Marking
its 40th anniversary today is the eponymous debut LP from New York
art-funk freaks, The Golden Palominos, which was released on May 20th,
1983. Combining elements of funk, hip-hop, no-wave & jazz, it was
an album of extreme fusions and deliberate confusions.
Formed
by acclaimed session drummer/producer/arranger Anton Fier in 1981, along
with Material members, bassist Bill Laswell and guitarist Nicky
Skopelitis, the extended lineup of the group was as consistently
mutating as the music itself. For their recording debut, the core trio
were augmented by DNA frontman, Arto Lindsay on guitar and vocals,
violinist/guitarist Fred Frith, percussionist David Moss, turntablist
M.E. Miller and keyboardist Michael Beinhorn (also a member of
Material). The inclusion of a DJ scratching along with the music made
it one of the first records outside of the rap genre to incorporate the
technique.
As an album, the music occupies a soundscape of
idiosyncratic hybrids skirting the edges of numerous avant-garde
sub-cultures of the early 1980s, offering a cutting discordance along
with the interplay of tribal-verging-on-funky rhythms. It’s not easy
listening by any stretch, but it remains one of the most distinctive
creations of the era, particularly in its ability to pull in strands of
the burgeoning hip-hop scene, utilizing DMX drum machines along with
scratching, but bending them into contorted free-jazz influenced shapes.
It’s a record that creates its own rules, which it then
indiscriminately breaks.
