The Committee For Sonic Research coalesced in to something tangible in late 1985. The seminal moment that triggered the events that let to this was when Simon (Dental Drill) first met Steve (Lone Cosmonaut) in a West London social security office on 24 June 1985. Yup, 40 years ago!

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They soon discovered a mutual interest in obscure electronic music and the recent development of comparatively inexpensive home keyboard instruments provided an opportunity to have a go themselves. Steve roped in his friend Aidan and ‘The Working Party’ was formed. Although it is now available under the more recognised ‘Except Buses’ name, our first track ‘The Pimp’ was originally released by The Working Party. 

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As has been mentioned before, we did not want to compromise our music so we set up our own label ‘The Committee For Sonic Research’ to handle releases.

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Richard (WarpCensor) joined the group, he had solid musical theory and a rehearsal space, and the band name changed to ‘Mr Schmertz’s Wordless War’ after a headline in the London Evening Standard. The band carried on in this form for a couple of years, with occasional assistance from virtuoso guitarist Crusin’ Carlton Newbold III until, in mid-concert Mr Schmertz’s Wordless War morphed in to ‘Except Buses’ (there’s a VHS of the concert somewhere).

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As time went by making music became making families and although band members kept in touch music releases ceased. In 2011 a tragic event proved to be a catalyst to bring band members closer again, and with children now largely independent audio creation restarted.

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But what a change in electronic music creation during our time away. In the early years there was no computer based creativity and no internet for collaboration and distribution. Simon, Steve and Richard embraced these new avenues and started releasing as ‘tourmaline hum’ on Soundcloud and then Bandcamp. (The concept being the crystal black tourmaline draws electromagnetic energy but our creations would overload it’s capacity causing the tourmaline to hum).

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The Committee For Sonic Research was revived to allow for a wider range of releases, by individual members of tourmaline hum and later by artists from around the world. 

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Simon and Steve continue to work together and individually (Richard dropped out of tourmaline hum some years ago but also contributes both individually and jointly to TCFSR) however they feel the tourmaline hum has now run its course (although never say never!). What better time to wrap things up than with a farewell release on the day of the 40th anniversary of their first meeting.​