Repellentzine

Simon Reynolds on Postpunk

We met with music-writer Simon Reynolds to talk about his new book on postpunk.

Rip it Up and Start Again:  Postpunk 1978 – 1984

Simon Reynolds

Penguin Group

It’s a fine time of year for postpunk.  Perhaps Penguin has chosen to delay the American publication of Simon Reynolds’ chronicle of the dirty, crisp, muddled, excited, and ambitious music responding to the overtly gray cultural landscape until late February to ensure a proper context.  Few records can make as much sense on six block walk under slate skies and through freezing temperatures as one of the holy books of postpunk, such as Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures or Wire’s Chairs Missing.  Reynolds succeeds at shedding a good deal of light on this previously underconsidered collection of artists, records, and events by revisiting sites and sounds thrilling yet bleak as that Pennsylvanian groundhog’s promise of six more weeks of winter.

Interview after the jump...

REVIEWS: Mum

Mum

Yesterday Was Dramatic – Today is OK

Morr Music

www.morrmusic.com

In the grand tradition of twee electronica from the likes of Looper comes the first record that Mum ever recorded – finally released six years after the fact. Alternating between the sweet and simple (“I’m 9 Today”) and the more grandiose (“The Ballad of the Broken Birdie Records”), this record explores quiet places and the area in between sounds with precision and skill.  That said, what’s presented here is lacking only innovation. Though it’s a shame to see the band reach for anything less than the stars, one has to keep in mind that this was their very first effort.  The standout track “There is a Number of Small Things” is both charming and haunting, a song that showcases both the quiet beauty and full-force gusto that the band is capable of.  While the record now seems a bit underdeveloped, thinking of it in the context of when it was actually recorded puts it light years ahead of its time.

Adam Rathe

REPELLENTSOUNDS FEATURE: Nina Hagen's Nunsexmonkrock

“Between 6th Street/ And 7th Street/ And back to Main Street/ You are not alone”: Revisiting Nina Hagen’s Nunsexmonkrock

By Craig Keller

Nina Hagen

Nunsexmonkrock

Columbia Records

Dark-eyed inamorata as dope-assured Mother Mary, Egyptianized, Rastafarized, peeled off a kitsch Mexican votive.  One hand holds a babe crowned with wildflowers, the other extends itself forward in an offer of ... what?  I can’t say for sure, but the fingertips betray something involving blood; her lips, pursed, smack of The Passion.

I caught a sole split-second glimpse of the tableau sacrilège circa 1986, during a broadcast of The 700 Club devoted to “spotlight[ing] acid-rock.”  Memory of this image and its aura of something fed me a thousand fantasies over the course of a decade and, in this same span of time, fed me questions, always the same, issuing forth from the back to the front of my mind: Who is the woman?  If this turns out to be an album-cover, given the program’s “acid-rock” premise, then what is the music?  An image of transgression, of diffuse sexual promise, not entirely inequatable in my mind to the image of semen floating in a font.  Thank you, 700 Club, but curse you too, for this was all you had given me to muse upon, this single image, the (ostensible) music remaining a decade-long mystery…

REVIEWS: Black Dice Broken Ear Record

 

Black Dice

Broken Ear Record

DFA/Astralwerks

Its odd, to say the least, to so very thrilled with what sounds like children doing their best to one up the yelping dog chained behind the fence in the yard where the ball flew.

It’s odd to find a collection of squelches, buzzes, thumps, slams, and general racket comforting and thankfully entrancing rather than enthralling or even enjoyably off-putting.

REVIEWS: Festival!

Various Artists:

Festival! DVD

Eagle Media

It does seem that mistakes demand their own reincarnation and certainly Senator Kennedy stands quite far from alone in a field warning that the times may have changed back.

REVIEWS Mandarin Movie: s/t

Mandarin Movie

Mandarin Movie

Aesthetics

The shape of jazz to come, as yes it does indeed continue to come, seems to sound of no shape at all.  So the shape of new jazz seems to be in quite good shape, as new jazz never does quite sound like jazz at all.  Throughout his career (with Isotope 217, the Chicago Underground Trio, etc), multi-dimensional artist Rob Mazurek has never touched a toe to a jazz crack. Mandarin Movie, his latest group, certainly ain’t cooling out no way.  No relaxin’.  No cookin’.  This ain’t no space and this ain’t no place, dadio, cause this sure ain’t trad, dad.

REVIEWS: Angels of Light: Sing "Other People"

Angels of Light

Sing “Other People”

Young God

In an elevator, just now, two women were discussing how cleaning out their e-mail inboxes hinted at the slowness of the business they pursue. They could have, of course, been discussing that business or America’s Top Nanny Remodeling or the price their daughter-in-laws badly dressed cousin paid for chicken parts after that baby came due and the man seen last Wednesday on the evening express bus talked loudly about Philly’s bar tab despite what Tina didn’t

REVIEWS: Panico: Subliminal Kill

Panico

Subliminal Kill

Tigersushi

Grab your ankles, comrades. It’s kingdom time. Panico ask and answer the burning musical question, “do you want guerra nuclear?” on this collection of singles and such previously released only in the group’s native South America.  I, for one, could sure as shit do without a guerra of any variety, so it comes as good news that the scratchy/catchy dancepunk jams on Subliminal Kill are such that even the staunchest chickenhawks could be sent scrambling for the dancefloor.

REVIEWS: Abe Duque: So Underground It Hurts

Abe Duque

So Underground It Hurts

Abe Duque Records

I was introduced to Abe Duque by my roommate. He played a single (I think it was an "Acid" remix) at 33 rpm instead of the proper 45 but pitched it up just so it was danceable. The cut was so dark and sexy and funky that I was immediately curious to hear what else Abe had to offer.

REVIEWS: Ume: Urgent Sea

Ume

Urgent Sea

Pretty Activity

If you’ve ever shut your hand in the door of a sub-compact Japanese car and enjoyed it, allow me to point you in the way of your new favorite record -- Texas trio Ume's Urgent Sea . This kind of thing would play well in a low-grade student-film about self-immolation, sexual frustration and gas huffing. It’s that good.

Singer/guitarist Lauren Langer Larson emulates the Jennifer Herrema/W. Axl Rose growl against a backdrop of slicing, angular riffery (dolled up with some ace atonal harmonies) and snare cracks that sound as if recorded positively at the bottom of a 150-foot fucking tin can. Plodding, bulldozing heavyweight sludge jams and mid-tempo misappropriations of the Kim Gordon fronted Sonic Youth are in order here. Umeseem to dig on mid-career Blonde Redhead and Deerhoof quite a bit too, but not enough to soften the steely resolve of their tried-and-tired post-hardcore agenda.