The First Batch
here are my first batch of reviews.
UT -Griller, Blast First, 1989
UT formed in NYC in the late 70s, one of the final No Wave bands, but would actually gain most of their fame, as it were, in the latter half of the 1980s, after relocating to England. There they would release two albums on the influential Blast First record label (then the UK home of Sonic Youth, Big Black, the Butthole Surfers, Dinosaur Jr et al). The first, In Gut’s House in 1988 and then what would be their final record, Griller, in 1989.
The trio, comprised of Nina Canal, Jacqui Ham and Sally Young, rotated instrumental/vocal duties and played a harsh, abstract post-no wave rock. The early records, Confidential and Early Life Live showcase their no wave roots, esp on the live record, they sound like very close cousins of DNA. By the time of Griller their sound had hardened into a thundering, heavy, klanging rock. The album benefits from the recording by Steve Albini, one of his earliest credits, the drums are punishing and everything else is equally clear & loud. In fact the overall sound of the record is very similar to Surfer Rosa.
The band never found much notoriety in their day and the intervening years has done little to up their cool quotient, which is, if you ask me, a fucking crime. Griller is a fucking incredible record. At first spin it seems very much in the vein of Sonic Youth or Sleater-Kinney, but a closer listen reveals much more going on in the music. Droning bass lines thud directly into the pounding drums (mostly provided by Charlie D) while the guitars scratch and slash across the mess. The instruments pile on top of each other, wrestling out blast of skronk and skittering feedback. Like US Maple would a few years later, UT rewards listener attention, you could write it all off as chaos, but you can find the intricate structure the more you inspect.
“Safe Burning”, the opening track, has an epic/heroic guitar line and while the tempo pulses along like a heartbeat (slow-fast-slow-fast) Young and Ham trade off vocals. Ham with a girlish howl/whine and Young in a direct voice urging you “Save yourself/for the battle that counts”. No chorus or specific riff, just an insistent rhythm driving ever forward, lodging itself right into your brain. I cannot stop listening to this song, especially the guitar break early on that, admittedly is straight of the Sister-era SY play book, is effective and rousing nonetheless. More to the point, it’s the kind of song that begs you to push your stereo’s (neighbor’s, roommate’s, parent’s, spouse’s) volume tolerance. And it crushes the early, more tentative take the band recorded in their 1987 Peel Session.
The album progresses with a dark, ominous feel, echoed in the stark black and white album cover. A few songs utilize Young's violin as a counterpoint to the guitars to great effect. But, this isn’t just tuneless noise, like SY, they know power of a solid song structure, they use the vocals and bass to carry most of the melodies. It all feels like a logical conclusion from the earlier albums, the sound is confident and full throughout. Gone is some the searching quality that occasionally mars their previous releases (though it must be said that In Gut's House is easily on par with Griller), replaced with dense sound and strong tonal textures.
"Underrated" and "overlooked" are often too quickly used as descriptors of also-ran bands to appeal to fevered genre record collectors, that it is sometimes hard to truly appreciate great albums that have, for whatever reason, been undervalued. Griller showcases a band with a unique approach and voice that deserves more attention, especially considering the current mania for all things post-punk/no wave.
Excepter- “Sunbomber EP”, 5RC, 2006
Another in what is becoming an excellent series of unclassifiable, dubby, bubbly, blobby, sorta Krautrock noise slabs. Headed up by ex-No Neck Blues Band member J.F. Ryan, Excepter has over the course of four releases begun to carve out a distinctive niche for themselves in the sometimes indistinct noise underground. “Sunbomber” is more agitated then 2005's Self-Destruction, here, parred down to a quartet, but armed with a stock of drum machines, wonky synth pings and the return of Ryan’s great mumbling voice. In fact this probably the most “rocking” Excepter set yet. Recorded in a hour, it documents the first encounter of the new line-up, not that unfamiliarity seems to be hindering them at all.
Weird sounds, half-realized ideas, beats and then some more beats all cluster-fucking into I dunno...something. I don’t know what this music is, electro-dub? disco-kraut? Who cares? This is probably what its like inside Lee “Scratch” Perry’s brain. Or maybe this is what house music sounds like when you’ve traveling at the speed of light. In a submarine. On acid. Staring at a magic eye picture. On acid. On a horse. Who is on acid.
Whatever the hell it is, it is awesome to my ears, I can’t get enough of this stuff. I always want to know what is going to happen next in the song.. It never ends up going where I think it will. Each of the records has it own identity and “Sunbomber” is the darkest, noisiest one yet, capturing some the mystery that cloaks those early NNCK albums. Yeah, this is the shit right here.
Mark Tucker- Batstew ,2005 Destijl reissue
I used to live in this neighborhood where these guys who would rev their car engines for no apparent reason during the day and sometimes, excruciatingly, at night. First they’d turn the car engine over, then let them idle loudly for a bit before gunning them, overdriving the engines until the noise was loud and shrill and honestly painful to hear. This totally random macho machine madness used to drive me nuts, esp when trying to take a nap. “What the hell are they doing out there?” I’d wonder. This was a long time before I heard Mark Tucker’s album Batstew. Now, I realize how unhip I was, these guys were just paying tribute to the Bat!
Part raw-boned singer-songwriter album, part field recordings, part monologue and all ode to a 1964 Cadillac, Tucker’s self-recorded and self-released album Batstew is one strange beast indeed. Not the type of thing you are likely to come across in your normal record hunting travels.
A good chunk of the first half of the record is taken up with recordings of Tucker’s car, more specifically engine sounds, doors opening and closing, trunks slamming, plus Tucker speaking directly to the automobile, all while various extraneous sounds of birds, other car horns, etc filter through your speakers. Occasionally these vignettes are interrupted by songs such as “Sideways Love”, a defiant ballad about two boys in love played on a slightly out-of-tune piano and could almost be an early Will Oldham tune. The music throughout has the feel of a t.v. movie soundtrack with similar motifs playing out repeatedly. Simple, honest and sometimes very cheery songs about cars (mostly), a girl (according to the notes anyway) and honey trees. The second to last song “Kids” details a housewife’s 19th nervous breakdown in style not too far from a loose Mayo Thompson/Red Krayola number and also serves as a sort of Batstew prologue.
“Most people don’t ordinarily show affection to their cars” Tucker says at one point, one might point out they even less frequently write entire albums about their cars.
The second side is where the album derives most of its reputation, the ten minute “Submerged Bat Vortex” is a collage of tape manipulations, proto-“Close Encounters” ARP synth damage, more car sounds, squirrely bleeps, bloops and other deep space effects. However, for all this weirdness the album never feels inept or “outsider-y”, it has a genuine innocence and naivety about it, in fact some of that genuineness begins to grate over the course of an entire record.
The liner notes, written by Tucker, who now goes by the name T.Storm Hunter details the story of the album, following the somewhat predictable path of how no one understood or cared for the record, until it gained a cult following and also the sad end of some of the main collaborators.
I suppose it is pretty unlike those guys in my old neighborhood were playing tribute to Batstew, but man it would cool if they had been.
UT -Griller, Blast First, 1989
UT formed in NYC in the late 70s, one of the final No Wave bands, but would actually gain most of their fame, as it were, in the latter half of the 1980s, after relocating to England. There they would release two albums on the influential Blast First record label (then the UK home of Sonic Youth, Big Black, the Butthole Surfers, Dinosaur Jr et al). The first, In Gut’s House in 1988 and then what would be their final record, Griller, in 1989.
The trio, comprised of Nina Canal, Jacqui Ham and Sally Young, rotated instrumental/vocal duties and played a harsh, abstract post-no wave rock. The early records, Confidential and Early Life Live showcase their no wave roots, esp on the live record, they sound like very close cousins of DNA. By the time of Griller their sound had hardened into a thundering, heavy, klanging rock. The album benefits from the recording by Steve Albini, one of his earliest credits, the drums are punishing and everything else is equally clear & loud. In fact the overall sound of the record is very similar to Surfer Rosa.
The band never found much notoriety in their day and the intervening years has done little to up their cool quotient, which is, if you ask me, a fucking crime. Griller is a fucking incredible record. At first spin it seems very much in the vein of Sonic Youth or Sleater-Kinney, but a closer listen reveals much more going on in the music. Droning bass lines thud directly into the pounding drums (mostly provided by Charlie D) while the guitars scratch and slash across the mess. The instruments pile on top of each other, wrestling out blast of skronk and skittering feedback. Like US Maple would a few years later, UT rewards listener attention, you could write it all off as chaos, but you can find the intricate structure the more you inspect.
“Safe Burning”, the opening track, has an epic/heroic guitar line and while the tempo pulses along like a heartbeat (slow-fast-slow-fast) Young and Ham trade off vocals. Ham with a girlish howl/whine and Young in a direct voice urging you “Save yourself/for the battle that counts”. No chorus or specific riff, just an insistent rhythm driving ever forward, lodging itself right into your brain. I cannot stop listening to this song, especially the guitar break early on that, admittedly is straight of the Sister-era SY play book, is effective and rousing nonetheless. More to the point, it’s the kind of song that begs you to push your stereo’s (neighbor’s, roommate’s, parent’s, spouse’s) volume tolerance. And it crushes the early, more tentative take the band recorded in their 1987 Peel Session.
The album progresses with a dark, ominous feel, echoed in the stark black and white album cover. A few songs utilize Young's violin as a counterpoint to the guitars to great effect. But, this isn’t just tuneless noise, like SY, they know power of a solid song structure, they use the vocals and bass to carry most of the melodies. It all feels like a logical conclusion from the earlier albums, the sound is confident and full throughout. Gone is some the searching quality that occasionally mars their previous releases (though it must be said that In Gut's House is easily on par with Griller), replaced with dense sound and strong tonal textures.
"Underrated" and "overlooked" are often too quickly used as descriptors of also-ran bands to appeal to fevered genre record collectors, that it is sometimes hard to truly appreciate great albums that have, for whatever reason, been undervalued. Griller showcases a band with a unique approach and voice that deserves more attention, especially considering the current mania for all things post-punk/no wave.
Excepter- “Sunbomber EP”, 5RC, 2006
Another in what is becoming an excellent series of unclassifiable, dubby, bubbly, blobby, sorta Krautrock noise slabs. Headed up by ex-No Neck Blues Band member J.F. Ryan, Excepter has over the course of four releases begun to carve out a distinctive niche for themselves in the sometimes indistinct noise underground. “Sunbomber” is more agitated then 2005's Self-Destruction, here, parred down to a quartet, but armed with a stock of drum machines, wonky synth pings and the return of Ryan’s great mumbling voice. In fact this probably the most “rocking” Excepter set yet. Recorded in a hour, it documents the first encounter of the new line-up, not that unfamiliarity seems to be hindering them at all.
Weird sounds, half-realized ideas, beats and then some more beats all cluster-fucking into I dunno...something. I don’t know what this music is, electro-dub? disco-kraut? Who cares? This is probably what its like inside Lee “Scratch” Perry’s brain. Or maybe this is what house music sounds like when you’ve traveling at the speed of light. In a submarine. On acid. Staring at a magic eye picture. On acid. On a horse. Who is on acid.
Whatever the hell it is, it is awesome to my ears, I can’t get enough of this stuff. I always want to know what is going to happen next in the song.. It never ends up going where I think it will. Each of the records has it own identity and “Sunbomber” is the darkest, noisiest one yet, capturing some the mystery that cloaks those early NNCK albums. Yeah, this is the shit right here.
Mark Tucker- Batstew ,2005 Destijl reissue
I used to live in this neighborhood where these guys who would rev their car engines for no apparent reason during the day and sometimes, excruciatingly, at night. First they’d turn the car engine over, then let them idle loudly for a bit before gunning them, overdriving the engines until the noise was loud and shrill and honestly painful to hear. This totally random macho machine madness used to drive me nuts, esp when trying to take a nap. “What the hell are they doing out there?” I’d wonder. This was a long time before I heard Mark Tucker’s album Batstew. Now, I realize how unhip I was, these guys were just paying tribute to the Bat!
Part raw-boned singer-songwriter album, part field recordings, part monologue and all ode to a 1964 Cadillac, Tucker’s self-recorded and self-released album Batstew is one strange beast indeed. Not the type of thing you are likely to come across in your normal record hunting travels.
A good chunk of the first half of the record is taken up with recordings of Tucker’s car, more specifically engine sounds, doors opening and closing, trunks slamming, plus Tucker speaking directly to the automobile, all while various extraneous sounds of birds, other car horns, etc filter through your speakers. Occasionally these vignettes are interrupted by songs such as “Sideways Love”, a defiant ballad about two boys in love played on a slightly out-of-tune piano and could almost be an early Will Oldham tune. The music throughout has the feel of a t.v. movie soundtrack with similar motifs playing out repeatedly. Simple, honest and sometimes very cheery songs about cars (mostly), a girl (according to the notes anyway) and honey trees. The second to last song “Kids” details a housewife’s 19th nervous breakdown in style not too far from a loose Mayo Thompson/Red Krayola number and also serves as a sort of Batstew prologue.
“Most people don’t ordinarily show affection to their cars” Tucker says at one point, one might point out they even less frequently write entire albums about their cars.
The second side is where the album derives most of its reputation, the ten minute “Submerged Bat Vortex” is a collage of tape manipulations, proto-“Close Encounters” ARP synth damage, more car sounds, squirrely bleeps, bloops and other deep space effects. However, for all this weirdness the album never feels inept or “outsider-y”, it has a genuine innocence and naivety about it, in fact some of that genuineness begins to grate over the course of an entire record.
The liner notes, written by Tucker, who now goes by the name T.Storm Hunter details the story of the album, following the somewhat predictable path of how no one understood or cared for the record, until it gained a cult following and also the sad end of some of the main collaborators.
I suppose it is pretty unlike those guys in my old neighborhood were playing tribute to Batstew, but man it would cool if they had been.
posted by Chris Besinger at 6:15 PM
4 comments
