VOTD 09/24/2025

 Nurse With Wound: Psilotripitika record 3 (Merzbild Schwet) (United Dairies)

Third day, third NWW LP. I intend to continue though I'll break things up soon with other albums and commentary soon. I have an album of traditional Ghana music that's awaiting a spin and blog posting.

Merzbild Schwet was the second NWW album of 1980, which clearly demonstrates how determined they were at the time. To think of what was going on in England at the time: Throbbing Gristle's Industrial Records, NWW  and United Dairies, Whitehouse and Come Org, one more challenging (or even unlistenable) than the next, each releasing more than their in-house band, it must have been an exciting time.

I've recounted this conversation before, but I was at the Electric Banana with my friend Richard Schnap. We were young, enthusiastic, and saying, didn't the 70s suck? Isn't this an exciting time? Won't the 80s be great?

In retrospect, while a troubled time, the 70s seem much more interesting to me now, and the 80s represent the Reagan era. But then nothing's simple and it's incorrect to judge one decade more harshly than the other. (Or is it? Thinking of the current decade.) And specifically, I was excited about the boom in independently produced and released music. Those labels above are examples, as well as The Residents' Ralph Records, Larry Och's (+) Metalanguage Records, Chris Cutler's Recommended Records.

On the other hand, the 1970s might be my favorite decade for films. That's just an aside.

Who is NWW by the time of this record? There's frustratingly little information provided, at least for me who is always interested in such things. We know Steven Stapleton would soldier on with the project, and John Fothergill was almost definitely still in the mix at this point. Was Heman Pathak still involved? No indication either way. And with a clearly female voice singing/reciting on side one, others provided sonic materials as well.

What's clear is NWW's connection to earlier art movements, or at least inspiration from them. The title itself, Merzbild Schwet, references Kurt Schwitters. The two side-long tracks, "Dadaˣ" and "Futurismo", make reference to early 20th century art movements. Both the front and back cover images are largely collaged. One of the figures on the back cover is of a Viennese Aktionist, again connecting to yet another art and performance school/movement.

It's an easy thing to feel nostalgia for an era before we lived. I wonder what it was like to be in Europe between the two "great" wars, creating your own art movements, writing manifestos. The Surrealist Manifesto, the Dada Manifesto, etc. It seems exciting. Hell, what was it like to be in the theater for the first performance of Stravinsky & Nijinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps? People were supposed to have torn seats off the floor afterwards in outrage. It seems sad we can't feel that level of outrage over a work of art except for political reasons. Or maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. 

"Dadaˣ" clearly plays on the listener's expectations, whatever those may be. The underscoring track is played at half speed, making it seem as though the record's playing at the wrong speed. There are pops and clicks that make it sound as though the record might have crud on the surface. It runs through a variety of ideas before, unexpectedly, everything stops and leads to some free jazz. That idea is then mixed and remixed. An aural representation of Dada? Maybe, maybe. 

Side two: "Futurismo". A reference to the Italian Futurists. Futurist paintings were explicitly pro-technology, and often displayed a single body in various forms of movement. Interesting that "Futurismo" would be the title of the most spare NWW track so far. It also seems more like the "aural landscape" that future NWW would be. A long backwards piano chord plays...a female says, "We have not spoken for days and days"...the piano returns, sometimes speed-manipulated. There's a long note on the clarinet. Ideas emerge, fade to the background. Sometimes it's sparse, sometimes densely but briefly packed.

How did Steven Stapleton feel about this one? It wouldn't be until the 5th LP, Homotopy to Marie, that he would say he was really satisfied with one of his albums. That it represented what he heard in his head.

This side sound like that first "mature" work. Less about being confrontational, more about listening.