Jihad Jerry & the Evil Doers - Mine is Not a Holy War (2006)

Apparently an entire year crept past before I realised there was a vinyl reissue of the 2006 album, which in any case I hadn't actually got around to buying because I hadn't looked close enough to realise that it was more or less a lost Devo record.

Well, I got on board as soon as I could, I guess.

I assume the lads had come to regard Devo as pretty much over by 2006, hence the slight shift in aesthetic emphasis, although not so much of a shift as to have retained the album title for the reissue. Mine is Not a Holy War - as it's no longer known - could be viewed as the Devo record bridging the gap between 1990's Smooth Noodle Maps and Something For Everybody of 2010 on the grounds of featuring all other members of Devo and reviving a couple of songs from the early years. It's probably not as good as Something For Everybody - which was frankly astonishing - but it's better than Smooth Noodle Maps, and Smooth Noodle Maps was nevertheless a decent album bespoiled by generic eighties production which made it sound like Bon Jovi. Here we get more expensive sounding retreads of I Been Refused, Find Out, and I Need a Chick alongside material with which I'm entirely unfamiliar. Find Out is an improvement, I Need a Chick probably should have been left alone, and I'm still not sure what to make of I Been Refused. It's a decent rendering but the original demo version may be my all-time Devo favourite, so I'm still trying to work out what I think about the fresh coat of paint. The newer material is, for what it may be worth, dynamite.

It's a pretty great album despite my piddling fannish reservations, giving emphasis to Devo's bluesier roots and keeping absolutely true to the rubber pants wearing mutant spirit of de-evolution. Now that Devo really do seem to have become past tense - barring attempts to flog expensive books of pictures to the rest of us - I could probably stand to hear a whole lot more from Jerry.

Quougnpt - I Worship Inertia (2021)

One section of Papal Syrup, or at least one section of what I think is the first track - although I could be wrong - features some disc jockey failing to pronounce the name of the artist, or band, but probably artist. I can't pronounce it either, although it looks like kwoffn't to me, assuming that the p is silent and because the n looks like it should be h. I haven't been entirely sure what to make of previous Quougnpt releases, despite myself having now been sampled on at least two of them, but as I primed my Discman in readiness for the morning constitutional, it was either this or godspunk volume twenty-three; and because godspunk volume twenty-three appears to feature UNIT bravely taking a stand against the tyranny of labour unions - because you know those all-powerful labour unions have the entire western hemisphere by the bollocks right now, I chose this; and rather than making no fucking sense whatsoever, I've now played it four times today. Actually, it still makes no fucking sense whatsoever but I've been listening to the thing regardless.

I've thankfully managed to forget what sort of massively wanky name we used to have for this kind of thing - we here meaning everyone except me - not plunderphonics, but something in that direction. Anyway, I Worship Inertia is, I suppose, sound collage but with significant emphasis on spoken word, and particularly on juxtaposition of the spoken word to form a narrative which feels as though it should make sense but doesn't. It's the sort of thing which sounds quite easy if you have some sort of audio editing software on your PC, but is actually quite difficult to do well, or to do this well; and although the theme might arguably constitute gibbering random insanity, it feels as though the album is having a particularly weird dream and is mumbling to itself in its sleep. There's a sort of logic there. I'm sure you're waiting for me to mention Nurse With Wound, so here it is, and it doesn't really resemble Nurse With Wound so much as the Radio 4 afternoon play impersonating an album by the same; but different, possibly.

For something so heavily reliant upon stolen lines of dialogue, I'm impressed that I recognise only myself and Chris Morris, meaning I'm probably not quite so steeped in junk culture as I thought. Greatest moment so far, aside from there being a track called Wombat Arse, is probably:

I've made you a drawing of a giraffe fucking an elephant. Notice how his mustache looks just like mine.

If that doesn't convince, then you probably should have stopped reading three paragraphs ago.

Secure yrself a copy yonder

The Cravats - The Complete John Peel Sessions (2022)

Just when you think you have as much Cravats as anyone could ever possibly need, they prove you wrong wrong wrong, again! Wrongy McWrongface from the wrong side of Wrongtown - that's you!

I had every track here, or at least the album or single versions as vinyl, compact disc, download, wax cylinder, sheet music, and runic instructions carved on traditional Arizona sandstone. I didn't really need another double album, but it's four entire Peel sessions which - admittedly - I wasn't sure I'd heard, at least not all of them. I stopped the nice man and bought one, knowing I'd otherwise only spend the rest of my life wondering.

It's strange how easily one forgets just how massive and fundamental the Cravats were - still are, if we're going to split hairs. Everything here is ingrained within my skull to such a depth that I suspect the ridges running around the inside of my cranium bear a more than passing resemblance to the grooves found on at least one side of The Colossal Tunes Out; and yet these versions were played and recorded at just enough variance as to sound fresh, not unlike hearing everything for the first time - and in hearing it all for the first time, or experiencing an illusion of the same, you notice how - really - there was never anyone like the Cravats. It's a bomb going off in a jazz factory, wrenching metal slipping oiled tracks, honking sax skidding from the overhead walkway, everything that ever happened in a cubofuturist painting happening all at once, over and over with the Shend sounding as though he's losing it, and this time for real. This was never one of those grunting eighties bands with a horn section who insisted there had always been a dance element to their sound, even back when they were called the Snot Sandwiches. The Cravats sounded like the creation of the universe, or at least of a universe, a universe which divides into those who get the Cravats, and then the rest.

You may have told yourself that you have as much Cravats as anyone could ever possibly need, but you're wrong. You need this one too.

Jolthrower - The Last Sip (2021)

 

The relationship between light beverages and electronic, industrial, or otherwise futuristic forms of music is not well documented, possibly due to the slightly more pervasive influence of meth, cocaine, and space fags; but it's definitely a thing. Few will have forgotten Watford's Soft Drinks, who might be likened to a more violent version of Nitzer Ebb but for the songs being about Pepsi Cola, orange squash and the like. Now we have Jolthrower, a fount of hard electronic noise dedicated to Jolt Cola; or at least we had Jolthrower, the existence of which has been dependent on the availability of the recklessly refreshing non-alcoholic beverage which provides both its inspiration and reason for being.

Please don't tell me you've never heard of it.

I didn't believe it either, until I found a bottle for myself. It was five in the morning and I was on the way to work and there it was in amongst the inferior drinks at 7-Eleven. The label and logo - that distinctive red and yellow flash of lightning - was printed directly onto the glass of the bottle so it seemed like something special; and the joke my friends had made about all the sugar and twice the caffeine turned out not to be a joke after all, but a promise, a vow even, and there it was in those exact same words on the glass; and I'm here to tell you, should it need saying, that it didn't disappoint.

Unfortunately, the company has somehow had a sporadic relationship with its supply chain, going out of business from time to time, shutting down, then back up and running again; and so Jolthrower's Last Sip serves as a sort of requiem to the drink's most recent period of availability as well as a celebration.

Sonically we have only titles such as The Powerful Cola Compels Me or the pensive Trying Coke Zero to establish an obvious association between the drink and the noise, but it all makes sense, the more you listen; and yes, it's noise, seeing as I apparently didn't already mention that. Specifically, The Last Sip is a barrage of electronics recorded in a live setting, screaming feedback, distortion, sine wave chaos, loops, glitches and the like, and of all things it reminds me most of Throbbing Gristle's live recordings from back before Porridge grew himself a pair of baps - that peculiar combination of terror and excitement in this instance specifically evoking the caffeine rush of the world's most powerful cola. There's a dynamic here and the sound constantly changes and evolves, taking the listener on a journey, even if it's just to the local Dollar Store. If ever proof were needed as to how noise has evolved as an art form, how far it has come, then it's right here.