I don't know about you, but I would have certain expectations of a band with a name like Prolapse. These expectations would not include CD liner notes that consist largely of "Jane's" style aircraft illustrations. And yet this is exactly what I found many years ago when my weekly rummage through the racks of Ben's Collectors Records unearthed a copy of Ghosts Of Dead Aeroplanes. I stared intently at it for a few minutes, before eventually deciding that £3 was a small price to pay to satisfy my curiosity. And a good thing too, as it turned out to be a blinder. The justaposition of brutal arsequake band name and obtuse indie illustrations is, to some extent, mirrored in the record itself. There's no bowel-shattering sludge on display; but there is a bizarre clash of angular guitar clanging and dreamy shoegaze, and contrasting vocal styles with gentle girly warblings vying for supremacy with the coarse and deranged ramblings of a Scottish madman. Somehow, it all works. Personally, I reckon Ghosts Of Dead Aeroplanes is very much the standout record in the Prolapse discography. Which is not say that the other records are bad particularly - The Italian Flag certainly has a few moments - but if I could only own one Prolapse record, it would definitely be Ghosts. And if I could own another, it would probably be a spare copy of Ghosts, just in case.
Much like Godflesh last week, The Jesus Lizard were one of those bands that for a long time I had heard of but never actually heard. I remember that they put out a split single with Nirvana that I completely failed to buy at the time; and that frontman David Yow was arrested for indecent exposure at some festival or other after playing a game of "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" with Courtney Love of Hole. And that was about the sum total of my knowledge until an afternoon of digging around in my local second hand record den revealed a Jesus Lizard rich seam. Not that it was an especially enlightening experience at the time. Mostly I came to the conclusion that it was all a barely listenable racket. And whilst I diligently gave the records another try every now and then, I still didn't really get it until I saw them play live at one of the ATP festivals a few years back. And with Yow crawling over the crowd towards me, malicious intent written in sweat across his writhing features as he howled "I can't swim, I CAN'T SWIM", I realised with horror that the jarring, angular, smashed melodies of the music had spun a paralysing hex on me and I was sure to die. And in that moment, I got it. You won't like them.
For a big chunk of the 90s Godflesh was one of those bands that I knew I was supposed to like, but it took me ages to get around to sticking any of it in my ear. This probably worked out best for me, as I reckon I prefer the later records; the relentless industrial dirge is still very much relentless, industrial and dirge-y, but with a bit more variety and texture. Godflesh disintegrated around the early 2000's, and frontman Broadrick (once in Napalm Death) went on to form Jesu. Cut from the same drum-machines-and-vast-slabs-of-distorted-guitar cloth as his former outfit, Jesu is generally a bit more uplifting - occasionally overlapping with some of the more doomy shoegaze bits of Godflesh. Doomgaze? I dunno. Well worth checking out though. But I'm a gloomy bastard at heart; and since Godflesh reformed for a few shows a couple of years ago and maybe are perhaps writing some new material possibly, I'll take a fat slice of caustic mechanical trudging this week please.
I felt certain that I'd strung together some shit words about this funny looking bastard already. Never mind, now's as good a time as any. Except that I really don't have much to say about this weird fractured drum 'n' bass 'n' ambience 'n' contempt, other than I like the contrasting mix of fractured drum 'n' bass, ambience and contempt. I like that everything by Aphex Twin sounds like Aphex Twin without being formulaic or predictable. I like that Mr Aphex Twin (Richard D James) is either a funny looking bastard possessed of sublime musical genius that transcends all mortal comprehension; or a funny looking bastard possessed of that special kind of genius that compels people to handcraft aluminium foil headwear, shout at clouds and collect toenail clippings. And I like Chris Cunningham's disturbing video accompaniments. Get startled, yeah?
