Post #365210 by BC-Da-Da on Thu, Mar 6, 2008 2:52 PM

Because St. Patrick's Day is coming up, I've been listening to some Virgin Prunes lately, and the CD reissue "A New Form of Beauty" is a loose conceptual collection that the Prunes released in a variety of formats (7", cassette, 12", etc.)... collected on one disc for the first time.

Anyway, I bring it up, because there are some songs on here that could pass for Throbbing Gristle or Cabaret Voltaire... a sort of proto-industrial/goth take on jazz and easy listening. There are animated sounds, odd percussion and even gutteral harmonies. I'm not sure what you would call that kind of performance, but it seems almost ancient, maybe even something aboriginal, like those field recordings that Colin Turnbull released of the African Pygmies during the '50s. Brian Wilson employed a lot of that on some of his far-out "Smile" tracks. it almost sound like you could throw up, sort of convulsing, and a rhythm picks up, after the initial shocks, and the blurriness is in the fact that so many other thing are layered over it to feel like a haunting rainforest.

I can't explain it. Just listen to the Virgin Prunes song "Sweet Home Under the White Clouds" to see what I'm talking about. Not exactly '80s tiki, but definitely a form of synth-primitivo.