Jackdaw With Crowbar: Hot Air

Folder

Ron Johnson 1988.  ZRON 33

Discogs

This is a refreshingly oddball record from a refreshingly oddball label.  Ron Johnson had a house sound, which was very angular, Beefheart-like guitars, and yes, I know that comparisons to Beefheart are stupid because the whole point about his stuff was that it sounded like no-one else.  It’s easy to mock indiepop, and I’m not immune to doing it myself (especially with Subway), but the Ron Johnson sound was something new, and for me at the time, quite challenging.

Jackdaw With Crowbar had, at least sometimes, the RJ sound, but there was much more to them, and this album than that.  This album has, to my amazement at the time, a few reggae tracks, some of which venture quite a long way into dub territory, and do the job pretty well.  There’s a bit of pseudo experimental noodling (especially on the first track), but when they’re not doing that or the dub thing, it’s some of the most innovative guitar music from that time.  I probably prefer Big Flame, but JWC are still a class act.

What you don’t get from this album is their multimedia work.  Back in the late 80s they used to gig with projections of 8mm films they’d made, and some of their work cropped up at a film festival I’m a regular at (Flatpack if you’re interested).  Recently, after a long hiatus, they’ve reformed and are doing an updated version of their multimedia extravaganzas, which unfortunately I’ve only just noticed.  Keep an eye on their Facebook page for more.

Pigbros: From Now On This Will Be Your Ideal Life

Panorama

Cake Records 1987. CAKELP1

Discogs

This is Birmingham band Pigbros’s only album, released at the tail end of their short career.  It was, as I recall entirely ignored and I don’t think they sold many copies.  I guess they’d pretty much reached the end of the line by the time it came out and they didn’t promote it.  In fact even though I was a regular at their gigs, I was barely aware that this existed and bought it second hand some time after the event in Selectadisc in Nottingham.

It’s like much of their output – some great songs, well performed with interesting lyrics, let down by ropey production and a murky sound.  I guess those things cost money and I doubt they had much of it.  It’s a shame because their live sound was great – I’d love to find a bootleg, but I think I’ll be waiting a long time.  No sign of them jumping on the indie reunion bandwagon like so many of the other bands I used to see back then either.

Despite those limitations, this is a great album.  One of the tracks (Cheap Life) has appeared here before, but this is a slightly different version.  It remains a stand-out, but I also love much of the rest, especially The Way Things Currently Are.  The guitar playing is much funkier than you’d expect from a bunch of brummy indiepopsters (maybe they’d been listening to ACR?) and Fuzz Townsend’s muscular and inventive drumming backs it all up very nicely.  Live the occasional appearance of Svor Naan’s rudimentary sax playing worked well, with a sinister bottom-of-a-well sound, but here it just sounds a bit lame.

For me this is a much more enjoyable listen if you pay attention to the detail.  When the overall sound isn’t brilliant, concentrate maybe on the guitar work or the drumming – if you do it suddenly works much better and you wonder how they failed to make the album sound much better than it does.

Further listening? Ha, don’t make me laugh.  Away from this blog I doubt you’ll find anything.  I’ll gradually post the rest of their output – I have everything they did except a flexi.

Zos Kia/Coil: Transparent

7326488

Threshold House 1997 (Original Cassette Release 1984, but recorded earlier) .  LOCI CD 13

Discogs

This is probably the most difficult listen of anything I’ve posted so far, being closer to performance art than it is to music.  It was recorded when Coil was a side project for John Balance and Peter Christopherson when they were still with Throbbing Gristle, here working with John Gosling (Zos Kia) and an unknown female vocalist.

I find this an almost unbearable listen, not because it isn’t really music in any conventional sense of the word, but because it’s deeply unsettling.  This was a characteristic of much of Coil’s music and is partly why I like them so much, but here the intensity, and the lack of light relief in the form of music makes it rather an ordeal.  I suspect that it also suffers from the absence of visuals, but I wasn’t at any of these performances, so I’m guessing.

The track Rape (originally Violation) I found to be completely unlistenable, but I guess a track on such a subject should be unlistenable.  If you’re into Coil it’s interesting to hear the seeds of what they’d later become but it’s the sort of thing you probably won’t play more than once.

This was a request from “Music Lover”.  Hope you enjoy it!

Bonnie “Prince” Billy: Bonny 2007

R-992928-1181987920

Not on label.  MARK17

Discogs

This is a very rare BPB single, available only at gigs during 2007.

The A side is a curious thing – the writing credits are shared between EC Ball and John Martyn, contributing part one and part two respectively.   Hopefully you already know who John Martyn was (if you don’t, check him out), but EC Ball was a rather obscure American gospel/folk singer who died back in 1978.  Both recorded songs called John  The Baptist, Martyn on his 1970 album Stormbringer! and Ball in 1973 .  The only thing the songs have in common is the titles, and BPB simply performs them back to back.

I prefer the B side, which is a impassioned but slightly unhinged live version of Strange Form Of Life which originally appeared on The Letting Go.  The song is a favourite of mine, and this, I think, is the best version.

Dub Sex: Splintered Faith

front

Cut Deep 1989.  CDCUT 1

Discogs

I wasn’t going to post this for a while because I’m concentrating on vinyl rips at the moment, but “Forever” was very keen to get this, so always willing to oblige…

This is a career retrospective – not the sort of thing I usually go in for: as I recall I picked this up cheap.  Between this, the Time Of Life 12″ and the Edward Not Edward compilation, this must cover most of what they released, which was one album and a handful of singles.  I also have their debut, a flexi which came with Debris magazine, but that appears as the first track here.  This is the end of the line for Dub Sex posts on vinyl301 I’m afraid – this is all I’ve got.

I can’t think of much to add to what I said about Time Of Life.  Dub Sex were short lived and didn’t change their style much, so it’s more of the same.  The standard of the material is really consistent; there’s not a duff track here, and as I said before, they deserved to be much bigger than they were.  Swerve and Kicking The Corpse Around spring immediately to mind as highlights.

Herbert: Addiction

Folder

Studio !K7 2002.  !K7131EP

Discogs

(Matthew) Herbert is a conceptual artist as well as a musician which means there’s always more to what he does than the sound you hear.   He also has a set of rules which he applies to music making.  No drum machines, no synthesizers and no samples (of other people’s work).

This single is taken from the album Bodily Functions which was created using recordings of the human body, at least for the rhythmic parts.  That doesn’t mean it’s a joke record full of fart noises – it’s really not obvious where the sounds come from.  In fact it’s classy electronica with a jazzy feel, as is the case with much of his work.  So jazzy in fact that he played the Mosely Jazz festival last year (or was it the year before – I forget).  The unconventional sources for some of the sound have, in some ways the same effect as bands who use obsolete electronic technology – it’s subtly different to what we’re used to hearing because the sound pallette it draws on is different.

Bodily Functions has been re-issued with an extra CD of related material, which oddly contains none of the tracks on this 12″.  Addiction is on the original album.  So download this,  then go out and buy Bodily Functions. You’ll be glad you did.

Coil: The Anal Staircase EP

front

Force & Form 1984.  ROTA121

Discogs

I’ve spent a fair chunk of the last 25 years listening to Coil, but there’s not much of it here because it’s mostly on CD.  This early EP, a kind of prequel to their second album Horse Rotorvator is an exception.

All Coil’s music has a dark, menacing, mystical quality to it, regardless of the different styles they’ve adopted over the years.  The sound on this EP fits that description and is solidly industrial in style.  It was groundbreaking back in 1984, but such was Coil’s influence, that it has a certain familiarity now.  Even though others followed Coil down this path, theirs was a singular vision which their imitators never managed to emulate.

I don’t know what an Anal Staircase is, despite the helpful photo on the cover.  I think it’s best if it remains that way.

There’s very little Coil material currently available, partly because they were never that good at that side of things, and because the mainstays of the band, John Balance and Peter Christopherson are both dead.  Have a look at my other Coil posts for links to what is still for sale.

A Certain Ratio: Sextet

front

Factory 1982.  FACT55

Discogs

I’m slightly too young to have got into ACR when they were at their peak.  Or maybe I just wasn’t cool enough as a teenager.  Whatever the reason, this is the only ACR I have, and “Hint” requested it, so here goes.

I guess you could call this album indiefunk.  They have two very proficient bass players and some imaginative percussion, but they don’t quite leave behind their post-punk roots, so they end up with an effective combination of two styles you’d think should be kept apart.  Having said that, it’s very much of it’s time, but for me that adds to its appeal.  There are elements of jazz here, as there so often is in funk (someone’s been listening to Miles I think) and some latin percussion here and there.  It’s eclectic, innovative and very well played.

For more ACR, Everything Starts With An A is the place to go.  He’s far more knowledgeable about the band than I am, and has posted a lot more (although not this album).

Various Artists: Revenge Of The Killer Pussies

pussies II

Anagram 1984.  GRAM17

Discogs

This is a fun compilation of what I guess you’d call psychobilly – an amalgam of rockabilly and punk which continues from where The Cramps left off, and shares their love of B-Movie horror.

The three best tracks are back-to-back at the end of side 1 – The Milkshakes, The Vibes and The Meteors – it’s pretty hard to sit still when they come on.  The Very Things have featured here before, and put in a decent showing on Side 2.

The Jazz Butcher: Big Scary Planet

front

Creation 1989.  CRELP049

Discogs

Yet another vinyl rip today from my bottomless pit of late 80s Creation stuff.  I don’t feel terribly competent to write about this; Pat Fish, aka The Jazz Butcher has been releasing music since 1982, and I’m only familiar with some of his output on Creation.  To make matters worse I never really took to this album when I bought it (unlike Spooky which I played incessantly) .  That was the reason I took the trouble to do a rip of it – why had I neglected it?  It turns out that there was no good reason.  This is a fine album and one which should have been a regular visitor to my turntable.  I guess I must have bought other stuff at the same time which I found more exciting.

So what’s it like?  In many ways it’s exactly what you’d expect from a Creation album of the time.  It’s classy indiepop with clever lyrics.  It’s very well played and produced, it’s full of good tunes (especially The Word I Was Looking For).  What’s not to like?