Damn I LOVE doing this "blog". Though have you noticed how the word is queerly beginning to induce the same wince as "bling"? Neologists get busy.
Yesterday I got an email from Stuart Argabright of the legendary Ike Yard. If you downloaded those mp3s from that link I posted you'll know that this is some hardcore sh**. Ike Yard had an astonishingly modern sound. SA is being plain factual when he says they were 20 years ahead of their time.
Picture a texture-obsessed No Wave outfit (contemporaneous with all that guitar-fixated stuff) working on synths playing/plying superb ebbing rhythm. A prodigal NYC crew picking up on pre-echoes of DAF and Neubauten. A tramp in some forgotten east-european bunker cowering from retribution of a cold war crime, endlessly perfecting mantras on a oil drum.
"Not many (a few dozen) knew the group when it was going on (effectively '80 -'82) but between placing the "NCR" cut on Gomma's "AntiNY" and the MP3's on www.MP3it.com, we have gotten some little notice here and there.
Probably that will change now that we are planning /scheduling the 'Complete Ike Yard ' rerelease (the Crepescule EP '81 & the Factory America Album '82 plus quality musik from before and after those records, 30 or so tracks in all/no filler allowed). With every other group /band (notable or not) doing rereleases we figure 'hey, why not ?' Esp. as we worked at and made 'our own sound'.
Very few groups did electronic music as we did bk then, and we were possibly the only group that had the synth tech and ability to have all members synced to the drum machine and triggering out -as a 4 member group ..."
So fancy that! We're a right bunch of lucky bastards, eh!
Posted by Woebot at June 12, 2003 09:35 AM