Grace Jones – Warm Leatherette [1980]

I listened to Grace Jones for the first time only a few weeks ago. I’ve long been aware of the significance that her first two albums of the 1980s had on the artists of that decade and beyond, but I assumed much of that influence was due to her androgenous stage persona, rather than the music itself. So it was from a sense of obligation that I downloaded the 1981 Nightclubbing LP, hoping only to fill in another gap in my musical background. What I found was a scintillating collection of dubby new wave pop tracks that immediately sunk their hooks in my ear. It’s a rarity that a pop song speaks to me that quickly, so I quickly downloaded 1980’s Warm Leatherette, widely regarded as Jones’ other masterpiece. Most reviews I’ve read assert that Nightclubbing is the better of the two albums, both produced by reggae hitmakers Sly and Robbie, but I disagree. It certainly is the more balanced and consistent of the two, confident in the icy electro-funk reggae sound that exists in a more primitive form on Warm Leatherette, but I’m a sucker for a heterogeneous albums that play fast and loose with diverse conventions, and that’s what WL is all about. The title track (a cover of the Suicide-esque song written the guy who founded Mute records) revolves around a hard rock guitar sting and bluesy piano that adds warmth to the original, but keeps the detached, emotionless vocals. “Love is the Drug,” another cover, marries an urgent dance beat to discordant guitar riffs. The best track, however, has got to be “My Private Life,” (yet another cover) which uses pitch-shifted vocals over clattery percussion, augmented by a rhythmic electronic squelch which I think is a guitar skank modulated beyond all recognition. The result is an alien dub gem that I have yet to hear topped

Unfortunately the version I have uploaded here is a rip of the CD version, which uses extended mixes of several songs, adding and extra minute or two to songs that are already teetering on the edge of overindulgence. Don’t let that deter you though; this is a great album.

[Youtube] Grace Jones - Private Life (unfortunately without pitch-shifted vox)

Grace Jones – Warm Leatherette

01 - Warm Leatherette

02 - Private Life

03 - A Rolling Stone

04 - Love is the Drug

05 - The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game

06 - Bullshit

07 - Breakdown

08 - Paris

Maruosa - Exercise and Hell [2007]

It's tough to be a breakcore fan when you’re as god-damned tired of the Amen break as I am. Not so many years ago, after slogging through another seven-inch deconstruction of the same shit that I’ve been listening to for over a decade, I wondered what it would take for me to love Amen again. It turns out that Japanese cybergrind producer Maruosa had the answer, which is to pulverize it almost beyond recognition and shove it into my ear at a bazillion BPM. The trick is making me like it.

2007’s “Exercise and Hell” walks a very thin line between break-based grind and lawless cutup noise. With a little less structure, the result would be a fairly dull mash of hyperedits, but with a bit more structure the music would lose that manic peak that pushes Maruosa beyond his peers. Beneath the boiling surface, each track is metered by a hardcore kick that on first listen seems nearly as spastic as the rest of the music, but acts to contour the din into a decipherable but constantly changing shape. Earmarked by the kick and to a certain extent by the rasping vocals, the tracks unfold, swinging between barely-contained chaos and utter chaos. It’s quite a ride, and has established – at least in my mind – Maruosa among the breakcore/grindcore elite. You gotta try this.

[Youtube] Maruosa – Muscle Spark

Maruosa - Exercise and Hell [2007]

01 – Hell-O Everyone

02 - Death Stretch

03 - To Point Of Nausea

04 - Fatman (Feat. DISTEST)

05 - Spasm Spasm Spasm

06 - Slobber

07 - Muscle Spark

08 - Ants

09 - Lack of Oxygen

10 - Repute One's Reverse Cruciate Ligament

11 - Deep Respiration from Nethemost Hell

12 - Come Back From the Dead

13 - Shit Power in a Showdown

14 - Styx