God's Turban and Tutu! It's Terminal!

'God's Turban and Tutu' is lifted from a Viv Stanshall album, and dropped into the Skronk Meisters' superb psychedelic dub mix that adopted the absurd utterance as its title; which is a great way of getting a handle on where it was Terminal Cheesecake were coming from.

Skronk (a compound made up from ska, rock and funk) is not really a good enough label to describe Terminal Cheesecake, as they go much further than that paradigm allows; their music bringing to mind such disparate references as early PIL, Tackhead, Hawkwind, Head of David, Aphex Twin, Augustus Pablo and NIN, as well as the Butthole Surfers: an outfit they were often compared with; sometimes referred to as being the British version; but they are quite different; and really it was the genre jumping, the experimentation and the dada leanings that made them in any way comparable.

Big beats, big noise, dirgy, minimal vocals, toasting through a bull-horn, spoken word samples, loops and reverb a plenty all made up Terminal Cheesecake’s sound; but in the main there was dub; or should I say DUB, as their sound was MASSIVE.

But Terminal Cheesecake weren’t just a bunch of bass happy honky stoners; no, there was more to them than that; their booming, throbbing, pulsating beats can uplift and enhance all manner of experiences, whether it be a full scale blues or just another night in.

Their drug referencing is extreme, to the point where it almost seems satirical;
either that or they just had one serious obsession.

(Er... am I missing something here?)

The final track was released on its very own disc and was produced as part of a limited edition. And despite being credited as 'Interview by M.C. Lucke' (a German DJ?), it is actually made up of three tracks segued together: 'Le Geezer', 'Coils' and 'Freaky Bong', mixed up with plenty of strange and startling ambience
These live tracks seem to reveal where the band were heading (apart form oblivion of course – this was their last album), and the sound is far more reflective of the then burgeoning dirge and psychedelic sludge styles; genres that were to become more honed and refined as the nineties progressed.

But there is something vibrant about these raw recordings; and that rawness maybe the key.
The almost lo-fi production creates a vital sound; and as with all bass driven music it benefits enormously from its live feel; maintaining the effect that it’s actually going on when you play it, rather than something that has been made. If you get me drift….

Terminal Cheesecake - King of all Spaceheads (1994)

King of all Spaceheads
Budmeister
God's Turban and Tutu
Ginge Le Geezer
'Lo 'Lo
Tibetan Lift Off
Steady Draw
Herbal Space Flight
Black Microdot 1
In the St. John's Ambulance Tent, Glastonbury 1989
Black Microdot 11
The Last Temptation of St. Leary
Interview by M.C. Lucke

Includes CD artwork

Grab a slice of some spiked cheesecake here