Apr 23, 2016
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Blue Corpse - Jandek
This is one of the more curious events in the Corwood Industries catalogue.
To the left is "Modern Dances", a noisy "group" album with shouted vocals, electric guitars and untamed drums. This is largely of a piece with the 5 or 6 albums before it (except Nine Thirty) and probably features the same people as those albums - loose atonal jamming. Communal. Therapeutic**. Sterling (as we can now safely call him, post Wire interview) mostly on vocals and probably guitar although maybe some drums too.
Despite boasting a front cover seemingly being shot mere seconds before, follow-up "Blue Corpse" couldn't be more different. This is a duo record with a conventionally tuned guitar as the musical centre. The unidentified participant (probably called Eddie - the words "take it, Eddie" are clearly heard on "Down At The Ball Park") sings the first couple of songs while Sterling claws away at the open strings. Then they swap, Eddie moving around some melodic standard progressions, some with a bluesy twang while Corwood's finest explores some of his vocal limits. There are ghosts of other recordings in the background of one or two songs, probably due to faults in the tape machine. It's not clear if the guitar on "Harmonica" is a bleed or an incorrectly erased track until about 3 minutes in when the titular instrument starts to link with the guitar and the latter becomes a bit louder. The standard tuning makes the album very accessible, despite it being so desolate.
The cover of "Blue Corpse" seems to be saying "It's OK, things have changed a bit but it's still Jandek". But if the photo is meant to be reassuring, the album's title is the exact opposite, a wilfully off-putting feature, preventing access to what is undoubtedly the most comfortable entry point into the "first era" of Jandek.
**NB - this is not to imply that there is anything in the much repeated story that these albums were an actual Group Therapy session.
The audio quality of the vinyl is by far superior to that of the CD reissue. The compression on some of the CDs, this one in particular, is a real shame.
On a side note, I'm pretty sure this is my favorite Jandek song/album.
My poetry blog, Blue Corpse, has been somewhat quiet of late. There's a few reasons for this, but before I upload some new material (hopefully in the fairly imminent future), I found an online video of one of my performances. Viewer beware: the poet is not exactly svelte in this depiction...
Just uploaded a new piece to my poetry blog Blue Corpse that I tried out last night at the monthly Jibba Jabba event at the Trent House in Newcastle (which, as ever, was a great little night). Read, if you so wish.
So instead of finishing a task for a possible job, I spent the evening pissing around on the computer and coughing. But at least a new draft for a poem emerged out of the mist: a little piece based on a rather strange and delightful art-school party I ended up at in the Literary Salon on the Saturday night of the Latitude Festival this year. Click to read it, if you so wish.
