Tuesday 14 August 2007

English Subtitles "Tannoy" (Glass Records, 1981)

We've done some of the lighter, poppier, electropop of the early 1980's; it's time to get just that little bit darker....
English Subtitles released one single on Small Wonder "Time Tunnel" (It's available on the Small Wonder Punk Singles Compilation CD), then this single, a flexidisc which came out on Crepuscule and finally a compilation album which contained one side of their studio recordings, and a live set on the other side.
This single is just WONDERFUL, a doomy slice of malevolent goth-rock, full of foreboding and self-loathing; Karl Burns from The Fall plays drums on the track, but not many other details survive....
"They're calling my name, over the Tannoy, they're paging me...what do they want? What do they want?"
Hey, who knows. One thing is for sure, the singer (whose name escapes me) wasn't just putting on this display of paranoia for show: he genuinely had some severe "issues". The single comes with a facsimile of a newspaper cutting, detailing an "episode" he had whilst on a tube train-this culminated in him driving a six inch nail right through the palm of his own hand, whilst he calmly collected the resultant flow of blood on a sheet of plastic. This pool of blood was used for the sleeve of the single (see above). Classy.
1981 was chock-full of doom-rock like this, remind me to dig out some more for you (I've got a 12" by Spudeit Dive called "Virgin Sands" which would fit the bill.....) but for now: enjoy :)

English Subtitles: "Tannoy" (mp3)

2 comments:

So It Goes said...

Bloody hell, makes Section 25 sound like the Krankies. Brilliant. Just brilliant. I mean that.

Iain Baker said...

Doom! Paranoia!Nailing your hand to the floor of a tube train!
It's got it all, hasn't it?
Kids today, they don't know they're born........
:)