reviews

CHU001: Asking For Trouble box set

Hey, what a cute little package; once, all decent records were made this way. Yes, records. Vinyl. 7" vinyl. Two of them. Four bands. In a box. With a mini fanzine with all the bands interviewing each other. And a unique mystery gift. We got a £20 note. (Actually we got a little bag of science lab temperature reading labels, but we were still quite excited). Anyway, Asking For Trouble have compiled four of their favourite experimental sound artists onto two singles. Oxford's involvement is with the inclusion of Sunnyvale Noise Sub-element whose scatter of glitches and rumbles and grating new wave guitar noise, interspersed with samples of (we're guessing here) James Cagney in gangster mode on 'Girl Thief' does its intended job of burrowing into your skull and sticking its claws in. They're joined by ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead side-project A Roman Scandal, who offer a clutter of Throbbing Gristle and Faust-inspired electronic noise. Uter's 'Where is the Lid' is all doomy synth drones and metallic bass rumbles, while best of the lot are Denim & Diamonds who go in for a tasty bit of hysterical Devo-like robotic gabba-pop. So - some music, a fanzine and a surprise! Like the Kinder Egg ads used to say, that's not possible! But here it is. But it's not just a sweet collectable curio - it's firm evidence of where contemporary experimental music can - and should - be at.

Nightshift

The reason I bring this up is that opening the ‘Asking For Trouble’ 7” box is a bit like opening a Kinder Egg. Not that it’s made of chocolate (note to self ­ investigate potential in chocolate packaging for records), nor even remotely egg shaped, but rather that lurking inside the box there is a Mystery Gift. Mine is a double part Gift: a little plastic cheetah (well it has the build of a cheetah but the stripes of a tiger) and a strange fold out plastic sheet that looks kind of like a sub-aquatic scene. It’s a little surreal, and better than any toy I ever got in a Kinder Egg, with the possible exception of the little aeroplane with the bent propeller and the cherub that left a trail saying ‘I love you’ from its rubber stamp wheel. These things are important.

Oh, and the box has some 7” records inside too! And a mini fanzine! A true Pop Experience, to be sure. The music, from four bands (A Roman Scandal, Denim and Diamonds, Uter and Sunnyvale Noise Sub-Element) veers in the direction of electronica dressed in awkward fitting thrift store jackets; underground experimentation with one eye on Glitch, another on Detroit (more Derrick Carter than The Dirtbombs, though) and a third on the telly. That’s a telly tuned to snow, naturally.

Alistair Fitchett, Tangents

2 7” singles, 4 bands - in a box! With a unique ‘found object’ in every one. And hey, some top-notch tunes to boot! Uter are from Glasgow and their lo-fi and decidedly skewiff electro is a muffled mess of fun, like the Mary Chain if they’d gone electro early in their career. A Roman Scandal offer us swathes of radio noise and a tune sounding like PiL trapped in a mineshaft - and they feature Jason TrailOfDead on vocals. Sunnyvale Noise Subelement is the theme tune to a detective story starring David Pajo performed by the Gang of 4. And Denim and Diamonds play glitchpop and yelp away like a hyperactive bis. Who could ask for anything more?

Bernhard Bessing, Is This Music?

Four bands on four sides of this debut release from Asking For Trouble. Denim and Diamonds work the hyper Devo angle with the attention span of with the attention span of Devo angle with the attention span of where was I? Tinny and rapid and squeaky and helium and robotic and great. They split a disc with Uter whose Where Is The Lid? kicks off like the intro to pretty much anything from the Jesus and Mary Chain's Automatic album (drum machine and bass atmosphere) before developing into, well, more or less the same. Across the way, A Roman Scandal's Mock The Gods sounds like something The Mission would've enjoyed fed through an aquarium filter, a shortwave transmission in a storm and a bicycle wheel in need of grease. It's no surprise to find they share members with Denim and Diamonds. Finally, Sunnyvale Noise Sub-element suffer an involuntary priapism amongst the fractured and angular shreds of guitar treble cut with film samples.

The discs come in a box with inserts from each band, a mini zine (which explains why there'll probably never be another release on the label) and a mystery gift. (Mine's a street map of Osaka.)

Jimmy Possession, Robots and Electronic Brains