David Thomas continues the Pere Ubu project with band members playing a mix of rock elements and synths, electronics and computers, adding alienation and oddity to this soundtrack to Herk Harvey's 1962 low-budget shocker "Carnival of Souls".
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Michele Temple-bass guitar
Darryl Boon-clarinet
Gagarin-digital electronica
Steve Mehlman-drums, percussion, Roland drum pad, backing vocals
Robert Wheeler-EML Electrocomp 101, theremin, iPad
Keith Moline-guitar
David Thomas-vocals, Xiosynth
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UPC: 809236135810
Label: Fire Records
Catalog ID: 809236135834
Squidco Product Code: 19979
Format: LP
Condition: New
Released: 2014
Country: USA
Packaging: LP
Recorded at Suma in Painesville, Ohio by Paul Hamann.
"Very few bands display such dedication to constant self-reinvention as Pere Ubu, whose highly methodological madness always seeks new ways of evolving their sound, whilst paradoxically keeping their DNA essentially unchanged. Perhaps only The Fall (who John Peel once famously described as "always different, always the same") can be said to have walked such a similarly fine line over such a lengthy career arc.
Ubu began performing live soundtracks to classic black-and-white cult films starting in 2002 with Jack Arnold's 1953 science-fiction epic It Came From Outer Space and moving on two years later to Roger Corman's X: The Man With The X-ray Eyes. Given David Thomas's often stated acknowledgement of the influence of Ghoulardi (the anarchic fictional persona of Ernie Anderson, presenter of late night B movies and father of the film maker PT Anderson) in imparting a sense of 'otherness' to Cleveland bands of the 70s, such films could hardly have found a more apt band to underscore them. Indeed, Pere Ubu's inherent sense of inner darkness and use of widely ranging electronic textures-including the classic sci-fi instrument the theremin-made them the perfect B movie house band. The soundtracks were performed with such attention to detail and with such respect for the films in question that they were always hugely successful.
As an Ubu fan, however, as much as I enjoyed them, I always wanted to hear the band play more than the spaces in the film allowed for-as great as their soundtracks were, I wanted to hear songs. Happily, with the release of the new album, the dichotomy has been solved. The live score for the film Carnival Of Souls was first performed at the London East End Film Festival in 2013, and ideas taken from the soundtrack were further developed and mutated whilst the band were on tour. The album takes the more electronic direction of 2013's Lady From Shanghai further still, towards what Thomas describes as a mixture of Suicide and Kraftwerk, and accentuates the prominence of newcomer Darryl Boon's clarinet in the mix. The result is a beautifully eerie song cycle whose pulsing analogue heart is even darker than the penumbral territories the band usually inhabit.
In many ways, Herk Harvey's 1962 low-budget shocker Carnival Of Souls is the perfect Pere Ubu source material - a spectral road trip undertaken by an outsider into an increasingly alienating landscape. The other element in the album's stated intent, the "fixing of prog rock" is not immediately apparent, although the 1971 Van der Graaf Generator album Pawn Hearts (which Thomas claims as an inspiration prior to beginning the recording process) is certainly one of the darkest and most tortured sounding examples to be found in the genre, equal parts punk and krautrock in spirit and an avowed favourite of both John Lydon and Julian Cope. Opener 'Golden Surf II' - easily the most direct and rocking track on the album - is something of a red herring in terms of the songs that follow. It's as though the band are saying 'see how well we can still do this', before heading off on another tack entirely. 'Drag The River' contrasts doom-laden bass and booming drums with clarinet and theremin, the woodwind instrument rising crystal clear above the otherwise murky atmosphere. It's a startling combination, a simultaneous evocation of ancient and modern that is used to great effect throughout the album. 'Visions Of The Moon' shimmers and twinkles like starlight over a steady heartbeat pulse before dissolving into chaotically oscillating swathes of electronic sound. 'Dr Faustus' is one of the most far-out tracks on the album, a spooky spoken word piece which finds Thomas screaming 'I am damned' in a way that surely echoes Peter Hammill's 'I know I'm not a hero [...] I hope that I'm not damned' from 'Man-Erg' on Pawn Hearts.
By the time we get to 'Bus Station', 'Road To Utah' and 'Carnival,' the band are really hitting their stride. Propulsive, dark and hypnotic, its easy to see these tracks being inspired by the road scenes from the movie, as is aptly demonstrated by the video to 'Road To Utah.' Taken together, these three songs are for me, the highlight of the album and as compellingly powerful as anything Ubu have ever done. Following on from the intense climax of 'Carnival,' which showcases the band at their most driving and machinelike, 'Irene' changes direction once again with a lovely, serenely atmospheric melody. Given all that has gone before, the effect is like coming out of a dark tunnel into a spacious, calm night with a clear open sky.
'Brother Ray,' the final track, available only on the CD version, is a 12-minute long improvised piece that Thomas describes as a prelude to Nathanael West's 'Day Of The Locust.' An epic exercise in delayed climax, it really hits home when the payoff finally arrives. The vinyl version omits the final track, instead opting for a series of minute-long 'strychnine interludes' made up of stretched out guitar notes, shortwave interference, Thomas reading from 'Last Of The Mohicans' and Morse code spelling out 'Merdre Merdre', thereby referencing both the infamous first word of the Alfred Jarry play from which the band took their name, 'Ubu Roi', and their song 'The Modern Dance'."-Sean Kitching, The Quietus
Get additional information at The Quietus
Artist Biographies
• Show Bio for Michele Temple "Michele Temple b. 1959 in Van Wert, Ohio. Former Clevelander, Michele now lives in New York City where she produces music, does session work, composes music for film and other events, performs, teaches, and engages in all manner of recording related activities as part of the Urban Iguana Music Production team. Michele is bass and guitar sideplayer and producer for various local artists including Marni Rice and Le Garage Cabaret featuring Ramones producer Daniel Ray, and Joni MItchell interpretive artist Hannah Reimann. She was also part of the hip hop production team the Jettsonz, producers of Nina Sky. Michele teaches at the Brooklyn Conservatory where she counts among her former students multi-Grammy winning artist Alicia Keys. Michele is a guitar sub in the pit of the Broadway production of Wicked, and was also in the pit for a one night revival of the Broadway production of Once on This Island. She has appeared at Lincoln Center with Armenian vocalist Sophia Gazarian and at the Apollo Theatre with Sony recording artist Amel Larrieux. Michele received her Masters Degree in Musicology from Cleveland State University in 1997. Academic publisher Edwin Mellon Press chose to release Michele's Master's Thesis, her first book, The Influence of Middle Eastern Music on Late Medieval Italian Dances, in the fall of 2001. The Dance Perspective Foundation awarded her book a prize the next year for the most original work on dance published in English in the year 2001. While in Cleveland Michele worked with Scott Krauss, Jim Jones, and Robert Wheeler in the Pere Ubu spin-off Home and Garden, and with her own band The Vivians which included Scott Benedict, drummer on Raygun Suitcase, and Steve Mehlman, current drummer for Pere Ubu. Michele has been playing with Pere Ubu since 1993 and has appeared on Raygun Suitcase, Pennsylvania, St. Arkansas, Why I Hate Women and its accompanying Why I Remix Women, "Long Live Pere Ubu!", Lady From Shanghai, Carnival of Souls, various other live cds and cd-roms, and in a whole bunch l(really I've lost count) of live shows. She is involved in the Pere Ubu Film Group providing live soundtrack music for films." ^ Hide Bio for Michele Temple • Show Bio for Keith Moline Keith Moliné: "Guitarist, electronicist in Pere Ubu and other David Thomas-related enterprises ( David Thomas And Two Pale Boys, Pere Ubu, The Pale Orchestra, Two Pale Boys) and the band Prescott. Laptopper with requisite beard. Writer for The Wire magazine. Educator, of sorts." ^ Hide Bio for Keith Moline • Show Bio for David Thomas "David Lynn Thomas (born 1953) is an American singer, songwriter and musician based in Great Britain. He was one of the founding members of the short-lived proto-punkers Rocket from the Tombs (1974-1975), in which he played under the moniker "Crocus Behemoth," and of post-punk group Pere Ubu (1975-present, intermittently). He has also released several solo albums. Though primarily a singer, he sometimes plays melodeon, trombone, musette, guitar or other instruments. Thomas has described his artistic focus as being the "gestalt of culture, geography and sound". Common themes crop up throughout much of his work, such as the US Interstate Highway system, images of roadside or "junk" tourist culture, Brian Wilson, AM radio, birds, and many others. Thomas has a distinctive, high pitched voice; Emerson Dameron described Thomas's singing as "James Stewart trapped in an oboe", and Greil Marcus writes, "Mr Thomas's voice is that of a man muttering in a crowd. You think he's talking to himself until you realize he's talking to you." Thomas was an early member of Rocket from the Tombs, which disbanded after about a year. Along with Rocket from the Tombs guitarist Peter Laughner, he then formed Pere Ubu, which was originally active from 1975 to 1982. Afterwards, Thomas worked with a variety of musicians including guitarists Richard Thompson and Philip Moxham, and Henry Cow alumni bassonist/oboist Lindsay Cooper and drummer Chris Cutler. Initially, his solo recordings eschewed Pere Ubu's "rock" focus. Lindsay Cooper's bassoon was often prominent, and, when Richard Thompson's guitar was not featured, the guitar would be absent (such as the entirety of 1985's More Places Forever). Thomas's lyrics became increasingly whimsical, and birds became a common theme: Somewhere along the line, I wrote a song that had birds in it. And then by pure coincidence, another. Some critic asked, "Why all these songs about birds?" And I said to myself, "You think that's a lot of songs about birds?!? I'll show you a lot of songs about birds!" So, for a while, I stuck birds in everywhere I could. Eventually, several former members of Pere Ubu gravitated into Thomas's group, and by the time of 1987's Blame the Messenger, were sporting a sound distinctly similar to the former band. This fact along with other considerations led directly into the official reformation of Pere Ubu in 1987, and the group has remained active to the present day. Thomas appears to have been at one point a Jehovah's Witness, an affiliation that has been reflected lyrically in the final song of Pere Ubu's 1979 album New Picnic Time, originally titled "Jehovah's Kingdom Come!" However, in subsequent releases of the album, the song has been re-titled "Hand A Face A Feeling" and then "Kingdom Come"; in the albums' lyric sheet, maintained by Thomas on Pere Ubu's official website, the titular line has been changed to "God's Kingdom Come"; the song itself has been re-mixed to remove references to Jehovah. Thomas's solo activities were diminished, though not extinguished, by the reformation of Pere Ubu. Throughout the 1980s, Thomas maintained a rotating trio dubbed the Accordion Club, which at various times included John Kirkpatrick, Chris Cutler, Garo Yellin, and Ira Kaplan. While these groupings tended to share a repertoire with Pere Ubu, the focus was smaller. Thomas stated: "I often use the same songs in both projects ... I can explore the stories behind the songs. I can extend/expand/interpolate those stories." Though the Accordion Club never recorded any albums, two songs appeared on Rē Records Quarterly Vol.2 No.1, and it led to the formation of Thomas's current "solo" project, the Two Pale Boys. Devoted to "spontaneous song generation", they feature Keith Moliné on guitar and Andy Diagram on "trumpet through electronics;" both make frequent use of MIDI, giving them a broader tonal palette than might be expected from two instruments. In addition to singing Thomas frequently plays melodeon. Says Thomas: Pere Ubu is a big rock experience, often overwhelming in its power and intensity of dataflow. It's a Hollywood blockbuster on a cinemascopic screen. Projects like the [Two Pale Boys] are intended as indy arthouse films. Thomas typically has a large number of ongoing projects at any one time. He has performed in theatrical productions, including several productions by Hal Willner, and a London West End production of Shockheaded Peter. He has delivered his lecture "The Geography of Sound in the Magnetic Age" at Clark University and UCLA, among other venues. He has staged his "improvisational opera" Mirror Man at venues in Europe and North America, featuring at various times contributions from many of his previous collaborators, as well as Linda Thompson, Bob Holman, Robert Kidney, Van Dyke Parks, Frank Black, George Wendt, and Syd Straw. In 2010 he performed with the backing of Australian band The Holy Soul. Most recently he has alternated recording and performances primarily between Pere Ubu, David Thomas and Two Pale Boys, and the reunited Rocket from the Tombs." ^ Hide Bio for David Thomas
10/2/2024
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10/2/2024
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
10/2/2024
Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.
Track Listing:
SIDE A
1. Golden Surf II 4:10
2. Strychnine 1 1:05
3. Drag The River 4:01
4. Strychnine 2 1:00
5. Visions Of The Moon 3:33
6. Strychnine 3 1:01
7. Dr. Faustus 4:22
SIDE B
1. Strychnine 4 1:01
2. Bus Station 4:28
3. Road To Utah 4:20
4. Carnival 5:01
5. Strychnine 5 1:00
6. Irene 4:13
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