Wednesday 9 March 2011

Blessed are the Cheese Makers

What with the hyperbolic drug referencing, the groaningly bad puns ('Mrs. Skinupski' indeed!), and some rather puzzling, introspective, subversive satire, one wonders what Terminal Cheesecake were really all about.

Their sound on this album is quite different from the other recordings I've posted.
It's curious in that it's the earlier of releases but it's a lot tighter and far more 'organised'.
Their output just got messier and messier - better and better, I think - whereas most get tighter and tighter.

And speaking of bands who got tighter and tighter [until they became hardly worth listening to], it's this album that inspires the trope commonly associated with Terminal Cheesecake: to be compared with the Butthole Surfers.

The guitar is certainly more central to the sound on this album, and it is grindy in that Paul Leary kind of way; but the overall sound has far more of a drone than the Surfers ever mustered, and with the bass really being the engine, the driving force of each track - rather like Jah Wobble leading those early PIL tunes - the tracks are more contained, more claustrophobic; determined entirely by bass and rhythm; much like industrial music.

At times, Pearlesque King of the Jewmost sounds more Rev Co than Butthole Surfers, with similar use of loops and sampling: mainly spoken word clips; freaky and gratuitous news reports on ritualistic murder, paranormal activity, irresponsible medical procedures, etc.

As for the title....
I haven't got a clue.
And that takes me back to my original thought.
What were Terminal Cheesecake really all about?

And just what did they think of their audience...?

Terminal Cheesecake - Pearlesque King of the Jewmost (1992)

Coils
Satan is Real
Drug
Ish Tseren
Coils: Chapter II
Messiah
Obscured
Mrs. Skinupski Speaks
Neu Seeland

CD rip to mp3s, artwork included.
Spiritual cheese here

2 comments:

OLDNIK said...

Changed his personality completely .........!
Nice use of samples that show great attention to detail, and a dark wit at work!
I remember buying this after a review in Select, I was duly rewarded, being well into Jah Wobble's post PIL output with Holgar Czukay at the time as well as Can, the throbbing bass and hypnotic grinding guitars hit my sweet spot, and stayed there to this day.
Ta.

roy rocket said...

Pleasure.
Enjoy, roy