Portion Control join Artoffact and release ‘SEED EP3.1’
Portion Control
Portion Control, the long-running UK electronic and industrial group from London, have signed a new record deal with Canadian label Artoffact Records and released the remastered, expanded EP “SEED EP3.1“. The EP reworks and extends the digital-only “SEED EP3” material first issued in March 2021.
Artoffact will also be reissuing the group’s extensive back catalogue, bringing early and later-era releases back into print.
“SEED EP3.1” appears as a 16-track digital release, running just over 63 minutes. It has been newly mastered by Paul Lavigne at Kontrast Mastering and adds three tracks to the original 13-track “SEED EP3” sequence, including the new song and video track “Possessed”.
You can check the full tracklist below.
About Portion Control
Portion Control formed in South London in 1979 with an initial line-up of Dean Piavani, John Whybrew and Ian Sharp. They emerged from the post-punk period with a self-described “electropunk” approach, using early drum machines, samplers and affordable analogue synths.
The group’s first releases were cassette-only offerings such as “A Fair Portion”, “Gaining Momentum” and “Private Illusions No 1”, followed by the debut vinyl album “I Staggered Mentally” in 1982 on In Phaze Records. That record, together with subsequent 12-inch releases like “Raise the Pulse”, “Rough Justice” and “Go-Talk”, placed them within the emerging industrial and EBM underground.
They followed with the mini-LP “Hit the Pulse” (1983) and the second full-length “Step Forward” (1984), which coincided with support slots for Depeche Mode. Later 1980s releases such as “Psycho-Bod Saves the World” and live albums documented their move towards a harder, dancefloor-oriented sound before they halted activity near the end of the decade.
After the original run, Piavani and Whybrew continued in the related project Solar Enemy before reviving Portion Control in the early 2000s. The reactivated group released “Wellcome” (2004), “Dissolve” (2004), “Filthy White Guy” (2006), “Onion Jack IV” (2007), “Slug” (2008), “Violently Alive” (2010) and “Pure Form” (2012).
After an eight-year gap in long-form releases, the group returned in 2020 with “Head Buried: 54 Pure Electronics”, issued first as a download and then as a limited, numbered CD on Progress Productions, collecting twelve tracks of new material. That same year they began the “SEED” cycle: “SEED EP1” appeared on 18 September 2020 as a four-track digital EP (“Telekinesis.V2”, “Crystal”, “White Rose”, “Martial”), while “SEED EP2” followed in December 2020 with five tracks (“Revealation”, “Gloat”, “Seek”, “Realm”, “Devour”).
In 2021 Portion Control completed the trilogy with “SEED EP3”, released digitally on 5 March 2021 and built around a set of short-range tracks plus the 19-minute longform piece “Chain”. The same year Progress Productions issued the 2CD set “Seed Compiled”, which gathers all material from “SEED EP1”, “SEED EP2” and “SEED EP3” in one physical edition, limited to 700 copies.
In 2022 the band released “Dissolve Plus” on VUZ Records, a CD compilation presenting hard-to-find tracks recorded between their 2004 comeback and the 2010 “Violently Alive” era.
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