An outsiders downbeat vision. A really original abstract echoing trip out that gets into a haunting yet breezy groove. A sublime tone so uncommon and mysterious it's ineffable.
All around a parade of clowns
*The rock-crit consensus goes that this is from the Wipers demise era. We're supposed to believe Wipers started out with three top records then the rest were crap. Only problem is Land Of The Lost (1986), Follow Blind (1987) and Silver Sail (1993) are sterling LPs.
A fairly unknown post-punk group from Richmond Virginia who are a forgotten or perhaps a never even known influence on post-hardcore, indie math rock etc. The likes of Drive Like Jehu, Rocket From The Crypt, Fugazi and Superchunk acknowledge their influence and you gotta think Slint, Don Cabellero, Disco Inferno, Polvo, Unwound maybe even Eddy Current Suppression Ring along with many others benefitted artistically by listening to Honor Role.
Here's a few tunes from their 1986 LP on Eskimo/No Core Records where guitarist Penn Rollings was beginning his purple patch of progression on the six strings. The Pretty Song is more classic shadowy post-punk merging into lo-fi slacker rock as opposed to Honor Role's 1989 follow up Rictus on Homestead Records which was more on the experimental noisey math-rock tip.
*I get there's some lazy, atemporal and reading history backwards zoomer-like retardedness going on in the snippet reviews below but for just one day only I don't care.
Throwing Rocks [1986]
Bringing you all the 90s slacker talk-singing and lo-fi in 1986.
My Place [1986]
That lost bewildered sound filled with regret and defiance, wait for exciting classic guitar bit at 1:37.
Six [1986]
Layers of gloom like if Rowland S Howard collaborated with Slint.
Present Conditions [1986]
Downbeat 80s eeriness with Galaxie 500 (who didn't even exist yet) levels of reverbed guitar for maximum blissful day-dreaminess. Hard not to think this is a lost classic.
Care Taker [1986]
Dilapidated visions. Cold war fear. Enveloping ominousness in the desolate 80s. Tenebrous tones sonically somewhere between Gordons, Tactics and Wire circa 154.
She's kinda of forgotten these days but she ruled the charts for a year or two, having five top 40 hits in a row from 1979 to 1980. Then she promptly disappeared from the industry.
This song takes on a dark tone when you realise she left the music industry after having an abusive relationship.
You know what was wrong with Kraftwerk and British electro? Not fuckin' bogan enough!
Never fear Antipodean new wave bogans are here to give you dystopian electric dreams from down under.
I'm so future I work in an office where I nearly died of computer print out, I just finished rugby training, drank a six pack, been smokin' some Winnie Blues and now I've put on my best trendy sleeveless t-shirt, wrist band and some eyeliner.
Another one I haven't heard since it was on the radio when I was a kid.
I'm assuming this was a cash in on the success of The Buggles Video Killed The Radio Star unless it was just the vibe in the air as the 70s turned into the 80s. We were kids so we didn't care if it was a cynical cash grab or not.
On the surface this tune seems like a quaint bit of lost futurism but dig a little deeper...
The lyrical theme is a surprisingly angst fuelled existential crisis as the cold bleak future threatens our cozy old world of disco and rock'n'roll.
A futuristic synthetic dance-y pop tune with some use of old school guitars too. There's mucho use of vocoderized vocals and dodgy primitive drum machines. Like a cross between the disco-rock excursions of ELO of the time and the brutally cold electronics of early Human League or Cabaret Voltaire.
This video is pretty bizarre. An old dude sings nonsensical paranoid lyrics from his bed in a mental asylum. He is then aided in in an escape and is seen being pushed around in a wheelchair by a couple of teenage girls in Kiss make-up. Towards the end he dies, I think, as the girls look around in a state of bewilderment as they continue singing. Pretty strange...
The other surprising thing here is the two teenage chicks in Kiss make-up lip syncing to the catchy chorus. It turns out these two are identical twins Gayle and Gillian Blakeney soon to be stars of Wombat then Neighbours. They would go on to a failed pop career in the 90s as their producers Stock, Aitken and Waterman began their demise. There you go, Thank you.
Totally forgot this one. Haven't heard this since I was eight years old and in primary school.
Apparently there's an entire LP by Player [1] based around this computer game theme, niftily titled Game Over (1980).
Not a hit outside of Australia but many would be familiar with the bass-line here because it was sampled on On And On (1984) an early Chicago house classic by Jesse Saunders (which I wrote about here).
[1984]
On And On - Jesse Saunders
Where I wrote: "Some people don't realise that house wasn't always a lame genre so here's some house before house got defined. No piano riff-age or acidic squelches here. On And On is still rudimentary and raw utilising specific disco elements but rearranged for maximum pleasure. Unhinged synth lines, primitive drum machine hand clap breaks galore and loops into the future."
A Euro trash synth-funk jam where the American ghetto is relocated to some suburb in Austria where the only crime was not cleaning up after your dog because you were too coked out of your brain. Was Falco the first guy to rap in German... is it even rap? It might be the invention of some other form of singing altogether. Wait for the really cool synthwave bit at 2.28, absolutely brilliant. The whole thing is is an undeniably great state of the art 80s synthetic production.
Check out this video. Look at these guys. Absolute creepy dorks but overly confident creepy dorks who think they are such spunks, so 80s. The 80s where everyone was hot, all you had to do was believe. These psychos are obviously from 80s LA and surely Bret Easton Ellis based a few characters on them.
Then again maybe they were just being hilariously ironic and maybe they were just fucking cool... I mean they aren't that cool but those absurd bass lines are so funny they have got to be a little in-joke right.
Whether it's cool, daggy or swathed in layers of irony is kinda beside the point though as Obsession is just a whole lotta undeniable fun. So much so that it's just fun.
Who do you want me to be
to make you sleep with me
The actual tune Obsession is like Giorgio Moroder on crack. Insane in your fucking face dance rock that sadly didn't make it to Number one in Canadia only reaching number seven and reaching number twelve here in Australia.
This covers so much sonic 80s ground it's astonishing that it works!
Its new wave atmospheric synth pop with all these other elements like hard rock, sophisto-pop, mor ballad, there's a bit of jangling, talk-singing that's almost rap, a dubby bassline, ethereal female backing vocals all captured in one big dreamy soundworld. With all that going on it is a testament to Idol and co. that it gets a chance to send chills down your spine with a pretty touching delivery.
*Perri Lister of Hot Gossip fame is the woman doing the proto-dream pop backing vocals here and she really makes the song.
The roots of Lynchian dream pop. A bit of bossa with the ba ba ba ba. Sorta proto-00s too with a hypnagogic/indie surf vibe...
Pretty cool... so cool in fact that it only ever appeared on a b-side to their smash hit hit single, the more commercial new wave synthy-dance-pop tune Since Yesterday.
