| #689 |
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2004 |
Perilous 689 Well it’s a new year and already there are signs that things might be better in 2004. At least there’ll be the chance for a ‘regime change’ both here in Australia and the USA. How likely that becomes depends on what you and I do this year. Over the last few days I’ve been reading Shibboleth (AK Press), the autobiography of Penny Rimbaud (real name, Jerry Ratter) from seminal UK anarcho punks Crass. Crass were notable not for their music but more for their incredible sleeve art and politics. Their live shows pioneered a lot of cut up video stuff (Coldcut especially), their photocopy bricolage poster-size sleeve art by Gee Vaucher, their insistence that their records be sold at almost cost price (“pay no more than” incorporated into the artwork), and their commitment to energising the peace movement in the UK (especially the CND – Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) continue to be inspiring. But best of all were their poltical attacks on the Thatcher regime – a kind of media terrorism – from their steadfast support of the striking miners to their Stop The City marches which predated Reclaim The Streets by fifteen years. Best known of all is their ‘leaked’ tape cut up in which Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher ‘admit’ their ‘real motives’ for the Falklands War. This leaked tape found its way to the mainstream press and even elicited formal responses from the CIA and Soviets, and had Crass suffer government surveillance that still follows them today. Anyway, part of the reason for reading the Rimbaud autobiography was to look to the past to find a way forward. Having also read the rather hilarous but also quite sad, Jon Ronson’s Them : Adventures With Extremists (Macmillan), a book that gets inside the mind of various hardened conspiracy theorists (from Muslim hardliners and the KKK to a David Icke’s reptiles disguised as world leaders), there is a fine line between robust edgy political action and disempowering paranoia . . . or just cynicism. But to music, that’s what I’m supposed to be writing about, the stuff that ‘distracts and soothes’. Not surprisingly following the stellar soundtrack to Sofia Coppola’s wistful and subtle Lost In Translation, I’ve been digging out a lot of old music – My Bloody Valentine – especially. The latest Pluramon album that I mentioned in my 2003 roundup sounds a lot like My Bloody Valentine – so much so that it could be a (the never made) sequel to 1991’s Loveless (Creation). But Pluramon is nerdy German Markus Schmickler who has flitted around between digital genres with each album. On Dreams Top Rock he has recruited Julee Cruise to provide sufficiently far away semi-sad dreamy vocals and then added a slew of guests to assist with his wall of sound digitalia straight outta 1991 – not such a bad thing especially when its so well executed. Also, in a dreamy vein is the latest release from the prolific Scott Heron (aka Prefuse73). Having relocated to Barcelona for much of 2002/3 it was inevitable that his next Savath & Savalas release would draw upon the local environs. Thus on Apropa’t (Warp) the electronics and stuttering hip hop of Prefuse73 are forced well aside, and there is even less indication that this is a heavily processed studio project than the previous Savath & Savalas album, Folk Songs For Trees & Honey (Hefty). Instead there are lilting summer guitars, soft piano, coo-ed vocals from Eva Puyuelo Muns and some very beautiful melodic sections. Keep an eye out for it through Creative Vibes in the forthcoming weeks. Yellow Peril (www.snarl.org)  Goto
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