Ian Miley Obituary

In memory of Ian Miley (Blackmass Plastics). A friend and an inspiration.

“Blackmass Plastics had a wizard’s knack for pairing together elements to create some of the grimiest unhinged atmospheres out there. Whether making Techno, Electro, Hardcore or Breakbeat, or something teetering between, his tracks were naturally dark and lurched forward with a dramatic villainous edge always present. Those who are familiar with his sound will recognise the common theme that links everything together. Dripping with dread and doom, but with a deft skip to it’s step, there were never any unnecessary parts used, never an ounce of fat on his tracks, everything was there for a reason and pulled its weight. His ear for an off-key melody was up there with The Mover, though Ian was a man whose music stood on its own, skulking in the shadows refusing to join in with the rabble. And that’s why I love his tracks.” Jerome Hill

“Blackmass Plastics music was distinctive. A dark and twisted style that was very much Ian. You can tell it a mile away. He could absorb the latest underground tendencies, but rather than just spew out something derivative, he’d cross pollinate those ideas with where he was currently at, arriving at some mutant uniqueness, and this is what made his output perfect for Rag & Bone.” DJ Warlock

“Anyone who knew Ian knew this time would come, due to the totally tragic circumstances of his adventure…he hardcored it to the total end in total awareness of the ultimate ending.” Gilly (Ms Bones)

I met Ian at a party in the Autumn of 1989 when he was 17. We started talking about music and we never really stopped. By then he had already been a nine-year-old Sta-Prest Two Tone mod, an electro freak and a long-haired thrash metal monster. At that time he was into some heavy, dark music like Ministry. I realise now that he had done a lot of very grown-up thinking at a remarkably young age.

Perhaps because he was adopted, he had thought a lot about who he was and where he belonged in the universe. He was fearless and free and very funny. And when I say funny, I mean bloody hilarious. All the time. And when I say free, I mean like outlaw free. I learned later that his school days, at Hemel School, had been characterised by him annoying the teachers with clever remarks and usually being sent out into the corridors where he would read books of his own choosing.

He loved finding out about new music that I was into that he hadn’t heard. And he loved to share new music that he had discovered. This was always a constant with Ian. He seemed to plough his way through groups of friends, always pushing forward. And I’d never met anyone who was such a dreamer. He was always hatching mad plans for the future.

Ian had a very no-nonsense attitude towards life. I always put that down to his Northern family roots. It was apparent in his day-to-day dealings but also in his broader outlook on life. He regarded us all as specks in a vast universe. And this being the case, why on Earth would you waste your time dwelling on the hypocrisy and violence of the human race? He described my own angst-ridden interest in such things as ‘scatological’. It didn’t stop him taking part in some political protesting though. He was at the anti-Criminal Justice Bill protests, Trafalgar Square, in the Summer of 1994, yelling at the riot police “Where are your numbers?” because they had all removed the ID from their uniforms. We shared a distrust of authority.

He was always very good at putting you in a position where you had to justify your point of view. When I told Ian about my son’s interest in Japanese Culture, knowing that this was something of interest to him, he launched into a ten-minute rant about everything that was messed up about Japanese culture and why would anyone want to study that? He turned it on its head, just to keep things interesting. He used to find it frustrating that, because of the way he spoke and his manner, people who considered themselves well-educated, would sometimes assume he was stupid. Such is life in England. He liked to distance himself from the English by drawing attention to the fact that he was born on the Isle of Man.

Having been burned in the alchemical fires of rave, primarily at the Labyrinth in the early ‘90s, we ended up going to our first Teknival in the Summer of ‘94. This was thanks to a tip-off from Claire Fryer, sometimes known as Hekate Claire. Ian took his records with him. We’d come a long way from when we drove, in his beloved beige Austin Allegro, down to the Reading Festival in 1990 (The Cramps, Psychic TV, The Fall). By the mid-’90s he was beginning to regard himself as a DJ. Naturally enough, down in the fields outside Clermont-Ferrand he played dark and heavy and strictly hardcore beats. The Silence of Eternity (Lenny Dee vs. DJ Edge) being a particular favourite at that time.

As the euphoria of early ‘90s breakbeat rave mayhem moved forward, I got into jungle/drum n bass and he was more into hard techno. But, of course, being Ian, he knew more about jungle/drum n bass than I did and he would regularly suggest what tunes I should get hold of. He always did this, right up until the last time I saw him. He was a true DJ, always hungry for new beats, fresh sounds. Again, he was someone who pushed forward.

We squatted together in Stockwell Park in ‘96/’97, again thanks to Claire Fryer. It was a really good time. We were part of a scene made up of numerous sound systems all playing their own styles. Ian didn’t like the idea of being strictly associated with one single sound, he was too independent-minded for that. But it was really the mighty Crossbones sound system where he fitted in best. The sound of the doom. He loved the fact that when he first met the Bones crew it was just speakers, a strobe and a rudimentary Crossbones backdrop. Nothing fancy. No nonsense. And hostile, outlaw music. There was an interesting connection-through-time here because in 1994 I had written to ‘Techno Connection’, a tape distributor based in Sheffield, asking them for the most brutal techno tape that they had. Of course, I planned to give it to Ian.

Techno Connection wrote back to me explaining that the tape – of Slim Jim on Planet FM – had been chosen not just because the music was very hardcore techno/gabba but because the DJ, Slim Jim, added an extra layer of menace between the tracks. This made it, according to Techno Connection, their most hardcore tape! Years later, in the free party and Teknival days of the later ‘90s we realised that Slim Jim was none other than Jim Bones from the Crossbones sound system. I sent Ian that tape, along with a James Stinson (from Drexciya) interview that featured in the Techno Connection zine, when he was out travelling in Australia. Ian told me he was very influenced by the interview and that it had inspired him to take his DJing more seriously. He had also been DJing in Australia at this time, smashing up small venues and a few festivals.

At the end of the ‘90s Ian contracted Typhoid fever while travelling in South East Asia. He was in the Hospital for Tropical Diseases (University College London) for a while. Sadly, his physical condition gradually deteriorated from this time onwards. Once out of hospital, he lived in New Cross, South London, and began to make music with Ben, Ren and Simon from the Deadsilence Syndicate. Ultimately this led to a period of him making two or three tunes per day for about ten years and more. He told me that learning how to make electronic dance music had given him a confidence that he had never had before. He recognised himself both as an artist and as someone who could learn anything.

This was very significant for him. He used to say that his whole life could have been different if he had discovered and had more confidence in his creative side earlier in his life. I would say that he was always creative. He released tunes regularly from 2000 onwards on an array of different labels. These included SMB Records, his own Thorn Industries, Rag & Bone, Ugly Funk and many more. His style mixed up heavy bass, crunching breaks and dark atmospherics. It was always aimed at the dance floor. There is consistently something of the original rave energy in his music. No pretentious concepts. No after-hours chillers for Ian. One time he did play me some of his tunes that had more of a melancholy, Detroit techno sound to them. They are unreleased.

He went on to learn all about building modular synthesisers which only confirmed his sense that anything was possible. By now, his body was becoming so weak he couldn’t really walk anywhere and he was beginning to have to use a wheelchair. But his mind was on fire. Constantly coming up with new creative ideas just like when I first met him. He was a whole lot skinnier though. Ian had been a big guy when I first met him.

He told me about occasions when he had been shouted at in the street for being bent over with a walking stick. Once, when he was out with his girlfriend Christelle, a group of young men made fun of him by mocking her for being with him. They would never have dared to say that to a younger Ian who would have destroyed them with his Taikwondo moves and Ninja throwing stars.

Being Ian, he marched forward from synthesisers and got right into making sculptures. With the help of a friend in Bristol he was designing and 3D-printing all sorts of amazing toys and creatures and robots. He just didn’t stop. All of this was at a time when he did not leave the living room in his flat, for year after year, because his body was becoming weaker and weaker. His mental strength to cope with this was formidable. The room itself was totally lined with Japanese Sofubi soft vinyl toys. It was an incredible sight to behold: rows and rows of unbelievably weird looking alien beings. I maintained communication with him throughout this period. It wasn’t always easy because he was aware that his condition was becoming worse and worse.

We would have long phone calls, often on Sundays, where he would tell me about loads of fantastic films and books and of course music and even sometimes recipes. Brilliantly, one time, he told me that I had to pass through the Seven Gates of Death Metal. I accepted this challenge and he told me that to pass through the First Gate I had to write a review of Bolt Thrower’s 1986 album ‘War Master’.

I listened to it a lot and, having studied the lyrics, submitted a 900 word essay. It was considered of good enough quality for me to ascend to the Second Gate: to write a review of a gig by Texan death metal bands Frozen Soul and Creeping Death (Camden Underworld 12.02.24). I wrote 1300 words and Ian said that reading it was like being at the gig and that I had automatically passed through the next five gates!

By this time Ian was not making much music. The incredible synthesisers that he had built were not in use at all. However, there were still vinyl releases through Rave Radio Records. This label puts out music that sounds like it was forged in the original hardcore rave explosion of the early ‘90s. For Ian this was a return to where it had all begun.

He was very moved by the fact that at his very first rave he had climbed up the ladder at the Labrynth to ask DJ Billy Bunter what the tune was (it was Narra Mine by Genaside II). And now, 34 years later, Billy Bunter is playing his tunes out at raves. And I know that Bunter regarded Ian as a unique talent, a one-off artist with his own distinctive style. Ian told me that, for him, this acknowledgement from one of the true originals of the rave era was like the closing of a circle. It was Ian’s way of telling me he knew that his own life had come full circle.

He did not compromise. He was a true underground soldier.

The Reverend

LINKS

• Blackmass Plastics Soundcloud
• Blackmass Plastics on Discogs
• Blackmass Plastics YouTube

Ian Miley, aka Eun, was also a frequent contributor to the record review sections of datacide issues 1-11

He also performed at the party after the 2008 Datacide Conference in Berlin.

More recently he contributed this wonderful mix to the Hekate 25th anniversary activities. You can also find it on on YouTube with nice footage, but it’s blocked from being embedded on other sites, so we’re embedding here the audio from Soundcloud:

And just uploaded on the Praxis Soundcloud: A unreleased Dubplate (re-)mix of Anti-Christ from Sub/Version 002, originally from 1998. Ian made this dubplate mix in 2007.

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