Cut From Inside

Formed in Sheffield by guitarist/tape manipulator Ron Wright, Hula furrowed a techno-industrial-multi-media path unmistakably influenced by Cabaret Voltaire (whose Stephen Mallinder produced their first 12” single Black Pop Workout), yet fused with their own esoteric impulses into a unique strain of future-shock rock. Hula undercut its cluttered rhythms and flanged, ranting vocals with seriously funky bass and a disorienting melodic undertow; the media-overload of their live shows (employing at least a dozen film projectors) combined with the pulverizing music to build a mind-fuck of epic proportions. Throughout their career, Hula released its best work as singles, keeping its albums more deliberately experimental.

Cut From Inside and Murmur veer between funk, tribal, jazz-ish territory and noise; although the band's fascination with media sometimes led it down aural blind alleys of tape-loops and grating noise, the hypno-ambient grooves of "Mother Courage" is both timely and prescient.

Black Pop Workout

The Sheffield based band Hula was founded in 1981 by guitarist and tape experimenter Ron Wright, Mark Albrow and drummer Alan Fish. The three members lived with Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire) and Paul Widger (They must be Russians, Clock DVA, the Box) in a villa called Hula Kula. After trying the bass players Alan Watt, the notorious Chris Brain (Tense, NOS) and Mark Brydon (Chakk, Moloko), Hula recruited John Avery. A bass player was necessary for filling out the exciting live shows complete with lots of video material (Peter Care). Various other members passed in and out of the ranks over the years, with bassist John Avery becoming the only constant. Their music was highly influenced by Cabaret Voltaire and other electronic/ambient artists, but Hula added a more industrial edge and schizophrenically experimental sound. The band's concerts often took the form of multimedia barrages, using twelve or more film projectors to enhance the already disorienting music. Black Pop Workout was recorded at Western Works, Sheffield, October 19th 1981, except B2 recorded at Hula Kula, June 1st 1982, mixed at Western Works and produced by Cabaret Voltaire's Stephen Mallinder.

Murmurs

Hula’s “Murmur” is a disorientating, dark, trippy, and simultaneously groovy masterpiece. Sadly Hula never received the recognition they were due, they are surely up there with Sheffield's finest noise merchants; and there's a helluva lot of fine music from that neck of the woods. Never as challenging as Cabaret Voltaire but very similar to them, Hula used the same 80's industrial bands clichés and ingredients like cut ups, dense metronome rhythms, dubbed and electronically processed vocals, talking about social paranoia. "Murmur" was their peak and it’s one of the forgotten albums from my very favourite post punk era. “Murmur” is an almost perfect blend, for the time, of progressive, industrial, music expressions. It's well past the time to see this album properly reissued on LP and CD.

Just for transparency and to see how much the journalists of the day waffled complete bullshit, I have transcribed two reviews from the UK’s leading music rags, Sounds and NME 

Hooping It Up

Hula have steered me toward all the obvious criticisms, not a thing I enjoy. But despite their sense of tension, the nag-nag-nagging noises, nasty voices, nervous murmurs, dark breaths and deep meanings, Hula do sound obvious, too easy to place. They wear their influences and ancestry like a coat of arms. Hula are capable, noble but predictable.

Pinned down like butterflies between early Cabaret Voltaire and recent DVA, taking in “Seven Songs” Skiddoo. The Box, Pop Group and early ACR, Hula are perhaps a step back towards the days of music that disrupts and excites and for that I don’t blame them.

They steal from all the right places but are a little exact about it. Amrik Rai’s sleeve note puts it thus: “crushed concrete, dense compression…cutting, wrought, fraught…a blare of sound, flare of feeling”, words slapped away by my editor as “absurd”. Anyway, Amrik’s got his finger firmly, neatly on Hula’s firm, neat pulses: they are too easily described, summed up: nothing here came as a surprise. Their dark discomfort behaves with control and tact, the voice is a blunt shout rather than a terrible bellow, a squawk not a scream, and the cut-up, buldging basses, sound fragments, the clenched emotions and the percussion rattling its bones, all come in precisely the right places.

That said, they’ve perfected the surface nervousness of Mallinder and Newton, sound proud, positive, alive. “Ghost Rattle” is an impressive jumble rumble; “Jump The Gun” and “Tear-Up” are easy but irresistible chants and even Hula’s disorganised, plainly uninteresting jams sound harder and sharper than Shriekback, Portion Control or New Skiddoo. So, the noises on this dark dance are nice but not new noises.

“Murmur” is presentable, tidy, consistently obvious Hula – but there will be a strikingly distinct, barbaric Hula and that Hula will hurt. I trust it will be soon.

-Jim Shelly 12^th January 1985 New Musical Express

 

After the rock ‘n’ roll anarchy, the positive aggression of both “Black Pop Workout” and “Cut From Inside” (Hula’s earlier vinyl outings) it was difficult to see which turning the Sheffield trio would take next. Cast rather dismally on the darker, less predictable side of, say, fellow townspeople Cabaret Voltaire and Chakk, Hula had posed a lot of questions. But did they have the answers?

The pre album snatch, “Fever Car”, led you right up the wrong garden path, too. Likeable, moving stuff, it made me wonder after a dozen plays if there was much substance behind this dance-driven malice of its rhythm. No such questions with “Murmur”. This one has stood the test already.

Throttled in the miserable Sounds office through speakers that weren’t fit to grapple its grooves, blasted through cobwebs at home and screeched in the car, Hula are definitely from the new breed.

Jack Barron’s revelation that Swans are something important, something to stand up for, something to be awestruck by can only be dittoed for Hula. Here, too, is that damning aggression, that unkempt power, that burning desire. Hula chew fire and spit out brat-skat by the mouthful.

But whereas the whole Swans theory revolves around the roach-happy recesses of the US state of mind, Hula are very, very British. Hula are using their surroundings, their city lights and their greatest nightmares as bright vivid colours.

“Murmur” is a patchy, multi-layered canvas. Within the cracks and crevasses are a thousand stories grasping to escape. The “Murmur” is getting louder; soon it will be a scream.

-Dave Henderson 9^th December 1984 Sounds