaneity and energy of punk rock. The dark humour of industrial music and the incomprehensible nonsense of various ultra-leftist political fractions were an essential part of the mix. Sterile Records used both commercial and non-commercial media to deliver anti-capitalist messages, multi-coloured noise and information overload. The label was effectively dissolved in 1986, when Ayers founded Earthly Delights. Nigel Ayers says about the group"s second album: "Fruiting Body is one of Nocturnal Emissions´ harshest records ever, whereas Tissue (Of Lies) is more dreamlike, Fruiting Body is more your power electronics." (It) contains recordings of very banal workplace conversations; and the packs of dogs that used to run wild down Lilford Road. The record"s called Fruiting Body because the fruiting body of a dry rot fungus was growing out of the studio wall at the time." For this deluxe edition, we have added a second CD featuring rare outtakes from recording sessions, the whole of Deathday, originally a cassette release on Sterile Records, plus compilation tracks from Paranoia Is Awareness and Sinn & Form tape compilations.
