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RUIN / HISTORY
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Ruin |
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Leicester's best-kept secret proudly presented by Alan Undoubtedly the most ironic thing about doing your own
magazine is how do you go about reviewing your own releases without seeming
biased or egoistic. Often the trick is to do an interview or weave it into a
feature. Or, best of all, get someone else that's a fan to do it! But there are
cases where none of that is possible, and the only solution is to "throw
the gauntlet". A case in
point here is Ruin, a Leicester band that have existed for many years, kind
of lurking in the "underground" refining and developing their style
from more basic post-punk, blues and rock roots. A brother of the band
leader, who we know as Wilf brought in some discs to the Ultima Thule shop a
few years back that he thought we may like. My reaction was basically
"like the jams and more experimental bits - dump the singer" a
reaction that often means I never hear from the band again. But years later
Wilf presented me with a new disc, grinning "I think you're going to
like this one" - and sure enough, he was right. This disc
comprised rehearsal jams from 10 November 2011, with the usual trio of: Curly
and Jack on guitars, plus Stu on drums, with Wilf featuring on electronics.
Just three tracks of extremely creative music, that indeed showed many
influences but also had a creative spirit unique to Ruin. I guess they'd put
themselves into a special frame of mind and decided to do some post-rock type
jams that would fit the Auricle Music ethos. The fresh vitality, disregard of
convention (all buzzing, crackles and noises are intentional) and spirit of
it all reminds me of Can in their heyday. Put that against their punky roots,
and they come up with surprising results, a bit Public Image, a bit This Heat
or Metabolist, and quite Krautrocky too, akin to the late great Rancid
Poultry. Each track is a surprise, not least the last track which gets a lot
more prog, and has a hint of early Twelfth Night or instrumental Courtyard
Moth feel about it! This November
2011 disc was later issued on Auricle as THE KNITTER (AMCDR 185) as a
numbered edition of 20 copies. Soon after that Wilf turned up with yet more
session discs, some involving him some not, and virtually all of them were
excellent. After a few repeated listens and discussions with band members I
distilled the March through to May 2012 sessions into two lengthy discs. TENTACLES OF
THE TRIPOD MASK (AMCDR 195) features seven tracks, five big ones and two
short bridge/interludes. I was given free reign to mix and play with it
however I liked, but I opted only to add effects and processing with the recorded
material as source. Here we have a range of tracks including psychedelic
jams, a spacey blues, freeform space-outs, at least one number that reminds
me of early Volcano The Bear. Metabolist and Can are in there again, and two
crazed Krautrocky freak-outs to finish it off. It leaves me emotionally
breathless every time! Keeping with
the strange album titles SLIGHT RETURN OF THE HALF BAKED (AMCDR 196) is
another double album's worth of material, this time with Curly expanding his
instrumentation further (adding violin, Indian banjo, mouth organ) and some
vocals - not normal singing though, but chanting in the manner of Faust or
Metabolist. Jack also adds some keyboards. Again we have a track in the vein
of Public Image Ltd., circa METAL BOX given a very strange stutter treatment,
a venture into Hawkwind / High Tide territory, some really big extended
space-rock treks and lots more, ending with the vast 23 minute opus War
Neuro'sis. By my
reckoning Ruin can easily rival any of the best around at the moment. They
have that special feeling of wanton abandon, daring to challenge themselves,
experimenting fusing together elements we've never heard before. And they've
been busy. So watch of for more from Leicester's best-kept secret! from Audion #58
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Discography... THE KNITTER - CDR Auricle AMCDR 185 (2012) download sampler releases... Ruin also feature on... |
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Ruin article in Audion - #58/23 |
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