Legendary Pink Dots - Asylum (1985)

Double album of dark psych-pop, post-punk prog weirdness and god knows what else, from Anglo-Dutch cult legends who are still on the go after 40 years.  This is the first album of theirs I've taken a chance on after being vaguely aware of them for ages, so any pointers as to where to go next would be much appreciated.  The attraction of this one from the mid 80s was the editing participation of one Steven Stapleton, which on listening appears to be limited to the strangest tracks at the end, but I could be wrong.

Whether or not Asylum is a good entry point to the Legendary Pink Dots, I loved it, and found it well structured - the short songs at the beginning gradually give way to more ambitious, longer tracks and finally full-on avant-garde insanity on the original Side 4.  The lazy description of this band might be that they're like a post-punk version of Barrett-era Floyd, which has a grain of truth, but there's so much more besides that.

For instance: love the violin sound (although I gather they had numerous lineup changes), Edward Ka-Spel's voice, especially on the spoken-word epic So Gallantly Screaming, and the two gorgeous tracks with a female lead vocal, from Attrition's Julia Niblock.  The keyboard sounds and production values might not be to everyone's taste, but for me they were spot on for an album of this style and vintage.  I'm looking forward to further exploration.

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pw: sgtg

Die With Dignity - Kraut? (1998)

This came free from Captain Trip when I was ordering the last couple of la! NEU? albums that I didn't have, packed in between the other items sans jewel case.  I knew the story behind Kraut! from Klaus Dinger-related websites describing it as a one-off by a young German band who through Dinger's patronage had their album released on Captain Trip, crediting him as "musical advisor " (which led to the la! NEU? logo confusingly appearing on the cover.)  I also knew the general critical consensus was that it wasn't very good, so popped it in a spare case and ignored it for a few months - hey, it was a freebie, I'll get around to hearing it maybe once.

When I did give Kraut! a listen, it was with pleasant surprise - it's not bad at all.  The five-piece band exist in a kind of semi-improvisational space between krautrock, post-punk and electronic avant-garde.  The album's 16 tracks average about 5 minutes, mostly built on a drum machine base with frequently noisy guitars and electronics over the top, and often distorted, mostly spoken vocals, all in German. 

Highlights include the stiff, robotic wah-wah guitar groove of Magischer Traum, with regular singing and post-2000-Neubaten like electronic squeals; the ill-sounding synths of Kochrezept that follows, and Kommunismusangst-Fantasie with its synth swirls and subtle acoustic guitar flourishes.  The longest track, the 10-minute Ein Wahn, is also worth a mention for its gradually distorting trumpet and mangled vocals.  All in all, a really worthwhile experimental album that with a bit of pruning could've been a minor cult classic.

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pw: sgtg

Einstürzende Neubauten - Kalte Sterne - Early Recordings (2004 compi, rec. '80-'82)

Time for something nice and noisy again.  This handy primer for early Einstürzende Neubauten came out just over decade ago, and made a good companion for the earlier Strategies Against Architecture 80-83; all the early singles are here, including B-sides, in all their clanking, crashing glory.  The metallic racket hangs together around rudimentary synth stabs and bass guitar, and remains some of the headiest post-punk industrial brainmelt to come out of Europe (other than EN's early albums of course).  Blixa Bargeld is on elemental form on all but the second last track, Thirsty Animal, which features a supremely discomforting star turn from Lydia Lunch.

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Public Image Limited - Metal Box (1979)

Simply one of the most important and essential post-punk albums ever made - in fact, if we could've gone straight from the mid 70s to this without having to have The Pistols and The Clash in between, I might have actually believed that punk was a proper 'year zero'.  Metal Box, aka Second Edition (when reissued in regular packaging), changed my whole perception of how songs could be constructed and how the guitar could be played.  It was a massive influence on my musical development, to the point where I must've ripped off every single note Keith Levene played on this album in every band I was in during high school and university.

Always loved Jah Wobble's bass playing in PiL as well, and this is very much an album to crank up the low frequencies for.  Holding much of the responsibility for Metal Box's krautrock and dub influences, the former John Wardle famously started playing without access to an amp, so would press the body of the bass guitar against a bedstead to get some rudimentary amplification and play as hard as he could - and it shows.  And John Lydon... never better on this album, letting his Peter Hammill influences show and feeling freed by the non-linear, atonal song structures to just wail at full tilt, railing against society and exorcising the pain of his mother's death.  One of the most unique 'rock' albums ever made.  Play loud.

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