The Sampler #05 - This Window and Finish The Story

Available on eBay and Bandcamp

The Sampler #05 was first issued in 2005 as a promotional release. Never intended as a formal album, it offered a glimpse into a collection of studio sketches, experiments and musical doodles gathered from the archives.

This limited pressing of just 50 copies is housed in a simple cardboard sleeve, helping to keep both production and postage costs to a minimum. The recordings themselves have been rescued from ageing and obsolete formats, preserving a small but significant piece of underground music history. There is something fittingly ironic about these archival fragments surviving on another increasingly obsolete medium: the compact disc. The circle continues.

Limited Edition Sampler CD — Finish The Story & This Window — Only £5.00

Factory-Pressed CD — Not a CDr • Limited Edition of 50

Available on eBay

This scarce sampler CD brings together material from the archives of Finish The Story (FTS) and This Window, two projects with roots in the UK's early 1980s post-punk and cassette-culture underground.

Formed in Evesham in 1981, Finish The Story quickly gained a reputation for intense, unpredictable live performances. Their debut appearance at The Phoenix Club, supporting The Dancing Did, attracted attention from the music press and was reviewed in ZigZag magazine:

“Finish the Story’s debut gig was better than the second coming of Jesus Christ.”

Despite only a handful of gigs, FTS headlined in cities like London, Birmingham, Bristol and Exeter, and supported The Cure at Hammersmith Odeon. Their first official release appeared on Gunfire and Pianos (SITU 17), alongside Psychic TV, Jazz Butcher and All About Eve. A version of this release, Like A Sickle Runs Through Corn, appears on this CD.

“Don’t Think I Can Make It” by This Window

About This Edition

  • Genuine factory-pressed CD — not a CDr
  • Material first issued in 2005
  • Strictly limited run of 50 copies
  • Artwork uses a stripped-back variation of the original commissioned cover design, echoing the handmade aesthetic of early This Window releases

Track List & Recording or Release Dates

  1. Trapped In The Hometown – FTS – 1990 (3:45)
  2. Don’t Think I Can Make It – TW – 2002 (1:55)
  3. Ciao Again – TW – 2005 (2:50)
  4. A Moment Longer – TW – 1996 (3:21)
  5. Crash87 – TW – 1989 (0:48)
  6. Playing At Life – FTS – 1985/86 (3:08)
  7. Solace – FTS – 1990 (4:06)
  8. Like A Sickle Runs Through Corn – FTS – 1985 (3:02)
  9. Naked – TW – 2005 (3:25)
  10. Nepal – TW – 1989 (4:37)
  11. Ripples In The Water – FTS – 1985 (1:15)

Across eleven tracks, the album moves from fractured art-rock to minimal electronic sketches, from intimate tape-born experiments to more sculpted studio pieces. It reflects the creative lineage of Peter Bright’s long-running project This Window, whose analogue-tape philosophy and mail-art collaborations helped define the UK’s cassette underground.

Location: Europe

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Don't Think I Can Make It

Image
A fractured transmission across sound and image Don't Think I Can Make It by This Window is a sonic and visual meditation on disconnection, delay, and the quiet collapse of communication. This track appears on The Sampler #05 (CD). The track pulses with electronic textures that drift in and out of clarity—like signal interference on a long-distance call—while a thumping drum line anchors the listener in a bodily rhythm, a heartbeat beneath the static. Free Download The vocal narrative is not sung but spoken, dissected fragments from a voicemail. Phrases such as "Hope all is well" , "We'll try to connect later" , "I don't think I can make it" , and finally, "Ciao" —are delivered with clinical detachment, yet they carry the emotional weight of absence. These lines also appear in the track Ciao Again by This Window, suggesting a thematic echo or recursive loop in the artist’s work which was released on The Sampler #05 (CD). The accomp...
Read more

Crash '87

Image
Crash '87 - Discogs Release Information Track: Crash ’87 Artist: This Window   Release: Appears on the cassette Extraction (1989, EE Tapes, Belgium) 1 Format: C40 Chrome Cassette, experimental/industrial/abstract Compilation Context: The track is part of a body of work that merges sound collage, dark ambient textures, and conceptual art. The cassette itself is a curated sequence where tracks bleed into one another, resisting discrete consumption and instead demanding immersion. Crash ’87 is not a standalone single but embedded in a larger experimental release that foregrounds fragmentation, layering, and the instability of recorded media. The accompanying video, shows a mouse in the palm of hands and links to The Genetics of Art and the National Mouse Club 2 . The mouse becomes both a literal and symbolic subject: a fragile, living creature held in human hands, and simultaneously a metaphor for control, breeding, and manipulation. In the context of Crash ’87 , the mouse ima...
Read more

Dance This Way

Image
The death of romance "Dance this Way" is a short, searing piece of emotional reportage. In just a handful of lines, it captures the humiliation of being treated as an accessory rather than a partner. The narrator’s repeated “I hate you, I really hate you” is not melodrama but the blunt edge of betrayal — the kind that happens not in grand betrayals, but in the small, public moments where someone you love makes you feel invisible. The scene is painfully familiar: a couple arrives together at a favourite bar to see a favourite band — a shared ritual. But instead of sharing the night, the man abandons his partner to socialise with his friends. When he does return, it’s not to reconnect, but to issue a command: “dance this way.” The woman is reduced to a performer, summoned at will, her emotional state irrelevant. When she cries, he laughs. The dream — of romance, of mutual respect — collapses in that instant. Objectification The man’s behaviour treats th...
Read more