One might categorize the pursuit of post-punk as the amorphous, after-the-fact pursuit of a straight line of influence: one that runs from Roxy Music through Television up into the strange, rarified air that was in America, The Talking Heads. The movement, after all, was one loosely defined as “in defiance of” the norms established by punk rock – response requires definition.
Examining Young Marble Giants and their short meteoric rise through the already crazed UK scene of the early 1980’s to momentary dominance, clearly the line deviated from its more common course. They broke the punk mold with sparse arrangements and maddeningly placid female vocals at a time when Patti Smith’s caterwauling was the norm; they were more like the anomaly that was PIL or the later Dischord acts in that they were anti-rock at their heart. While others in the movement were adding layers to previously accepted rock templates (dance tracks, cheap eastern mysticism) the Young Marble Giants were clearly more interested in stripping it down to the absolute core in purely post modern terms: choppy guitars, quirky, shrill organs and a drum machine borrowed from their pop contemporaries.
Of course, almost 30 years later, the Young Marble Giants are still rather obscure as an act and influence. Although the trained ear can hear their stamp all over what became 80’s rock, they are that stuff of rock legend which mandates nothing but leaving a beautiful corpse. Colossal Youth and all the singles that flowered around it was that piece of artful necromancy: perfect, pure and entirely stand alone. The sixteen songs are all classics, hardly in an arguable sense: “Searching For Mr. Right” is short, to the point, wasting not a word or note – the same may be said for “Eating Noddemix”, almost dada-esque in its lyrics (“Staring at the mirror on/the steamy bathroom wall/eating a Noddemix”). There is something to be said for writing what you know and still punching it with poetry. Over this one release the band proved to have their finger on the pulse of a downright otherworldly talent (lest we forget the toe tapping, “N.I.T.A.”) and songwriting ability that would influence everyone after, from world wide talents REM to similarly obscure underground talents, Black Box Recorder.
The 3-disc re-issue of everything YMG is full of a sundry other joys beyond the first LP. Disc Two, “Singles And Salad Days” shows a continuation of their virtuosic side with alternate versions of the Colossal Youth tracks and some interesting organ noodling (anyone who knows this reviewer too, knows his round loathing of throw away instrumental tracks). “This Way” and “Posed By Models” wouldn’t have a place on a proper release, but here they’re informative. They draw the imagination out of its small black box and into the fore of active listening. The band was funky at times (“Clicktalk”) playful (“Zebra Trucks”) and ahead of even Depeche Mode with their synthesizer work (“Sporting Life”). The star disc in the set however is Disc Three, The John Peel Sessions, five warmly recorded tracks all recorded live on August 26th 1980. John Peel gave his recording gifts to the world in many ways over the years, but this rare opportunity at YMG’s cohesiveness is almost heartbreaking.
The date might seem irrelevant and frankly off-putting in a sense, but it shows the briefly burning light that was YMG. Within a year of their zenith, they were gone. An absolutely essential recording. |