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.