Every compilation seems to throw up a new verbal construct; this time we have The Ritualistic Mating Dance of the West Highland White Terrier and the Fluorescent Floating Human Eyeball (Eggnog Variant #4). And it sounds like?
Every compilation seems to throw up a new verbal construct; this time we have The Ritualistic Mating Dance of the West Highland White Terrier and the Fluorescent Floating Human Eyeball (Eggnog Variant #4). And it sounds like?
In the booklet that accompanies the new Godspunk record we see a picture of multiple schoolgirl pStans (aka Howl in the Typewriter) hanging out with Sir Margaret of Thatcher. Somehow this “obviously doctored” image brings to light the Oz trial of 1971 especially Neville and co’s jolly, consciousness raising japes. With a little reflection on our side we can see that somehow this image is a blast from another time, a sort of memento mori of how “indie/alternative shit” used to be. Not busy with trying to make everything into some platform-friendly unit of production.
The opening track, Memory and ‘Howl cuts such as The RooHniverse, In Derek’s Briefcase,and and the things that may or may not be true – somehow picks up on these vibes (as well as the hippy feel in the image described above ) and steer this record through a frayed world of long forgotten raves, the bellybutton fluff of squat gigs and miserable, comedown, Aldi-bakery breakfasts. So hippy that Your Brain is aJah is very much like Robyn Hitchcock’s acapella stuff on I Often Dream of Trains. We could be watching the Pink Fairies under an underpass off the Portobello Road, so thick is the fug down in this ur-provincial netherworld.
The other (dare we say) house, band, UNIT come on like Marvin the Robot from Hitchhiker’s… with the anti-love song Anthrax, (somehow sounding like a scuzzy version of the Ex too). Beaming in from planet UNIT takes a lot of courage and determination, just to keep on beaming in the way they do. Which is one of the reasons why I’d probably say – just because of their sheer bloody-mindedness – they are up there with the Biscuits in being one of the country’s greatest groups of all time. UNIT throw in a few more crackers with White Trash (the ultimate in open wound pathos; basically this digs a big hole for coiffeured dudes like Walker & Gainsbourg, hoys them in, and leaves no bouquet. “He says you’re a bloody nuisance” Indeed…) a daft, “falling apart at the seams instrumental break called Eric Cooper, an insane rap featuring some rooks, (Shells & Stars) and Friends, a spit in the eye of history itself.
Old Pumf compilations often had a fair bit of punk sand in the Vaseline. And while we get some Dr John psycho schlock with The Flesheaters’ Graveyard Love, and some psyched out growling and scraping in Shaun Robert’s Portal, this compilation is more like some Gong fag end, a snot rag retrieved from the chilled-out, ephedra-popping, arse-end of Rave, probably in its most anal incarnation, the Amsterdam squat scene from about 1999… Well, that’s what listening to Dancing Ants or Discotheque Repetition (courtesy of Large Veiny Members), Nil by Nose’s Contacting Hassocks, or John Tree’s remix of the KBC’s Not Any More does to my memory anyway. Mention should be made of the Melodramatic Monkey’s increasingly fried song titles too. Every compilation seems to throw up a new verbal construct; this time we have The Ritualistic Mating Dance of the West Highland White Terrier and the Fluorescent Floating Human Eyeball (Eggnog Variant #4). And it sounds like? Well, the usual, reassuring jazz-off using Soft Machine offcuts. The morning after is well documented by Dimm D3ciple’s The Prozac Song, a massacre of Marley, and rightly so.
Just remember fellow wizards; you can’t beat your brain for entertainment!