Friday, November 13, 2009  12:01 am 

Baby it’s cold inside

We spiral in different directions, sometimes intersecting, sometimes drawn together by a collective appreciation.  Most other times we go off exploring.  Shifting back and forth through the histories of the things we love.  Tracing threads back through influences and scenes, movements and innovations until a stumbling blind history is laid out before us.  Symbolising nothing but sounding great.

Iko form a dead end, an ice covered wall at the end (or the beginning) of one of the forking paths.  I’ve been listening to their album ‘83 for years and am still no closer to discovering much about them.  What I do know is that they’re Canadian; the album was released in 1983 (or 1982 according to Discogs – which I guess means one of them might work for EA Sport’s naming department now); and that this track taps into the Miracle Mile, Reagan-revived nuclear paranoia, by then so worn it became a jaded backdrop to a dispassionate tirade against Nuclear Powers sung in the style of a jilted lover.

Radioactive Mist bounces in all eager drums and submerged synths, tracking in a vocal emoting as much as possible under the strain of Cold-Wave sensibilities.  The hook here being the crystalline melody underpinning the chorus like the slickly apocalyptic ancestor of post-millennial-disco.

Iko – Radioactive Mist

Fellow Canadian’s Ceramic Hello precede Iko though much more is known about them.  Brett Wickens and Roger Humphreys formed the band in 1980 and released their only album (thus far) in 81, called the Absence of Canary.  Wickens had a parallel career as a graphic designer, partnering with Peter Saville and eventually designing the packaging for Photoshop CS3 believe it or not.  I understand that he’s not at all Sleezy.

Geometry fades in, slipping, reversed tape and oscillating shards of synths flittering in and out of hearing.  Like some malfunctioning synth-pop instrumental sitting on the edge of 20 Jazz Funk Greats’ grand parody / inadvertent genesis.  Less terrifyingly perfect than anything off TG’s ‘accessible record’ whilst managing to still skewer any utopian ideals with it’s fucked up electronic squeals.  And yet, still quite beautiful as if the grandest excess of early 90s Vangelis – all lasers and city sized crowds – were sent back in time and inadvertently arrived backwards and humble.

Ceramic Hello – Geometry

Closer in time, I first saw Plug at the Yes Way festival in Peckham earlier this year.  Sian and Georgie sat amongst the chattering throngs under purple and green lights and teased out this minimal vortex, blocking all the distractions of a freezing warehouse and drawing me into a post-punk stupor with its arch chorus and resigned verses, its downbeat bass and synth swells.  Of the scores of songs I heard that weekend You Keep The Beats stuck.  Sliding in like a sedated Y-Pants covering Wurlitzer Jukebox.

Plug – You Keep The Beats

You can get one of the last few copies of the 7″ this appears on here.

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On Saturday two of your 20JFGs will be taking a break from cold-wave anthropology to play some records at the Sexbeat show at The Rest is Noise in Brixton.  Featuring good-dudes Teen Sheikhs and the awesome Male Bonding.  More details here.

labels >> Ceramic Hello, Iko, Plug

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