RECORDS

Rip It Up, Issue 62, 1 September 1982, Page 16

RECORDS

Pigbag Dr Heckle and Mr Jive Powderworks If you haven't heard of this band by now, you must have been hiding under a rock for the last few months. Papa's Got A Brand New Pigbag' has been an enormously successful underground single in Britain and on this side of the world. But don't expect an album full of matching shirts and ties. Dr Heckle is an album that experiments and triumphs as an example of what free-thinking musicians can do when divorced from the desire for pure commercial success. The six Pigbaggers are hardly well-known, with the exception perhaps of Simon Underwood (ex Pop Group). All are multi-instru-mental, though no-one claims great expertise on any one instrument. They've produced a bold and heuristic album, bursting with ideas and promise. Pan-African and quasi-Latin polyrhythms play a vital part in the Pigbag sound, as well as a hefty nod to free jazz in some of the horn playing. Tracks like 'Getting Up' and 'Big Bag' slap on layers of percussion over bustling rhythm sections, allowing the horns to carry the melody lines in sharp, concise motifs. It's as tribal as it's funky. 1 'Dozo Don' and 'Brian The Snail' are even more adventurous, dwelling in darker jungle regions, where cello is especially well used to eerie effect over throbbing backgrounds, similar to the Brian EnoJon Hassell Possible Musics collaboration. Little spots of cartoonstyle tootling with a New Orleans flavour provide the comic relief. Ollie Moore must get special mention for some exciting tenor sax work, especially on 'Orangutango'. Dr Heckle and Mr Jive is a challenge to old precepts and some slightly immature notions of what constitutes 'jazz' and 'funk', two much-abused terms. I use them here only as very vague guidelines. Don't let them put you off. Pigbag is a brand new kleensak. Duncan Campbell

ABC Lexicon Of Love Mercury Let it be said here and now that this is a great record. Many people are already arming themselves for the ABC backlash, with accusations of slick, dull or worst of all, trendy. But this record is ample proof that ABC have a greatness that transcends mere fad. They have rescued the sly, slightly tongue-in-chic romanticism that Roxy started to lose around Siren. I don't want to make them out to be a dance department Joy Division, a bunch of do-no-wrong heroes (after all, 'Show Me' does have a dud chorus), but this record is strong enough to withstand all the praise and hype heaped on it. The singles are all here, including their first, Tears Are Not Enough', but the rest of the tracks are strong enough not to be overshadowed (witness the excellent 'All Of My Heart' or the somewhat darker '4 ever 2 gether'). ABC's problem is going to be

following up an album of this quality. But from here they look like survivors, with intelligence and compassion which makes you wonder (with hindsight) why you bothered with Dare. Martin Fry says the ultimate love song hasn't been written. Judging from his performance on this album and the sorry state of the present competition, if anyone is going to write it in the forseeable future, he will. Barry Morris Simple Minds Sons and Fascination/ Sister Feelings Call Virgin Last year Simple Minds' initial UK release of Sons and Fascination was accompanied by a free counterpart, Sister Feelings Call, unfortunately unreleased in New Zealand until now. Time can depress or elevate the perception of certain records. Sons and Fascination has matured with age to become a blockbuster, with

time unravelling its obvious resonance and scope to reveal a series of obscured subtleties and asides. Sister Feelings Call is the perfect complement. In the past year we have caught glimpses into its content: '2oth Century Promised Land' and a live 'League of Nations' have appeared on the magnificent 'Sweat In Bullet' EP (the re-mixed version of which is not on the Sister- Feelings Call album contrary to the label notes), and Theme For Great Cities' is included on the 'Promised You A Miracle' 12" EP, the year's best single. The remainder of Sister Feelings Call is : equally interesting.; 'The American', 'Wonderful In Young Life' and 'Careful In Career' are Simple Minds in typical stride aggressive and sure. Finally, 'Sound 70 Cities', an extended, purely instrumental reading of Sons and Fascination's '7O Cities As Love Brings the Fall', seals the album's promise as delivered. And now all you've gotta do is collect. George Kay Various ArtistspKHHHHH Your Secret's Safe With Us Stunn Two years ago, Nigel Burnham compiled an album of northern English bands, under the banner Hicks From the Sticks. It was a chance to showcase some of the lesser-known unreleased groups from around his homeground. One in particular, Wah! Heat, went on to record one of. 1981's better albums. Two years on and the exercise is repeated, only this time with a double album. An indication, perhaps, as to how many bands exist in the Lancashire, Yorkshire, Teeside area. Eighteen bands in all are featured, many with obscure names, such as Sepp Maier's Gloves or Blue Chips or Asama. Although a lot of the material is dated, some of it in fact sounding like songs that didn't make it on to Hicks from the Sticks, a good percentage is interesting, to say the least. The Chameleons (not David Balfe's band) have a good, catchy song in "Here Today', as do Thrash!, with the mock funk of 'Time Will Tell'. At the other end of the scale is Gentle Ihor with 'Psalm 151', a strange workout

around a biblical style of lyricism. Your Secret's Safe With Us is an album for people who are sick of bands with huge record company hype and money behind them. It's well presented, with photos and lyrics for all the songs. Most of all, it s a double album of bands from a small portion of Britain that highlights the severity of the musical slump in New Zealand. It would be impossible to compile an album as good as this using bands from the whole of NZ, let alone just the top of the North Island. Mark Phillips Kid Creole and the Coconuts Tropical Gangsters Ze From recent accounts, all is not well in the Kid Creole camp. There's been a major rift between svengali August Darnell and Andy Hernandez, aka Coati Mundi. The latter played a major role behind the scenes in Fresh Fruit In Foreign Places, and even Darnell is forced to admit that. The Latin influences in the arrangements were mainly the work of Hernandez, who suddenly found himself very much an outsider on this latest album. l Vocalist Lori Eastside has been sacked by Darnell as unsuitable, while she in turn says he's just a MCP. She still sings on one track of Gangsters, 'Loving You Made A Fool Out Of Me', and her vocals will be missed. So, we have an album that is the work of Darnell alone, bar one Hernandez track, 'l'm Corrupt', which has a shade more wit to it than the rest of the album, although it would have been better with the man himself vocalising. What is missing from the album, compared to its forbear, is that sense of fun (spelt FUN). Fresh Fruit was a joyful record, full of naughty rhythms, sly Latin and Creole sounds, pass-the-cock-tails bonhomie, etc. It throbbed and pulsated with exotic forms of life. Tropical Gangsters, by comparison, is merely competent New York disco-funk, similar to others. The charm and style of Fresh Fruit is gone. Darnell tries to continue the saga of his search for his missing dream girl, Mimi, but the atmosphere of being stranded in

foreign climes, which he is searching for, is lost for want of the touch of Hernandez. Coati is still performing live . with the Coconuts, and reviews of the live shows have been ecstatic. Maybe the music loses something in translation to vinyl. Darnell seems to take himself too seriously, a grave error when you're trying to have.fun. Duncan Campbell Skids Fanfare Magazine After the Fact Virgin Two almost Greatest Hits albums from two defunct Virgin bands. The lesser first. Skids, a Scot's confusion of post-punk aggro, rock orthodoxy, paperback literacy and high profile Jobson pretensions. At their individual best ' 'lnto the Valley', "Working For the Yankee Dollar', 'Masquerade' and 'A Woman In Winter' they could be forceful, pertinent and imaginative and so avoid the aimless and self-conscious fashion drift of their albums. As it is Fanfare is a Skids without the weeds and so ranks as their best, album, albeit posthumous. Magazine's After the Fact is a reminder, should you need one, that this band pioneered post 1977 art school punk. Their albums remain provocative and literate and their singles were flashes of light. This retrospective collection starts with the rare single version of 'Shot By Both Sides' and is worth the price of the album alone. It remains white heat, no less. The remainder of After the Fact is a carefully chosen selection of songs, some of them classic singles 'Rhythm of Cruelty', This Poison' : and 'A Song From Under the Floorboards' and some a' hand-picked line-up of album highlights, notably 'Back To Nature', 'Motorcade' and Y"ou Never Knew Me'. After the Fact is a representative _glimpse of Magazine's best moments. An ideal starting place. So both albums easily transcend the usual Greatest Hits gold watch good-bye. George Kay