Hardcore for Nerds

Editors - ‘A Ton Of Love’ (2013)

While we’re arguing about Savages, my actual favourite UK post-punk/Joy Division apers are due to release a new album, the first since 2009’s In This Light and On This Evening (which I wrote about here). It appears they have since lost their lead guitarist Chris Urbanowicz due to ‘differences in musical direction’ - I assume he was responsible for their shimmering, high-flying sound which is notably absent here. Instead, it feels dry, muted, spacious - and even more 80s. Rather than their previous gloomy Factory Records posturing updated for the modern taste in bombastic rock, it’s a throwback to the stadium rock of the day: Springsteen and U2 both come to mind. And I wouldn’t expect to like that, especially not the latter, but I really do.

There’s something to the lyrics, normally impenetrably vague, that resonates too: “now bathe my idle soul in… desire”; what could better, and more beautifully, describe the modern, materially sated human condition? And wrapped in the soft sax and ringing chords of the sound of the technological and economic liberation of the 80s; the decade in which a new openness promised everything, just as our crisis today is subsumed into the internet’s instant gratification. “I don’t trust the government” is a familiar and jaded cry, but “I don’t trust myself” is a more chilling sign of the breakdown between the individual and the collective. ‘Desire’ is the animating force of our capitalism, here expressed in pitch-perfect irony as the throwback sonic signifiers of pleasure, hope, and confidence.

Much better than manifestos about silence, I think (and their art, as always, is wonderful). 

(Source: Spotify)

Husker Du - ‘Dead Set On Destruction’ from Candy Apple Grey (1986)

Poptimism/punktimism [delete as appropriate] means to me: preferring Husker Du’s Warner Brothers albums Candy Apple Grey and Warehouse: Songs and Stories to New Day Rising and Flip Your Wig (Metal Circus and Zen Arcade are still gold, though). Their last two records are the best examples of Husker Du’s ‘pop’ sound, and the earlier two of the punk/post-hardcore sound. The middle two seem, well, transitional, and I’ve never really gotten into them. I don’t begrudge anyone else who has, of course.

This is interesting (if not surprising), though:

“Hüsker Dü was not expected to sell a large amount of records. Rather, Warner Bros. valued the group for its grassroots fanbase and its “hip” status, and by keeping the overhead low the label anticipated the band would turn a profit.”

I should probably read Michael Azerrad’s book (from which the above is sourced) sometime, but as a non-musician and frankly someone who isn’t active in any kind of physical scene, it’s never particularly interested me; and more broadly, I don’t have much interest in the micro ‘process’ side of cultural production. I think it’s good if people recognise that art isn’t produced in a vacuum, and question the way in which artistic creation interacts with broader social and economic contexts; but at the same time I do tend to subscribe to the view of not particularly caring about artists’ personal or even professional lives as a lens through which to view their work. It is a creation, after all, which implies something distinct. On the other hand, it’s hard not be aware of such things if you’re historically sensitive: I wrote a thesis which substantially involved researching the unsavoury life of a man who wrote some intellectually valuable books in response to his time, but containing flaws both internal and external to himself. We love stories, to know the deeper meaning to things, which is a good instinct; but often it changes, and perhaps distorts, our appreciation of whatever meaning excited us about that book or album in the first place.

Then again, nothing lasts forever, which is kind of the point. 

(Source: Spotify)

(Source: Spotify)

Vinyl Sunday: Husker Du, Metal Circus; Hot Water Music, Never Ender (with artwork by SINC); Punch, s/t

from All Ages Records, Camden Town