Reviews And Schmooze...

[Jim Hofmann <hofmann@nrl-css.arpa>]

While I should have been out Christmas shopping, I was filling up
my empty wine boxes with more albums.  It's an addiction but more
satisfying than any chemicals I can think of.


Dark ARts (Ruthless/Dutch East) - I wrote another review about these
guys where I said something like this is how This Mortal Coil would
sound if they weren't so overproduced. Also, if you sent this to Greg
Taylor, he probably wouldn't hate you.  Chiming female voices mix
with an extremely percussive (tho' not overbearing) Arabic-like score w/organ
thrown in for body.  If you listen closely, you hear metal rods, timpani,
basso flute and bicycle bells.  Yeah, this is a piece of art coming
straight down the road from where? - Columbus, Ohio, huhhhh?  Damn
right - includes the drummer from Great Plains in their lineup. With
that name, I was expecting death metal, instead I've gotten the best
4AD influenced yet distinctly "American" record in recent memory. Produced
and released by Steve Albini.

Various ARtists - "Sub-Pop 100" on Sub Pop records.  the producer of this
fine compilation (wouldn't go far as saying it's the best) has had 
tons of experience in putting out cassette compilations in the last few
years.  This is his jump onto vinyl and I can't wait for Sub-Pop 200.
Steve Albini (again) kicks off this album with a denuciation a la George
Clinton's "Roof on Fire" of the spoken word genre and unlike last year's
"Diamond In The Mouth Of The Corpse", (GPS), that's the last spoken word
piece you'll hear.  Like the aforementioned compilation, this is a subversive
attempt to widen the horizons of the avg. Joe Hardcore with some of the
more dangerous industro types around.  I think it will probably be more
successful since such stalwarts as naked raygun and the wipers contribute
hard-to-find cuts.  I'll let the rest be a pleasent suprise to you.

The Membranes - new lp (Homestead/Dutch East).  Though, I've only given
this one spin, I really can't say I agree with Wic's slagging of this.
this sounds like what the Beatles would sound like if they were born
twenty years later and surfaced in '86 with Revolver.  One of the few
English pop/rock bands that realize slick production does not good music make.
They can't play that well but they have lotsa friends come in and help
them out.  Loved the tune with the vacumn cleaner feedback about, appropriately,
the vacumn cleaner salesman.  In a country rife with unemployment and
beset with crumbling institutions and American dominance, these guys
walk the fine edge in reaffirming the joys of life, the idea that it
ain't no sin to be glad you're alive.  And the inner sleeve should provide
years of fun deciphering the doodles - for anglophiles and anglophobes
alike.

Also bought the new Volcano Suns LP and Antetiem's latest but didn't
get a chance to listen to them.  has anyone heard "My Dad Is Dead"?


Wicinski also reviewed the Yet Another compilation tape and I disagree
with him.  For the most part, this tape SUCKS.  Scrawl writes worthless
songs.  Great Plains hands some throwaways and the Dark Arts cut is
mastered poorly.  The only thing worthwhile is the R.C. Mob (inheritors
of the Ohio Players) cut called "rock dog".  The ballyhooing and bellowing
about a so-called Columbus "scene" makes one want to laugh after hearing this.

P.S. I thought Throwing Muses were never that great, demo tape or not AND
I really doubt if they'd get all this attention if they hadn't been
billed as "the first american band on 4AD" - in fact, very few folks
would probably have ever heard of them. Now they're readying a major
label contract.  Feh.  And a band like Expando Brain (3 dudes from the
same suburb as Throwing Muses who went through puberty at the same time)
breaks up after putting out one of the finer garage rock albums of the
year.

Other major label contract supposedly in the works - Soul Asylum with 
Capitol records (!!!!).

>Some non-compilation records I've enjoyed this year:  
	>Savage Republic "Ceremonial" LP

Review, please.

Doug:
>No, it isn't.  A guitar is capable of making a wider range of sounds
>than a drum is.

Ahem.  Such a statement is VERY debatable and falls under the "comparing
oranges with apples" category...

>Well, this is a pretty strange analogy, since Elvis C's music is much
>more closely secured to western music than Kate's is.

Ah, but Elvis Presley is (or was) closer to African music than Elvis
C was when he came out.

>take a voilin, because with a violin I could make a wider range of
>sounds.

Wrong.  

A proposed ending to Experiment IV
 The film closes with the scene around the music shop being cordoned off and
 'prohibited' signs being errected by a military man in a van. As the van
 drives off it stops to pick up a girl hitch-hiking (Kate) who turns to
 camera, winks and puts her finger to her mouth - still frame closes.

Then a blue police box appears and a funny fellow with a teenager in tow jumps
out holding a sonic screwdriver on Kate as she withers into a little
ball. But above The Doctor -- it'ss a dalek which Kate has transmigrated
into and grown to immense shape!  She's screaming, "ecKsTerminate" over
and over and then... (credits roll, tune in tomorrow).

James.