Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU.UUCP (01/23/87)
Really-From: hsu%uicsrd.CSRD.UIUC.EDU@a.cs.uiuc.edu (William Tsun-Yuk Hsu) Batch of old and new stuff: CRYSTAL BELLE SCRODD BELLE DU JOUR This is the second album by Diana Rogerson (Crystal Belle) with help from Steven Stapleton, both Nurse with Wound members. It's a fairly interesting album, but inferior to the superb first album, probably because there's less of Diana Rogerson's lyrics here. Side A has many long sustained drones with winds and strings. Side B is less minimalist, with some piano, reeds, and the essential noise loops and child-like vocals. Deadroads/A Gothic Western is a solid track with typical surreal Diana Rogerson verse chanted over her idea of spaghetti Western music. (The album has a great cover, mostly black and gray with a pink garter belt in the shape of a heart surrounding a set of gross black teeth.) TEST DEPARTMENT BEATING THE RETREAT Confession: I've always found Einsturzende Neubauten kinda mild. I listen to it when I eat dinner. Now Test Department (and Z'ev) is what I imagined EN to be like before I heard EN. This album is supposedly the Canadian version of some boxed set they put out earlier. Not as "composed" as Unacceptable Face of Freedom, but still excellent stuff, with grinding metallic soundscapes and fuzzed-out strings that sound like tuned chainsaws (maybe they are chainsaws?) Highly recommended (as is Unacceptable Face of Freedom, of course.) SONIC YOUTH (1st EP) Ignore that stupid review in Trouser Press. This is more subdued SY, but still very interesting. More restrained on the guitars and heavier emphasis on rhythms. Better sound than Confusion is Sex too. INTRINSIC ACTION ?? A Chicago-based industrial music group. Influences include Current 93 and early Controlled Bleeding. A few good ideas but on the whole rather disappointing. Imagine a subdued version of Controlled Bleeding's incredibly abrasive Shitslipper with voice loops similar to Current 93 or Nurse with Wound. The really poor sound doesn't help. Bill