Unspeakable

Tribal paranoid jams of political claustrophobia. War dances for the troops of counter-cultural insurrection. Flee the Thatcheran apocalypse to the sound of nuclear dissolution and social revolution. Only Iceland is safe.

 Unspeakable

Somebody gave the GOVERNMENT a FLAT TIRE

In honour of ANONYMOUS' mighty retaliation to Megaupload's shut down and time bought as well as minds changed for the SOPA/PIPA bill, I have decided to post a bite-sized Canadian new wave treat. The Government are a band with a small output and even smaller legacy, but who remain a sought after name in the world of obscure early art punk and new wave 7"s. This is, no doubt, a result of the unique sounds contained on this plastic cylinder from 1979. A perfect sonic polaroid of a highly anamolous moment in music and counter-culture. Quite unlike anything else to come out of Canada and it's punk scene at the time, these four numbers are some delightful little oddities set to a metric, chugging beat. My personal fave remains Flat Tire, which seems a fitting tribute to the impressive work of our fellow online-activist brethren and at least the temporary thwarting of the powers of evil and greed in recent days. Enjoy with beer and salted sarcasm.

Spongey

It's the witching hour...

Happy Hallowe'en

Your new favourite Cure album (you're welcome)

Why this remains the sole record people in their first big Cure phase seem to overlook or just find completely uninteresting is still beyond me. Sure, Primary is no A Forest or One Hundred Years but does anyone listen to a Cure album just for a single standout anthem? I hope not, because most their albums are an immersing series of anthems, each more compelling than the one that came before, until you see the larger whole. What makes Faith different is that it is a typical Cure album from this period in a much more subtle sense. While every song still contains that anthemic quality inherent to the band's writing at this time, the emphasis in the songs here is on mood and atmosphere and there is little else from this formative time for this kind of music that does this in a fashion so tastefully nuanced. Try and not fall into the gloomy existential depths of All Cats Are Grey, the distance and frigidity of The Funeral Party or the brooding reflection in Doubt, it's nearly impossible. The images contained here are some of Smith's most bleak, at times despairingly universal and at others desperately emotionally opaque. After 30 years this knows any depressed 20-yr-old's psyche better than they ever will. Not for the happy-go-lucky.

Doubt

Broken Record

This is the record that broke sound, first in CBGB's 30 years ago and later (2006) in a particularly mind-bending Dilla donut. Don't fuck with Frith.

Speechless

This might be the record that broke music, for good.

just killing time...

This record was made broken.

Down Below

Rocktober: Upping the Ante

Apologies again for inconsistency but let's just say my weekend was hijacked by turkey...

Tempted?

You'll Never Be A Man

Go To Sleep

There, satisfied? I hope so, back in '81 this was the best London had to offer (ok except maybe that whole 'punk' fad but I'd have trouble stretching my definition of rock here enough to include that). You may look at this hefty trio and wonder how the last record fits in here and it is that very record I want most to talk about. Scenes and reputations and legacies aside there is no question in my mind that these are three revolutionary records, though for very different reasons.

If Squeeze's more well-known, schmaltzy bubblegum singles left a bad tang on your tongue then indulge in the alt-pop feast presented here. Underwhelming at first listen, it is a complex palette of ever-so-subtly twisted ditties with infectious hooks, rock solid arrangements and each with it's own weird edge to it. Mid-record you'll have your mind gradually blown by F-Hole at which point the truly original contour of this album is fully revealed. 

From 77-86 Elvis Costello had one of the most impressive runs in rock/pop history. Trust just happens to be sandwiched between Get Happy! and Imperial Bedroom and it is in this trilogy where I believe the scope of his genius is most effortlessly demonstrated. Maintaining the high-energy, to-the-point performance of pop anthems from the former while making a clear progression towards the programmatic moodiness of the latter, Trust is one of his most concisely engaging and rewarding listens and features some seriously underrated classics.

This Heat's Deceit stands out here both in aesthetic and influence but provides a contrast I believe necessary to getting a accurate image of the whole of London's music scene at the time. Recorded in a converted meat freezer (Cold Storage Studios) with the band's own D.I.Y. set-up, Deceit sounds like nothing before or after it. Nor will any album ever come close to capturing such an audible nuclear-arms-race-inspired paranoia as this does. This Heat were onto so many idiomatic innovations with this record it's sort of not surprising this completely fell under the radar; it's hard to know what to make of what's going on here now, let alone 30 years ago. Each song is a totally unsettling and morose atmosphere unto itself, making the whole as accurate a tableau of the proposed dystopia Thratcher's government represented to disillusioned British youth as we'll get.

While Squeeze and Elvis were wrapping their political commentary in love-story allegory and Discharge and Crass wore their anarchism on their armbands, This Heat crafted the most convicted and visionary depiction of an apocalypse that, instead of bringing about desolation, left us some of the most inspired original sounds, sowing seeds for numerous forms of post-punk musical expression to come. 30 years later it's still spine-tingling.