We Be Echo - Ceza Evi (1983)

I now have three versions of this, and I've a feeling I've reviewed it as many times over the years, with excerpts of my previous reviews having been reprinted on the cover of previous reissues, albeit reissues of related We Be Echo material rather than this specific collection. I'm quoted on the cover of this one too, which is massively gratifying, although it presents the weird possibility that you may even be reading this on the cover of some future reissue. Anyway, before I disappear up my own arse…

Ceza Evi was recorded by Kevin Thorne, formerly of Third Door from the Left and fairly close associate of Throbbing Gristle. It was one of the first independent cassettes I bought, and as such set an unusually high bar for the form. It had quite an impact on me. The music - and it is music rather than some dreary bloke scratching his nuts next to a tape recorder and declaring it sound art - utilises drum machine, synth, bass guitar, electronics, and a lot of tapes to communicate a powerfully brooding atmosphere approximately parallel to the sort of thing Gristle always did so well, something bordering on the edge of the profane or unthinkable - beat driven music which really grinds its way into your subconscious. The incredible thing is that this material didn't even have the benefit of a four track portastudio. It was captured by bouncing tracks from tape to tape on a domestic double tape deck. Naturally, no-one's going to mistake Ceza Evi for a Trevor Horn production, but nor does it quite sound like anything produced by a bloke sat cross-legged on the rug in his front room. Kevin got the absolute best out of the extraordinary limited equipment available at the time, even without the significant occurrence of tape hiss, and it succeeds because the simple power of these tracks sweeps you up and carries you away to some very dark places before it even occurs that maybe it wasn't knocked out at Abbey Road.

There were two versions of Ceza Evi. The special edition came out a year or so after the first, replacing more than half of the tracks with newer, more technically sophisticated material. This double disc from Cold Spring polishes up and remasters the special edition on the first disc - or rather Martin of Attrition polishes up and remasters, and a great job he's done too. The second disc collects the tracks which were lost in the update. They're perhaps more primitive than others on the special edition, harder or even more brutal, but - fuck - I'm glad they haven't been left completely by the wayside, and it's particularly great to hear I'm A Gambler, Micro Penis, and Knechtschaft again after all this time. Listening to this lot again, it's also interesting to hear formative clues as to the current We Be Echo sound, which has evolved greatly from these beginnings, but still carries some of the same mood.

I've lived with these tracks for what is now a bewildering two thirds of my existence on this planet, and can't imagine what life would have been like without this stuff somewhere in the background.

Stephen Mallinder - Tick Tick Tick (2022)

I'm almost not sure what to say about this one. He's been at it for nearly five decades, yet continues to put out first class albums which build on what has gone before without sounding like a retread - always breaking new ground; and Tick Tick Tick substantially develops even on Um Dada from 2019. We're back with smooth electric disco, for want of a better term, but where previous efforts with Wrangler and Cabaret Voltaire have been, if not quite dark, certainly tinged with paranoia, Tick Tick Tick sounds kind of happy. Of course, the equipment used brings with it trace elements of acid, techno, handbag house, hardbag, or whatever the fuck they were calling it that year, but more than anything it puts me in mind of some of the weirder extended disco workouts from the likes of the Gap Band and others. Should it even need stating, it seems fair to say that the James Brown influence really wasn't just something with which to freak out all those conservative punk rockers and industrial music trainspotters. Hush seems to be the standout track with its haunting sample of what sounds like a wonky old tape of something orchestral, but it's very much a close run race. If all music was this good we'd be fucked because you'd never know what to listen to next; and talking of matters next, if whatever follows improves on this, I really won't know what to say and may have to resort to expressive dance.

What a time to be alive!

Canibus - Can-I-Bus (1998)

I was about to muse upon how Canibus appeared to have vanished in the wake of the first two, when a moment's online research reveals that actually he released about a million albums since this debut and seems to have done well for himself, even if it turns out I've been facing the wrong direction all of this time. Anyway, I recall that this one didn't do so well as everyone had hoped, given the lad's brief tenure as the next big thing; and he spent at least some of the follow up blaming Wyclef for fucking up the production on the first, echoing what had been said in a few of the reviews, which probably contributed to my giving it a miss. Plus Canibus seemed like a bit of a dick, at least in interview, banging on about flying saucers, freemasons and other conspiracies, qualifying this obsession by proposing that sceptics were uneducated fools who enjoyed being blind to the truth of the true facts, and so on and so forth.

Also, naming yourself after the ganja…

So once again, here I am two decades after the fact thinking, how bad could it have been?

Well, Channel Zero, in which our man explains about lost civilisations, aliens and stuff, is frankly fucking stupid, although one can't help but admire the lyrical dexterity by which he attaches this particular kick me sign to his own ass; but apart from that, Can-I-Bus is not at all what I expected. I was aware of his being a pretty decent lyricist - formidable even - and his name turns up in a few of those all-time top fifty listings. On the strength of this set, I'd say he could be top ten, not least if either Tupac or Eminem made it into any of the aforementioned listings - which I'm sure they did seeing as how they usually do. He's mostly a battle rapper, and it shows on this album, which would have been a bit monothematic except you're too busy tripping over the wordplay to notice; and extra points for the massively satisfying LL Cool J takedown. As the man says:

More lines than the bible quoted from Jesus.
More lines than a African herd of zebras.

Production-wise, sorry, but Wyclef did a great job. I don't see how it sounded too commercial - as was the accusation - in 1998, and in 2022 it may as well be an underground DJ Premier mixtape recorded direct from AM radio, just one copy owned by the artist's mum. It's a clean sound for sure, but hardly conventional or pop or mainstream beyond Wyclef presumably making sure it wouldn't scare anyone off playing it on the radio. It's not the greatest rap album ever, or the greatest debut ever, but it's fucking solid for something the artist ended up disowning; and if it failed to knock Illmatic or Ready to Die or whatever from the throne, we can at least justify Can-I-Bus named in the same sentence, which isn't too shabby.

Nurse With Wound - The Ladies Home Tickler (1980)

I'm fairly sure there should be an apostrophe in the title, but who knows where Nurse With Wound are concerned? This was originally issued with the Psilotripitaka box, then later reissued in an expanded version with additional tracks from various compilation albums, and this is a double vinyl reissue of that reissue billed - at least by Norman Records - as representing the earliest Nurse With Wound recordings, despite that Chance Meeting came out in 1979. I've given up trying to work out where this material was originated because it probably doesn't matter. I like Nurse With Wound without really feeling the need to own a massive stack of albums, but the involvement of Jim Thirlwell, presumably then still in short trousers, was enough for me.

First impression, despite some of it being vaguely familiar from somewhere or other, was actually what the fuck is this shit?, which is my own fault. I was trying to concentrate on something that was turning out to be quite stressful, and the cut-up tape of Dustin Hoffman giggling away in the background was kind of annoying. Then next day I played it all the way through and remembered why I don't have much by Nurse With Wound; and the day after that, still wondering what the fuck was that shit?, I gave it one final chance and everything fell into place. Stranger still, I found myself looking forward to listening to the thing each day as I made my way home.

Oh boy! I can't wait to get back so I can listen to my new Nurse With Wound album, is not a thought I'm accustomed to having, but there it was.

Home Tickler is mostly tape edits - dialogue, familiar sounds in an unfamiliar context, Jim Thirlwell pissing about on a Wasp synth with William Bennett doing something or other as well; but because different tracks recycle sounds and sections of dialogue used on other tracks, the whole hangs together so well across four sides of vinyl as to sound like a single coherent, even orchestrated piece. This is probably an illusion born from repetition, but it nevertheless sucked me right in - compelling in anticipation of which random sonic splatter will hit the next fan, and strangely rewarding as your brain settles into this surrealist assemblage, even getting comfortable. It really hammers home the difference between Nurse With Wound and  anyone else who has ever been described as sounding a bit like Nurse With Wound.

I'm told that Mr. Stapleton no longer regards anything recorded prior to Homotopy to Marie as being proper Nurse, whatever that means, which, if true, seems a shame because this is magnificent. Typically, I now realise I need more.