Smell & Quim - Cuntybubbles (2020)

 
I recently discovered that Mr. Walklett attended the same fine art course as Marc Almond, back in the mists of time, and it sort of makes sense that the man who brought us Beaver Full of Spunk should once have patronised the same scholastic cafeteria as the one who brought us Sex Dwarf. Makes you wonder about Leeds a bit, or it makes me wonder at least. Maybe it's something in the water.

Anyway, just when you thought it was all done and dusted, the naughty fuckers are back, and my shelves suddenly groan beneath the weight of more Smell & Quim albums than I even knew existed this time last month, even a couple of newies. Cuntybubbles is brought to us by agency of the very wonderful and recently revived Cheeses International and illustrates, yet again, how Smell & Quim just seem to shit out one instant classic after another - arguably literally - like a musical version of the woman who keeps having babies in that Monty Python film, the one that wasn't very good; and yes, I do mean musical. Smell & Quim's strength has ever been that there was always a lot more to them than mere volume, and the romantically named Cuntybubbles is a rich sequential montage of loops, found sounds, squelches, musique concrete, alcohol abuse, scatological perversion, and Jimmy Savile. Of course, there's plenty of noise, and the sort which kills your lawn, but it's just one tool in the arsenal rather than the whole point, and this one sits as happily next to your Residents albums as that Whitehouse boxed set.

They've since released another new album even before I managed to get hold of this one, and that's great too. If you're not sure what Smell & Quim sound like or what they do, just imagine what your favourite noise group might be like if they managed to record something you were going to play more than once.

Order from Cheeses Int., a link for which can be found at the top left of the page under some stuff.

Konstruktivists - Konstruktive Kontinuum (2020)

That Konstruktivists are now in their fourth decade should probably seem stranger than it is, but even more significant is how they've improved with age. The last couple of albums have been decent, and this may even be the best one yet - probably ironic given that there were only a hundred of the physical version, but never mind. Having actually bashed the triangle for Konstruktivists at one point, my impartiality might be called into question when it comes to a review such as this; but I'd argue that, having been in the group - which was after all a long, long time ago - I at least have some understanding of what Glenn was trying to do, the sort of effect towards which he's been working all these years. It was never particularly industrial, as the cliché would have it, because his influences have always been wider than a couple of post-punk albums which sounded like someone rogering a printing press. Even when it hasn't been communicated well, Konstruktivists have always had a strongly theatrical element - painting pictures and telling stories with music, if you will, but dark, slightly peculiar, and occasionally fetishistic stories as you might reasonably expect of a bloke who used to hang around with Clock DVA.

This is another album recorded with Mark Crumby - formerly of Cathedra, Binary, Codex Empire and a host of others - a name associated with the very best of Konstruktivists, which probably isn't a coincidence. Whatever it is, he clearly gets it, and to the point that listening to this I finally understand what Glenn was getting at all those years ago. This is like Lovecraftian cabaret, moody and disturbing but without pulling silly faces or taping a handmade no parents allowed sign to your bedroom door. There's something joyful here, weirdly stylised and arty without apologies; and not quite like anyone else I can think of, off the top of my head, so jolly good show!

Buy! Buy! Buy!

Onomatopoeia - Irrelevant (1997)

Older cervix havers and bepenised beings may recall Onomatopoeia as the musical wing of Steve Fricker's Cheeses International distribution service and occasional collaborator with Smell & Quim, notably on the formidable Fanny Batter album. I myself specifically recall Onomatopoeia from Anal Almond which I reviewed in The Sound Projector magazine about a million years ago. Apparently I may even have been the only person to review it, which is depressing.  Anal Almond was notable for combining hard, aggressive electronics with the misery of food allergies, thematically speaking, which certainly made a change from the usual stuff about Hitler. Irrelevant dates from approximately the same era but, having been initially issued as a cassette with a fairly limited run, has since been granted a second crack of the whip by means of this beautifully hand-crafted vinyl edition, just three-hundred and each one adorned with a different national flag for reasons which feel as though they make sense even if it's hard to say why.

Onomatopoeia sits loosely within that whole weirdy noise thing but can be distinguished from the herd by its reluctance to tick boxes or tread any particularly well worn path. It's not exactly power electronics, harsh noise, dark ambient, certainly nothing industrial, and to call it sound art might possibly be a bit wanky. Each of these peculiarly titled five tracks seem to comprise sounds derived from a single instrument - hunting horn, piccolo, cymbal and so on - slowed down, sped up, treated, looped, multitracked and the rest to the point of the source being abstracted more or less into oblivion - arguably excepting the bass on Chafed Cervix Coleslaw Cum Chutney Cesspit which goes all Richie Blackmore towards the end. This distortion of the source works exceptionally well, limiting what may have been distracting to yield something which manages to be alternately abrasive, meditative, and - above all - haunting. In fact, the first thing it brought to mind when I slapped the record on was Vernon Elliott's sombre incidental music for Noggin the Nog - so factor that in with a loosely Surrealist aesthetic and whatever inspired all those not quite ambient albums by Nigel Ayers, and that probably amounts to a description. Of all the weird shit I've listened to so far this year, Irrelevant has been one of the most pleasurable.

Enquire within.

Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs (2021)

Everyone seems to think this is the best one yet, a return to form and all that, which usually translates to honest, it's quite good, definitely not as bad as it could have been; but fuck me, it might actually be the best one yet, and certainly does a lot to remind me how fucking amazing Austerity Dogs sounded when I first heard it. I'm not sure what they've done differently, or the same, or how they've shaken off the suggestion of trying to keep the magic going despite hanging out with Phil Collins on an episode of Tony Blair's Great British Celebrity Cake Factory - which may well have been just my ears - but Jesus Christ it's worked. This one strips the paint right off the walls.

Musically and lyrically, it's mostly what you would expect, or perhaps hope for - the same flavour of bile, venom, piss, and late night doner kebabs yet without sounding like a retread of previous efforts. There are plenty of one-string guitar loops, cheap video game rhythms and so on, and not a trace of anything unnecessary, and somehow it all adds up to grooves which almost equate to Severed Heads hanging around on the council estate. Nudge It is particularly powerful, hammering away with a bass that might be detuned floor toms on a cheap eighties drum machine for all I can tell. Everything has the sound of equipment plugged into the wrong sockets, overdriven signals achieving some effect which you could never achieve if you tried to do it on purpose.

As for Mr. Williamson, you already know what he does best, and he does it better than ever here - so caustic it makes it difficult to look the album in the eye for fear of it picking a fight.

Spare Ribs is so good it's hard to know what else to say about it beyond for God's sake, don't spill its pint: another one that makes anybody stood next to it look like an idiot.