Three Mantras
(Rough Trade) Used LP $15.00
Two sidelong pieces that expand the trio’s avant-electronic-grunge into trancier realms. The alien feeling at the core of Cabaret Voltaire remains, though, strong and strange as always. 1980 pressing
Hai!
(Rough Trade) Used LP $10.00 (Out-of-stock)
Recorded live in Tokyo in 1982. Sparse rhythms and dark, abrasive montages, loops and samples of found sounds. The material is less raw and fragmented than the band’s initial punk releases, but the rhythmic component is still central to the equation. U.S. pressing from 1982
The Voice Of America
(Rough Trade) Used LP $10.00 (Out-of-stock)
Displaying how noisy, abrasive, and unpleasant an album can be without becoming a total drag, this 1980 record has an anchor in its increased use of rhythm. Sickly demented drones of cacophony are twisted and doctored in new ways and make for compelling listening. Recordings of dive-bombing war planes may or may not be intertwined and distorted (not knowing for sure is only part of the thrill). Dubby rhythms are equally anemic in the background. Electro-surges predict comic doom behind a deep, growling voice.
Mix-Up
(Rough Trade) Used LP $18.00 (Out-of-stock)
Their first album, released in 1979, impressively harnesses noise, primitive rhythm box percolations, tape loops, garbled vocals, and blasts of Farfisa. Look for ugly slabs of dub with frizzling snaps of white-heat buzz, clunky percussion, and plodding basslines forming skanking, roiling rhythms. Both the bass and incidental vocals are relegated to the back of the mix as the piercing detritus takes center stage. For all the manual binning and sandblasting of rock’s elemental properties, the band makes an acid-damaged rock song like The Seeds’ “No Escape” sound even more damaged while retaining its spirit, nerve, and structure. The remainder of the album hisses and hectors in a similar fashion, tidily bundling pop-song length pieces that will do nothing for that headache of yours.
Three Crepuscule Tracks
(Rough Trade) Used 12-inch $10.00
“In transition between the found-vocals / art-noise period and a commitment to dance-floor electronics,” notes Trouser Press, “ ‘Sluggin’ fer Jesus (Part One)’ is a masterful combination of the two, as a right-wing TV preacher demands large cash contributions over a powerful, trance-inducing synth beat.” U.S. pressing from 1981
Feurio!
(Rough Trade) Used 12-inch $5.00 (Out-of-stock)
The title track and a remix from their late ’80s album Haus der Luge, plus the previously unreleased "Partymucke," composed for the theater play Andi.
Beat Rhythm News
(Rough Trade) Used LP $30.00
Bubbling, herky-jerky rhythms and gleeful honking from 1979 — the sound of five young English musicians disassembling rock’n’roll and remaking it in an entirely new way. With record shop price tag from 1983 on the front.
Deceit
(Rough Trade) Used LP $40.00 (Out-of-stock)
A confrontation of prog, free-jazz and contemporary electronic composition with fairly intense socio-political statements. The trio masterfully oversees a complicated world where disparate elements coexist: the atypical calm of fractured quasi-lullabies; layers of what sounds like African percussion; brawny and pouncing rhythms; subtly acrobatic guitar lines; lengthy outros that resemble archetypical math-rock with repetitive, complicated rhythmic patterns; visceral dynamics; Dadaist collages of various noises, musical and otherwise; accordion intros; kazoo laments accompanied by pieces of metal and wood scraping together; kinetic drum orchestras, ancient rain forest flutes, and strings; crashing drums; wailing group vocals; very precise, discordant guitar lines. Jacket edges are roughed up, especially the spine; request a pic if you feel like it. UK pressing
DAVID THOMAS AND THE PEDESTRIANS
The Sound Of The Sand
(Rough Trade) Used LP $6.00
The first solo album by the Pere Ubu singer and songwriter with a backing band that includes expected collaborators as well as great British folk-rock guitarist Richard Thompson. The highlight is a cover of “Sloop John B,” described by All Music Guide as an “utterly unattractive deconstruction.” 1981 U.S. pressing
Entertainment Through Pain
(Rough Trade) Used LP $22.00 (Out-of-stock)
This unbeatable summary of crucial material from the first three albums by Genesis P-Orridge, Chris Carter, Cosey Fanny Tutti, and Sleazy takes in robo-fetish disco, piss-streaked paranoia, deadpan synth-pop pretensions, and more. U.S. pressing from 1981.
Ugly
(Rough Trade) Used 12-inch $5.00 (Out-of-stock)
Bonus tracks and an album cut from one of the most distinctive records of early alternative. As everyone knows whether they want to or not, this raw, amateurish acoustic folk-rock trio was an addictive union of geeky, child-man and the tense jitters of hyperactive new wavers.