This is the rumoured, long 'lost' Lethal Poor track.
After the Lethal Poor days, Phil Winter persisted with music and, by 2020. had carved out a successful and critically acclaimed career playing bass, programming and DJing for the bands Tunng, Wrangler (with Stephen Mallander from Cabaret Voltaire) and Creep Show (featuring John Grant).
After their 1985 release 'Trancefloor' (distributed via Rough Trade) with Dave Musker (Television Personalities and The Jasmine Minks), the band drifted a bit..
'Breadline' has a very sparse sound, still keeping the avant-funk feel, but notable for the absence of Steve's trademark guitar noise and Dave Musker's space-psych synth.
In 2020, neither Steve or Phil can recall if this was intended to be the final mix, but it seems likely that it was.
They'd both been listening to music such as The Pop Group, Mark Stewart and The Mafia, Adrian Sherwood and Cabaret Voltaire (one of whose key members Phil would be working with, by 2020).
Steve's move away from crooned baritone to whispered, FX-driven vocals seem to reflect this. As does the dub-inspired constantly changing drum sounds and echos (delivered by an original tape-based Roland RE-201 Space Echo).
It is notable that Steve's lyric writing had, at this point, veered away from his usual abstraction, symbolism and introversion. Instead, 'Breadline' is very much about gritty realism and 80s' disaffection.
Overall, it seems to mark a concious attempt to evade the 'Goth' or 'Goth Funk' tag that the band had attracted with 'Trancefloor'. Steve was probably more comfortable with this label, but Phil and Dave Musker were pulled towards other influences and audiences.
It was the last recording that Lethal Poor ever made.
Phil and Steve had worked together for several years, from the early days of the band Java Noise (also available on this Bandcamp account) through the changing faces of Lethal Poor. This was where it came to a natural end.