If you’ve had a surfeit of all these Ken Nordine reissues, Itchy Spots (THE TAPE WORM TTW#158) may have the solution for your dilemma. This duo have a refreshing new and minimalist approach to the whole idea of spoken-word or poetry with percussion thing. James Main and Ansgar Wilken are those responsible, Main uses his voice and Wilken drums or scrapes metal objects to produce ringing tones that jangle the teeth. Main comes to us from Wild Daughter who made a few singles and one album for Sig’il records, never heard them, may be some form of experimental rock music.
Itchy Spots is very odd. The verbiage comes to us in fits and starts, Main drip-feeding us information, enigmatic statements, sometimes unexpected or alarming violent images. Things going slightly wrong, or unexplained situations. Not love songs or stories. Can’t say there’s any attempts at unusual rhythms or syncopation from him or the drummer, indeed their whole act seems to be about as flat and plain-spoken as they can get away with, bled of emotion. Repetitions of certain key phrases may indicate a post-rock post-punk ethos of some sort, like replaying the entire catalogue of Postcard Records without a single guitar. The repetitions somehow drain the sting from a violent image, rendering it banal, meaningless.
In places, this reminds me of the recits put in the mouth of Darren Harris by Graham Lambkin when The Shadow Ring walked the earth, a unique English band/project that strove hard to get a direct delivery in the voice, to communicate the information in a very factual straight-ahead manner, untainted by mannerisms, tics, or acrobatics. Itchy Spots might not reach those Saturnine heights, but many of the punches land as straight and true as the coup de chin on the cover drawn by Matthew Pagett. From 2 May 2023.