Maybe Mental

Maybe Mental were another largely-forgotten post-industrial act in the late 80s. Likely best-known for their split 1987 LP with Controlled Bleeding (entitled 'Halved'), Maybe Mental were formed in Arizona in 1982 by David Oliphant. The group mined the atmospheric industrial arena as well or better than most of their underground peers. Their 1985 cassette release, 'To Cease Burning', was a textural post-industrial landscape of tonal fragments, cinematic noise, and fractured collages--which still holds up next to any modern-day experimental outfit.

Other early cassette releases veered into traditional noise and power electronics territories, but later recordings were spiced up with field recordings, found tapes, and other more subtle and diverse influences, culminating in their landmark 1987 LP, 'Lotuses On Fire', which heralded the group's interest in rich multi-cultural instrumentation and ritual textures that would later play a key role in the band's transition to the formidable Life Garden. As Life Garden, Oliphant and company went on to release a number of simultaneously meditational, tribal, and percussive tapes and CDs, including some collaborative works with the equally as transcendent Voice of Eye.