Words by Peter Tanski
Peter Tanski grew up in the small but thriving Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area, fronting several bands and founding the music and literary fanzine, Exmortus. After a brief stint living in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and writing for Legends Magazine, he returned to Pennsylvania where he began to work with web based music site NEPA Rocks. He currently fronts the melodic hardcore/punk band, Heart Out and hosts The Book of Very Very Bad Things PodZine.
“I don’t have to sell my soul, he’s already in me. I don’t need to sell my soul… I wanna be adored.”
– Ian Brown, The Stone Roses
In 1989, the “Madchester Scene”, that had seen its advent under the Machiavellian pall of Factory Records owner and pop culture tastemaker Tony Wilson, shifted popular music globally. Dreamy, psychedelic dance rock replaced the funerary, deadly serious dirges of Joy Division, giving way to New Order’s Lazarus. Wilson, along with New Order, co-owned the cultural hub The Hacienda Club, and dubbed the era the Second Summer Of Love. The effect birthed an alternative music revolution in England, and ignited Rave/Gabber culture. Enduring acts like 808 State, James (you know, the guys that gave the world Laid), The Charlatans, Inspiral Carpets, and The Happy Mondays injected neon coloured, Ecstasy laced, sex slathered permutations of sonic styles that all equaled to good vibes for a youth left hungry for an antithesis to Punk nihilism and Post-Punk mourning. Somehow, everyone save for one Ian Brown had gotten the message.
Ian was the penultimate, messianic frontman. His infiltration of this new, glamorous post post-punk discotheque thrust was physically apropos, and intellectually counter to the entire atmosphere. His band, The Stone Roses, mined sounds both current in rhythm and antiquated in psychedelic guitar shimmer. The combination launched the outfit to a cult status that has only grown with time. The sound fit the bill. The lyrics did not.
Side A, track one of their eponymous debut, at first glance, read like the journal entry of a megalomaniacal romantic, bent on attaining love at all costs. In truth, we see a man reckoning with the fact that he needn’t sign a Faustian agreement with Mephistopheles in order to become famous. He needed not the oppression of demonic forces to become consumed with evil. He was already damned via the sin desiring accolades and fame. And this was a mere 60 seconds into an auspicious debut that would depict narratives of obsession, betrayal, delusions of grandeur, and the malaise that ultimately follows succumbing to lust. No one in that scene let the bad times roll with as much aplomb and zeal.
During the reign of the titular Roses sans Guns, influences that darted between the New York City and Manchester cross-pollinated in Bristol and bloomed into what would come to be known as Trip Hop. With Massive Attack and Tackhead striking the initial blows, Beth Gibbons and Portishead entered the fold, bringing with them a sense of melody a space that was, as-of-yet, underutilized by their contemporaries. With a scant two recorded albums completed in their initial run, they still pushed an indelible impression upon the landscape.
Beth Gibbons has broken her streak of relative silence with the breathtaking “Lives Outgrown” (Domino), a record that was written over the course of a decade, in the face of loss. The loss of life. The loss of hope. The cumulative experience of profound sadness and mortality spawned an achingly beautiful tone poem in 10 movements, executed with a grace and precision that cannot be merely taught but can only be endogenous to her essence. Beth Gibbons has once more made manifest the dividends of reckoning with one’s self, and it is rapturous to behold.
While discussing attendance variations between the Stone Roses 1995 and 2016 tours with Tony Arnold of Funeral Date, I considered the diametrically opposed lyrical content and the music it accompanied. Funeral Date’s “Coast Goth” has always a juxtaposition of minor and major, especially his latest single, “Flower From the Grave”. Bright shimmers and dismal dirges. On this single, he tackles the subject of the loss of a child, and the birth of another. This isn’t merely the post-breakup malaise and borderline stalker behavior of 80’s Goth, it posits that the essence of the child lost transubstantiates into the spirit of the child found. For the Arnolds, their heartbreak was salved by the triumph of their infant child’s birth. The track is rife with shimmering dream pop, plodding post-punk, and street corner goth. It looks to the Wake, Slint, and the Stone Roses all at once. It exists on the outer reaches, attempting only to convey an impossible joy in the wake of crushing despair. It is a love letter to the feeling of holding the embodiment of one’s soul expression of hope, and it stands as a singular work without the help of a b-side. It deserves to be considered individually. Congratulations to Tony and Summer! Welcome to the world, River!
Industrial/EBM unit Mvtant have launched their latest offensive with “Electronic Body Horror” (Dream Recordings), a nihilistic ode to Cronenberg, dark sex, and lurid entertainment. With the likes of the great Skinny Puppy languishing in retirement, the throne has been left cold and vacant. The next generation of electro-terrorists that are poised to ascend. Health, Perturbator, Patriarchy, and now Mvtants, are rising to the occasion, and we are grateful.
Detects, the pride of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, have been quietly amassing a body of work that is so voluminous in scope and sound that it’s nigh unbelievable that this project is fully self directed, composed, and produced. The latest E.P., “Blending In” (self-released) reconciles the early singles’ sounds and structures with the obvious dimensional shift that was their most recent full length, “Seconds”. Detects rest upon the very precipice of coming directly off of the rails with tracks like “Can’t Compete”, embracing a near chaotic synth aesthetic that would feel more at home on a Suicide record than something that most modern artists wishing the genre dare to employ. The saccharine melodies that cower behind maniacal keys serve as a harmonious opposition. The entire EP is a gallery of contrasts. It is the outstretched hand grasping at the metal bar on a tilt-a-whirl spun by a meth addled carnival barker, quoting J.G. Ballard in Brian Wilson sing-song fashion, as he damns you to an eternal vertigo-nausea. This is not to be missed.
The ever exhilarating Summer Darling Tapes (Europe’s Premiere cassette label, who are responsible for issuing Lathe Of Heaven’s demo, Lesser Care and Soft Kill full lengths, reissues of Cercle Social releases…) have meticulously recreated the modern underground classic Vali S.C.’s “To Set The Sea in Wolves Teeth”. This new, definitive edition is backloaded with new album artwork, an accompanying short film, bonus tracks and a Eurovision inspired long sleeve tee. More importantly, it fulfills the promise of Kenneth Aaron Elkin (formerly of Sextile), a young man that suffered the disease of addiction and navigated the subsequent fallout. From prison to recovery, Kenny’s experience served as a reserve of psychic energy, to be metered out and manipulated into song, art, film, and fashion. His chasmic, psychedelic take on introspective Shoegaze and yearning Dreampop, punctuated by acerbic and articulate lyrics may not mirror the Stone Roses, but the spirits of both Ian Brown and Kenny Elkin are nothing if not kindred ones.
“The past was yours but the future’s mine, You’re all out of time.” – Ian Brown, The Stone Roses