I went into Oxfam yesterday (Market Harborough, since you ask) intending to buy that Gil Scott-Heron album I saw last week, but was a couple of quid more than I wanted to pay for something I had most of the tracks from on various compilations. And of course, it had been sold.
But I did find this, a Pere Ubu side project featuring David Thomas, guitarist Keith Moline and trumpeter Andy Diagram. It's a little more experimental that Pere Ubu (yes, I know) but it repays a second or third (and beyond) listen, and much will sound familiar to anyone who knows the band's later Lady From Shanghai and Carnival Of Souls.
Most of the music is sparse being mostly Thomas' voice and Moline's guitars, and varies from the frantic to the dark and sinister. Openers New Orleans Fuzz and Numbers Man are great thrashes, while the slower darker Little Sister is enhanced by Diagram's trumpet, and a mysterious Theremin, and is followed by Habeas Corpus, slow and brooding. Brunswick Parking Lot has a similar feel, and it's up a volume notch for Nebraska Alcohol Abuse and Sad Eyed Lowlands, which do seem to drag a little. Golden Surf is my highpoint of the album, a driving trumpet theme throughout making for an exciting song, a version of which, very different but equally compelling, appeared a decade later on Carnival Of Souls. By contrast, album closer, Prepare For The End, is a much slower, more reflective song, which gets more haunting as it goes.
This is a decent addition to the Pere Ubu collection, without ever getting close to being a classic, often feeling like a trial run for the Pere Ubu albums which were to follow. But it's worthy of an hour of your time.
3* - an interesting Pere Ubu side project.
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