The title of the article is a bit heavy-handed but I suppose this is a selection of 10 albums that have a place in my history of writing and listening to music. Thanks to Didier at Belgium’s Peek-A-Boo-Magazine for getting in touch with me to ramble on about this group of records. Albums by Unwound, The VSS, Simple Minds, DAF, Second Layer, Adult., Fad Gadget, Martin Dupont, Labradford and U.S. Maple. You can click the link at the end of the end of the excerpt to read the full article at www.peek-a-boo-magazine.be
1. UNWOUND – New Plastic Ideas
When I started actively getting into music and playing in bands, I was in my teens and I was very immersed in the underground experimental punk and hardcore that was happening in the US and Canada at the time. I was always checking out new releases on labels like Kill Rock Stars, 31G, Gravity, Ebullition, Lovitt, Troubleman, Great American Steak Religion, Touch and Go and the list goes on. Over the years, some of those records haven’t aged with me, but there’s a significant portion of records from that era that I’ll come back to from time to time and listen to and I still get that goosebumps feeling as to when I first listened to it.
Unwound put out a string of records from the early to late 90s that were incredible. They were very aggressive and dissonant but still having some atmosphere, interesting song structures and an appeal to misanthropic youth in a 1990’s North America. There was a great chemistry between guitarist/vocalist Justin Trosper, bassist Vern Ramsey and drummer Sarah Lund. The album Repetition (1996) is arguably my favourite, but New Plastic Ideas was the first I listened to and got me hooked. In fact, the title of the Soft Riot album Fiction Prediction is a bit of a wordplay of a title of a song of this album as a bit of an homage, I guess.