Now we're back on a guitar noise improv
kick, I can put up some Dead C. The perfect example of minimalist
maximalism in the long drawn out death throes of rock. This is rocks
Battle of Berlin,one last prolonged scream before it finally died and
finally became just entertainment.
The Dead C are, of course, not dead; in
fact they are still churning out barrel loads of the same weedy
transistor frying no-fi tuneless racket that they always did.
For me, the 'Runway' cassette is their
most perfect manifestation of their carelessly crafted sound. A Dead
C member was once asked how is it that their tunes are recorded so
badly; he replied that “those recordings are in fact very good
recordings of what the group actually sound like”. It takes a real
effort to sound so bad,and its getting harder by the day, with all
this easily available technology, ironing out every glitch. It used
to be difficult to get a perfectly recorded sound, now its almost
impossible to get a crap sound. The Dead C is a reaction against the
homogenisation of this planet. When they started, inspired by a few
seconds from the Outro of 'Expressway to yr Skull” by Sonic Youth,
New Zealand was considered an isolated outpost where nothing of
interest could possibly lurk. This was an obvious advantage,as there
was no possibility of a career in pop music in such a place, so why
not do whatever you wanted, no matter how unappealing to the general
public.
The ten untitled tracks on this
cassette are formless, non-fi, sizzling and fizzing non musical
atrocities based in the classic rock group format of Guitar, Bass and
Drums. We even have a pop single for track 2, admittedly a single fed
through a lawnmower with a failing motor, nevertheless a
submerged,red zone,overloaded two chord classic. There's even some
plunderphonia hidden amongst the hiss,and the drones,and the slack
buzzing strings; when we get some clear sounding US metal record
being sampled by placing the needle randomly upon its atrocious
grooves.Another comment on the death of the R'N'R dream?
If you like the smell of low budget
electronics smoking under the strain of a detuned Jandekian guitar
being fed through 'em like a catheter along a urethra, recorded in a
vast empty sports hall, then this is the group for you. Like the
Fall, they are always different, always the same.
Track Listing:
Side A 5 Untitled tracks
Side B 5 more Untitled tracks.
DOWNLOAD from the runway ready for take off HERE!
or
DOWNLOAD from runway 2 HERE!
