noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
A nice find for me last year was the Gas Chair LP. I'd never heard of Crawling Chaos at the time but with that sleeve I just had to buy it. I see now that this was reissued a few years ago on LTM. Also notice that Jim Backhouse has played Left Hand Path (drum-machine / pagan-folk splicings!) on the Kosmische radio show.
Anyway, in case you don't know, this was originally released by Factory Benelux in 1981 and is a pretty damn strange and unclassifiable item. It's also really good in places, at various points recalling NWW, Pere Ubu, Amon Duul (I & II I guess), This Heat, Comus, Tuxedomoon, Faust, Cabaret Voltaire (Arabesque sounds like an eastern scaled cross between Nag Nag Nag and MC5's Looking At You or something), and much more besides.
There does seem to be very little information out there about this band. All I've managed to glean from the internet (the Aquarius Records review of the re-ish is as good a resource as any) is that they were possibly from the Tyneside area, some folk suspect it was an arty prank of some kind (I guess that's pretty obvious really, but so what?), no-one is prepared to say who they were, and they may have had some sort of (made up?) beef with the Joy Division / New Order people.
Stoned and smirking pastiche of obscure reference points aside, I really like these guys!
Right now I'm listening to their next record for the first time (it's called Homunculus Equinox for goodness sake), and we're getting No Wave, Beefheart, Thirsty Moon, Amon Duul II, NDW, Ra and Morricone emanations. It's all a bit silly but you've got to hand it to them. Shit, Heavy Lovin' could be Monoshock or Comets On Fire doing AC/DC (badly). And Voedoux is like an almost exact cover of one of the really weird bits in Peking O.
In a strange way at times this band reminds me of Scottish twee-psychers The Bachelor Pad. Perhaps more recently Volcano The Bear?
So yeah, the enigma is fun and all, but what else do we collectively know, suspect or want to make up about this group?
(Is the singer namechecking the band in Heavy Lovin'?)
Anyway, in case you don't know, this was originally released by Factory Benelux in 1981 and is a pretty damn strange and unclassifiable item. It's also really good in places, at various points recalling NWW, Pere Ubu, Amon Duul (I & II I guess), This Heat, Comus, Tuxedomoon, Faust, Cabaret Voltaire (Arabesque sounds like an eastern scaled cross between Nag Nag Nag and MC5's Looking At You or something), and much more besides.
There does seem to be very little information out there about this band. All I've managed to glean from the internet (the Aquarius Records review of the re-ish is as good a resource as any) is that they were possibly from the Tyneside area, some folk suspect it was an arty prank of some kind (I guess that's pretty obvious really, but so what?), no-one is prepared to say who they were, and they may have had some sort of (made up?) beef with the Joy Division / New Order people.
Stoned and smirking pastiche of obscure reference points aside, I really like these guys!
Right now I'm listening to their next record for the first time (it's called Homunculus Equinox for goodness sake), and we're getting No Wave, Beefheart, Thirsty Moon, Amon Duul II, NDW, Ra and Morricone emanations. It's all a bit silly but you've got to hand it to them. Shit, Heavy Lovin' could be Monoshock or Comets On Fire doing AC/DC (badly). And Voedoux is like an almost exact cover of one of the really weird bits in Peking O.
In a strange way at times this band reminds me of Scottish twee-psychers The Bachelor Pad. Perhaps more recently Volcano The Bear?
So yeah, the enigma is fun and all, but what else do we collectively know, suspect or want to make up about this group?
(Is the singer namechecking the band in Heavy Lovin'?)