Round-up of Record Reviews
Original position in magazine: pp 15-21
Contents: Magnog, Hovercraft, Soft Machine, Big Stick, Swans, Skullflower, Total, ZGA, Gastr Del Sol, Kletka Red, Subway Sect, Tim Foljahn, Palace Music, Azalia Snail, Fantasyy Factoryy, Hash Jar Tempo, Destroy All Monsters, MX-80M
Magnog
Chicago
USA KRANKY, KRANK 010 CD (1996)
Hovercraft
akathisia
UK BLAST FIRST BFFP 135 CD (1997)
Two recent-ish examples of so-called US SpaceRock, a new strain in the bloodstream, instrumental improvised rock, heavily influenced by Kosmische Rock and Prog, very discursive - ie long-winded. I understand this is linked to a rediscovery in the USA of the value of playing antique and analogue instruments. Magnog I enjoy, despite an overall chill of gloomy fog over this recorded set, the band shelter under a tarpaulin and patiently work their flints until their improvisations catch a fire. The length, and dare it be said, self-indulgence of these recordings to my mind surpasses anything actually put to vinyl during the era to which they pay homage; as yet I’ve not found an original 1970s record as flabby or turgid, but I’d be delighted to be proved wrong. Magnog like the trendy analogue synthesizer sound, which nowadays requires not only that you use such instruments, you proudly advertise it in the credits department. They also favour the good old 12-string acoustic guitar (Dana Shinn), tape delay guitar solos (Phil Drake) and prove themselves capable of an occasional folky lyric. Astounding sleeve art - the invasion of the X-Rays over a spruce tree, and good use of the gatefold format (wasted in the interior, sadly).
Hovercraft (from Seattle USA) are I’m afraid even more discursive, but if there’s a tip of the hat to Pink Floyd (the crinkly guitar scratchings are straight from ‘Astronomy Domine’), this is tempered by a sneering and nihilistic attitude informed by punk rock, Grunge and Seattle post-rock. While they create some interesting enough moments, it wouldn’t have hurt them to employ a little editing somewhere. Did every moment of their improv’d sessions cry out to be issued? At best they can draw you into their circle, like mumbling primitives, and let you share in the ceremony up to a point; the nagging repetition of the limited guitar-driven sound can at times induce a numbness akin to a basic form of mesmerism - like brain surgery performed with a wooden club. At worst, the dingbat snare drum riffs are so basic as to remind you of The Doors on a off-day doing a highly-extended version of ‘The End’. Hovercraft ignore dynamics - while they can struggle from one moment of the improvisation to the next quite convincingly, they lack a decent concept of their overall shape and direction, so we end up with formless chatterings that merely transport us from one side of the sofa to the other. Where (for example) Ash Ra Tempel would proceed from monotony to lift you up to the stars, Hovercraft can only gaze at the Milky Way reflected in their tiny mud puddle. Don’t fall for the superficial packaging - the booklet’s use of old Scientific American photos is verging on a cliche (better stop doing it myself!); and using names like Campbell 2000 and Karl 3.30 merely make them sound silly, not mysterious.
ED PINSENT
Soft Machine
Spaced
USA CUNIEFORM RECORDS, RUNE 90 CD (1996)
An excellent ‘rescued’ item, Spaced was commissioned for a special happening at the Roundhouse in 1969, as part of the (ahem) thriving London Underground scene at that time, which might put it in a league with Conrad Schnitzler’s pieces for art galleries, or perhaps the Pyramid label records which we look at elsewhere. Note that it is not a live recording as such, rather a series of treated tapes to be used as background sounds. Here be the classic line up of Ratledge, Hopper and Wyatt, with added input from Brian Hopper on horns, a winning combo which could do little wrong. Soft Machine are well represented on their studio records, but I wonder if some listeners write them off as a fluffy English Pysche Canterbury scene combo? Spaced shows another vital side to them - dark and aggressive, in places verging on the chaotic, with a real bite and attack behind every minute of it. I hear a similar thing in one of my live bootlegs of the Softs, it’s remarkable what power they summon up with just a trio of instruments. Particularly this must be due to Ratledge’s work with his pedals and keyboard, both hands and feet brought into play in that very physical interlocking with his instrument, demonstrating his virtuoso control over volumes, textures, timing - pure abstract sound battles it out with brutal noise, and lovely melodies played at top speed by his nimble digits. Wyatt is thrashing out an urgent time signature on the high hat, Hopper’s bass just slides in like blobs of black treacle, and Ratledge sometimes simply sketches in the tune when he can. Only one fragment of a tune is familiar to these ears, and that radically reworked in the effortless way Ratledge was always so good at - as though he could play it in his sleep and was almost impatiently dispensing with the melodic component, so he could proceed to the more important substance of improvisation, and the deep interrogation of chords and sounds. The icing on the cake is the lovely post-production interventions - carried out on quite primitive equipment it seems - including liberal use of backwards tapes, a device I can never hear enough of. Also proto-sampling, a track where their recording of ‘I Did it Again’ is crudely spliced in with new material, the rough tape edits creating an exciting abrasive effect. This work was done by Bob Woolford, who has also provided sleevenotes on how he made these loops. ‘Rediscovery’ projects of this kind are more than welcome, as they add another dimension to your understanding of a band infinitely.
ED PINSENT
Big Stick
Pro Drag
USA POW WOW RECORDS PWD 7456 CD (1995)
Last time I dug these two genius freaks - John Gill and Yanna Trance - they were sporting childish skin tattoos and gothic masks with their big hair on the cover of a fine Blast First package that yoked Drag Racing with Crack Attack. Those were two excellent, extremely idiosyncratic records of the 1980s and should be used as the starting point for a musical argument about, eg, the potential uses of sampling and editing by any thinking person. Now listen to what they’re up to! A candy coloured engine cover wraps the joyous din that is Pro Drag, where they still play like four year-olds with drum machines and guitars cranked up to unfeasible volumes and strummed in basic Link Wray style; the whole disc overlapping with all kinds of twisted ideas. Gone are the heart-stopping jump edits of the vocal lines, but in their place is a cast of grotesques delineated with uncanny talent by our ingenious duo of performance artists - like a viciously satirical radio play set to music. Among the individuals here is a Southern Gospel preacher on ‘Racoon River’, the epitome of the Robert Mitchum preacherman in Night of the Hunter reflected in a distorting mirror. On ‘Panther’ a warped Jane Fonda workout motivator breathlessly wallows in her power over men - ‘You’re lucky to have sex with me!’ No less demented is the scenario of Girls on the Toilet, glossy soft porn images warped into a nightmarish setting. Having made a performance art comparison, I would now like to retract it - Karen Finley or Anne Magnusson are far too wordy and clever in comparison to the lyrical directness of Big Stick, their economy of means, their throwaway flippancy, their sheer sleaze…all attitude-rich qualities to be admired. For the booklet, put your sunglasses on and scope the tinted photograph of the pair, brilliantly posed / composed and juxtaposed with a Wheel of Fortune - it’s a masterpiece of ironic kitschy trash, and almost sums up the key to this project. They’ve got style! - pouring off them like great gobs of maple syrup off a stack of hot pancakes. Dig in!
ED PINSENT
Swans
Soundtracks for the Blind
USA YOUNG GOD RECORDS YG01 (ALP 59) CD (1996)
Monumental! This record’s a living sculpture in bronze about 200 feet across, an epic sprawl over two long discs (identified simply as Silver CD and Copper CD). Clearly not every single second of this meisterwerk radiates the same level of intensity - some songs lapse quickly into Wagnerian pomp and dreariness - but there are passages which are indelible and lasting. The best pieces for me are those which eschew traditional linear song development, and aim simply for the manifestation of a ghostly noise - perhaps fashioned from loops or abstract drones, rich in textures and evoking spectacular Byzantine designs. Layers of spectral sounds reveal themselves gradually, every fine detail rendered with a stern conviction, like the roof bosses of a cathedral. ‘Surrogate Drone’ draws you in for what seems like hours, only to end with a sharp cut-off making the music continue inside your head. Such moments can generate such unearthly feelings that it’s almost a disappointment when they return to the song format, the familiar dirge-like grumblings of Gira or the harsh monosyllabic barkings of Jarboe. Dotted throughout this infinite landscape are selected tape samplings which could be the ramblings of a menacing loon or the sufferings of a hospital patient; one of them is Gira’s father describing the aftermath of his eye operation. Instrumental titles also evoke our sympathy and dread in equal amounts - ‘How They Suffer’. But there are no longer any shock-tactics or deliberate attempts to repulse the listener with Swans; all that’s left is their colossal weariness with the inexplicable miseries of the world, and the futile search for compassion and warmth in the glacial environment of the late 20th century. The clouds and bone-orchard sleeve art offers little comfort. ‘The Final Sac’, almost a Frank Sinatra showbiz farewell song reminds you this is Swans final recording; and perhaps Gira’s reply to those who ask ‘Why are you stopping’, is simply ‘I was a Prisoner in your skull’! Give these artists their tribute and prepare for a cathartic 140 minutes.
ED PINSENT
Skullflower
This is Skullflower
USA VHF#23 CD
Total
The Starlit Mire I-IV
UK EP
Splendid recordings of juicy, messy improvised noise from these Cumbria based fellows. The Starlit Mire EP is a real gem, four live tracks edited from longer improvs, a simple duo of John Godbert blowing his eerie horns over some calm plateaux of plangent guitar feedback from partner Matthew Bower. The CD includes a full-on rockish combo with some interesting dissonant piano lines. Only the drummer Stuart Dennison occasionally stands out as being a little too regular on the pulse in the otherwise unpredictable melange; I’d say they need more of a Sunny Murray approach to do them justice. Richard Youngs, a true joker in the pack of the UK’s improv - alternative - weirdo scene, joins them for one track. Why aren’t Skullflower - who seem to have been around for a number of years now - more visible? Well, there’s so much compartmentalising in this country, I guess they’re considered not ‘pure’ enough in some way to count as part of the establishment improvising scene (which is also unfortunately rather Londoncentric in some ways). On the other hand if they show up at rock venues and do what they do, the reaction from your average drunken student wouldn’t be too hard to guess. Apparently Skullflower count it a success if they can get to the end of a gig without being asked to stop! Well, not by this listener who could cheerfully listen to such music till the wheat is eaten. Starlit Mire is part of their Rural Electronification Programme, which must be welcome news to farmers in the Cumbria area. It features a beautiful sleeve drawing reminiscent of the work of illustrator John Buckland-Wright.
ED PINSENT
ZGA
Sub Luna Morrior
UK ReR ZGA 3 CD (1995)
Great music, but the colour paintings reproduced in the booklet are one of the best features of this package - treat your eyeballs to a mutant strain of peasant folk art. It’s all peacocks, stars, fish, dogs, suns and trees, rendered in simple Marc Chagall / Henri Matisse mode with bright poster paint colours. Perhaps this music - recorded in St Petersburg by the trio of Latvian eccentrics Nick Sudrich, Scarlett and Michael Jedenick - is also a mutant strain of eastern European folk. You can detect a whiff of the vodka-and-peppercorns in their balalaika imitations and the danceable clarinet melodies. Principally however these jolly tunes are rendered via the medium of the bash. A challenge with using so many percussion instruments as a team, is working to avoid the 4/4 trap, striving not to lapse into automatic rhythms. This is something The Residents are guilty of in their later period (eg Mark of the Mole). However, ZGA deploy very unusual home-made percussion devices, and come close to being a toy version of the Gate 5 Ensemble; that is when they’re not sharing with us their wonderful sound-memories of the scissor factories back in the old country. Although they can plod in places, ZGA have a sense of playfulness as evinced by their use of toys - Eugene Chadbourne would approve, I suspect - and nursery rhyme-like lyrics, such as on the track ‘Hedgehog in the Pocket’ which lopes along like a one-legged organ grinder with an entire string of monkeys in tow. Compare with the almost totally abstract ‘Right Side of the Left’, where the band attempt to do their laundry in a clapped-out cast iron washing machine only to find the water pump has run dry. This one deserves your attention. They debuted on CD in 1991, thanks to the good efforts of Chris Cutler.
ED PINSENT
Gastr Del Sol
Upgrade and Afterlife
USA DRAG CITY DC90 CD (1996)
Wonderful stuff this - though it wasn’t an immediate grabber, I now deem it a highly crafted recording exhibiting consummate studio skill, very listenable, and a pleasingly deft combination of the story (songs) with the abstract (instrumentals). Jim O’Rourke is one half of this duo, which is why I decided to investigate - on the strength of his work with Faust. People can sometimes spout nonsense about ‘imaginary movie soundtracks’. More apposite to a record like this is the phrase ‘Movie for your Ears’, coined by Frank Zappa for his 1969 LP Hot Rats. Zappa’s proposal for making records this way should have been followed by more musicians, I feel. (Notwithstanding the ‘Cinema of the Ear’ series of music concrete minidiscs issued by MetamKine in France; O’Rourke did one called Rules of Reduction, MKCD 009.) This Gastr record seems to having a shot at it. More than simply suggesting suitable cinematic images to accompany itself, it (like Hot Rats) pays close attention to light and shade, tonal colour balance, textures, and a highly developed feel for the linear progression of the whole recording - it’s edited and ordered like a cinematic event, not just a loose affiliation of episodes (which isn’t to say it’s like a 1970s concept album in any way!). This is helped by the brilliant move of playing a John Fahey composition as the final track, played with loving care by O’Rourke and overlaid with lusciously managed sounds including the great Tony Conrad playing a slightly more approachable version of his minimal violin drones. Elsewhere the bizarre fragmentary songs delivered with a hesitant breathy vocal over a close-miked acoustic classical guitar evoke The Red Krayola. And the first track starts with a tasty chandelier-shattering organ chord, which edits into a sample of that brilliant melancholy trumpet solo from The Incredible Shrinking Man. This CD is undeniably precious and fragile, but so what?
ED PINSENT
Kletka Red
Hijacking
USA TZADIK TZ 7111 CD
This arrived from Amsterdam to convince me there’s still a healthy scene for performers of improv and free music on the European circuit - why for the price of an open rail ticket you could see the great Han Bennink perform every night! Here, Leonid Soybelman is joined by Andy Ex on 2nd guitar and they tear through a suite of souped-up traditional Jewish dance and folk music on electric guitars and drums. All part of John Zorn’s bid to reclaim Jewish heritage and rekindle it for the modern age, don’t you know. Zorn himself isn’t personally involved here, something of a plus for this listener who found Spy Vs Spy (Ornette Coleman melodies rethought as Hardcore Metal) a case of overegging the pudding. Instead we have a lively buncha ditties sounding like The Magic Band on amphetamines, guaranteed to make every night a stomping celebration in your home - don’t blame me if you get glass slivers in your feet.
ED PINSENT
Subway Sect
We Oppose all Rock & Roll
UK OVERGROUND OVER 35CD
The class of ‘76 somehow lost its flavour on the bedpost. Twenty years on the mewling spurts of The Clash, Pistols and the rest defy any attempts at re-kindling by ear. It’s not the creaking weight of spiky-top history clogging up the bookshops, or even the inevitable tawdry reunions. Instead the unsentimental glare of hindsight reveals the ‘76 moment more as a storm in an entertainment teacup than a revolution. Punk’s tired orthodoxy of ‘outrage’ was ultimately limiting, with nowhere to go but louder, faster and shorter. As for the polemic, to make a claim today for rock-at-the-barricades revisionism would be as foolish as strutting round Safeway’s in the guerrilla-combat threads Joe Strummer once wore.
Vic Godard’s Subway Sect were there at the start but never joined the foot-thru-the-TV first division. The ripped’n'torn scenesters who viewed The Sect at the 100 Club’s seminal Punk Festival were maybe confused by their perverse school-pullover non-image. Not for Vic and the boys the marketable punk pantomime of The Damned or Siouxsie Sue’s Weimar glam-shockery. Note their leader’s surname was (possibly) filched from a French film auteur rather than a skin disease or brand of noxious glue. If Subway Sect’s approach was more oblique, artpunk maybe, then neither can they be linked with the po-faced minimalism of Wire. It’s the group’s impossible to pin down singularity which makes this compilation so chock full of enduring thrills and twists of style.
Certainly the first four cuts could come from no other period or place than the uptight, grimy mire of the capital in ‘76. But amidst the visceral cheap-speed squall are strands of John Cale one-note piano, ‘65 Beat Group harmonica and enticing interludes of crashing atonality. The compressed screech of ‘Nobody’s Scared’ and ‘Don’t Split it’ are worth prominent shelf space alone, but the more crafted ‘Ambition’ soon follows. The Godard persona unfolds here - a barrow-boy nihilist spitting impenetrable syntax (’Blind Alleyways allay the jewels’) via a weasel throat-grafting of Marc Bolan and Peter Perrett. A Peel session cover of The Velvets’ ‘Head Held High’ sets the tone for their maturing sound, wry, cool and uptempo with Lou Reed transplanted to the shabby, crumbling streets of King’s Cross. ‘Stool Pigeon’ careers joyously and the cheeky Jean Genie swagger of ‘Watching the Devil’ is fine but watch out, the oncoming spectre of 80s pop mars ‘Stop that Girl’ with its horrible mellifluous bass and suave accordion. Gladly the retrospective bows out before Vic went totally cocktail (another typically perverse act) and so stands as an 80% perfect testament to an undervalued group. Pigeon-holing rock historians take note!
JOHN BAGNALL
Tim Foljahn
Four Seasons
USA OLD GOLD CASSETTE
A compelling C90’s worth of home-made guitar drones, very much in the Velvets tradition, but none the worse for that. Simply achieved through lots of drone and digital delay, and sounds like it could have been done in one take. Sometimes an exercise like this can result in a tapeload of unlistenable sludge, but Tim pulls it off with the help of simple melodic frameworks; he leaves in the rough edges that give it human expression, nor does he depart from the realms of the perfect note once having locked in on it. Dronework can be like landscape painting; playing this, you can almost breathe the grimy Brooklyn atmosphere recreated before you, gritty skies and belching chimneys. A cheerful package that sends up Wyndham Hill New Age records.
ED PINSENT
From Old Gold Records, PO Box 8776, Atlanta, GA 30306, USA
Palace Music
Arise Therefore
UK DOMINO WIG CD 24 (1996)
From the Will Oldham and Steve Albini team that gave us the wonderful Palace Brothers There is No-One what will take care of You, and many other records besides. I guess I value Oldham’s achievements as a writer first - and not necessarily a songwriter, I leave it to the experts to judge if these are great songs or not - they are certainly electrifying stories. The style of discourse - beyond ’spare’ or ‘minimal’, puts me in mind of fave US writers Raymond Carver (naturally) and Michael Ondaatje’s Billy the Kid - perhaps to a certain extent James Ellroy even. I mean the relentless accumulation of unpleasant detail, accurate and fatal, delivered with steely precision like an icicle in the ear. As to the content of these dark tales, I remain largely baffled and intrigued at this stage, despite the inclusion of a complete lyric book. What dark areas of psychological warfare he is probing. Uncomfortable observations, pinpointing weaknesses in his characters’ situations with prescient accuracy. The second track hints at a horrifying story of primitive backwoods magic, performed with unthinking cruelty and certainty by rural inbred monsters way beyond Deliverance. Stephen King could only hope to delineate his material with such economy; Oldham gives us the story (as always) in carefully chosen broken images.
We dig Palace Music 100% but can see how some listeners might fall at the first post. To begin with, the singing is sometimes just a notch above a recitative, almost a poetry reading, with occasional concessions to repeating a note or two in the ‘melody’. And the sound of the record is brutally spartan, even those who regularly listen to bootleg demos of their fave bands will have a tough time with this record. A lazy listener would deem it of the ‘lo-fi’ school. It might sound careless and sketchy, the voice at times barely more than an obscure whimper, struggling over a strumming electric guitar rhythm, in which murky mix the drum machine intrudes like an unwanted knock at the door or rattling of the shutters in a storm; and the slide guitar so thoughtlessly dropped in, it dances like a clumsy 8-foot hillbilly drunk on moonshine. Truly, Palace Music come closest of any rock combo to achieving the stark, ascetic quality of, say, early Country Music or rural Blues records. Traces of emotion in the delivery have been leeched away - none of your James Brown histrionics here thank you - which isn’t to say these songs are unemotional, but the power is transferred quietly and with assurance.
ED PINSENT
Azalia Snail
Escape Maker
Garden of Delights Privately pressed LP
With help of the Portastudio Azalia Snail plays multi-tracked guitar lines and sings distorted vocals, with all the rough edges and ‘mistakes’ of overlapping takes kept in the final product. (Disc cutters apparently refused to handle it due to the harsh edits and ‘wrong’ signal to noise ratio - a factor common to The Residents’ records). This take-it-as-it-comes aesthetic lends the record a strange charm. Basic modal chord structures remind one of how eg The Sun Dial or Rain Parade have shown what is possible with psychedelia, it can be highly effective when slowed to a snail’s pace (how fitting!). Just occasionally the repetition can become a nagging nuisance which doesn’t really progress - but more often than not it plugs into that universal need for a good looping drone, and delivers a useful contribution. The fact that it is a girl playing cannot be overlooked entirely, it’s a real plus factor, since she never lapses into familiar ego-driven guitar solo postures as boy guitar hero amateurs can sometimes do. Likewise proving you can do solo songs without coming too close to Cocteau Twins bedsit-land, although sometimes the lyrics start off somewhere in the over-personal diary entry mode, each song finishes in another more intense and powerful dimension. I’m also delighted to see that ‘home-made’ records are still an option in these days of strident professional commercialism.
ED PINSENT
Fantasyy Factoryy
Tales to Tell
GERMANY Ohrwaschl OWR 09 CD (1997)
Arrgh, this looked ghastly at first sight of its hippy colour-spiral sleeve! At least it doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is, a retro treat for the legions of Prog-Rock diehards on this dark continent. Even the press release does all the nostalgic namechecking for you (Floyd, Tull et al). Although little more than an ego-trip for Englishman abroad Alan Tepper, this CD is surprisingly listenable when he shuts his mouth (he’s an abominable singer) and plays the guitar, and when he cuts loose on the frets he’s every bit as good as The Bevis Frond.
ED PINSENT
Hash Jar Tempo
Well Oiled
USA DRUNKEN FISH RECORDS DFR-24 (1997)
Certainly NOT the meeting of great minds this purports to be - US introverts Bardo Pond jamming good with visiting NZ axeman Roy Montgomery - this CD nonetheless delivers about 40-50% playable material. The opening cut is sloppy boneless psych, from a distance resembling the ghost of Link Wray played at quarter-speed, yet with a naggingly insistent weight to it; the fourth track comes closer to the near-chaotic incoherence and lock-groove droning which I demand, despite the silly drummer’s efforts to turn it into ‘Careful with that Axe Eugene’, thankfully that sidesman is relegated to tea-boy status in the mix. The remaining cuts are either too melodic, or too ambient. Montgomery is not a man I trust yet, in interviews he comes over as a glib opportunist - but I’m prejudiced agin Kiwis anyhow!
ED PINSENT
Destroy All Monsters
Silver Wedding Anniversary
USA SYMPATHY FOR THE RECORD INDUSTRY SFTRI 444 CD
Rock reunions are usually events to be approached with caution as, nine times out of ten, the magic that caused the original thrill fails to show up on-stage. The Velvet Underground reformation was one classic example of this, where a hallowed band with cult status of near supernatural dimensions were dwarfed by a bad venue (Wembley Arena), bad sound and Lou Reed’s bad attitude which forced him to rework the simplicity of a song like ‘Some Kinda Love’ and transform it into MTV styled pop mediocrity. Thankfully this kind of behaviour was absent at Destroy All Monsters’s ‘95 Silver Wedding Anniversary bash, a trio of gigs which took place in Detroit and California last summer featuring the original fine arts line up of Mike Kelley, Cary Loren, Jim Shaw and Niagara, together with a horde of various guest musicians and assorted noise makers. DAM may not have been as popular as The VU were in their heyday, but this Detroit improvisation unit’s reputation was just as legendary amongst those who had stumbled down the slippery stairs of the band’s psychedelic basement where they rehearsed and recorded their outsider version of rock’n'roll. Destroy All Monsters poured the solar spirit of Sun Ra and the rabid sonic assault of The Stooges into the same cracked and dented electric music blender and whipped up a cocktail that was both toxic and intoxicating. Psychedelic improvisation for the mind and body was illuminated by a bad trip exhibition of lava lamp shadow puppetry that sent a shudder of disbelief and distrust down the spine of audiences whose musical taste was either brown rice or prime rib. Thus a version of Roy Orbison’s ‘In Dreams’ is as much a tribute to film director David Lynch as to the Big O, a theme that expands as their set trawls through uncharted oceans of sound. Occasionally they drop anchor to surrealistically salute such popular song icons as Roberta Flack, Jon Anderson and (subliminally) Kiss, but then the band return to the dark, deep and dangerous swell of freeform and freak out.
This sound souvenir of the Monsters’s reunion tour acts as a neat addendum to their impressive three CD boxed history which came out a couple of years ago, Here the band may be older, wiser and (especially in Mike Kelley’s case) wealthier, but the experiences they shared together and the rich seam of experimentation they discovered through each other remains untarnished by time.
EDWIN POUNCEY
MX-80
Das Love Boat: Instrumentals 1975 - 1990
US a&r/ENT CD027 [1990]
MX-80 Sound have been dropping clues about their secret second lives as undercover agents since the beginning of their career: the photos on the sleeve of Hard Attack caught them in the middle of a dangerous musical experiment gone wrong, Out of the Tunnel showed their satellite dish logo sending coded signals to Thunderbird 5 just prior to nuclear meltdown, and snippets of themes from shows like Mission: Impossible would often creep into their otherwise hard-edged brand of rock’n'roll (clearly they see industrial espionage as light relief from their musical activities). This CD, a compilation of instrumentals spanning 15 years of their career, finally blows the whistle. Without the distraction of Rich Stim’s great dry vocals, the influence of music from classic American movies and TV shows is plain to hear, not just in the covers like ‘Theme from Batman’, but shot throughout their originals. Not only do MX-80 spy behind the Iron Curtain, they direct traffic in downtown Chicago, nip across to Gotham City whenever the Bat-signal is activated and spend their spare time hot on the heels of a serial killer or two. And no-one plays guitar like the guys from MX-80 - they switch fluidly between edgy power chords and surf-guitar finger-picking in a way that’s nigh-on impossible to replicate by other hands (just try it, guitar-playing readers!) and this technique almost certainly helps shape their peculiar songs. In the more recent material they’ve widened their range to include slow numbers, making strong use of a chorus pedal, the kind of effect that The Cure lean upon in lieu of a good song - in MX-80’s hands however it’s just another item in their Bat Utility Belt.
HARLEY RICHARDSON