From the Port to the Bridge: Thomas Leer and Robert Rental Exhibition

Kevin Quinn (PhD, Central Saint Martins), Subcultures Post-Grad Interest Group Co-Founder, reports on From the Port to the Bridge, an exhibition on Thomas Leer and Robert Rental at London’s Horse Hospital.

This exhibition at London’s Horse Hospital is curated by Simon Dell and was first premiered at The Beacon Art Centre in Greenock, Scotland in October 2018.

This intricately and minutely documented and articulated exhibition brings together personal artefacts and publicity materials relating to the work of Port Glasgow-born electronic music pioneers the elusive and reclusive Thomas Leer and Robert Rental between the 1970s and 2000s, two of Scotland’s finest, but perhaps less well-known, musicians.

Dell’s lovingly told (hi)story takes in the 1960s UK hippy trail through to London’s simmering mid-70s punk pressure cooker with Leer and Rental forever experimenting and fomenting new ideas and charting new directions. In 1978 they individually produced and released the seminal 7” singles ‘Private Plane’ (Leer) and ‘Paralysis’ (Rental).

Falling in with those ‘wreckers of civilisation’ Throbbing Gristle the pair set about creating 1979 LP ‘The Bridge’ - now reissued on vinyl for the first time - sadly their only joint testament.  Two sides of progressive ‘post-punk’ (side two is an ambient trip replete with surround-sounds including the refrigerator and numerous household appliances) before that category (as categorising commodity catch-all) had solidified it was recorded in two weeks in Rental’s Battersea flat.

Each episode of the story blends contextual information (typed historiographies, audio-visual clips, written correspondence and an array of music press cuttings) with the technical equipment used by the duo. These include the still-striking EDP Wasp synthesiser, a device that has non-moving touch-sensitive keys which adds to the ethereal effect of the user’s engagement -

- and Mute boss (and collaborator with Rental on 1979’s  ‘Live at West Runton Pavilion’) Daniel ‘The Normal’ Miller’s legendary Korg 700S synthesiser as used on 1978’s J.G. Ballard inspired ‘T.V.O.D.’/‘Warm Leatherette’.

The exhibition continues after Rental’s withdrawal from public life in 1980 (he sadly passed away in 2000) and Leer’s forays into the charts, several continuations of his unique ‘awk-pop’. 1982’s Cherry Red released LP ‘Contradictions’ is a masterclass in lo-fi technicolour, Leer a bedroom auteur long before technology allowed all and sundry to tweak and squeak their ways to creation, albeit one whose art persistently proved too alien for mainstream acclaim.

Leer, ever the retiring and reluctant frontman also played with Matt Johnson’s The The and pop-bricoleurs The Art of Noise and in 1987 embarked on his short-lived (yet no less productive) partnership with Propaganda’s Claudia Brucken as Act.

Signed by ZTT Records (Paul Morley, Trevor Horn and Jill Sinclair’s attempts at converting and perverting the acridly dry business of pop into pure entertainment) Act existed to substantiate this cynical awareness of the time through expressions of (archly delivered) exhortations of decadence and moral bankruptcy. Once again, it could be argued that Leer was just too ahead of the time…

‘From the Port to the Bridge’ is a time-travelling step back towards a future that exists today in both feeling and memory, a past of promise that helped create the present. A welcome reminder of the analogue world and all its tangible rewards and crucially the pushing to the forefront two of pop culture’s unsung pioneers.

Leer and Rental’s ground-breaking music helped create the template for an explosion of independent post-punk releases and the synth-pop boom of the early 1980s creating a legacy that still resonates today. Now’s your chance to listen, hear and feel those (new) waves.

The Horse Hospital, in operation since 1993, is itself arguably London’s worst-best kept secret.  Situated behind Russell Square tube station in Bloomsbury it’s a veritable den of antiquity, its walls housing artefacts and ephemera that impart alternative narratives and import superlative imperatives, a cornucopia of rich and rewarding histories waiting to be re-told.

Simon Dell, Curator.

What’s your background?

I am an amateur music historian/archivist who has been collecting and creating an electronic/post-punk archive for the past 40 years. My dad was a professional archivist, so I guess I learnt a lot from him. Initially the archive was for my own reference as information was so hard to come by in the 1980s. Apart from the music press, a few books and fanzines, there was a complete dearth about what was going on. Since the advent of the internet, a huge amount of information is now available online, and I’ve had to rethink the purpose of the archive. There is still a need for access to primary sources, and I now try and make it available for research for books, films, blogs, record releases, exhibitions etc.

What is your relationship to Leer and Rental (collectively and individually)?

I have got to know Thomas quite a bit since we first met in 2016. He lives about 10 miles from me, and I was introduced to him by members of Robert’s family. At first he was sceptical about the whole project but I think he now trusts me to do a good job. We have quite long chats when I pop round to visit him, he has some great stories about his time in the music industry.

I never met Robert, but I have got to know some of his family quite well over the past seven years. His ex-partner Hilary, her sister Liz and his nephew Danny have made a huge contribution to the development of the exhibition, and other offshoots like filmed interviews, new record releases etc. To be honest, without them it probably wouldn’t have got off the ground.

The forgotten (or this in case, reclusive) figures of history need an independent voice to articulate their stories, what’s so special about these pair and their output, to you?

I have felt for some time that Thomas and Robert had not received the recognition they deserved. They always seemed to be a passing remark or footnote in any histories, despite glowing accolades from some of their more successful contemporaries (Matt Johnson, John Foxx etc).

Their story is quite extraordinary, in that, given their socio-economic backgrounds, they should have been destined to a life in the shipyards or allied trades like their forebears. Their interest and immersion in 1960s counter-culture opened new doors that hadn’t been available before to young working class men. This gave them a level of social mobility which enabled them to travel outside their local area, and experience new ways of living, which ultimately led them to London at such a culturally important time.

I also have a love for the underdog and seem to gravitate towards those artists who didn’t have massively successful careers. Often this is because they weren’t willing to compromise their art to the prevailing demands of the music industry.

Why do you think their music, solo and together retain such a sense of a/the past, but also the promises of a future?

I actually find a lot of their musical output quite timeless. It is possible that the use of particular instruments can date music to a specific era, if dissecting it is your interest.

They seemed to me to operate out with the confines of any particular movement or scene, despite attempts to try and tag them as such. Thomas, in particular, punctuated his musical career with deliberate moves away from anything approaching a scene, embracing new and diverse musical developments into his music.

I think the d-i-y ethic, the potential to be able to create something from the most meagre of means, will always be an attractive aspect for budding musicians.

Both L&R signify post-punk’s bridging between the punk n’ roll that had arguably ossified and/or began to mutate by 1978 and the technologically driven futures (and post-industrial collapses) that lay ahead. Would you agree?

Yes, they clearly followed that route themselves personally. Moving down from Edinburgh to immerse themselves in London punk culture, starting their own band, but finding that punk was really on its last creative legs, they, like many others in what came to be called post-punk, explored new avenues of where to take the music next. They clearly embraced what new technology they could get access to, and whilst never completely ditching guitars, they explored what effects they could apply to traditional instruments.

The exhibition details both their passages from scratchy DIY experimentation as ‘space architects/technicians’, yet also reveals a great deal about the curator/narrator, i.e. you with the ephemera telling a parallel story - in particular Rental’s Robin Reliant membership card - but also you as curator/narrator and fan as archivist?

There is the public story told through the medium of the music press and fanzines etc, but having the ability to spend time with Thomas, and Robert’s family, over a number of years, the personal and private stories also come into play. It’s a fine line to tread, earning the trust that you will, as accurately as possible, do justice to those involved. Obviously we are also dealing with a tragic story here, with Robert’s early death, and it's important to be sensitive to his memory. Yet without including an element of discussing personal characteristics, the story doesn’t make sense.

A recurring theme throughout is the absolute power (and whims) of the music press, particularly their capacity in making and/or breaking acts and highlight the speed in which tomorrow’s people can easily become yesterday’s unpersons (critically, anyway). What are your thoughts on this?

That is true to some extent, but for me a probably stronger theme is that of d-i-y culture, of creating and developing despite the music press. Creating alternative networks and communication channels, sharing equipment, collaborating, new ways of distribution and promotion etc. I don’t get the impression that either Thomas or Robert had much time for the music press. Thomas, perhaps, because of his longer career, seems to play the music press game from time to time, but I suspect that he would say that was for his own ends. Both were quite obstinate about any involvement with the music industry was on their terms regardless of the impact that would have on any success they might have.

Thomas Leer’s dissonantly polished chart assaults embody Paul Morley’s ‘New Pop’ manifesto wherein he envisioned ‘pop’ as a vehicle for the transmission of information, inspiration and ideation. How successful this was is open to interpretation, what are your thoughts?

I can’t say I know that much about Paul Morley’s manifesto, to be honest, but clearly by signing to ZTT there would have been an expectation that its strong aesthetic would be part of any releases. I guess you’d have to ask him!

One thing I do know is that Thomas hated being a frontman. He’d done this with various bands in the 1960s, but had refused to play live since 1977. With Claudia as the focus, Thomas was able to step into the background and influence the music from behind.

The period we now know as ‘post-punk’ was such a fertile and future-driven sound, with Scotland in particular a relentless hive of activity. Why do you think Scotland managed to produce so many memorable and progressive artists, groups, music?

I’m not sure that Thomas and Robert would have seen themselves as having any affinity with Scottish artists of the time. They were really only active in London from the mid 1970s onwards. Their peers were probably more likely to come from Manchester or Sheffield than Glasgow or Edinburgh. Actually, on a personal level, I’m surprised the post-industrial heartland of Scotland’s central belt didn’t produce more electronic/industrial artists. I’m not sure that Scotland was any more productive in terms of creativity than any of the other major urban centres around the UK.

The duo’s solitary album itself, ‘The Bridge’, is getting reissued for first time, why do you think/know that is?

Well, to be strictly accurate, it was reissued on CD in 1992, so this is its second reissue, but certainly the first on vinyl. I guess no one was pushing for it to happen, the Grey Area imprint at Mute has been dormant for some years until recently, and sorting out the rights has taken some time.

Exhibition has been held in Scotland in 2018, now at the HH, why there (HH) and where to next?

The Horse Hospital, with its focus on alternative pop culture, was always my first thought for a venue in London.  We had discussions at the end of 2019, but the Horse Hospital was in a financial crisis and possibly going to close by Christmas, and then three months later, Covid hit, so it has only been since mid-2021 that the possibility of it happening was on the cards.

To be honest, only Greenock (where they grew up) and London (where they worked) really make sense for this exhibition. The aim all along was to put them back on the map, and do them justice, and I think we’ve achieved that. We managed to get lots of back catalogue music back into print, and released some stunning unreleased material through collaboration with a number of labels, so I think this is probably the end of the road for this project (barring an offer from Berlin or somewhere!).

Besides, there are lots of other underdogs’ stories out there still to be told!

From the Port to the Bridge runs until Thursday 10^th February.

Related links

• Find out more about the exhibition
• Explore curator Simon Dell's Encyclopaedia Electronica
• Listen to Thomas Leer's music
• Follow Post-Grad Community on Instagram

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