THE STRANGLERS - FELINE

 

Released 40 years ago today, on January 22, 1983, it's The Stranglers 7th studio LP, Feline. After the critical and chart success of La Folie and the Golden Brown single, Feline continued the band's evolution into a hybrid style of electronics infused alternative Euro-pop. Most notably, this is evident in Jet Black's use of synth-drums, augmented by his near metronome perfect meter. It's a move which may have alienated fans of their raunchier punk roots, but resulted in some exquisitely composed confections for those who could appreciate their newfound subtlety.

The album was initially released with a bonus 7", Aural Sculpture Manifesto, a deliberately pretentious sounding monologue delivered by Hugh Cornwell, espousing the band's theory and mastery of sonic manipulation, which was clearly beyond the purview of their peers <hurumpf>. As for the LP proper, it was home to three singles: European Female, Midnight Summer Dream and Paradise, though the US edition of the LP included Golden Brown as the closing track on the A side of the record. While the LP charted higher than the previous album, the singles found less receptive audiences than Golden Brown. Critics were somewhat mixed in their response to the album, with accusations that the album was "boring" coming from several. However, as previously mentioned, the style of the album was less "beat them over the head" and more "seduce them", so its charms are only revealed through repeated listening. In addition to the electronic drums, the album relies on predominantly acoustic guitars and Dave's synth textures to create a balance between the natural and the synthetic. This gives the album a rather dreamy ambience throughout.

While it may not rank as my favorite LP from the band, falling in behind La Folie, The Raven & Meninblack, it keeps pace as a tight fourth in that pack and offers a consistently enjoyable listen whenever I'm in the mood for its muted savage charms. I had the pleasure of seeing the band live when they toured this LP and it was a wonderful experience I'll soon be recounting for your amusement.

AIR - MOON SAFARI @ 25

 

Celebrating it’s 25th anniversary today is the debut album from French band, Air, with their Moon Safari, which was released on January 18th, 1998. It came along at a time when much of the electronic music movement dwelt on darker and stranger atmospheres. Popular music in general seemed angrier and more aggressive with the state of alternative rock leaning more into a deranged heavy metal and hip-hop mining the “gangsta” vein. Air seemed to come out of the blue with a pristine, euphoric and magnanimous world view, bringing breezy melodies and uplifting harmonies to their take on downtempo music.

The duo from Versailles, consisting of Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel, came together as architecture & mathematics students, respectively, at the École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Versailles. Before forming Air in 1995, they played together in a band called Orange. Initially making a name for themselves doing remixes for other artist in the mid 1990s, the group released the EP, Premiers Symptômes, in 1995 before recording their debut album.

While grounded in downtempo grooves, Moon Safari encompassed many divergent influence and styles including: electronica, space pop, dream pop, progressive rock, chill-out, trip hop, ambient, electronic pop and space rock. In many respects, the album touches on a lot of nostalgia, but somehow manages to cast that sentimentality into a projection which feels forward looking and futuristic. This music manages to sound ahead of its time while propelling itself off of so many historical reference points. The group used a massive amount of vintage electronic gear to help create that sound and achieve the effect of both being grounded in the past and traveling into the future.

In 2008, a tenth anniversary edition of the album was releases which was housed in a deluxe book bound case containing two audio CDs, one for the original album and a second for remixes and live versions, and a third disc, a DVD including a documentary on the band and all the music videos from the album. Its legacy has remained intact as a signpost to possibilities and hopefulness.
 

POLYGON WINDOW - SURFING ON SINE WAVES @ 30

 

Turning thirty years old today is Surfing On Sine Waves by Polygon Window, which was released on January 11th, 1993. Polygon Window was a pseudonym used by Richard D. James, better known as Aphex Twin. Chronologically, it could be considered his second full length album, coming on the heels of the debut Aphex Twin album, Selected Ambient Works 85-92.

Recorded at Llannerlog Studios, Cornwall, the album pays tribute to James’ home town in a number of ways. The cover photo is of Chapel Porth beach, where James spent time with his sisters as a child; James thanks the seaside village in the liner notes. Bonus track titles like Redruth School references James's alma mater, and "Portreath Harbour" references the Cornwall port. The title for the album was conceived by Warp founder and friend Rob Mitchell after James mentioned that "loads of people I knew growing up in Cornwall were poser surfers and I didn't wanna hang around with them." With all that, the album has a lot of sentimental connections to James’ roots.

Musically, the album seems to straddle his rhythmic "ambient" works, similar to those featured on the debut Aphex Twin album, with his more aggressive style featured on numerous singles and EPs, as heard on the slamming Quoth, which was released as a single itself. The album was issued as the second part of Warp Records’ “Artificial Intelligence” series and was a major success, yet James would only return to the Polygon Window imprint once after the initial album/single with a 2001 12” release, included as the aforementioned bonus tracks on a later reissue of Surfing on Sine Waves. Since its release, it has become a critical item in James’ sprawling catalogue and remains one of my personal favorites from his early canon of work.

ALAN VEGA - SATURN STRIP @ 40

 

Marking its 40th anniversary this month is the third solo album from Suicide’s Alan Vega, Saturn Strip, which was released in January 1983. It was produced by Ric Ocasek of The Cars, who also contributed guitar & keyboards. Ric was a longtime champion and fan of Suicide and he turned this album into a passion project. The album also featured contributions from fellow Cars member, Greg Hawkes, and Al Jourgensen of Ministry & Revolting Cocks fame.

Ocasek had previously handled production duties on Suicide’s 1980 sophomore release, Alan Vega - Martin Rev, where he managed to bring a more accessible polish to their minimalist style. He did the same with Vega’s solo LP and succeeded in finding a perfect balance between his stripped down ’50s tinged rock-a-billy style and Ocasek’s tightly crafted pop sensibilities. Indeed, the album gleams like a chrome accented cross between a ’57 Corvette and a Star Wars flyer, fusing nostalgia and futurism into a precision music machine. The production carefully integrates enough ventilation into the sound to allow each instrument space to shine through, making it sound sleek and minimal even when it's concealing numerous layers. And Vega's vocal performances are the very embodiment of cyber-psycho-billy. The future and the past of rock 'n' roll extend off into the horizon on this skyway. Each song offers a sleek monotone drone with a back-beat that you can't resist.

After 40 years, it has stood the test of time in terms of remaining listenable and relevant and is some of Vega’s best and most accessible solo work outside of Suicide. It offers both edgy energy and mainstream sophistication.

SUICIDE @ 45

 

December 28th marks the 45th anniversary of the release of Suicide’s eponymous debut LP. It’s a singular monument to mutant electronic rock-a-billy, which would become one of the landmark albums of the emerging electronic music scene and give birth to the concept of the “synth duo”.

Prior to recording their debut, Martin Rev and Alan Vega had been slumming it in the ghetto clubs of NYC since the early 1970s. Inspired by seeing Iggy & the Stooges, Alan Vega, who was initially focused on visual arts, decided he could turn his hand to fronting a rock band with the same kind of frightening intensity as Mr. Pop. Vega, who was raised on the hip shaking hiccups of Elvis Presley, had that essence of ’50s greaser delinquent baked into his DNA.

Hooking up with keyboardist Rev, the duo were the first band on record to self-describe their music as “punk” in their hand drawn gig flyers & handbills of the early 1970s. By the time the actual “punk” scene started to bubble up around them in clubs like CBGBs, Suicide found themselves playing alongside contemporaries like the Ramones, Patti Smith, Talking Heads and the rest of the NY underground scene. The difference with Suicide was that they were mostly hated by audiences, though they were deeply loved by certain musicians. People like The Cars’ Ric Ocasek would become stalwart champions for the band, helping to promote and further their career.

Their live performances were notorious for being awkward, confrontational and, on frequent occasions, threatened to break into violence. With Rev holding sternly at his keyboards, offering little beyond a disinterested sneer, Vega turned the sexual intensity of Elvis into a a fun-house mirror distortion, punctuated by psychotic screams amid lyrics that twisted rock & roll iconography into gritty street poetry. During one of these gigs, Marty Thau, who was starting up his own record label, happened to catch their act and took a liking to what he saw and heard. He ended up signing the duo as his first artists for his new label, Red Star Records.

When it came time to record the album, Vega and Rev were so well rehearsed with their material, after having played it live for 5 years, it only took four days in the studio to capture it all. The majority of the songs were basically as done on stage, though the album’s sprawling nightmare centerpiece, Frankie Teardrop, underwent a drastic lyric rewrite after Vega read a newspaper article about a factory worker who murdered his wife and child and then committed suicide. This happened during the mixing phase of production, so there is a version with the original lyrics, which was recently released on a retrospective compilation. Personally, I think Vega made the right decision. While the original has some historical interest, the story of a murderous gangster is far less emotionally triggering than the tale of a downtrodden struggling every-man who’s pushed to his limit. That’s a story that can resonate with anyone who’s struggled to make ends meet. For the production, co-producer Craig Leon had managed to get his hands on an Eventide digital delay unit to use on the vocal tracks, adding dub inspired echo effects to further enhance the alien sounds of the album and bring Vega's guttural screams into deeper resonance.

When the album was released, while it garnered some positive reviews in the UK, the US press were generally unimpressed and dismissed the LP as inconsequential or even stupid, but that shortsightedness would be exposed with time as the band were vindicated by creating one of the most revered and influential albums to come from the punk and new wave movements of the ‘70s. I remember seeing it on the shelves in my local record shop and couldn’t resist my curiosity, so I picked up my first copy sometime in 1980. It immediately blew me away with its stark simplicity and razor sharp edge. Vega’s vocals could be terrifying, mostly due to that inhuman scream he could stab into an arrangement, slicing through it like a switchblade knife. One of our favorite things to do in our senior year of high school was to go in my friends truck and blast Frankie Teardrop over his stereo in the school parking lot at night, when the other kids were parked there, hanging out with nothing to do. Hearing that scream rip across the football field was a real delight.

Since its release, Suicide has gone on to be recognized as one of the most seminal albums to come out of the NYC music scene. They were certainly one of the most unique and distinctive groups of that time. No one else had their sound as they straddled this strange netherworld between punk and electronica. They had one foot in the nostalgia of the 1950s while the other strode into our dystopian future, sounding totally modern, despite their primitive and even antiquated electronic organs & drum machines. Their minimalist approach set them on course to inspire the next generation of electronic musicians, and the effect of that barrier-breakthrough still resonates to this day.

THROBBING GRISTLE - TG24 @ 20

 

Celebrating its 20th anniversary today is the CD reissue box set by Throbbing Gristle, TG24.  It was a completely remastered collection of live TG performances covering the period from their first appearance on July 6th, 1976, at the Air Gallery, to their Goldsmith College performance on March 13th, 1980.

Originally, in 1980, TG released a limited run of cassette box sets called 24 Hours of Throbbing Gristle.  The set included live recordings of their first 25 performances (IRC 03 contained two short shows, one per side).  The set also included two additional tapes of radio interviews, a personalized collage and group photographs.  This was all packaged in a black attache case.  These editions were hand duplicated using facilities at Industrial Records studio, therefore the number of editions issued was extremely limited.  Individual editions of some select live shows from this set were later sold separately by Industrial Records, as well as being licensed to other labels or bootlegged to create various live LP releases over the years. 

Sometime after the turn of the new millennia, Mute Records began negotiating with TG to remaster and reissue their back catalog, which included discussions of their live recording archive.  Eventually, a decision was made to reconstruct the 24 Hrs box set as a deluxe CD limited edition.  The process for doing this meant spending months trying to source the best possible versions of the original recordings which could be obtained, rummaging through the archives of all four band members.  TG recorded all their live performances on regular stereo cassettes, rather than reel-to-reel, some of which were in less than ideal condition by the time Chris Carter got around to trying to identify suitable versions to use for remastering.  In some cases, tapes were damaged and, in others, the actual recording had some technical issues which necessitated seeking out alternates.  For some performances, multiple simultaneous recordings were made.  One may have been direct from the mixing board while the other may have been an open mic recording to capture the sound in the audience.  The members of TG reviewed all alternative recordings to determine which version best captured the show and then selected that, even if it may have been of somewhat lesser quality, technically.  For the mastering Chris only employed minimal processing to adjust some output levels, though avoided using any compression.  Some digital noise reduction was employed in select recordings when the noise level was deemed distracting, but some noise was left in as its removal made the recording sound artificially “clean”.

During the process of putting the set together, Chris Carter initially gave up on including IRC-26 (Scala Cinema) because of insurmountable technical issues.  The ion generator used during TG’s live shows had a habit of discharging unexpectedly at times, throwing off sparks, and was so intense at this particular performance that it effected the cassette deck, ruining the second side of the tape with electronic interference.  An alternative show, IRC29 was selected to substitute.   The set of 24 CDs was already duplicated & packaged when the original master cassette was finally unearthed and found to have minimal issues with the recording.  An additional CD was then rushed into production so that the set ended up coming with a bonus 25th CD, added at the last minute. 

For the packaging of the CD edition, a special cloth bound box was created and embossed with the TG24 logo on the top.  Inside, along with the CDs - each of which was packaged in cardboard slip cases with printed graphics, the set included a large wax sealed envelope.  This was packed with an Industrial News magazine, numerous postcards, photos, badges and patches.  An authentication card was also included and signed by all four band members.  To launch the CDs, Mute set up a special art exhibit of TG memorabilia in a London gallery.  The exhibit featured such items as the original TG designer camouflage uniforms, custom audio equipment like Chris Carter’s “Gristlizer” sound processors and Sleazy’s cassette based “sampler” mini keyboard, along with press cuttings, posters and photographs.

Getting my hands on a copy of this set was one of the big WOW moments of my days of indulging in collectible musical products.  It was rather overwhelming to be suddenly in possession of so much TG music, much of which was completely unfamiliar to me.  Their live shows were never repetitive.  Certainly, as the group matured, some pieces found themselves performed live more than once, but they never sounded the same from show to show. For the most part, each performance from each show was its own entity.  Working through them all for an initial listen was a process that took a couple of weeks of exploring, usually one CD per day, if possible.  Live TG is not an “easy listening” experience, even in their “nicest” of incarnations.  Even with Chris’ remastering, the recordings were still sourced from cassettes, sometimes recorded off a mixing board and sometimes recorded using a binaural microphone system (the infamous “head” on a mic stand in the audience you can see in some TG live photos).  As such, the sound can be harsh, distorted and piercing, so you have to be in a certain state of mind to be able to appreciate what’s there.  Sometimes a TG show can seem like a pot just sitting there simmering on the stove with no real sense of anything happening.  Then, without warning, the BEAST can awaken and start tearing your ears apart.  You can be bored one minute and enthralled the next.  TG live was always like a conjuration of some kind of trans-dimensional entity breaking through with it’s Lovecraftian tentacles grasping at the audience’s perceptions.  Sometimes the spell worked, sometimes it didn’t or lasted only for a brief moment before dispersing.  But that was the magic of it all.

I don’t have the physical version of this set anymore, but I scanned and photographed it all and have digital files of all the audio.  I had to sell it off when money was tight and costs of living took precedence.  But it was a treasure while I had it and I tried to make sure it went to a good home when I did part with it.  I can’t think of many other groups who could release something like this and make it seem essential rather than self-indulgence.  A year after its release, a companion matching box set was issued to collect the remaining 10 live shows TG performed before their 1981 termination after their San Francisco final show.  The two boxes sure looked nice together and I’ll always be happy I had them in my home for the years they were here.

Creating this box set would not only revive interest for fans of TG, it also proved to be a catalyst for the group to reform not long after its release.  The process of putting the set together had managed to thaw the ice which had been long built up between certain members and, though some issues would remain contentious between them, the group did manage to enter into a highly productive second life until December of 2010, when Gen packed it in after their last live show in London and Sleazy passing beyond the veil shortly thereafter.

THE RESIDENTS - SANTA DOG @ 50

Marking their golden anniversary, 50 years since their first official musical product, The Residents were formally born on this day, December 20th, 1972, with the release of their double 7” single, Santa Dog. This four track EP would begin a career which would see this group of mysterious, anonymous artistic outcasts redefine the meaning of independent alternative music and outsider art.

While Santa Dog was their first proper release on their own imprint, Ralph Records, the group had been simmering away in obscurity for a few years before this, notoriously sending a demo to Warner Bros which was unceremoniously rejected, returned to the then nameless act c/o the “Residents”, who promptly turned defeat into victory by christening themselves based on WB’s seal of disapproval. Being dismissed by the majors was enough incentive for the group to decide to go completely independent and start their own label.

The first pressing of the EP was released by Residents, Uninc., with each track credited to a different fake performer: Ivory And The Brain Eaters - Fire, Delta Nudes - Explosion, The College Walkers - Lightning & Arf And Omega featuring The Singing Lawn Chairs - Aircraft Damage. Some copies had the tracks disordered, likely due to production oversights, and the gate-fold covers of many first pressings were stuck together due to the records being packaged before the lamination had a chance to properly dry. Most of these early pressings were given away to friends or mailed to celebrities like Frank Zappa and Richard Nixon, with Nixon refusing to accept his copy.

The EP immediately defined the off-kilter, bizarro aesthetic of the group and has since become a prized collectors item for the group’s ardent aficionados. The group has gone on to issue periodic updated recordings of the first song as a signpost whenever they’ve evolved to a level where they feel like there’s a need to reinstate the theme again to illustrate their evolution. A number of variations and compilations of Santa Dog recordings have appeared over the years and the original 1972 recordings have been added to expanded editions of Meet The Residents, as well as being included in various retrospective collections. Santa Dog is ground zero for The Residents. Everything that they were and are has progressed from this cornerstone little EP.