Twelve 88 Cartel were formed at Portsmouth College of Art and Design in 1984 and played their first gig at Portsmouth Polytechnic a year later. The line up was IG (Simon Heartfield): Synths, Programming, Bass - Chiaro (Tim Martin) Guitars - Floyd (Ed Jobling) Vocals and Cornet.

The band performed live many times alongside Cranes and also had support slots with The Redskins, Slab amongst others.

Tolerate, a track from "Tension Crush EP" received plays on Mark Radcliffe's Radio One show and on the John Peel's show where he revealed he"always though Twelve 88 Cartel was a somewhat cumbersome name for a band" the video for Bell Song from the same EP also had plays on Paul King's 100 Minutes show on MTV.

In 2015 I was contacted by the label Domestica who are based in Barcelona. They specialise in high quality vinyl re-issues of 80s and 90s electronic music.

The track Flags On A Hill from the "We Encourage Resistance" album was included in their Domestic Landscape Volume 2 compilation which received airplay from Silent Servant on his NTS radio show. Considering it was re-mastered from a cassette copy of the original master, they did a great job - the artwork is especially good. We're still hoping the whole album will be released at some point.

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