VOTD 10/03/2025

 Safo Hene Djeni: Nea Ye Boe (Star Musique)

Purchased at Fungus Books and Records

More autobiography.

My band Bombici was asked by Manny Theiner to open for a west African band upstairs at Spirit House. Unusually, we played our set and had to rush off to another gig, but we got see the headliner do a warmup/sound check. They weren't playing seriously, but even so they locked into as tight a groove as one might imagine.

Colter Harper was playing guitar with Bombici that night. He's spent substantial time in Ghana in the past ten years on grants, teaching at University of Ghana and helping them set up a recording studio. While this band (whose name I don't recall, I'm sorry) wasn't from Ghana, Colter commented: "The bands there are incapable of being bad."

Imagine being in a culture where the music is so deep in your bones that it is expressed as tight, joyful, and a shared experience. That sure isn't the US. My old mentor and late colleague Annabelle Joseph taught Eurhythmics at Duquesne and Carnegie Mellon Universities. She told me how students such a South Americans had the rhythms inside themselves, that it's in the music they'd known for their entire lives. And she asked, what music do all Americans share in common? Rolling her eyes, she said: "Christmas music."

(Annabelle...I don't believe in an afterlife, but if there is one, I look forward to seeing you there. You were always one of the good ones. I miss you.)

I bought this record in the first days of Fungus Books and Records' opening. Michael had included several African records in the stacks. Being not too expensive, and the Colter connection to Ghana, this was my choice.

What's there to say? It's moderately low fidelity but very listenable. The sound is compressed but you can hear everything. The band rips. It's not as grungy as what Fela Kuti does; it comes off as sunnier than him.

When I feel down, I can go two ways when putting on music: something dark that is sympathetic to my mood, or something that I find uplifting. Generally I will go the former, but it's nice to know that this is here if I want to go the latter. Seek it out if you can.

VOTD 10/01/2025

 Nurse With Wound: Insect and Individual Silenced (United Dairies)

Okay, Another NWW listen before moving on to other things. 

This wasn't the first NWW record I bought, perhaps the second. It does make me wonder where my head was at when I was listening to it initially, and playing some of it in my early WRCT days. 

This is a noisy record, abrasive, even unpleasant at times.

Listening to the first side, what is clear compared to the first three NWW LPs is how important tape editing is to this statement. The changes are very abrupt, often happening quickly in succession. A female voice is is in the mix, singing sweetly in the background. Knowing what NWW would be like in the future, this seems to point to the future.

There's no instrumental virtuosity, as in the previous three LPs. Bashing on something metal, some basic drums. Feedback. Speaking. 

I think in a future posting I'll address Pierre Schaeffer vs Pierre Henry as composers. Let's just say, just because you're the first doesn't mean you're best.

Is this just Steven Stapleton at the helm, unlikes LPs 1-2-3? That's my understanding. There are no credits (at least in my copy) and both John Fothergill and definitely Heman Pathak are gone by this time. 

Steven was dissatisfied with this record and didn't make it available for many years after its initial UD release. I don't find it any more or less interesting than the previous three. The majority of side two, "Absent Old Queen Underfoot" is an absolutely bizarre conversation between jazz-brushes drumming and noisy feedback guitar or bass. Less edited than side one, but not unprocessed either. 

On discogs, there's a credit for Jim Thirwell (Foetus) being involved. I couldn't tell you who did what, but he'll be an important element within a record or two.

I'm not saying I hate it, but I think I used to be more excited by someone releasing a record that sounded like this than I am now. It is super-abrasive. If you see the name Nurse With Wound listed with "Industrial" bands, this could be one reason why. Listening to the early compilation tracks might make for an interesting comparison, such as "Dueling Banjos" on Hoisting the Back Flag (mentioned in an earlier blog post here). 

Side two ends with "Mutilés de Guerre", a far more compact work. It's looped yelling voices, processed, instruments run through a high-frequency filter, also not particularly pleasant. But it also gets to the point quickly. 

Should I be seeing a therapist if this was where my head was at one time?

In my defense: in my college radio days, I'd play just about anything regardless of content, unless it was considered NSFW by the FCC. The one piece I couldn't tolerate was Robert Ashley's "Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon", which includes a description of a rape. No wonder I couldn't take it. "Mutilés de Guerre" ends with a banjo and voice rendition of "Ode to Joy" while screeching strings underpin it. It's not about rape thankfully, but not easy to listen to either.

I think I need a palette-cleanser after this one.