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| | | anarchymoon (usa) #anok 18 lp smegma “the smell remains the same” long playing record - swamp dick (2:13)
- l.s.d. bomb (4:22)
- fish story (5:26)
- found & lost (3:50)
- yes your majesty (2:10)
- change me (3:26)
- boils and carbuncles (3:41)
- walkie talkie (3:36)
- vox (3:30)
- thicket (4:09)
| | click the play button to hear an excerpt of "yes your majesty" |
| | october 2007 release; the reissue of this long-lost collection of 90s singles-only ouput by the long running lafms-related group smegma. a veritable zombie-fest of zonked lo-fi howling & free-electronic fuh (just make sure you either skip the opening track entirely or tought it out - a dumbo garagenik red herring that has little to do w/the rest of the record) |
| | anarchymoon press release... |
| anok18)) smegma the smell remains the same lp
2nd in a slow series of 7" reissues, the smell remains the same presents 10 tracks originally released 1990-95 on 7" by various labels, incl the impossible to find ? comp on cavity search records. (literally, the title is "?"). the tracks display smegma's pioneering style of audiofile-lo-brow folk-noise-rock, in their early-middle age when they were surviving through the birth of grunge, alternative, and indie rock.
remastered by mike lastra, cover artwork by amazon bambi, liner notes by david morgan. 4-color pro jackets, 4-color pro sleeves, 1-color pro labels, 500 on blue vinyl, 500 on black
...
music by smegma (90-95)
all tracks originally released on 7" by
sympathy for the record industry (a1, a2, b4, b5),
ignorance is bliss (a3),
tim/kerr records (a4, b2),
cavity search records (a5),
and horton/reflex records (b1, b3).
audio re-mastered by mike lastra
cover art by amazon bambi
band photos by dawn radtke (july 12, 1992)
layout and design by hermee duluux
...
smegma.
an entity that is now in its fourth decade. a band that has survived the comings and goings of what must now be hundreds of members. has thrived during an evolution that went from crawling art brut naivety, through guitar-driven rock and roll teenage debacle, and into a sophisticated and adult melange of sound manipulations. while still maintaining its originating seed of punk rock insistence and free music purity, they have kept flourishing while other bands have sprouted, flowered and spent. they keep producing, digging, and researching ways of making sound, and of course, recording those sounds.
the nine songs on this lp are culled from more or less the middle period from 1989 to 1995, which is to say only if they quit playing tomorrow, which is highly unlikely. during this period they were crafting the traditional smegma sound using newer sample technology while "experimenting" with a somewhat straightforward rock structure evident on swamp dick, thicket, and walkie talkie. these are singles that mostly came from limited vinyl pressings previously unreleased in one volume. foraging about in what is often these days called americana, swamp dick starts it off with the most conventional olivia throatily drops one in your ear while ju suk reet meate's guitar and dr. id's samples roar the , alligator bite of the bayou. the effect is simple, seductive, even a bit blasphemous. ,is the direction you thought this compilation was going you would be remiss to remember that this is smegma. the next song, l.s.d. bomb, gives us a fright with a nod toward old television (see dragnet).
coupled to the chroma vistas of what a truly bad trip might sound like, dr. id drives the song with jack webb samples, while the various other members stab at some sounds that fall away in forgetful moods, much like that infamous episode where the tripping 'mother forgets where she left her baby. like a drowning memory each component drifts into an unconscious echo.
fish story, the next piece, plays like a headache. a pounding fucking headache where you can hear your own blood pumping and every sound in the world is a priapus slap against your ear. play it loud. the relentlessness of fish story is contrasted nicely with the aural sophistication of found and lost. morose horns fog over the bizarre vocal stylings of amazon bambi, then fall away, are recaptured, then fall away again. what gives the noise its potency on this track are the moments of space, of quiet. the mist of vacant cagey intentions.
capping off side one is a hiccup toward armageddon. yes your majesty is a short number, a palimpsest of all the wartime propaganda movies ever made, condensed to easily fit into your pocket. a uniform march in all directions as the end credits roll over each other at different speeds. i can't help but think of leni riefenstahl turning over in her grave as an expansionist teleology is blindly dissected into the buffoonery of "mission accomplished" played on a digitally stuttering dvd.
old school smegma is in full force on change me where tape loops and record manipulations play the tongue-in-cheek puns of diaper cleanliness against religious movement. regardless of the exact chronology of the cuts on this album, this is the one that directs us toward their roots the most. when 33 1/3 rpms and the inexact length of actual loops of magnetic tape meet they randomly disturb each other. thus is resurrected the sound of early smegma.
boils and carbuncles is the comic relief for the album. looping and percussion create an international mood while the horns noodle around spoken word cut-ups. whereas boils is the comedic breather, vox is its evil twin. one begins by thinking that the vocals of amazon bambi and the late pig champion are going to make us laugh, and they do, but they take us far beyond that into something dark and disturbed where we can't be sure if we should let anyone else see us delight in its nervous black humor, scabbing over in an uncertain fecund tryst. in-between the latter two cuts walkie talkie slices through with lo-tech stuttering feedback, lacing itself together with the guitar in the upper range and separating when the guitar's pitch lowers. the disparate elements are accompanied by vocal wailing not dissimilar to what the butthole surfers might have sounded like had they not wasted so much money on fancy gadgets. capping off the lp we come full circle with the album's most literal and narrative of the bunch, thicket. overt proselytizing by an awkward southern preacher tells a story of an incestuous sectarian rain dance, circa waco, texas.
the dirty lap slide propels the piece then spins off with an ethereal reverb choked refrain where the clouds finally burst and is punctuated by the naive whistling you might expect from your average farm hand.
these songs, if they do nothing else, showcase smegma's forays into the borrowing of americana and their utilization of contemporary technology. this is key to understanding the later smegma who tend to incorporate all of the above effortlessly without the constrictions of the single format. if walking is controlled falling so is the music of smegma who manage to insert one gravitas element after another after another. smegma has learned to walk and with this album we hear those first steps.
one can only hope that the patient plodding that has given them their longevity keeps them moving for another few decades. enjoy
david morgan, april 2007 |
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