Ellen Foley - Spirit of St Louis and Poly Styrene - Translucence

I rarely make blind buys but both these albums fall into that category. I knew Ellen Foley's Spirit of St Louis was considered like a spin-off Clash album, and I was also familiar with X-Ray Spex's Germ-Free Adolescents, so I suppose they weren't entirely blind. Both are pretty good albums but not superb enough to make me feel more adventurous about not trying before buying.

Ellen Foley was dating Clash guitarist Mick Jones, which apparently also meant not only would Mick produce the album but he'd get some of his bandmates to play on the album and even write a few songs for it, too. Any gaps left by the Clash were filled in by members of Ian Dury's band the Blockheads, so there's pretty good pedigree here. But Ellen's singing isn't too grand and these songs end up sounding like Sandinista! B-sides (if you can imagine what B-sides of a triple album would sound like). So even though Sandinista! is probably my favorite album, the association doesn't quite help boost Foley's album as much as she probably hoped.



As for Poly Styrene's album Translucence, I expected something like the awesomeness of X-Ray Spex but this is quite different. Instead of X-Ray's bombast, Translucence is muted and often unexpectedly pretty. There's the kind of instrumentation (mainly the use of horns) that I associate with Sandinista!-era punk copping Lovers' Rock, so that's all good. A few songs suffer from the 'repeat the title way too often' curse but otherwise this is an interesting enough album.

Psychic TV - Force the Hand of Chance

OK, so this is instructive. Psychic TV's Force the Hand of Chance was a blind download. I knew nothing about this other than it was suggested in a thread I made about 'song cycle' albums. This, by the way, explains how I come across about 5 percent of the albums I try.

Van Dyke Parks' album Song Cycle is undoubtedly a top-10 album for me. Going by the definition I found on Wikipedia:

A song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity. As a rule, all of the songs are by the same composer and often use words from the same poet or lyricist. Unification can be achieved by a narrative or a persona common to the songs, or even, as in Schumann's second Liederkreis, by the atmospheric setting of the forest. The unity of the cycle is often underlined by musical means, famously in the return in the last song of the opening music in Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte.

The term originated to describe cycles of art songs (often known by the German term "Lieder") in classical music, and has been extended to apply to popular music.

In that case, some of my favorite albums would be considered song cycles: The Clash's Sandinista, Todd Rundgren's A Wizard, A True Star, and perhaps Allen Toussaint's Southern Nights. (VDP's album, ironically, doesn't really fit the definition.)

I listened to this on repeat today, perhaps four or five times all the way through. I rarely do that with a new album, so this is what qualifies as excitement for me. I've been intrigued to research this album that I've never heard of before, but before I do that, I wanted to try something.

This is my guess: I'm thinking this album is from the UK and released in the span of 1988-1993. Influences include Television Personalities, Public Image Ltd., This Heat, and Bill Holt's Dreamies. I'm betting this was the band's only album. The genre is avant-garde post-punk, although it's a bit later than most post-punk albums.

So now I'll actually research it and see how close I got.



Update: Oh bruddah. I was right about the UK post-punk bit, so I should've known it was even earlier than I guessed. This was released in 1982, after Genesis P-Orridge was out of Throbbing Gristle (a band whom, despite their appearance on several post-punk compilations, I've never been able to get into). This album is as old as I am.

I was way off the mark thinking this was a one-off album. Then again, it appears Psychic TV is more of an audio/visual house collaboration among dozens of artists. They described themselves as a video group who does music, rather than a music group which makes music videos. In the mid/late-80s, they set the Guinness record for most releases in one year. Perhaps the rest of their work doesn't sound much like this one. Without digging too deep, it appears the rest of their work is more industrial and exotic before transitioning to house and techno in the 90s.

Something I don't yet understand is that Wikipedia describes this as a single album with 8 tracks. That's certainly what I've been listening to today. Yet AllMusic refers to a double-album with 13 tracks. I guess I've got to find the other five tracks.

Suburban Lawns - Suburban Lawns

Hey, this one's fun! Their sound is a bit like Devo, but with Mad TV's Ms. Swan on vocals. The hype was strong with them early on, with Jonathan Demme directing the video for their debut song "Gidget Goes to Hell," which was premiered on SNL, back in the pre-MTV era. This is their sole album, but the lead singer Su Tissue later came out with a solo album which I acquired a while ago but have not gotten around to checking out.

The best song here is "Janitor" which plays on a mis-heard response to the question "What do you do for a living?"

Ultravox - Systems of Romance

This was Ultravox's last chance, having previously struck out (in my mind) with their debut, which I think is called David Bowie's Players, and their Vienna which, other than the phenomenal title track, didn't seem like the New Wave statement I was searching for.

Systems of Romance was produced by German Conny Plank, who is better associated with Krautrock and early electronica.  Here, Plank grafts Ultravox's guitar lines onto a more synthetic backdrop.  Indeed, take out the vocals and some of these tracks might as well be a Neu! outtakes.  Basically this is a sound that others would put to better use on some of the best albums of the coming decade.  (Gary Numan in particular credits this album as his Polaris for Pleasure Principle; Julian Cope hints that Numan's 'inspiration' was closer to 'duplication'.) 

So Ultravox finally delivered on the kind of album I was looking for.  It's unlikely to displace anything in my list of favorite New Wave albums, but Systems of Romance works as a bridge between two genres I severely enjoy: German motor-tik Krautrock and New Wave/Romantic.

Japan - Adolescent Sex

YES, how did it take so long to come across this. An album from 1978 that straddles funkish punk or glam-rock of the 70s and the synthesized New Romantic movement of the 80s, confidently dipping its essence square on your head. It's as if Nile Rodgers of Chic produced a David Bowie album...except that actually happened in 1983 and it's not as good as Adolescent Sex. Or if Gang of Four sang about sex instead of politics, although Japan does have a song about "Communist China." Maybe I'm not good at analogies. At any rate, this album is swagger incarnate. Witness halfway into "Performance," when those high xylophone notes hit. YES.

Lizzy Mercier Descloux - Mambo Nassau

Out in some alternate universe, where old songs float around in space, there is a bridge that links Talking Heads' "I Zimbra" to the same band's "Born Under Punches." That bridge is formed by nine of the ten songs that make up Mambo Nassau, Lizzy Mercier Descloux's second solo album. Whether or not Descloux's severe yet foreseeable change in approach had anything to do with Talking Heads' own development is not (widely) known. It is known that she had become inspired by the traditional world music released on France's Ocora label, and in 1980 she took drummer Bill Perry down to Nassau to record at Compass Point, where she was aided by a number of people, including keyboard wiz, arranger, and -- ding ding! -- future Talking Heads associate Wally Badarou. The intent was to incorporate African elements into Descloux's existing vibrant mix of arty funk, disco, and film music, and the result was an album that nearly rivals just about any other rhythmically inventive release that came from the rock world at the time. Naturally, Mambo Nassau is even more adventurous than Press Color. The instrumental setup -- with the exception of some of the percussion -- is completely Western and rock-oriented, with Badarou's excitable synthesizer often figuring prominently, whether churning out squiggled melodies or affecting the mood of the song with sensitive accents. The interplay between all of the instruments is positively acrobatic, including off-kilter time-keeping, wriggling guitars, and plump basslines that seem to twist in place. And, of course, there's Descloux's voice at the center of it all, adding even more life to the material with infectious wide-eyed exuberance. Eight of the album's ten songs are originals. Once you hear the cover of Kool & the Gang's "Funky Stuff," you'll realize that no one has ever had as much fun as Descloux had playing that song.

(Lizzy Mercier Descloux - Mambo Nassau)

The Mekons - Rock 'n' Roll

Asking a Mekons fan to select a favorite Mekons record is crazy -- there isn't one; there are many. But, if the situation were such that a choice had to be made, this might be the record. Loud, unruly guitars, pissed-off vocals -- the Mekons have made an unregenerate, unapologetic punk rock record. This is a dark record, one that comfortably negotiates the dark recesses of rock & roll. They rip the messianic aspirations of U2's Bono ("Blow Your Tuneless Trumpet"), sing a tale of substance abuse that is both cautionary and parodic ("Cocaine Lil"), all the while cranking up a sonic tar pit of guitar noise. Bands this far on in a career, generally speaking, don't make records this good. But The Mekons Rock 'n' Roll is one of those cathartic records that only righteously indignant, justifiably pissed-off, grizzled veterans could make. Sadly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, it sold next to nothing and precipitated the band's departure from A&M, who didn't want to release another record like this one.

(The Mekons - Rock 'n' Roll)

Durutti Column - LC

After some abortive collaborations, Reilly hooked up with a regular drummer, talented fellow Mancunian Bruce Mitchell, to create LC, Durutti's second full release. Self-produced by Reilly but bearing the unmistakable hints of his earlier work with Martin Hannett, LC, named after a bit of Italian graffiti, extends Reilly's lovely talents ever further, resulting in a new set of evocative, carefully played and performed excursions on electric guitar. Mitchell's crisp but never overly dominant drumming actually starts the record off via "Sketch for Dawn I," added to by a simply captivating low series of notes from Reilly that builds into a softly triumphant melodic surge, repeating a core motif again and again. His piano playing adds a perfect counterpart, while the final touch are his vocals -- low speak-singing that sounds utterly appropriate in context, mixed low and capturing the emotional flavor at play via delivery rather than lyrical content. As great as Return is, this is perhaps even better, signaling a full flowering of Reilly's talents throughout the album. Mitchell proves him time and again to be in perfect sync with Reilly, adding gentle brio and understated variation to the latter's compositions. Nowhere is this more apparent than on "The Missing Boy," the album's unquestioned highlight. Written in memory of Ian Curtis of Joy Division, on it Mitchell adds quick, sudden hits contrasting against the low, tense atmosphere of the song, while fragile piano notes and Reilly's own regret-tinged, yearning vocals complete the picture. For all the implicit melancholy in Durutti's work, there's a surprising amount of life and energy throughout -- "Jaqueline" is perhaps the standout, with a great central melody surrounded by the expected Reilly elaborations and additions in the breaks. As with the rest of Durutti's mid-'90s reissues, the expanded version of LC appears full to the brim with intriguing bonus tracks galore. The first three capture an abortive collaboration with another Manc drummer, funk performer Donald Johnson. A contribution to a holiday album, "One Christmas for Your Thoughts," finds Reilly back with drum machines, while the very first Reilly/Mitchell collaborations, "Danny" and "Enigma," round out this excellent release.

(Durutti Column - LC)

Life Without Buildings - Any Other City

The numerous comparisons drawn by Life Without Buildings are across-the-board positive. Through the music and sleeve design, they come across as refugees from Rough Trade's class of 1979. Liliput, the Fall, Delta 5, and even the Slits occasionally come to mind. These female-fronted groups have certainly inspired LWB, but this quartet -- simply a drummer, a bassist, a guitarist, and a vocalist -- offers much more than nostalgia and post-punk plundering. They're more of a pop band, which is just fine. The jagged, economical rhythms of late-'70s and early-'80s post-punk are prominent. Robert Johnston's guitar playing is melodic and pleasant, differing from the cut-and-scrape methods of his forebears: think of Talking Heads' or Throwing Muses' first albums. Unlike many post-punk rhythm sections, the bass of Chris Evans and the drums of Will Bradley aren't reggae-influenced. They provide a plaintive, professional surface for firecracker Sue Tompkins to glide atop, throwing in the occasional, non-jutting shift in tempo that also avoids predictability. Tompkins' scat-speak singing is the band's main attraction, a youthful chirp that never pierces. Her repet-pet-petitive repetitive style might be at odds with the ears of some listeners, but it's just as unique as the exuberant vocals featured on records by any of the bands mentioned above. The set is remarkably cohesive, with the differences in each song taking a few listens to sink in. Only six of Any Other City's ten songs will be new to those who purchased the band's trio of 2000-issued singles. The overlap is reworked, usually with slight improvements made over the original. Only "The Leanover" suffers, losing some of the raw thrill of the single version. If there's a gripe to be had with the record, that's it. An ex-excite-exciting, phenom-enom-phenomenal debut.

(Life Without Buildings - Any Other City)

The Residents - Meet the Residents

The Residents are true avant-garde crazies. Their earliest albums (of which this is the first) have precedents in Captain Beefheart's experimental albums, Frank Zappa's conceptual numbers from Freak Out!, the work of Steve Reich, and the compositions of chance music tonemeister John Cage -- yet the Residents' work of this time really sounds like nothing else that exists. All of the music on this release consists of deconstructions of countless rock and non-rock styles, which are then grafted together to create chaotic, formless, seemingly haphazard numbers; the first six "songs" (including a fragment from the Nancy Sinatra hit "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'") are strung together to form a larger entity similar in concept to the following lengthier selections. The result is a series of unique, odd, challenging numbers that are nevertheless not entirely successful. The album cover is a fierce burlesque of the Beatles' first U.S. Capitol label release, sporting puerilely doctored photographs of the Fab Four on the front and pictures of collarless-suited sea denizens on the back (identified as Paul McCrawfish, Ringo Starfish, and the like). This is an utterly bizarre platter that may appeal to very adventurous listeners.

(The Residents - Meet the Residents)

Magazine - Secondhand Daylight

Secondhand Daylight, the second Magazine album, sounds like it must have been made in the dead of winter. You can imagine the steam coming out of Howard Devoto's mouth as he projects lines like "I was cold at an equally cold place," "The voyeur will realize this is not a sight for his sore eyes," "It just came to pieces in our hands," and "Today I bumped into you again, I have no idea what you want." You can picture Dave Formula swiping frost off his keys and Barry Adamson blowing on his hands during the intro to "Feed the Enemy," as guitarist John McGeoch and drummer John Doyle zip their parkas. From start to finish, this is a showcase for Formula's chilling but expressive keyboard work. Given more freedom to stretch out and even dominate on occasion, Formula seems to release as many demons as Devoto, whether it is through low-end synthesizer drones or violent piano vamps. Detached tales of relationships damaged beyond repair fill the album, and the band isn't nearly as bouncy as it is on Real Life or The Correct Use of Soap -- it's almost as if they were instructed to play with as little physical motion as possible. The drums in particular sound brittle and on the brink of piercing the ears. Despite the sub-zero climate, the lack of dance numbers, and the shortage of snappy melodies, the album isn't entirely impenetrable. It lacks the immediate impact of Real Life and The Correct Use of Soap, but it deserves just as much recognition for its compellingly sustained petulance. Even if you can't get into it, you have to at least marvel at "Permafrost." The album's finale, it's an elegant five-minute sneer, and as far as late-'70s yearbook scribbles are concerned, "As the day stops dead, at the place where we're lost, I will drug you and f*ck you on the permafrost" is less innocuous than "All we are is dust in the wind."

(Magazine - Secondhand Daylight)

23 Skidoo - Seven Songs

A more descriptive title would have been "Seven Panic Attacks," but even a bland title isn't able to prevent the undeniably savage, pungent impact of Seven Songs, a half-hour long album that plays out like a soundtrack to being bounty hunted in an expansive jungle. Following "Kundalini," a hectoring brain shake that hardly resembles the dormant energy it's named after, "Vegas el Bandito" enters and doesn't imply the James Brown of "Cold Sweat" so much as the panic of night sweats, churning out a taut groove of slap-happy bass, pattering drums, horn trills, and a scratchy-scratch guitar line that chases its tail. An echoing trumpet carries through the end of the song and drifts right on into "Mary's Operation," an anemic drone of even creepier horns and tape loops. "New Testament" is an industrial death lurch of rusted metallic sheets, giving way to "IY," a cluster of conga acrobatics with needling saxophones and frenetic chants thrown on top. "Porno Base," the real knockout, contains little more than a series of abysmal bass pluckings placed just far enough apart to induce chronic paranoia, sounding less like a smut-film score than "Welcome to the Terror Drone." The finale, "Quiet Pillage," despite its exotica reference, could only be played in the ruins of a lounge post-carpet bombing. This is post-punk at its most invigorating and terrifying.

(23 Skidoo - Seven Songs)

Slits - Cut

One of my favorites, now expanded and remastered!

Almost as well-known for its cover (the three Slits are half-naked and covered in mud) as for its music, Cut is an ebullient piece of post-punk mastery that finds the Slits' interest in Caribbean and African rhythms smoothly incorporated into their harsher punk rock stylings. Ari Up's wandering voice (a touch like Yoko Ono) might be initially off-putting, but not so much so that it makes listening to the record difficult. Six tracks are revamped from earlier Peel Sessions and sound better for the extra effort (especially "New Town" and "Love und Romance"). With its goofy charm, gleeful swing and sway, and subtle yet compelling libertarian feminism, this is one of the best records of the era.

(Slits - Cut)

The Durutti Column - The Return of the Durutti Column

More debut albums should be so amusingly perverse with its titles -- and there's the original vinyl sleeve, which consisted of sandpaper precisely so it would damage everything next to it in one's collection. Released in the glow of post-punk fervor in late-'70s Manchester, one would think Return would consist of loud, aggressive sheet-metal feedback, but that's not the way Vini Reilly works. With heavy involvement from producer Martin Hannett, who created all the synth pieces on the record as well as producing it, Reilly on Return made a quietly stunning debut, as influential down the road as his labelmates in Joy Division's effort with Unknown Pleasures. Eschewing formal "rock" composition and delivery -- the album was entirely instrumental, favoring delicacy and understated invention instead of singalong brashness -- Reilly made his mark as the most unique, distinct guitarist from Britain since Bert Jantsch. Embracing electric guitar's possibilities rather than acoustic's, Reilly fused a variety of traditions effortlessly -- that one song was called "Jazz" could be called a giveaway, but the free-flowing shimmers and moods always revolve around central melodies. "Conduct," with its just apparent enough key hook surrounded by interwoven, competing lines, is a standout, turning halfway through into a downright anthemic full-band rise while never being overbearing. Hannett's production gave his compositions a just-mysterious-enough sheen, with Reilly's touches on everything from surfy reverb to soft chiming turned at once alien and still warm. Consider the relentless rhythm box pulse on "Requiem for a Father," upfront but not overbearing as Reilly's filigrees and softly spiraling arpeggios unfold in the mix -- but equally appealing is "Sketch for Winter," Reilly's guitar and nothing more, a softly haunting piece living up to its name. The 1996 reissue is the edition to search for, containing six excellent bonus tracks. Two are actually solo Hannett synth pieces from the sessions, but others include an initial tribute to Joy Division's Ian Curtis, "Lips That Would Kiss," and "Sleep Will Come," featuring the group's first vocal performance thanks to Clock DVA member Jeremy Kerr.

(The Durutti Column - The Return of the Durutti Column)

Delta 5 - Singles & Sessions 1979-81

Considering the interest in all things post-punk in the 2000s, not to mention the reissues of work by contemporaries like the Au Pairs, Slits, Raincoats, and Liliput, attention to the Delta 5 seems long overdue. Indeed, it wouldn't be surprising if many people who had heard of the band in recent years knew of the Delta 5 only because of Chicks on Speed's cover of their definitive single, "Mind Your Own Business," and although some of their tracks have popped up on compilations here and there, it hasn't been easy to hear their music. Kill Rock Stars' collection Singles & Sessions remedies this by serving up the A and B sides of their classic singles, BBC Radio sessions with John Peel and Richard Skinner, and a previously unreleased live 1980 set recorded at Berkeley, CA's Berkeley Square. Meanwhile, the liner notes offer two different perspectives on the band: Greil Marcus' in-depth 1980 piece for New West magazine, and a new essay by friend and collaborator Jon Langford. Most important, though, is the band's music, and while this leftist post-punk outfit from Leeds -- which belonged to the scene that also spawned the Mekons and Gang of Four -- was part of a movement that tended to shun glamour, there is an undeniable, distinctive style in the group's sound. On "Try" and "Now That You've Gone," the Delta 5 are as precise and aloof as any of their better-known post-punk peers. However, along with their economical rhythms and alternately taut and bristling guitars, the band's layered, interjecting vocals -- which turn many of their songs into playful but pointed debates -- and their unique dual-bassist lineup add an extra bit of flair and sass to their music. The icy, disdainful wit of "Mind Your Own Business" is emblematic of the band's attitude on many of the tracks here, but "Anticipation" and "Colour" allow the Delta 5's joyful and brooding sides to shine through as well. "You" is downright funny and liberating; with lyrics like "Who likes sex only on Sundays? You, you, you!," it sounds like someone realizing, all at once, everything that's wrong with and then getting rid of a lover, with pleasure. The tracks from the sessions are nearly as sharp and tight as the singles, with "Make Up"'s lyrical ambivalence ("Do you wear it? Does it wear you?") underscoring the Delta 5's uniquely feminine vantage point and songs like the spooky, evocative "Train Song" and "Final Scene" sending off more sparks than they did on the band's first (and last) album, See the Whirl (which, hopefully, will be reissued as well). Singles & Sessions does the Delta 5's music justice; even if they weren't the most radically inventive group of the post-punk movement, their best work still captures the sound and feeling of that era perfectly.

(Delta 5 - Singles & Sessions 1979-81)

This Heat - This Heat + Peel Sessions

This British group could neither be called post-punk nor progressive rock, yet This Heat was one of the most influential groups of the late '70s. They created uncanny experimental rock music that has many similarities in approach to German pioneers such as Can and Faust. Other groundbreaking independent groups such as Henry Cow and Wire may be their only peers, and much later This Heat also became profoundly influential on the '90s genre known as post-rock. Their angular juxtapositions of abrasive guitar, driving rhythms, and noise loops on the opening cut, "Horizontal Hold," preempt much later activity in the electronica and drum'n'bass scenes. The outstanding "24 Track Loop" is based around a circular drum pattern that could have been a late-'90s jungle cut were it not recorded in late-'70s London, long before such strategies were even dreamed of in breakbeat music. This album is a great example of ahead-of-time genius, work that draws on elements of progressive rock, notably "Larks Tongues in Aspic"-era King Crimson for all its abrasive, warped rhythm, as well as Can, Neu!, and Faust's pioneering work -- though there is little else that comes close to the unique and distinctive avant rock sound, an entirely new take on the rock format. Their self-titled debut is a radical conglomeration of progressive rock, musique concrète, free improvisation, and even -- in a bizarre distillation -- aspects of British folk can be heard in Charles Hayward's singing. There are very few records that can be considered truly important, landmark works of art that produce blueprints for an entire genre. In the case of this album, it's clear that this seminal work was integral in shaping the genres of post-punk, avant rock, and post-rock and like all great influential albums it seemed it had to wait two decades before its contents could truly be fathomed. In short, This Heat is essential.

(This Heat - This Heat)
(This Heat - Made Available)