Nurse With Wound - Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella (1979)

My first Nurse With Wound was Insect & Individual Silenced, thanks mainly to a school coach trip down to that London and the wonderful Virgin Megastore, as was. Otherwise their work - as described by John Gill in Sounds in terms by which I knew I needed to hear it - eluded our local record shops and by extension me. We had a record shop in my tiny market town for about six months, and I recall Geoff, who ran the place, shaking his head and wondering why anyone would name an album Homotopy to Marie while my sniggering contemporaries browsed Def Leppard without actually buying anything, which is presumably why Geoff went out of business. About a decade later I had the first three on CD, including Chance Meeting, but I didn't have a CD player, didn't really plan to buy one, and ended up giving them away.

It's therefore taken me one fuck of a long time to finally hear this, and I'm sort of shocked to discover that it doesn't sound anything like I expected - although this is of course exactly what one should expect from Nurse With Wound. Steve Stapleton has said something about how he regards Homotopy to Marie as the first real Nurse recording, so this was himself pissing about with his pals, technically speaking, and was similarly distant from the insanity of Insect & Individual Silenced, for what that may be worth. The biggest surprise - although it probably shouldn't be - for me, has been how much Chance Meeting sounds like a relative of Faust and other krautrock predecessors* routinely ignored by history of industrial music podcasts put together by edgy fourteen-year olds with pierced eyebrows. Almost all of the sounds on this record are generated by actual musical instruments, albeit by unorthodox means - someone playing the piano with his arse, droning harmonium, and even a long-haired guitar solo. It's all improvised, of course, and I seem to recall reading that none of those involved had so much as picked up a musical instrument before getting this on tape.

It's a racket, as you would expect, but I've always felt Nurse With Wound made more sense as heirs to Man Ray, Kurt Schwitters, and Max Ernst than to even Yoko Ono's sonic experiments; and in this context, as firmly established by both Stapleton's cover art and the title deriving from Les Chants de Maldoror by the Comte de Lautréamont, they work for me - at least in so much as the art of Man Ray, Kurt Schwitters and Max Ernst works for me. As with the very best music of this admittedly general type, it established the terms by which the listener experiences it, meaning there's probably not much point comparing it to Out of the Blue by the Electric fucking Light Orchestra; and while there have been a few weirdos doing this kind of thing, with the possible exception of Richard Rupenus, no-one really seems to do it quite so well as Nurse With Wound. Alan Trench of Temple Music, amongst others, said Steve Stapleton remains one of the few people he's met whom he would describe as a genius, which I honestly think is fair.

It lives in neither the rock venue nor the art gallery as we know it today, because like the landscapes of de Chirico and the rest, this Chance Meeting takes place in some psychological realm, one which may not even have existed before the needle first encountered the groove; and, should I have failed to communicate as much, it's also a lot of fun to listen to, albeit weird, angular, confusing fun.

*: I've also been surprised by how sonically close it sits to the first Konstruktivists album - clearly a case of shared influences. Steve Stapleton and Glenn Wallis were friends, although Glenn was never particularly a fan of Nurse With Wound.
 

David Bowie - Reality (2003)

This one came out during those forty or so years when I was looking the other way, and if we're to be honest, so were most of you lot. Excepting a few inconsequential squares in polo neck sweaters working for hospital radio, people with hearing jumped ship around the time of Let's Dance - to make an admittedly massive generalisation - because why the fuck wouldn't you? Some of us came to regret the decision, while others were too busy with everything else that has happened during the last four decades; and besides, we were tired of yet another true return to form sounding like more of the approximate same, and there's not much point getting upset about it. Anyway, I eventually saw the error of my ways and so I went back, overcome by curiosity, and it was all better than I remembered, even if the ironically titled Never Let Me Down remains difficult to love; but Reality is the one which had me kicking myself, because it might even be his greatest album - if such an accolade is even meaningful.

The drums pound just as they did on Heroes, and all that excess of instrumentation weaves away in the background, almost unnoticed until you can't shift the fucker from your internal jukebox; and yes, he churned out a couple of actual good 'uns prior to Reality, but this was the one where it sounded like he meant it, and it sounded like he was enjoying himself, and it sounded particularly like he'd stopped caring about what anyone else might think. This is the one, moreso than the final two, where I suddenly remembered how exciting it used to be to come home with a new Bowie album, which was back in the days when I still had school on Monday. The new Bowie album always did a whole shitload of stuff you hadn't expected - by which I don't mean cod reggae with Tina Turner on the chorus - and it was new and exciting and you'd feel connected to something you couldn't even describe.

I still don't know what the hell this album is about, beyond the obviously insubstantial quality of modern life, and yet it affects me deeply. She'll Drive the Big Car in particular tears my heart out every time and I'm not even sure why, except that it felt like Dave understood something profound but bigger than words and difficult to squash into a song, something good, and he was doing his best to share it around.

You know that writing about music is a waste of time, right?

Bang On! - [sic] (2012)

I can't quite get used to the name having been slimmed down from Mr. Bang On, which made more sense to me, but I'm not complaining. Mr. Bang On turned up on a CD compilation given away with Hip-Hop Connection mag back in 2008 and was as such possibly the greatest thing I've ever heard on a free compact disc stuck to a magazine cover - even taking Hansel the Unicorn's magnificent Rat Face Girl into account. The music on [sic] has evolved in the four years since the freebie, but it's of the quality I anticipated, taking cues from grime, dubstep, garage, arcade game soundcards, even seventies dub reggae, then sort of going off in its own direction at ninety miles an hour. It's a noise which, if you're in your fifties like me, doesn't even sound quite like music at first - just a throb of distorted bleeps and electronic growls bolted together. Yet after a few plays it all falls into place, almost in spite of itself, with the kind of precision orchestration that warrants the description of art; and even the fucking autotune works, which isn't something you hear every day.

Mr. Bang On himself may or may not be unique, but he doesn't really sound like anyone else I've heard - not only a relentless lyrical barrage but a relentless lyrical barrage in a Liverpool accent of such strength it could strip paint, and the lyrics wield the sort of razor wit I've come to associate with the accent. Despite my mother's side of the family hailing from Liverpool, I don't have any particular investment in the city, but I'm well-disposed towards its people based on scousers I've known and a conviction of Brookside having been the only television soap that ever mattered. [sic] is grim, gritty, and all the other stuff you would expect. It smells of chips and rain and vehicular fumes, but it's funny, emotionally powerful, and free of any of the customary rap grandstanding. It doesn't sound like soul music, and yet that's exactly what it is. With twelve years having passed, I'm not sure that second album is going to happen but, to be fair, there's a lot to digest on this one.

Stooges - Funhouse (1970)

 

I grew up with an instinctive dislike of the sixties, informed mainly by my having been told that the sixties were amazing to an at least weekly schedule; because even at the tail end of the seventies, we hadn't quite got over it, and punk rock just meant we were apparently  in need of reminders. I still feel that this instinctive dislike is partially justified by most of the stuff routinely squirted in our faces by the nostalgia machine, but I've otherwise mellowed. Clearly it wasn't all Tom Jones and the Beach Boys.

The Stooges, for example, represent a massive oversight on my part. I knew of their having existed and I liked the sound of them; the Pistols covered No Fun; my bestest pal Carl was always very much a fan; and, going back to school days, there was a copy of Metallic KO in the collection of my friend's big brother, Martin - and we all thought Martin was the most amazing person in the universe. I'd more or less duplicated Martin's record collection in its entirety by the time I was forty, such was his influence on my formative listening choices, and yet still no Stooges. It was probably the blind spot.

Anyway, a few months ago I was browsing the records in my local Barnes & Noble, mainly because it's strange and exciting to have record stores back, even blandly corporate ones full of tasteful purchases by which you tick off all the boxes on the list of one hundred vinyls you must own. Funhouse was the only record which I'd consider hearing that I didn't already have, bringing with it the realisation of how weird it was that I should be this old and only now buying my first Stooges. What the fuck is wrong with me?

Naturally, it exceeds expectations - as I kind of expected it too, if you see what I mean. The Stooges were the opposite of everything I've ever disliked about the sixties, and continue to dislike as I see the same garbage all around in the American present. It's a dirty jazz-blues noise with howling and madness and the biggest tunes ever, something which could only have been born from places you'll drive straight through without stopping. Some of these tracks just keep going forever, on and on, grinding away like they're trying to escape from themselves - and they still don't sound like jams. It isn't cool. It isn't poetry readings. It isn't members of the Velvet Underground stood around pouting, admiring the abstracts in some New York gallery and describing everything as really interesting while trying not to fall over. You know that American dream we keep hearing about? Well, this ain't it, and that's why it's wonderful. You'll never hear any of these songs smoothed out and autotuned by diva-style entertainment creatives on America's Got Marketing Strategies.

This is what music rock should sound like when it's doing what it's supposed to do, and shame on anyone who loses sight of that; and shame on me for failing to take the hint until now.

JFK - Weapon Design (2017)

I know I have a few things by JFK on ancient compilation tapes, but nothing that left so enduring an impression as to inspire my purchase of this record, which was based mainly on anything with ties to Ramleh being worth a listen and the fact that I liked the cover; and my superficiality has once again paid off, it seems.

Weapon Design gives the impression of having been recorded with synths and drum machines of a certain vintage, yet refrains from pushing the usual nostalgia buttons reminding us of how we all used to watch Doctor Who when we were little. If there's any invocation of things passed, it's the cold war and brutalist achitecture. It isn't noise - despite titles such as Secret Orders and Reality Slicer - because even if we don't quite have tune, there are notes and unconventional forms of repetition which do the job of music in the same way as angular slabs of concrete may be deemed art by virtue of grimly emotive force. Perhaps weirdly, the thing it reminds me of more than anything is Metal Urbain - not through any literal resemblance but it has the same icy singularity of purpose, to these ears. I could say it's the sound of, and reel off the usual list of dystopian horrors, but being non-vocal rather than strictly instrumental - because I'm not sure anything which produced this sound is actually an instrument - it really does approach something for which there are no words, which is possibly the point.

Formidable!

+DOG+ - X7 (2022)

Even before we get into band names incorporating mathematical symbols, +DOG+ seem unique by my reckoning. They've issued endless CDs and vinyl records, yet still find time every so often to shove out one of these CDRs in a distinctive brown wrapper with rubber stamped artwork - might be outtakes, might be experiments which didn't make it onto an album, could be something else entirely. Also, we have the contrast of extreme electronic noise which, if the titles and artwork are an indication, follow ecological, almost folksy themes. This disc contains five tracks, each named after a woodland critter. It's not so much that it's difficult to square the howling cacophony with titles such as A Chipmunk, and A Bird - and note disarming use of the indefinite article - but it's nevertheless one hell of a puzzle. My personal take is that the titles are so at odds with the sound as to oblige one to focus on what you're hearing without the linguistic prompts which even naming everything Untitled would provide.

The noise, which varies greatly from piece to piece, seems to be entirely electronic, duplicating the crackle of broken circuits and bad connections in a way which feels paradoxically organic, even earthy, presumably hence the titles. There are elements of repetition and looping, but more as something one notices over time than noises reframed in an obviously artificial setting.

So what does it sound like, you may be wondering.

It sounds like tropical thunder, or the shifting of tectonic plates, or electrons driven into the nuclei of their own atoms inside stars; and it's difficult to listen to whilst being at the same time fascinating, and the sense of release when the machine stops is incredible; and it's weirdly relaxing just as the worst thunderstorm can sometimes be strangely comforting if you're home and dry.

Portion Control - Step Forward (1984)

I can't help but feel that Portion Control have been unfairly sidelined over the years. Certainly they've had their successes, exposure, toured with big names and so on, but still the impression seems to persist of Portion Control as one of those other Wild Planet bands who never quite got where they were going. You may have heard something by them on a compilation, but nobody knows who bought the records.

Apparently it was me.

The legend of the name deriving from all three of them working in the canteen at the Houses of Parliament seems to have been a myth, but never mind. If I Staggered Mentally - as sterling a debut album as you could wish to hear - owed something to Cabaret Voltaire, Step Forward seems to have consolidated their sound into something unique, or which was at least unique for as long as it took for all those other bands to rip it off. I'm not sure there was really anything quite like Step Forward at the time, or at least I don't recall it being so. Front 242 had a more glacial edge, Depeche Mode were still in their Teletubbies phase, and Portion Control sounded like no-one else - hooligans with sequencers, and drum machines which recreated the feeling of having one's head kicked in; and the magnificent Dean Piavanni, a man who sounded like he'd just been in a fight every time he stepped up to the microphone—occasionally like he was still having one. Of course, their hard rhythmic electronics became an entire genre in another couple of years, but this seems to be where it started, and thankfully with a band who weren't scared of the occasional tune.

With hindsight, Step Forward sounds almost squeaky clean compared to the subsequently dreadlocked aggrotech cyberwarriors selling this back to us as a Mad Max soundtrack; but there's more to mood than just speed and distortion, and I'm pretty sure this lot were all reading 2000AD comic like good lads, so some of the populism rubbed off with them along with the imagery, and certainly the wit. But for the occasional invocation of cyborgs kicking the shit out of each other in some mutant wasteland, Portion Control were essentially a punk band which is why they rock. Play it loud is almost always a compensatory serving suggestion offered by those who couldn't quite get there and hope you'll mistake volume for power, whereas Portion Control were always loud, regardless of the decibels. Also, they seem to be the only band whose orchestral stabs somehow still sound startling and upsetting three decades later.