Another slice of ear-shreddingly loud noisecore cum proto-drum’n’ bass from 70 Gwen Party. As always the abrasiveness is underpinned by delectable melodies and a sense of urgent excitability is a constant throughout, especially during the escalating guitar runs from 2:10 - 2:34. After which the music briefly seems to pause for breath before plunging the listener back into a sonic maelstrom. It sounds exactly like every other 70 Gwen Party track I’ve ever heard, but their genius is to be able to mine the well of angry, intense soundtracks and keep producing a different band of gold each time. And the more I hear them, the more I feel that they are what The Jesus and Mary Chain would have become had they branched out into dance music straight after releasing Upside Down.
Like The Jesus and Mary Chain, 70 Gwen Party had considerable bones to pick both with the music business and especially the music media. They didn’t feature on any of the lists of bands/artists to watch in 1993, which Peel related that he had read in various music papers, on this show. Maybe the journalists and tastemakers were taking their revenge on them after reading the venomously critical sleevenotes of the Knee Deep in Evil 7-inch single, in which the music press were criticised for ignoring 70 Gwen Party’s music due to their obsession with pretty packaging on more vacuous material and how this would ultimately damage the music business and the art itself:
One day those same sad media people who ignore bands like ours might wake up to the fact that if a piece of music is crap, it doesn’t matter if it’s dressed up in a shiney sequined disc and played on the latest sound system with additional vibrator attachment, it will still be crap. Snape (Records) will continue to put out 7” mail-order vinyl because it is the only economically viable option, it they get ignored...cos we can’t afford all the promotional bollocks that seems to preside over this business, then so be it. Perhaps those in media power, who rely on music to be potent for their survival, might come to realise that by judging music on its technical attributes/format rather than the music itself, you will damage the “grass roots” who cannot compete on those terms, and by damaging the grass roots (who breathe life into this business unlike Major record label A&R depts who cream off the fat) they will ultimately be damaging themselves.
Video courtesy of Joe Morris
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