Saturday 14 February 2009

Music with Teeth

I really didn't know what to expect from this album when it was released in 1988.
What does one expect from one of the greatest and influential punk and hardcore bass players when they go solo?
More punk and hardcore?
Apparently not.

What I really didn't expect to hear was an eclectic mix of avant-garde sludge, experiments in lo-fi sound, Residents styled electronica, old timey cowboy songs, faux blues and a Beatles like epic ballad.

This does sound more like a compilation album than an album by a single artist: and hey, there's nothing wrong with that.

This album also includes what I believe is one of the most dissonant and ear grating sounds ever committed to plastic, ending the perversely titled 'Pretty Flowers'.
I'm not sure how the sound is created, but it brings to mind a concrete grinding wheel biting into steel mixed with a field recording of an industrial slaughter house for pigs in full flight.
Nice!

The album includes music written for the Phil Tippet film Mad God (which I'm not even sure was produced), and I can only conclude that it's soundtrack music that opens the album; but if that is the case, that movie must have been some weird and bizarre project!

The second track, 'Eclipse (Blue/White)' is so lo-fi and peculiarly arranged that every time I hear it I feel the impulse to check all my wiring and connections around the back of my stereo as I'm convinced it's failing.

'Desert Ships' sounds so much like a tune from The Residents Commercial Album that one could assume Flouride must have been a member of the anonymous eyeball fixated combo as well as being an integral part of the Dead Kennedys.

And after a big old singalong with the likable 'Bus thru the Barrier', Flouride changes tack, sits himself down at a piano and belts out 'Keep on Walking', a track that could well be an out take from The Beatles' Let it Be sessions.

Once the album is flipped over, you can become quite confused and forget who the album's by, confirming the artist only by checking the label.

The mistake could easily be made, as now Klaus has picked up his acoustic guitar, and after a couple of chopsy instrumentals 'Charlies Friends' really takes you by surprise; a surreal cowboy styled ditty, with whip cracks 'n all.

'Dominating Baby' is reason enough to download this album.

It is one of the greatest faux blues' pastiches I have ever heard, and on first hearing it immediately made me want to pick up the guitar again after many years of neglect, just so I could play and sing this song.

Dominatin' baby you dominate my life
Since you been my girlfriend
Now You're my wife

Dominatin' lady you just
Driving me crazy
Beedlewop n do ee hay wo wo wo
Persecutin' baby always making me sad
Once I used to feel so good but
Now I feel so sad

Oh
Once I used to think that
You were something special
Oh then I took you for my wife
But then you started
Dominatin' baby
Dominatin' me all my life

Aw persecutin' baby always putting me down
When my friends come around
Oh


Klaus Flouride - Because I Say So (1988)

Door Slammer
Eclipse (Blue/White)
Feeding Time in Hell
Desert Ships
Bus Thru the Barrier
Keep on Walking
Born Again Dentistry
Bus (Reprise)
Akiko
Eclipse (Blue/Green)
Charlies Friends
Pretty Flowers
Dominating Baby
El Sid (The Credit Song)
The Final Word

Vinyl rip @320kbs
Get yourself some free dentistry here

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Man, I have wanted to hear this album for a long, long time-- thanks for uploading it.
:)

G.

gclot said...

Dude, you've made me so happy. I have the vinyl and i was looking to purchase a cd; its hard to find and on amazon they want 50 bucks!
Merci Beaucoup

roy rocket said...

Capt pretentious.
I'll refresh this link for ya; keep 'em peeled.
roy