September 28 1991, Melody Maker (this was originally paired with an interview with Butterfly Child done by David Stubbs - you can find that further down this post)
Prior to that I had done a live review...
June 8 1991 - Melody Maker
What do you know? the whole show is up there and out there
That debut EP Flying to Vegas
Compare with the review (single of the week), the first of my scrawlings on Papa Sprain
the second EP
Then they did an EP called Tech Yes (do you see what they did there?) the title track of which doesn't seem to be out there but the other two tracks are:
I seem to remember there was an abortive album that got refused by the label (no longer H.ARK I don't think, at this point) and was a noisescape interpretation of James Joyce's Ulysses or something like that. I remember hearing some form of this in advance and being rather befuddled. I may even have the tape still...
Ah my memory is not completely wrong here, as this (admittedly hearsay) anecdote I found on a post-rock blog relates:
"The story is that an increasingly eccentric McKendry was taking his sweet time recording Papa Sprain’s full-length debut when the folks at Rough Trade demanded to hear some work in progress. McKendry brought them a cassette of freeform guitar feedback and the irritated label people demanded that he produce something a bit more substantial – and soon. A week later, McKendry returned with the same recording to which he had added his voice intoning the first word from every page of Ulysses.."
As an example of the Artist getting a little bit carried away and losing sight of their real gifts and forte, it's comparable to the goofily abstract album that the Beta Band did that never got released. Actually I believe it was one whole disc of a double album - that then got contracted back to a single LP. At any rate, I have that too, in all its full folly - I got sent an advance of the full double and kept it the out-there cassette, it's tucked away God know where.
I also have a H.ARK advance with a few things that never saw release....
demo versions, early drafts, unreleased songs aka The Ancient Sounds of Papa Sprain
"Live, Papa Sprain remind me of the early performances of AR Kane, except that this lot can clearly play." Lol... I saw AR Kane play at the ICA, (in 1988, maybe?) and they were certainly not flashy virtuosos at that point. The only tune I remember is 'Sulliday', and I only recognised that because of the "ba-boom" drum pattern. After about ten minutes, the guy standing in front of me threw his half-full (plastic) pint of lager in the air and stomped out.
ReplyDeletePapa Sprain are a bit of a lost treasure. Someone needs to pull together the extant recordings and release them the way they have for Bark Psychosis and Disco Inferno.
Google returns not a single result for AR Kane playing the ICA in the late 80s. Makes me wonder if I dreamed it...
ReplyDeleteYes it was total abstract seemingly made on the spot noise as I recall, those early A.R.Kane shows. You might glimpse as you say, a tiny wisp of recognisable vocal melody amidst the maelstdrom.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember an ICA show but I recall a very short set at some outerzone venue on the edge of Fulham maybe, and then they also did a turn as part of a 4AD celebration. At least I think so. Both very much freeform. And was there a gig at the Fridge in Brixton?
It would be appropriate, given their idea of "dreampop", if you had dreamed this concert up!
Funnily enough though, I saw them play CBGB in NYC around the time that Luaka Bop did that compilation of all their best bits (or most pop-like bits, at least) called Americana. And they played a set that immaculately reproduced the songs, all the guitar-tones and abstracty bits just like on the record, the vocal melodies were clear and discernible. It was really quite a surprise - they seemed to have learned to play, how to get good sound on stage etc. It was all quite polished and professional. A very incongruous gig, given how squalid CB's was, and "rock and roll", which A.R. Kane, despite the guitars were not at all about. They should really have been playing in the Lincoln Center or an art space.
Perhaps the ICA thing you are thinking of is this 4AD night, it was at some theater right in the center of London, near Charing Cross Station - so in a sense proximate with ICA and having a non-rock vibe. This is like 1987, possibly around the time of that Lonely Is An Eyesore comp.
ReplyDeleteThe CBGBs gig was 1991 i think (supported by Black American shoegazers the Veldt, i think) and in the intervening time they'd done i and more pop, less chaos-sculpting type music, so that perhaps explains the new professionalism. However they applied that polished precision to the older material, doing immaculate renditions of "Baby Milk Snatcher" and "Up" and things off 69. Odd combo of "chaos" and exactitude.
I would have liked to witness the polished version of AR Kane. Sadly that early encounter, wherever it was, was the only time I ever saw them.
ReplyDeleteBark Psychosis was another band who made huge leaps in their live sound. I saw them twice: the first time supporting Cranes at ULU (in 1991?) when they were a trio, and they played a (fantastic) 20-minute set of colossal surging noise. Then I saw them at Ronnie Scott's (in 1993?) and they had transformed themselves into something like the Hex sound, although in my memory they were even better than anything they ever managed to capture on record. Still one of the greatest shows I have ever seen.