by Simon Reynolds
We’re deep into the post-punk resurgence now, but there’s no
sign yet of a slow down: the endless procession of new bands that have drawn
inspiration from that era keeps on colliding with veteran bands that have reformed,
a flood of reissues jostles with compilations and anthologies. The net effect
of this sustained explosion of curiosity and fascination with the period,
though, is a tendency to take postpunk as a known quantity, a defined and
circumscribed bundle of attributes: "angular",
"stark", "jagged", "angsty," and so forth.
One of my main goals when writing Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984 was to show the real sprawling diversity of postpunk--less a genre than a space of possibility that opened up in the late Seventies. The same ambition applies to this compilation. As you'll hear, not everything released back then was dread-soaked or twitchy with nervous tension, skeletally minimal or herky-jerky in feel. Postpunk's open-ended ideals and imperatives (avoid the obvious, jettison anything that smacked of traditional rock 'n' roll, cultivate idiosyncrasy) generated ethereal dreaminess, eccentric whimsy, and senseless acts of exquisitely odd beauty, just as much as they encouraged fractured punk-funk or structureless noise.
This compilation has its fair share of high-energy freneticism: Devo's "Praying Hands" filters the rampant rowdiness of Sixties shindigs and frat-parties through the group's characteristic grotesque humor (it's an attempt to imagine a born-again Christian dance craze, a la the Twist or the Mashed Potato), while the crisp, kinetic rockabilly of The Fall's "Fiery Jack" hits your membranes like the sharp sting of cheap sulphate. But you'll also hear more of a different kind of postpunk that tends to get overlooked: insidiously atmospheric, teeming with jeweled subtleties, a music of ghosts and glints.
Young Marble Giants' "Choci Loni" is a prime example of this stealthy and secretive side of postpunk, a spidery near-silence of crisply flecked guitar and warm Horlicks bass wrapping itself like a shawl around Alison Statton's self-contained vocal. Like their Rough Trade labelmates The Raincoats on their exquisitely intricate chime-box ”Only Loved At Night", "Choci Loni"
draws you into its hush and casts a shivery spell that lingers long after the song ends. Likewise, Fatal Microbes' "Violence Grows" avoids the apocalyptic bombast its title suggests in favour of slow-drone gorgeousness, thereby achieving a far more disquieting effect. Singer Honey Bane’s blankly amoral lyric about muggings in shadowy pedestrian subways is so vivid you can practically see the orange sodium light, smell the piss in the underpass. Violence of a different sort is the subject of "Grass", a darkly witty allegory about authoritarianism originally written by the late, great Ivor Cutler but covered here by Robert Wyatt, a pre-punk innovator who thrived in a postpunk world of anything-goes. Backed by the shimmering tablas and shehnai of East London Bangladeshi outfit Dishari Shilpee Gosth, Wyatt plays the role of guru imparting wisdom to an acolyte, the power relation underlined by lines like “while we talk I'll hit your head with a nail to make you understand me / I have something important to say."
One of my main goals when writing Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984 was to show the real sprawling diversity of postpunk--less a genre than a space of possibility that opened up in the late Seventies. The same ambition applies to this compilation. As you'll hear, not everything released back then was dread-soaked or twitchy with nervous tension, skeletally minimal or herky-jerky in feel. Postpunk's open-ended ideals and imperatives (avoid the obvious, jettison anything that smacked of traditional rock 'n' roll, cultivate idiosyncrasy) generated ethereal dreaminess, eccentric whimsy, and senseless acts of exquisitely odd beauty, just as much as they encouraged fractured punk-funk or structureless noise.
This compilation has its fair share of high-energy freneticism: Devo's "Praying Hands" filters the rampant rowdiness of Sixties shindigs and frat-parties through the group's characteristic grotesque humor (it's an attempt to imagine a born-again Christian dance craze, a la the Twist or the Mashed Potato), while the crisp, kinetic rockabilly of The Fall's "Fiery Jack" hits your membranes like the sharp sting of cheap sulphate. But you'll also hear more of a different kind of postpunk that tends to get overlooked: insidiously atmospheric, teeming with jeweled subtleties, a music of ghosts and glints.
Young Marble Giants' "Choci Loni" is a prime example of this stealthy and secretive side of postpunk, a spidery near-silence of crisply flecked guitar and warm Horlicks bass wrapping itself like a shawl around Alison Statton's self-contained vocal. Like their Rough Trade labelmates The Raincoats on their exquisitely intricate chime-box ”Only Loved At Night", "Choci Loni"
draws you into its hush and casts a shivery spell that lingers long after the song ends. Likewise, Fatal Microbes' "Violence Grows" avoids the apocalyptic bombast its title suggests in favour of slow-drone gorgeousness, thereby achieving a far more disquieting effect. Singer Honey Bane’s blankly amoral lyric about muggings in shadowy pedestrian subways is so vivid you can practically see the orange sodium light, smell the piss in the underpass. Violence of a different sort is the subject of "Grass", a darkly witty allegory about authoritarianism originally written by the late, great Ivor Cutler but covered here by Robert Wyatt, a pre-punk innovator who thrived in a postpunk world of anything-goes. Backed by the shimmering tablas and shehnai of East London Bangladeshi outfit Dishari Shilpee Gosth, Wyatt plays the role of guru imparting wisdom to an acolyte, the power relation underlined by lines like “while we talk I'll hit your head with a nail to make you understand me / I have something important to say."
Another early 70s figure who came into his own after punk
was John Cooper Clarke, a Dylan-obsessed Mancunian bard who incanted his poetry
over backing by the Invisible Girls, a group headed by Joy Division producer Martin
Hannett. "Beasley Street Britain
Another song about staying up all night: Thomas Leer's "Tight as a Drum," from his classic EP 4 Movements. Having started out making DIY electronic lo-fi in1978 with the self-released "Private Plane" and then recording an album of ominous ambient noise for Industrial Records, Leer had shifted by 1981 to a jazz 'n' soul inflected synthpop of uncommon warmth and swing. (This stemmed partly from the fact that Leer played the beats live on an electronic drum pad kit, rather than programming them on a drum machine). A tingling, tremulous mist of synthetic sighs and shivers, "Tight as a Drum" captures the frayed euphoria of a young man who's made it through 'til
dawn's early light.
The Human League's "Dancevision" also evokes a peculiarly indeterminate alloy of joy and sorrow. Recorded in 1977, just before Phil Oakey joined the band, its haiku-succinct minimalism shimmers like the future-ghost ofDetroit
Another song about staying up all night: Thomas Leer's "Tight as a Drum," from his classic EP 4 Movements. Having started out making DIY electronic lo-fi in1978 with the self-released "Private Plane" and then recording an album of ominous ambient noise for Industrial Records, Leer had shifted by 1981 to a jazz 'n' soul inflected synthpop of uncommon warmth and swing. (This stemmed partly from the fact that Leer played the beats live on an electronic drum pad kit, rather than programming them on a drum machine). A tingling, tremulous mist of synthetic sighs and shivers, "Tight as a Drum" captures the frayed euphoria of a young man who's made it through 'til
dawn's early light.
The Human League's "Dancevision" also evokes a peculiarly indeterminate alloy of joy and sorrow. Recorded in 1977, just before Phil Oakey joined the band, its haiku-succinct minimalism shimmers like the future-ghost of
From spiky to spacey,
from jagged frenzy to ambient calm, postpunk encompassed a vast spectrum of
sound and mood, texture and tempo. I hope this compilation gives you a glimpse
of this music’s amazing reach and richness, and a taste for exploring further.
tracklist
1 –The Fall Fiery Jack 4:44
2 –Devo Praying Hands 2:48
3 –Pulsallama The Devil Lives In My Husband's Body 3:25
4 –Cabaret Voltaire Sluggin' For Jesus Part 1 4:55
5 –Josef K Sense Of Guilt 3:03
6 –Scritti Politti P.A.s 5:57
7 –The Slits Spend, Spend, Spend 3:14
8 –Fatal Microbes Violence Grows 3:10
9 –Robert Wyatt Grass 2:36
10 –Siouxsie & The Banshees Slowdive 4:18
11 –The Raincoats Only Loved At Night 3:30
12 –Young Marble Giants Choci Loni 2:34
13 –The Human League Dancevision 2:19
14 –Thomas Leer Tight As A Drum 4:36
15 –Associates* White Car In Germany 4:53
16 –The B52s* Give Me Back My Man 3:58
17 –John Cooper Clarke Beasley Street 6:49
18 –The Specials Friday Night, Saturday Morning 3:33
19 –Heaven 17 I'm Your Money 5:06
20 –The Blue Orchids* Dumb Magician 2:53
No comments:
Post a Comment