Null & Void was one of them severe head scratchers back in the day. Maybe not for me per se, I mean, after all, your lookin at the Ellis Island for the amped 'n addled; them's what pass through this cranium shall be afforded every opportunity. And while we could talk all day about my rapier intellect, let's just say I am pleasantly surprised to be extollin the pleasure of Null & Void's charms in the here 'n now. Back at the dawn of the 80's the band issued a couple's 12" eps; one what's as rare as a double dicked rattler, the other-entitled 'Happiness And Contempt' aka, das debut-bein a bit more findable. Providin you's traipsed around SoCal record stores back then. It also has the distinction of lookin not unlike L Ron Hubbard's 'Space Jazz'. A mere coincidence, as the latter come out some 2 yrs after the former, but nonetheless fetchin to the eye. By the time I'd come to N&V both releases was in the wild. Truth be told, I was sort've intrigued by the visual similarities (the cheap price's didn't hurt neither) & what was even more fuckin amazin is THEY EVEN SOUNDED ALIKE! I shit you not, it was uncanny.Hell, I wouldn't have blinked twice if I found'em both bearin the Applause Records logo. So who knowed, maybe Null & Void was Scientologists. And the next one released-'Montage Morte'-I ain't never seen (or heard) so's it was a ponder what evaporated over time.
So cut to a few weeks back when I found this monster. It took me a minute to shake off the cobwebs, but gettin a full gander at the package-it comes w/an enormous poster what functions not just as art but also the personal/technical index-I's was staggered to find all the material was some 30 yrs old! So's essentially, 'Possibilities' was a 3rd set've recordins what never got the green light. Till now. It's likely this made the rounds as a cassette at some point, whatever, I'm sure I was engaged elsewhere. But man, talk about a massive turnaround. This album is a stone classic of avant, idiosyncratic, post-everything! The songs on that debut would start out w/a slow, broodin pace, then snap! & it was off to the synth wave races. The same modus operandi is evident here, 'cept the tracks never break from the narrative, they's just disinergrate. Either that or they morph into some absurd, ambiguous, tangent (?) that throws you off everything. It's rather like the bizarro prog of Red Noise or Fille Que Mousse than it is Punk. More elaborately, imagine This Heat & Scott Walker recordin 'Deceit', Byron Black/Living Objects coverin 'Eskimo' or Siren-era Chrome reinterpreting 'Call Me MISSter' (sides 2 & 4 respectively). Yeah, it's that GOOD. So why it was buried for all them years is.....a pickle. Thankfully this upstart label, Bunkerpop, has set it straight & honestly, what is the BEST outing from Null & Void is now (finally) available for mass consumption. Get it here;
http://bunkerpop.bigcartel.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment