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Old 04-01-2012, 02:18 PM   #78 (permalink)
Zer0
 
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Rollerskate Skinny - Horsedrawn Wishes (1996)



Rollerskate Skinny formed in Dublin in 1992 and existed for only four years, releasing only two albums. The band featured Kevin Shields’ younger brother Jimi on guitar for their first album Shoulder Voices but he left the band before the recording of their brilliant second album Horsedrawn Wishes. Like the album title itself the music has a very strange, surreal, dreamlike quality to it. It’s a kaleidoscopic collision of alternative rock, psychedelic pop and shoegaze and sometimes even sounds like Deerhunter, long before Deerhunter. Opening track ‘Swingboat Yawning’ features a collage of unusual guitar sounds and strange effects yet is all held together by some swaggering and infectious vocal hooks. The lead single from the album ‘Speed to My Side’ is a brilliant exercise in combining off-kilter weirdness and accessibility with its unusual musical arrangements and catchy chorus hooks. It’s something The Flaming Lips would be proud of. Elsewhere the acoustic-based ‘All Mornings Break’ invokes the tired and bleary feeling of dawn breaking after a long night drinking and/or on drugs, while ‘Angela Starling’ creates a trippy, dreamlike world in your mind before bringing it all crashing back down to earth with a loud and uplifting chorus.

Horsedrawn Wishes lies as a largely forgotten gem of the 90’s yet still has a small number of cult admirers. The album is let down slightly by a couple of filler tracks, and would have benefited from a shorter running time, but it is packed with some great psychedelic pop songs and all kinds of strange and wonderful sounds and arrangements. It’s an album well-worth unearthing.

Recommended Songs: ‘Swingboat Yawning’, ‘Speed to My Side’, ‘Angela Starling’



Scratch Acid - Scratch Acid (1984)



Scratch Acid’s self-titled debut is one of those records that makes me scratch my head in bewilderment and confusion and wonder what the hell is going on. The band sound way ahead of their time here and completely out of step with the American underground punk scene that spawned them. Their unhinged noise-rock sound provides the basis for frontman David Yow (who would later go on to front The Jesus Lizard) to ramble and babble like a crazed hobo. Trying to work out what their songs are actually about is challenging and perhaps even a waste of time. While it’s not quite a full-length album every moment of this twenty-two minute record is highly engaging and thoroughly rewarding. Songs like ‘Cannibal’, ‘Owner’s Lament’ and ‘Lay Screaming’ seem to predict the wave of alternative rock that would become prominent in the American underground and in particular the Seattle grunge scene. Indeed Kurt Cobain has cited Scratch Acid as a huge influence and you can certainly hear on this album where Kurt got some of his ideas. ‘Owner’s Lament’ in particular sounds like nothing else other than a band creating some truly original music. Songs such as the brief and aggressive ‘Monsters’ and the completely bonkers ‘El Espectro’ show traces of the band’s punk roots but warped almost beyond recognition as to be practically irrelevant.

The influence of this album can be heard in not just Nirvana, its pioneering post-hardcore sound, with its skewed guitar lines and unusual time signatures, seems to have had a big influence on bands such as At The Drive-In and Polvo. It’s a snapshot of a very exciting time in music and it still sounds amazing and just as fresh nearly twenty-eight years later.

Recommended Songs: ‘Cannibal’, ‘Owner’s Lament’, ‘El Espectro’
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