Sunday morning in a commune house in the outskirts of Reggio Emilia with communist art-punks CCCP-Fedeli alla linea. Listening to Italian punk filosovietici. Drinking black coffee and daydreaming in gray.
CCCP-Fedeli alla linea
CCCP-Fedeli Alla Linea – Ortodossia II° (12″) Attack Punk Records 1985
Live In Pankow
Mi Ami?
Spara Jurij
Punk Islam
I like this red 12” and all CCCP-Fedeli alla linea records that I’ve heard so far. “Ortodossia II°” is thrilling art-punk achievement, recommended for all lost cases who dig rhythm machine postpunk in the frontlines, side by side with The Three Johns, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and Italo-American band Grande Nero among the other comrades. I wasn’t aware of CCCP-Fedeli alla linea existence back in the 1980s. Their music wasn’t spread on tapes and listened in my hometown. Perhaps few copies of original LPs still could be found in record collections of older punks from Ljubljana, Pula or Rijeka. As a side note, in 1984 the same small label Attack Punk Records issued hard-core punk EP “Corpus Delicti” by U.B.R. from Ljubljana and made it part of international HC community even more.
Live in Mosca, live in Budapest
Live in Varsavia
Live in Praga, live in Sofia
Live in Pankow
Haupstadt der D.D.R
Haupstadt der D.D.R
Haupstadt der D.D.R
Compagni est-europei
Uno sforzo ancora
Dalle sale da ballo
Un po’ più che di merda
Un’opinione pubblica
Un poco meno stupida
Dalle sale da ballo
Un po’ più che di merda
Voglio rifugiarmi
Sotto il piano di Varsavia
Voglio un piano quinquennale
La stabilità
Live in Mosca, live in Budapest
Live in Varsavia
Live in Praga, live in Sofia
Live in Pankow
Ost Berlin, West Berlin
Ost Berlin, West Berlin
Ost Berlin, West Berlin
Ost Berlin, West Berlin
Trance Europa express
Trance Europa express
Trance Europa express
Trance Europa express
Qua e di là dal muro
L’Europa è persa e in trance
In Alexander-Platz come
In piazza del Duomo
Europa persa in trance ultimamente
I miei amici anche
I miei amici anche
Sotto la N.A.T.O. e il patto di Varsavia
Provate a rifugiarvi
Sotto il Patto di Varsavia
Con un piano quinquennale
La stabilità
Live in Mosca, live in Budapest
Live in Varsavia
Live in Praga, live in Sofia
Live in Pankow
Hauptstadt der D.D.R
Un pezzo di Berlino
Hauptstadt der D.D.R
Un pezzo di Berlino
Live in Punkow
I am glad that there isn’t a line “live in Belgrado”. I did appreciate having a passport. At the age of 16 I could hop on a bus and go to Trieste (window) shopping for records without problems. In addition to that, I am thankful for all the modest products of Socialism available at home – licensed new wave and punk rock albums from US/UK major labels which were generally well pressed by Jugoton label. Those days I’d look in any direction but cold and frightening north-east. Today: Voglio un piano quinquennale. La stabilità. Trance Europa indeed. Tanz debil / ganz debil.
Saturday night in a discotheque in Bologna, Italia.
Italo Disco d/evolution of Gaznevada? Non mi frega niente. Mi piacciono i sintetizzatori italiani.
Psicopatico Party (1983) Italian Records
Whispers
Fashion Crime
I.C. Love Affair
A. Perkins
Psicopatico Party
Sick Soundtrack (1980) Italian Records
An important New Wave recording for Bella Italia, I’d say (as a casual retro listener / onlooker). There is only one cardinal sin – Gaznevada gave up on the mother tongue entirely on their debut album which leaves me a bit heartbroken everytime I listen to “Sick Soundtrack”. During the time of finding their own voce dadaistico, the band were trying out new sounds arriving from USA so one can hear traces of Devo, Talking Heads, Ramones, James Chance & The Contortions, Blondie etc.
Going Underground
Shock Antistatico
Pordenone UFO Attack
Japanese Girl
Now I Want To Kill You
Nevadagaz / Blue TV Set (1980)
A great single.
Blue TV Set
Gaznevada (1979) Harpo’s Music (tape)
The opening number “Everybody Enjoy The Reggae Music” could be an obstacle because they couldn’t pull off white reggae nor make fun of it properly. It’s simply a warming up track for wild Gaznevada ride. Dada punk-rock bolognese presented on this tape was already quite competent. Plus Gaznevada here sang in Italian, la lingua di popolo!
Until “La voce del padrone” Franco Battiato was an eccentric solo artist surrounded with il rock progressivo di Italia. Superior Viaduct recently re-issued his early art-rock / avant-garde albums. Invece, “La voce del padrone” is pure synth pop bliss for all people.
Maybe it’s worth mentioning that I got acquainted with the art work of Dino Buzzati in 2018. That was a very nice discovery.
Although I rarely read non-fiction I can easily recommend three books which are not products of imagination entirely. All of them are about the future, more or less.
I’ll derail my thoughts once again and leave (bombastic) introduction to Nomeansno. (hopefully happily pensioned somewhere in Canada)
Nomeansno were premier foreign band on Zagreb’s punk-rock club circuit for more than 20 years, beloved by younger and respected by older generations interested in heritage (or evolution) of punk-rock music. I may be wrong but the first time the band ventured in this inflamed appendix of Europe was in 1988. They played at student campus of University of Ljubljana (Slovenia). Then the next year it was again concert in Ljubljana, followed by their first concert in Zagreb in 1990. Nomeansno returned very soon after the war and started long-lasting friendly relationship with the most important independent music promoters in Zagreb: “Žedno uho”. Without “Žedno uho” enthusiasts the 1990s and the 2000s night-life and rock entertainment in Zagreb would have been less exciting.
Fatalism in modern / postmodern rock music is also present in work of two other great bands from West Coast of North America: Wipers & Unwound; both of them more inward-oriented and less resilient to outside world than very robust Nomeansno. (Who were the premiere fatalists then? Joy Division?)
“New Dark Age” by James Bridle
The subjects that James Bridle covered in his scary collection of essays are familiar. However, since the great acceleration there isn’t enough time left to think about, deal with, and adapt to… the consequences of technological development on present times and the future. Recommended.
“Mars by 1980” by David Stubbs
I love story telling and this is a story of electronic music. I enjoyed “Mars by 1980” very much. As much as Simon Reynolds’ “Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984”. Recommended.
All the way up to year 1980 (Part II and Part III) I can agree with Mr. Stubbs on the subject matter easily, but from the year 1980 onward we definitely hear things differently. After all, electronic music is field of his love and expertise. He was already on the electronic highway, full speed into digital domain when I barely started listening to pop and rock music. As a young listener I was quickly lured on the narrow path of seemingly dying rock music pushed back in the small clubs and garage spaces.
( The Membranes, unsung protagonists of the 1980s, hated trad rock so much they called their music noise pop)
Therefore, contemporary rock music was revealed to me with its ugliest apparition, during the final phase (raging dying animal) of the cycle, which was also its re-birth: noise rock of the 1980s.
White glitch
A white glitch there
Pluto interruptus
A sonorous flare
Black shape
A black shape
There are undeveloped holes
In returned glare
Thought we were looking at stars
When in fact we’re seeing noise
The sky scanner’s coffee marked panel
Gets the brunt of it again
Misread
Mistook that song
Gathered my facts
And read happily wrong
Screaming
Imperfectly bored
Reversing ejaculation like
“AAAAHHHHHH”
Thought we were looking at noise
When in fact we’re seeing the stars
Atop the coffee marked panel
(Thought we were looking at noise, when in fact…)
I’ll show you my endzone dance
(Thought we were looking at noise, when in fact…)
Turn up that stare I’ll take off my shoes & shake it
(Thought we were looking at noise, when in fact…)
Noise/Star (Sing the Troubled Beast, 1990) by Bastro
Then happened Nirvana. The mid-1990s were already beginning of the post-rock age.
It’s obvious that I like or even love various types of pop music from the 1980s but I could never enjoy sound aesthetic of all those bombastic Frankie Goes to Hollywood steroid hits from Trevor Horn / Paul Morley POP manufacture or grasp importance of Scritti Politti II meta synth-pop (if I could not fancy repulsive sound gloss in the first place). There’s nothing there but the context, the essence fully subordinated to form. All the blood and phlegm from Suicide’s second studio album were washed down the drain by the middle of decade and pure synthetic universe opened up.
In the chapters over the closing part (Part IV) of the book I was reading about music I’ve had limited exposure to or never listened to consciously / intently (house, techno and other more recent club music variations which usually don’t move me one inch). I know very little about vanguard electronic music described in the opening chapters (Part I) as well.
Actually, I would like to hear all these pioneering works of electronic music that were recorded up to mid-1960s. I believe I could find moving music inside various strains of digital electronic music too but due to overflow there’s no space left for it.
“Future Days” by David Stubbs
(Future in the Past)
The third book is an overview of “Krautrock” which I enjoyed great deal in the fall of this year. It’s a perfect companion for superb rock and pop music from Germany. The themes from great European cities: München – Köln – Düsseldorf – Hamburg – Berlin. Recommended.
In parallel with reading I was revisiting stuff accumulated over the years, following the chapters in the book. In the end the whole month of October ’18 was dedicated to German music.
While Krautrock bands were sound-tracking Modern Germany in the very late 1960s and 1970s, many a gastarbeiter parent from Yugoslavia, amongst other work seeking immigrants, were taking part in the building of Modern Germany. Indirectly they were modernizing Yugoslavia with shiny elaborate products of capitalism too. Kebabträume! The new wave of economical emigration is here again.
Here is a list of all the albums issued in 2018 which I’ve managed to listen to carefully. No ranking applied. Albums are listed chronologically, as they were dropping in my digital folder through illegal channels during the year. Don’t worry, I’ve already purchased few vinyls (some of them colored edition, all of them more or less warped & often pressed off-center using vinyl raw material of questionable quality). I bought one of them even on CD! Actually I would have bought most of them on CD for less money if it weren’t for loud / heavily compressed mastering with crushed dynamics (which for some reason, unfathomable to me, has been happening in the usually more reasonable and less trendy independent sector all these years as well). What a shame.
Superchunk – What a Time to Be Alive
Yeah, me too. What a time to be alive! Any time. Short and swift barrage of concise pop-rock songs bordering on punk-rock from a super band whose albums I don’t like that much (exceptions would be their not-really-appreciated “college rock” issues: “Indoor Living” and “Come Pick Me Up” & lovely collections of early singles, b-sides and throwaway tracks). Reagan Youth! Thatcher Youth. Tito Youth. OK, in case of ex-YU the political icon wasn’t alive anymore. The youth of YU (at least some of them) were haunted by Tito’s ghost, annoying mythology of failed Communism and uncertain future.
What a Time to Be Alive
Break the Glass
Reagan Youth
Hot Snakes – Jericho Sirens
“Jericho Sirens” is a great return album by a veteran band in a long line of excellent return albums by veteran bands that happened this year. What can I say, judging on the level of kinetic energy only, these old dudes probably don’t need sports to stay fit. When it comes to guitar sound, I still love to hear guitar strings and manic strumming a bit more than powerful heavy metal riffing. Hot Snakes are experts in that field. Yahweh is angry. The sirens are giving off loud sound alarm and I don’t hear it. It’s clear that I need a doctor too.
I Need a Doctor
Jericho Sirens
Death of a Sportsman
The Breeders – All Nerve
Here‘s another very nice band that never spoke to me on a personal level. I liked “Pod” when it came out and it still holds very well. That’s it. Hence I approached The Breeders’ new album as an accidental listener, without great expectations. I am glad I gave them a chance in the end. A couple of unconventional pop rock songs from “All Nerve” can really tranquilize raw nerves. There is also a cover version of “Archangels Thunderbird” from the early psychedelic repertoire of drugged-out Amon Düüll II. Geil!
All Nerve
Walking With a Killer
Dawn: Making an Effort
And there is also one song that I’ll dedicate to all the ghosts of this website:
MetaGoth
Preoccupations – New Material
Being preoccupied with the past isn’t good for mental health. Neither is headless rushing into the future which has been approaching the speed of light in recent times. Fuck off, future! Disarray. Disarray. Disarray. Preoccupations dropped their original band name “Viet Cong” just like that (principle of non-attachment to win over tiresome political correctness?), adopted a new moniker and moved on. “New Material” turned out to be upgrade on previous self-titled record & a well-rounded album with lots of angular guitar playing. They have finally won me over.
Espionage
Disarray
Antidote
Solace
The Ex – 27 Passports
For my quasi review of The Ex’s new album see the blogpost from merry month of May. I didn’t mention Andy Ex (ex Dog Faced Hermans; a great band, by the way) in there so here is an appreciation for his furious guitar playing and persistent activity. Cheers Andy.
The Messthetics – The Messthetics
“The Messthetics” is instrumental jazz-rock album that SST record label could have put out in 1987. Expertly played and nicely recorded by DC senior punk-rockers. I mean the rhythm section comes from Fugazi. However, spotlight is on lead guitarist Anthony Pirog who proved that vocals and words are not always needed. No mess to be found on this pedantic album. I’ve always loved surprises from Dischord.
Mythomania
Serpent Tongue
The Inner Ocean
Once Upon a Time (Sonny Sharrock)
Sleep – The Sciences
Sleep woke up from marijuana induced coma, went into studio with their new drummer and old friend from Neurosis, and recorded a new gatefold album using tube technology from the mid 1970s, those orange & brown seventies of my childhood. And it worked out!
Sonic Titan
Giza Butler
The Botanist
E – Negative Work
“Negative Work” is as good as E’s exceptional debut issued less than two years ago. The songwriting angle didn’t change one bit because there was no reason for it. E are fit and working. It surprises me that I still don’t miss bass guitar. But I missed reportedly great show in Zagreb last summer, played for two dozen people in audience.
The Projectionist
A House Inside
Cannibal Chatroom
The Chills – Snow Bound
Martin Phillipps’s music channeled through unstable and unlucky The Chills will always be welcomed here. On “Snow Bound” his soul-searching is matched with baroque style of songwriting. Due to slightly more complex and ornate use of keyboards, the album can sound stodgy, especially when moodiness takes over me. In that frame of mind “Snow Bound” reminds me of an album by a prog-rock band on the New Wave bandwagon or maybe of a tribute to Split Enz clowns circa ’78. Living ain’t easy. Thank God I like keyboards a lot.
The Greatest Guide
Complex
Deep Belief
Gnod – Chapel Perilous
“Chapel Perilous” is one more noise-rock album that underwent subtle dub sound treatment by Gnod. Clattering train of trebly sound on the collision course with near future is deafening. It hits hard. All the noiseniks of this world should get it. Turn it up, mate!
Donovan’s Daughters
Europa
Uncle Frank Says Turn It Down
Low – Double Negative
For a triple negative person like me, who stopped following Low releases religiously after “Trust”, “Double Negative” comes like a surprise. OK, I heard “Drums & Guns” in passing, nudged by friends on more than a few occasions. I recalled it while I was listening to “Double Negative” because they seem to be cut from the similar cloth. So, what is then confusing about new Low album? (Watch out! Here I go again.) Filling up empty space with post-production effects to compensate for shortage of fully developed new songs? “Flowers of Romance” syndrome turned into modus operandi? Is this album really Low’s crown achievement? Actually I appreciate changes that Low undertook after “Trust” to move on, straying away from the trodden path of righteousness and opting for variations in sound production since the drastic changes in songwriting are almost impossible. For what is worth, the new approach brought unpleasant side effects too. It truly bugs me to hear a couple of really beautiful songs ruined on purpose with dubious choice aesthetic that mimics recent trends in POP production. (= digital rubbish bin effects: sound of deteriorated diskettes, hard disks with burnt sections, scratched skipping CDs infested with CD rot, glitches all over FLAC downloads, bitcrusher, etc. ) Well, it isn’t like Jamaican dub studio treatment from the 1970s which will always sound otherworldly. Electronic demolishing of rhythm tracks on “Double Negative” sounds cheap and ugly to a pair of average rock ears but probably that was the point, to connect Low and something desperately modern like… Burial. (pardon my ignorance of digital electronic music, my capacity for consuming is limited). On the other hand, those minimal songs without distorted beat / percussion in the background, which hover and chime in the darkest digital chasm, are arresting. Lurid too. “Double Negative” is saved by pop-art context of imminent decay. Sound imprint of a degenerative brain disease.
Always Up
The Son, The Sun
Dancing and Fire
Disarray
Viagra Boys – Street Worms
Thanks, The Quietus! A very good pick indeed. Viagra Boys, Swedish “scum” rock group of sorts, play post-punk influenced garage-rock with sax whose filthy echoes and mocking blare won’t reach clean-shaven and respected high cultured Swedish society but they do resonate well over here, in ex lumpenproletariat areas. Since I don’t dig death / black metal (corpses), this entertaining Swedish import of another kind will suffice for the sake of global balance. Slow learner, he is relaxed.
Down in the Basement
Slow Learner
Just Like You
The Body – I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer
Is The Body’s music metal? Not quite, but certainly it is HEAVY. “I Have Fought Against It…” has some things in common with Low’s “Double Negative” as well. “Digital garbage” sound effects have been integral part of The Body’s work of art for some time now, perhaps even from their earliest days. Truth be told, I am not very familiar with their prolific output. On several occasions I stumbled upon a very moving recording from their already broad discography. Listening to The Body can be healing experience when applied in moderate doses. Audio homeopathy of sorts. I was deeply impressed with “I Shall Die Here” few years ago. If Low circle in limbo like moths, then these two guys reside in a truly hellish place on Earth.
Partly Alive
The West Has Failed
The Last Form of Loving
High On Fire – Electric Messiah
Yet another return to form. High On Fire are not flogging tired horse on “Electric Messiah”. They are indeed on fire with malocchio gestures high in the air. Not all the songs are precious enough to be included on double LP, in my humble opinion, and better impression would give regular album length. In other words, I am too feeble to endure this merciless album in one listening session. HOF’s Thanatos force tramples over my Pathos. The sound formula accomplished together with Converge’s guitarist seems to be optimal solution for forward motion of High On Fire’s style of metal. But I will always return to the odd one produced by Jack Endino – “Death Is This Communion” – a firm favorite to this very day.
Spewn From the Earth
The Pallid Mask
Steps of the Ziggurat / House of Enlil
Drowning Dog
Mudhoney – Digital Garbage
“Digital Garbage” is kinda funny and sad trad rock album. It’s easier to deal with this world reading comics and listening to rock music. Digital garbage will ruin my hearing and my mind. Corporate garbage will mess with my source of income and affect my material existence. Here comes Mudhoney. (I missed the show in November)
Prosperity Gospel
Paranoid Core
Nerve Attack
Next Mass Extinction
Portal – Ion
The trap-door that leads to big black nothingness has been unchained by Portal for almost a decade now. Just like the things in life that come when (and where) least expected, the key moment of entering a parallel universe didn’t happen in a cottage in wooded Nordic hinterlands but down under, in sun-scorched Australia. Portal’s audacious art-rock take on death metal / black metal pummeling is so good and weird that some artfags (including me) might try to claim them from metal hordes.
ESP ION AGE
Crone
Phantom
Spores
Šumski – Ostrvo ledenog kita
Izvrstan povratnički album grupe Šumski za sve fanove iz Zagreba, Hrvatske, šire jugoistočne regije te za ponekog slučajnog međunarodnog slušatelja. Šumski se ipak nisu zgubili. Vrnuli su se jači i profinjeniji nego ikad prije. Sveprisutni zagrebački gitarist Franjo Glušac je novi član.
Javor
Jednog dana
Prijatelji se sele na selo
A note for an intrigued foreign visitor:
Ostrvo ledenog kita, the long awaited new album from the incredible Šumski is out now! Described as a kaleidoscopic blend of kraut, pop, afro, psycho and comic-strip sounds from the heart of the Balkans. Check it out!
Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – King Of Cowards
Over three decades of listening I’ve heard more than enough rock music based on Ramones template (updated mid-1960s US garage-rock). I am still not bored or fed up with sudden surge of bands that took Black Sabbath as a role model (but I might be soon). I am not sorry that nothing seems new or original anymore. I don’t care. Malevolent Sabbath spirit cannot be exorcised easily.
GNT
Thumbsucker
Gloamer
The Sea and Cake – Any Day
The sea (Adriatic Sea!) and cake (with less sugar, please!) for me any day. (hmmm, maybe not at the peak summer season and during winter months). I can see it clearly in my mind’s eye – a cup of good quality coffee while sitting at peace on a terrace in the sun overlooking the secluded inlet & enjoying autistic American blue-eyed soul songs by jazz-pop group The Sea and Cake. Perfect background for leisure and drifting off… Cluttered storage space I am going to leave behind… I will. It’s gonna be escapism par excellence. Any day now. Ciao.
27 passports almost like 27 long years or cca. 27 albums… great new CD (56 min) by The Ex flew in. It took some time for new vocalist / guitarist Arnold de Boer to fit inside well oiled band-machine. Or it could rather be that some fans needed more time to accept G. W. Sok’s departure from The Ex. His (anarcho-syndicalist poet on the dole) vocals (and word play) used to be band’s signature as much as Terrie’s sharp sounding guitar strings’ wrangling and Katherina’s style of drumming.
OK then, on “27 Passports” Arnold de Boer shines like he’s been one of super-fit The Ex veteran musicians for decades. Looking back and re-listening, “Catch My Shoe” (2010) brought along inspired energetic playing and complex songs but as an album in its entirety partly suffers from excessive length. Perhaps I slightly more prefer sax led “Y’Anbessaw Tezeta” (2012; Getachew Mekuria w / The Ex ) & “Enormous Door” (2013; The Ex & Brass Unbound). It might be too early to say definitively but “27 Passports” appears to be even better product than all of these recent The Ex issues! (although “Y’Anbessaw Tezeta” collaboration belongs to a league of its own).
Take off you old Doc Martens shoes (with slippery soles) and dance barefoot! Wait wait wait … ček ček čekaj … Teške se kiše spremaju. Kroz tvoj se prozor samo jablani vide. Nad gradom munje sijevaju. A doma nema goluba da te miluje.
Soon All Cities
Footfall
Young and cocky anarchists The Ex burning music newspapers in ’86…
Listen to the Painters – listen to G.W.Sok!
A collection of tracks (recorded between 2009 and 2015) with G.W. Sok on vocals.
side A
Two Pin Din – Listen To The Painters
Zoikle – Illusies 1
Surplus 1980 – The World’s Still Here
The And – The Heart Of Everything
L’Etrangleuse – Writer’s Blog
side B
King Champion Sounds – Ghetto Of Eden
Action Beat – Spoonfeed Hell
Cannibales & Vahinés – No Can Do
Chapi Chapo & Les Petites Musiques De Pluie – Here We Go Again
THIS YEAR, the group that sneers at laughing fate, broke down in a quaint place three kilometres outside Dachau for five days skint and starved escaping only through the use of a bogus credit card to get to Yugoslavia, not worth it at all despite what these leftist musicians say. (Of course gigs are packed!) Returned home to bankrupt record co. then slipped again into a more sinister one. Went abroad and developed xenophobia. Marriage saved vocalist’s neck. Attacked for tax. Spurned retrospect. future very bright, hiding retirement. Now number 6, age average 22.5.
OTHERWISE, it’s the cyclical tone of 1983 that strikes me the most. Viewed through miserable eyes, much familiarity here: Music Vaudeville still. Manned as ever by cockney musicians in disguise, supplemented by Lancashire-Scotch deserters. But there’s more to it. Loads of crafted ‘good pop’ lyrics, Serious, Pal, in their statement of non-conviction in this living desert etc. but subtly appealing to humanity in the same way as a hospital does. Nothing new, except this is of groups’ own accord! So, I have to proclaim 1983-THE YEAR OF THE TOADIES. A good laugh though was seeing all the serious/literal musicians go ‘Lite’ (in wake of lager and cigarettes) as the scrambling for market position heated up. A musical version of the GOD-JOB Interviewer hoax practiced on schools TV – i.e. declining market etc. look at so & so, he did it – this paid off to ‘those concerned.’ Competition fierce, and groups as clean and accommodating as never before! Independent labels feel secure enough to pick, choose and shove around even. Early senile fantasies of groups sure to be quenched for their staff, who’re comfy in the knowledge that the Y.T.S. of rock is the Soviet conscription-well of GB.
More disturbing was this panic hitting journalist too – semi established hacks and even their betters fighting for and adopting name scattering with redick prose, bruise purple and its insecurity. Smash Hits realise this I think.
Also funny is the proliferation of faggots in the top pop lot. I have a theory that this is due to AIDS scare, resulting in said groups having more energy derived from celibacy.
If the beginning of ’17 brought new album by Trobecove krušne peći then we can gently end the year with unexpected return (with LP album as extra surprise) of Brujači (Buzzers), led by legendary TKP bassist Mario Barišin – Bara. The current lineup consists of Zagreb’s guitarist (on hire!?) Franjo Glušac (ex Peach Pit) & drummer Viktor Krasnić who also plays in band Šumski. Glušac’s playing style evolved over the years under the influence of virtuoso/avant noise-rock guitarists and it changes the concept of original Brujači as double bass band. Bara’s bass buzzing appears in different styles from song to song but the album as a whole is well-rounded and appropriately recorded in the studio. Today’s version of Brujači gathers Zagreb rock musicians from different generations who found common language, developed interplay and successfully captured it on “Ladanje” (Dirty Old Label / Geenger Records, 2017). Will they develop it further? Since this tribute website is a small niche that bridges past times & elusive present (or postpunk decade & mature stages of long-lived resilient bands / musicians still active today), inclusion of “Ladanje” somehow fits as the album pick for December. Basslines as lifelines. Pođimo na selo…
Last year Freaks R Us (The Pop Group themselves) re-issued “For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?” (1980/2016) which was far too long out of print. They didn’t stick to the song sequence of the original album: “One Out Of Many” track is out, “We Are All Prostitutes” single is now in. I won’t miss the former much – it would have worked better as B-side material even first time around (for example “Forces of Oppression” could have been A-side of never planned single). Freaks R Us really could have included both songs and added other time period related songs for the CD issue thou. CD format easily tolerates extra minutes of music. Anyway, in many cases I liked the record industry practice (or wish of the artists) in UK which kept strong (lead) single separate from the album, as had happened with fiery “She’s Beyond Good And Evil” single & “Y” LP the year before.
For the purpose of refreshed listening experience I’ve also re-imagined this album as 8-song mini LP (cut at 45 RPM!):
A1 Justice
A2 Blind Faith
A3 How Much Longer
A4 There Are No Spectators
B1 Forces Of Oppression
B2 Feed The Hungry
B3 Communicate
B4 Rob A Bank
A We Are All Prostitutes
B Amnesty International Report
Boys (still teenagers!) from Bristol didn’t like to be pigeonholed. They did hate word “rock” and what it had represented in their minds. With fucking passion! Were they good at it? Brilliant! Kudos. “For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?” (1980) album is as good as “Y” (1979) and as relevant today as it was almost four decades ago.
Boys Next Door (the Birthday Party), the Reactionaries (Minutemen) & perhaps Šarlo akrobata and Trobecove krušne peći from around these parts, among many other bands and music fans all around the world were in total awe!
Remind yourself of The Pop Group greatness and support the recent re-issue from Freaks R Us. Every record shop in town should have The Pop Group in stock for the sake of mental health of the dwindling new generations interested in groundbreaking and mind-blowing music. “For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?” is a cultural treasure in pop (!?) music. The tags and genre classifications are arbitrary here anyhow.
The last album “Honeymoon On Mars” (2016) ended up a victim of the studio approach in pop song-craft with too many unnecessary layers of electronic sounds, overdubs and banal samples. A step back from unexpected and decent (but symptomatically slicked) return with “Citizen Zombie”. Symbolic opposition and defiant stance would work better in live context (in studio controlled environment) in my humble opinion. I definitely like a poke of straight forward electronic tracks (e.g. “Zipperface”) but the album as a whole may be experienced as continuation of Mark Stewart’s solo albums rather than The Pop Group album. Listening to “Honeymoon On Mars” is like waiting in vain for the vital electricity of simple guitar/bass/drums setup (with a touch of electronica) to surface and rip up overbearing and predictable digital everything of everyday existence. No sweat and other body fluids on the bed sheets in the end. I wish that the sound aesthetic of this particular recording were in total opposite to the intentionally repulsive and frightening cover art. Nice effort thou. What I want I could get in concert, I guess.
For how much longer do we tolerate mass murder?
Until the bitter end. It seems.
“History doesn’t repeat itself, man always does.” – Voltaire
