Nurse With Wound: The Surveillance Lounge (United Dirter)
Purchased new at Preserving Records, New Kensington
I used to take part in a listening group. We'd meet (semi-)regularly, bring recordings for us to listen together, talk about them. Often the recordings would skew to the unusual and obscure, because of the people involved. I stated at one of these meetings that I have to guard against the idea that I like something due to its relative weirdness or obscurity, or dislike it due to its popularity. A friend confirmed this, that he didn't want to fall into the same trap.
I write this because I was thinking about which artists take up the most space in my personal collection of albums, not to mention what someone might think of me if they looked over my collection and noticed. I definitely have a lot of Sun Ra albums and have generally cooled in looking for more, unless I think it offers compositions I haven't heard before. There's a lot of Anthony Braxton here. Miles Davis (easy when one buys a couple of those Columbia box sets). Thelonious Monk. Charles Mingus. Morton Feldman, in part because many of his single compositions take the length of two or more CDs. There's a good chuck of Xenakis recordings here. Even more Messiaen. And a big stack of Frank Zappa.
I was also just noticing that I have quite a few Nurse With Wound albums. Part of this was that I caught the bug for NWW albums in the 80s, an active and fertile time for them. And by "them", I mean Steven Stapleton and whoever he's working with at the time. In recent years, it's been Steven with specifically Andrew Liles, but there's been a long list of collaborators and guests over the years.
During that time, I bought everything they released. This was the last big gasp for vinyl, and in late 80s/early 90s, compact discs became the medium of choice. I bought a few NWW recordings at the time, and then, I just kind of stopped for many years.
Why? Even though there is no typical NWW album, I started to feel like I had heard it all already, and felt a little burned out on their albums. This period was also seeing a change from analog to digital production methods, and I found I didn't care so much for what sounded to me like their digitally-produced albums. Surely it must have made the production of those albums far less laborious. Not having to splice actual recording tape, that's a huge innovation which has possibly gone unrecognized.
Similar to The Residents, the more NWW sounded digital, the less I tended to like it. Perhaps I'm not being fair or possibly am fooling myself, but it didn't sound like it had the same "sweat" on them the way the earlier recordings did.
I've started to come around again in recent years. Once in a while, a used CD or LP would turn up, and I'd almost always snag it. I've joined a NWW Facebook fan group, which has kept me more in touch with current releases and happenings.
Today is inauguration day. For my own mental health, I am avoiding coverage of it as much as I can. I mean, what's the point in upsetting myself? I know what the motherfucker's going to say, I know what he has in mind. There's time to resist when he actually tries to do those things. I say, his oxygen is attention, and I want to deprive him just that tiny bit that I can.
With this in mind, a dark soundscape by Nurse With Wound titled The Surveillance Lounge seemed like the right call for my listening today. That, and I just bought the thing, so it's time to give the CD a whirl.
"Expect the unexpected" is a big cliche but applicable. The easy connection is to Surrealism, and there's little question of that. That connection is deepened by Stapleton's visuals, in which case black and white collage imagery. I find these records to also be cinematic, or at least evocative of cinema. Instruments play traditionally musical sounds but are abruptly cut off. Voices are altered, slowed or made wobbly, and speak in languages I don't understand. There are long passages on this album of spare, minimal, elongated sounds. There's an air of mystery. But then near the end of the album that relative serenity is interrupted by a very loud, noisy, rapidly-moving collage and it's unnerving. And follow that would something that almost sounds like lounge music.
Once again, I knew nothing about what this would sound like, while simultaneously knowing exactly what it would be about.
If you're reading this and it's Jan. 20, stay away from broadcast news of all sorts. Put on something that will surround you instead.
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