Wednesday 2 April 2014

Lemon Kittens - "We Buy A Hammer For Daddy" (United Dairies UD-02) 1980


Now just a duo, of Danielle Dax and Karl Blake, they produced one of the most startlingly original lp's of the DIY era.Sort of John cage meets the Krankies on bad LSD. The obvious lack of musical technique is more than made up for by that long forgotten ingredient, ideas and originality.
(sample track below)

Tracks:

1. Pain Topics (4:24)
2. Reversal 2 (2:34)
3. These Men of Old England (2:25)
4. Wrist Job / Once Green and Pleasant Land (2:45)
5. Lycanthrothene (3:06)
6. Motet (3:10)
7. Throat Violence (2:28)
8. False Alarm (Malicious) (1:58)
9. P.V.S (1:55) MP3 sample
10. Small Mercies (2:03)
11. Coasters (3:48)
12. Up In Arms (2:34)
13. The American Cousin (1:50)
14. Evidence (2:25)
15. Rome Burning (1:31)
16. (Afraid of Being) Bled by Leeches (2:14)

Download a Hammer For Daddy HERE!

9 comments:

Devyn Smith said...

What a blow to the fucking skull! Lemon Kitties is definitely my favorite up here in a bit, this is just absolutely brilliant and gorgeous. Particularly Cake Beast and moreso this masterpiece, We Buy A Hammer for Daddy. There's a weird cohesion in all of this chaos, like they had a very definite idea of what they were going for... it doesn't come across as silly to me in the slightest like a lot of this stuff tends to do. But then again, I don't know, so fuck that whatever, but it's refreshing and brilliant and weirdly enough, sounds fantastic.

Er, so is Danielle Dax's solo stuff this good?

Devyn Smith said...

LOVE the cover artwork for this one too. This is very inspiring. And I love the lyrics too, a lot of these lyrics are pretty heavy and brilliant. P.V.S. and Small Mercies aren't really any fuckaround shit, fairly heavy...

Jonny Zchivago said...

YO Vero! I was thinking something like this for you to lyricise over? Waddyou think? How non-rap would that be?

Jonny Zchivago said...

Er...;no, Danielle Dax's solo work is shite, except maybe 'Pop Eyes'(1983)? Sfter that it standard alternative rocky pop and very boring. Karl Blakes solo stuff is great though.Coming up after 'The Big Dentist'.

badgerstump said...

well chuffed you got around to posting all of the kittens...i posted "hammer" a while ago. literally one of the most important and disconcerting things that i have ever heard. completely fucked me up when i first played the vinyl and then changed my view of the world. a complete classic ... this is a very deliberate LP...nothing here is by accident.

And yes, goth pop sex kitten's solo work is utter shite ... maybe parts of jesus egg ... nah

karl blake was the genius behind this ...

post on brother!

Jonny Zchivago said...

Wholeheartedly agree.A truly unique work of art.
More Karl Blake coming up.

Devyn Smith said...

lol badgerstump, goth pop sex kitten. that's brilliant.

yeah Jonny, that's actually one of the first things I thought when I was getting into this... this definitely has some of the best usage of spoken-word type passages i've come across yet, which is something I usually hate but want to give a try... so I totally reckon we're on the same sheet of non-music with this one, indeed!

Jonny Zchivago said...

Pretty accurate summation of the Kittens. Although I am inclined to imagine the custard as being that Pink variety, that one we used to get for school dinners.(we're the same age,so i'm sure you've encountered this) The lumpy stuff to go with the dried up hotplate warmed treacle sponge.

I may have a very rare live performance from the Lemon Kittens coming soon,so keep checking.

cheers,
jz

A-Mfan said...

I love the oddities I find here. Thank you for posting this gem.