This retrospective collects music recorded between 1982 and 1987, from Fini Tribe’s formation to their initial fragmentation, and fills 3 CDs. 

Fini Tribe, George Square Theatre 1982.

The first of these focuses on the band’s singles / EPs and documents the 6-piece’s shift from frantic, fidgeting, scratchy, post-punk, jazz-funk, through something live and tribal to sampled / programmed industrial dance. Along the way they incorporate dark, unsettling ambient, sound collages, such as Adults Absolved, Monimail, and Throttlehearts, cover CAN for legendary Chicago institution Wax Trax, and create a Balearic Beat classic in the shape of De Testimony. A shot of pure, live, percussive energy that sent early / original “on one matey” ravers – Amnesiacs, Shoomers, Spectrum regulars – crazy. Barmy for its monastic chants and famous bells. The later Make It Internal revisits this track, with the band’s new machines. Adding a ton of TV, radio and movie samples. 

In their earliest incarnation Fini Tribe most resembled their contemporaries on Manchester’s Factory Records. Say A Certain Ratio, early epics like Flight, or Les Disques Du Crépuscule’s Lavvi Ebbel, with a bit of Bristol’s Pig Bag thrown in. It’s this sound that’s captured on their Peel Session, which kicks off CD2. This sits side by side with demos that date from 1984 and a few rediscovered recordings made at Edinburgh’s Wilf’s Planet Studios. One of these forgotten numbers, Paperself, is a definite highlight. Where most of the outfit’s material at this time consisted of spiky 3-minute shorts, this tune runs to 7, and while clearly CAN-influenced it’s actually prophetic ringer for Happy Mondays’ shambolic, working class / street shamanic, freaky dancing. 

Fini Tribe live, 1987.

CD3 concerns itself with some contrasting live sets, including 1982 rehearsals and a 1983 show at Edinburgh’s Pleasance Theatre. Another local gig, held at Calton Studios in 1987, however, is the standout. Here the band are even tighter, tauter and more muscular. Somewhere between the aforementioned ACR and the mighty Tackhead. Six members are still on stage, but triggered samples are now part of the mix. I Want More is bongo, bass and cowbell – not machine – driven, and, in my humble opinion, all the better for it. Do We Understand Each Other, with its chanted slogans, could have easily shared a stage alongside current young acts, such as the terrific Trystero, at this year’s Convenanza.

Fini Tribe, Third Eye Centre, Glasgow, 1988. 

The Sheer Action Of The Fini Tribe can be ordered directly from Shipwrecked Industries.