YOU'VE GOT FOETUS ON YOUR BREATH
Ache

Self Immolation

THE COVER is a tacky visual dose of red and black linear geometrics constructed across a grey-toned pic that shows a Red Army barber cheerfully shaving an ear off a (Red?) infant. The music begins with an equally sadistic glee an optimistic tune entitled 'Dying With My Boots On'.

This is another instalment in the new soul less vision. Foetus (we'll talk of him/them/it as a man) wages a ghoul's crusade, galloping across the corrupt territories of popular music (and related industries) with a two-fingered thrust of disregard for both elsewhere hallowed traditions and his own personal safety.  'Ache' is approximate musical equivalent of a human torch. Going up in a self-destructive blaze of glory.

This record is a 'progression' from the dentist drill gratings of Deaf (a previous LP) and the Dada ( ish) marketing strategies of Custom Built For Capitalism.

Sometimes 'Ache' seems to get too speedy and clever. Through the clout happy percussive jumble and the disharmonic muddles of melody, Foetus spins around in decreasing circles of hectic lyrical witticisms. 'Ache' is a collection of ten brittle non-pop songs emerging from the kind of Being who would share a meal of iron cutlets with Einsturzende Neubauten.

For some reason I prefer side two and my favourite snippet is a jumpy little firecracker called 'Get Out Of My House’. Kate Bush also has a song on her new LP which has this title. Ponder for a while on the startling possibilities of the pair forming a duet and consider the writing of my former flat mate, Colin Wilson, from his cult novel Adrift In Soho:

“If you live in a world that bores you, any sort of violent accident seems like a change for the better, and a newspaper headline announcing the death of a politician or the discovery of another mass murder in Austria produces a pleasant sensation of movement.”


Original source: Sounds magazine, October 1982, Mick Sinclair.

© mick sinclair


30 Jan '00.