Audion #47
Autumn 2002 A4
40 pages
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DWELLER AT THE
THRESHOLD
(interview) |
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Complete
article Alan catches up with Chance encounters and automations with Nurse With Wound, Nurse
With Wound releases seem to come in all shapes and sizes these days, and in
all different styles too. As always, Steve Stapleton & Co., continue to
pull new tricks out of their sleeves. The problem is, for me at least, that
with so many releases (no complaints) to fully absorb such things for review,
it takes dozens of listens to work-out how to judge an album and what to say
about it. And, rarely is a Nurse release a simple thing to describe! Usually
being sound‑art, as opposed to normal music, words of understandable
meaningful description can be difficult to muster! With
such a confusing array of releases, it's easy to get lost in it all, and
(quel horror) miss something important. So, let's backtrack. My most recent
write-up's on Nurse With Wound releases in Audion were: WHO CAN I TURN ON TO
STEREO (#37), ACTS OF SENSELESS BEAUTY (#38), A MISSING SENSE (#39) and AN
AWKWARD PAUSE (#43), so let's see what I've missed.... Well,
first-off, there's the repackaged, remixed, remastered, extended version of
Nurse With Wound's debut CHANCE MEETING OF A SEWING MACHINE... which doesn't
sound at all right to me. Talking to Steve Stapleton on the phone, he said
"it wasn't at all possible to alter any of it, as the multi-track tapes
don't exist", however, I'm not convinced, as a lot of the instrumental
parts are way to vivid and to the front, with the sound being much more
precise and clean. Personally, I much prefer the original LP or CD, despite
the bonus novel reading of the "Nurse With Wound List". Also
remixed and extended is THUNDER PERFECT MIND, remastered to be issued as a
double LP (Streamline 1020) with a bonus track added, and also issued as a
United Dairies CD (UD 040CD). In the case of this album, we have the opposite
reason for preferring the original, in that this doesn't sound as clean. A
lot of the clarity of the original mix has been lost, and a lot of what
sounded like real instruments now sounds very FM'd, very digital. I must be
turning into a stickler fuddy duddy where such things are concerned, as I
don't at all like the bonus Miss Ticker
either. In the
seemingly never-ending remarketing stable was the odd collection THE SWINGING
REFLECTIVE (United Dairies UD 069CD) 2CD which amounted to a whirlwind guide
to all things not quite Nursey! With: Diana Rogerson, Tony Wakeford,
Legendary Pink Dots, Foetus, Current 93, Stereolab, William Bennett, Aranos,
Coil, Wallis/Bogg, etc. collaborations, mix and remixes, it included a number
of rarities, though little essential for the already committed NWW collector,
it was more for the casual newcomer many rarities! But now,
the real stuff. You'll see, there are lots of good new Nurse releases out
there... NURSE
WITH WOUND FUNERAL
MUSIC FOR PEREZ PRADO (United
Dairies UD 098CD) CD 78m A
collection of oddments, this partly resells the YAGGA BLUES and SORESUCKER
EP's to those who've already got them on CD, with the bonus of lots of other
material. A strange idea really. I do like the little vocal insertion between
the two Yagga's "A nondescript man gets pregnant and is consumed by a
planet" - very weirdo David Lynch! Funeral Music For Perez Prado
(full version) itself,
is actually very Aeolian String Ensemble, very atmospheric Ash Ra Tempel in
static gliss mode territory, and does nothing for 20+ minutes really nicely. I Am The Poison seems to be unaltered
from the original, whereas its B side Journey
Through Cheese is extended considerably... clank, drum, drill, kjunk
kjunk, bang... it goes on and on. A real challenge! ALICE
THE GOON (United
Dairies UD 081) CD/LP 30m Back in
Audion #33 I complained that "the ALICE THE GOON EP ... disappeared
before anyone knew it existed" and in Audion #34 I revealed why
"Released for some French festival as an extremely limited edition Now on
CD (the vinyl seems to be sold-out) everyone can discover this wacky little
sizzler: [I don't want to have] Easy
Listening Nightmares (9'28") trips-along with a corny sax and jazz
groove, as off-the-wall effects fly around (very Cooloorta) and we're reassured by some quirky damsel that
"It's so easy baby, it's so easy!" - yes, it is - my type of lounge
music! Prelude To Alice The Goon (12'51")
is another playful one, if not so eccentric, it preludes the latest MAN WITH
THE WOMAN FACE in many ways, with its twisted drone backdrop, with jangly
distant muffled guitars, driven on by an infectious frame drum rhythm, with
the icing (?) from some nice sleazy mutilated female voices. We're
not given any information as to what the untitled bonus track is, but at only
7'25" long it could easily have been much longer, feeling like the
cosmic vocal/vibes sound of restrained early Ash Ra Tempel, yet distinctly
Nursey. It acts as a calm coda. SANTOOR
LEENA BICYCLE (United
Dairies UD 053CD) CD 63m Created
for an art exhibition, this co-release with Aranos, came sandwiched between
two pieces of the art, with a 3-fold exhibition programme in a resealable
plastic bag. It was issued as just 500 copies, selling for at least £24.00 -
so it had to be good, and was! A
total potpourri of Nurse styles, and more, it amounts a decidedly more
eccentric release for the fans of the old NWW sound, but with lots of new
ideas thrown in, from the beautiful, to the potty and totally insane, and
ear-splittingly numbing. An impossible album to review really, and out‑of‑print
now anyway! MAN
WITH THE WOMAN FACE (United
Dairies UD 0102) CD/LP 38m A new
album from the current duo format of NWW, namely Steven Stapleton and Colin
Potter, this is one that's sure to surprise and delight you all! Right
from the start of Beware The African
Mosquito [Ring The Doorbell, Put You To Sleep] you know you're in for
13’14” of very different, new Nurse With Wound: silence, to drone, squiggle,
"vrrt vrtt k-tunnn..." ooze, scuttle, "clink, stutter, boing
bong..." drone "Just a second" (someone repeats as a refrain),
only at 11 minutes do we receive the promised swarm of buzzing insects.
Enigmatic, creative, surprising, it is all that and more. A kind of static
vision from SPIRAL INSANA land. Ag Canadh Thuds Sa Speir (8’37”) has a frugal buzzing tone that grows, changes (folds-in and
around itself) changing entirely at 5 minutes in, when a rock rhythm enters,
falls over, explodes, doing!!!, before a tinny psych-rock fades over to
scratchy violin, squiggles, buzzes, plonks, twisted cello, and then stops,
just before we expect it to totally freak-out. A shame. Finally,
White Light From The Stars In Your Mind
[A Paramechanical Development] (15’48”) title‑wise takes the
backwards text from Pôle's Kotrill and
Amon Düül's Paramechanical World
(but not in that order), unifying these texts in a totally different context,
as a steadily growing, very musical (for good Nurse With Wound that is)
concoction, growing as a percussive beat, swells along with electronic
washes, scattered organ sounds (very "Wired") and snatches of
ethnic chanting, dying as the "White light.." text is repeated over
a sustained string synth. A
brilliant, and very different, surprising release, indeed - to which almost
everyone comments "it's a bit short though, ain't it?" Well, better
a little gem than a big dollop of shit, I say! AUTOMATING,
VOLUME ONE (United
Dairies UD 053CD) CD 51m AUTOMATING,
VOLUME TWO (United
Dairies UD 054CD) CD 51m Originally,
Steve intended to reissue the two AUTOMATING LP's (collections of compilation
contributions) as a 2CD set, including the bonus AUTOMATING, VOLUME THREE,
which would include "everything from A
New Dress onward" to quote the man himself. But, that didn't happen,
chiefly because NWW ceased doing much in the way of compilation contribution,
so (what with all the other releases that have included oddments) no material
for a genuine VOLUME THREE accumulated. So, instead we've got two CD's, each
with a bonus track (edited back in October 2000) one issued some time ago,
and the 2nd in July 2002. I've reviewed these before in Audion, So won't go
into great detail.... VOL 1
collects: Duelling Banjos (the
remix version of the two "Registered Nurse" tracks), Stick That Chick And Feel My Steel Through
Your Last Meal (from THE FIGHT IS ON), Nana Or A Thing Of Uncommon Nonsense (from THE ELEPHANT TABLE
ALBUM), Fashioned To A Device Behind A
Tree (from FÜR ILSE KOCH), I Was No
Longer His Dominant (from AN AFFLICTED MANS MUSICA BOX), Ciconia (from MASSE MENSCH), and the
bonus of Automating (from BORN OUT
OF DREAMS, if I recall correctly). VOL 2
opens with A Strange Play Of The Mouth
(weirdo vocals, from IN FRACTURED SILENCE), Elderly Man River/Dance Of Fools (totally eccentric, from
DEVASTATE TO LIBERATE and COULD YOU WALK ON THE WATERS, for some reason
joined together), Lonely Poisonous
Mushroom (a collaboration of The Local Band, Nurse With Wound and
Organum, from FREEDOM IN A VACUUM), Lea
Tantaaria (here credited as Wolfli,
from NECROPOLIS, AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES, from which Great-God-Father-Nieces still remains un-Automated), Human Human Human (very sick
Negativland territory, from THE PORTABLE ALTAMONT, of which Psychedelic Underground and Scapegoat are on CD elsewhere), and
the bonus of A New Dress (from A
BEAD TO A SMALL MOUTH). Both
are excellent collections, good intros to the wide range of Nurse With Wound,
and ideal for fans and collectors. other works by... TIBET & STAPLETON OCTOPUS (Durtro
044CD) CD 77m I once
asked World Serpent if the then vinyl only MUSICALISCHE KÜRBS HÜTTE would
ever come out on CD. As an alternative version of MUSICAL PUMPKIN COTTAGE, it
certainly needed a CD issue. Yet, what eventually appeared was this mixed-up
affair, a disc that comes with an unreleased track, and another that isn't
really Tibet and Stapleton. Track
1: I Left Her For A Cartoon Octopus
has intense tones, filtered sonics, square wave chopped modulations, could be
nausea inducing if played too loud! At 16'58" it's overdoing an idea
that should just have lasted 2 or 3. Track 2: The Fire Of The Mind previously came free with a book published
by David Tibet. Actually an Aeolian String Ensemble work, it's excellent, but
seems out of place here. Tracks 3 and 4 (41'23") are the excellent
MUSICALISCHE KÜRBS HÜTTE, which you can read about in Audion #36 review
pages! This
makes for an great value release, a kind of closing to a trilogy, but really,
I could have done without the opening track. MUSIC FOR THE HORSE HOSPITAL SOUNDS FROM THE HORSE HOSPITAL (Pan Durtro 001/2) 2CD Exactly
what this release is in aid of, I'm not sure, except that it's some sort of
document of a performance art work at a gallery. The sound design of it would
seem to be for an installation, not music for normal home consumption, so
it's strange that it's been released really. Current
93's disc sounds like no C93 we've ever heard before, with the only
recognisable factor being David Tibet's opening and closing words
"Alpha" and "Omega". In between, it's all very neo-classical,
future-baroque, La Monte Young, very classical John Cale or Tony Conrad,
violins, with Pascale Comelade at the piano type of stuff, that just
meanders, with different arpeggios entwining ever onward. It exists and
changes, yet never goes anywhere. Nurse
With Wound's SALT does even less, less than SOLILOQUY... even, as it just
seems to be a richly toned digital synth (a mixture of breathy organ, strings
and square wave tones) set up with filters, and put on hold. There seems to
be nothing in the way of actual performance throughout the piece, except that
it does subtly change (random filters linked to arpeggiator can do that)
almost imperceptibly the waves do tend to grow and move at times, but no more
than that. This also just exists. For
sound environments in a modern art gallery, I can imagine these working well.
I wonder how they sound played together? Also out
there are a number of other related releases.... On
oddity is the album promoted as "the first collaboration between Current
93 and Nurse With Wound" namely BRIGHT YELLOW STARS, which I didn't rate
at all. Why it was billed Current 93 and Nurse With Wound, I don't know,
especially as both project owners have worked together on dozens of
occasions! It sounds like just C93 to me. It is apparently a work inspired by
David's near-death experience, a ruptured appendix, so is very personal, but
makes me wonder why it isn't just a David Tibet album. Even
odder, is a release credited as by The Sonic Catering Band ARTIFICIAL
ADDITIVES (Peripheral Conserve PH-06) which is either a collaboration effort
or a various artists album. It opens with The Sonic Catering Band themselves
and a piece very much in the Steve Reich Four
Organs vein, followed by a couple of tracks that mix industrial synth and
techno musics. Track 5, credited to Clear Spot, is an excellent piece of
Krautrock freak-out. But, of main interest here is the track credited to
Nurse With Wound Hindu Monastery
Breakfast (8'37") and performed by S. Stapleton, P. Vastl and M.
Waldron (so it says), which sounds like the background from NWW's I Was No Longer His Dominant topped
with someone messing around scraping kitchen utensils. Interesting, but I
wonder if it is an unreleased Nurse piece, or someone else doing a
construction/remix? To make sense of what's been released on United Dairies,
here a condensed run-down... UD 00CD NWW: Ladies' Home
Tickler UD 01CD NWW: Chance Meeting... UD 02 Lemon Kittens: We Buy... (CD) UD 03CD NWW: To the Quiet
Men... UD 04CD NWW: Merzbild Schwet UD 05 The Bombay Ducks: Dance Music UD 06 Hoisting The Black Flag UD 07 Lemon Kittens: Cake Beast, 12" EP UD 08 NWW: Insect And Individual Silenced UD 09CD NWW: 150 Murderous
Passions UD 010 Musique Concret: Bringing Up Baby UD 011CD Operating Theatre:
Rapid Eye... UD 012 An Afflicted Mans Musica Box UD 013CD NWW: Homotopy to
Marie UD 014 Asmus Tietchens: Formen Letzer... UD 015 In Fractured Silence UD 016 Nihilist Spasm Band: 1x-x=x (CD) UD 017 Diana Rogerson: The Inevitable... UD 018 H.N.A.S.: Melchior UD 019 NWW: Automating, Volume One (CD) UD 020 NWW/Organum: A Missing Sense/Rasa UD 021 Chrystal Belle Scrodd: Belle De Jour UD 022 Current 93: In Menstrual Night (CD) UD 023 Organum: Submission (CD) UD 024 Guru Guru/Uli Trepte: Hot On Spot... (CD) UD 025 NWW: Drunk With The Old Man... UD 026 Robert Haigh: Valentine Out Of Season UD 027 NWW: Alas The Madonna...,12" EP UD 028 Masstishaddhu: Shekinah (CD) UD 029 Current 93: Earth Covers Earth (CD) UD 030 NWW: Automating, Volume Two (CD) UD 031CD NWW: Soresucker (deleted) UD 032CD NWW: A Sucked Orange UD 033CD Current 93: Crooked
Crosses UD 034CD NWW: Live At Bar
Maldoror UD 035CD NWW: Soliloquy for
Lilith UD 036CD NWW: Sugarfishdrink UD 037CD Stapleton/Tibet: The
Sadness of Things UD 038CD NWW: Large Ladies
with Cake in Oven UD 039CD NWW: Rock 'n' Roll
Station UD 040CD NWW: Thunder Perfect
Mind UD 041CD Chrystal Belle Scrodd: Beastings (deleted) UD 042CD NWW: A Missing Sense UD 043CD NWW: 2nd Pirate
Sessions UD 049CD NWW: Who Can I Turn
to Stereo UD 053CD NWW: Automating
Volume 1 (re) UD 055CD Volcano The Bear: The
Inhazer Decline UD 056CD NWW: An Awkward Pause UD 059CD NWW: Crumbduck (w/
Stereolab) UD 069CD NWW, etc: Swinging
Reflective UD 072CD NWW: Sylvie and
Babs... (re) UD 073CD NWW: Spiral Insana
(re) UD 081CD NWW: Alice The Goon
(re) UD 098CD NWW: Funeral Music
For Perez Prado UD 099CD NWW: Yagga Blues (deleted) UD 100CD NWW: Acts of
Senseless Beauty UD 102CD NWW: Man With The
Woman Face UD 500CD Volcano The Bear: 500
Boy Piano Note
items in bold are available on United Dairies CD when compiling this. Those
with (CD) afterwards have been reissued on other labels or with different
catalogue numbers. As you can see, the catalogue makes sense, numerically, up
to UD 43 (except items UD 36 onwards were all issued in the wrong order),
then we jump to UD 49 and the numbers start racing. This could mean 1 of 2
things, either Steve's got lots of albums allocated for eventual
release/reissue with these numbers, or he's just trying to make the catalogue
look numerically impressive, especially so with UD 500! |
