H.N.A.S.

by John Bush
H.n.a.s., the German group closely associated with spliced cut-up masters like Nurse With Wound and Coil, pursued a similar object from their inception in the early '80s. The duo of Christoph Heemann and Achim P. Li Khan (aka Achim Flaan) formed the group, named it hirsche nicht aus sofa (the German is roughly translated as Moose Without a Sofa), and began issuing scads of cassette-only releases on their own Dom Records.



Their first major album, 1985's Abwassermusik reflected an interest in collages of samples, tape loops and found sounds, often repeated ad infinitum. For 1986's Melchior, an expanded H.n.a.s. lineup worked with the very sympathetic Steven Stapleton (of Nurse With Wound) and issued the album on Stapleton's United Dairies labels. The group released two more LPs during 1986-87, Im Schatten Der Möhre and Küttel im Frost (both on Dom).