Originally issued on cassette in limited runs between 1989 and 1990, At That Time is a long-overdue excavation of Nostalgie Éternelle – one of the most quietly crucial names in the European DIY underground. The compilation brings together tracks from three early self-released tapes – Damned Forever Those Who Listen To This Tape (split with Due), Art Is The Tool (split with From Nursery to Misery), and Virtual Reality (split with PN 4632402) – issued on the band’s own One Last Dream label and circulated through Europe’s mail-based cassette network.

Formed in the small northern town of Leer in 1986, Stefan Heinze (aka Inox Kapell) and Dieter Mauson (later of Delta-Sleep-Inducing Peptide) worked with what was at hand – battered drum machines, cassette decks, synths, tape loops, found sounds – and pushed it into strange, low-lit zones between minimal synth, ambient-industrial, and new wave abstraction. Their sound was shaped as much by environment as influence: the clang of metal from a nearby workshop, Dutch radio static, local zines, field recordings in tunnels, and the distant pull of DAF, The Ex, Cluster and Palais Schaumburg. They didn’t chase scenes – they stayed locked in their own language, quietly radiating outward.

These recordings land somewhere between NDW, DIY industrial, coldwave and post-punk decay – think early Portion Control, Legendary Pink Dots, Das Ding, P16.D4, or the more atmospheric zones of Nocturnal Emissions. Nostalgie Éternelle remain one of the great cult acts of the era, their output shaped by instinct and sustained by exchange. This LP captures them in full motion: abstract, skeletal, emotive, and locked into a sound entirely their own. Recently restored and remastered from the original tapes, this release marks the first time this material has appeared on vinyl, providing a vital compilation for those tracing the margins of the European tape underground.