Records are cool. Especially translucent yellow records. Especially translucent yellow records that come in a sleeve with a creepy colorized photo of a blue-lipped girl playing a melodica on the front and three dorky looking, skinny tie-wearing mod boys on the back.
Such records are even cooler if they come from Sweden.
I think that this record should be given to every group of guys that gets together and decides to start a rock band. First they should be told "Don't start a rock band! Please." Then, if they insist, they should be given this record and told "Don't start a rock band! Please. But if you must start a rock band, it has to be cooler than The Members of Tinnitus. If your band isn't cooler than The Members of Tinnitus, then you have to turn in your guitars and learn to do something useful, like designing highly efficient solar-powered personal jetpacks." That would cut down on the number of boy rock bands out there, and it would also alert the world to the fact that The Members of Tinnitus is a really cool band. Plus we would finally have the jetpacks.
"Experimental Rock" is a pretty dreary idea, and this isn't dreary music, so let's not call this "Experimental Rock", even though that's what the press sheet says it is. Whatever Tones On Tail was, that's what this is -- Bauhaus minus Mr. Murphy, and with a little less mascara. It's goofy and it (more or less) has a beat. There's plenty of bad drum machine trickery, campy goth club horny robot synth spew and general electro-mangling, along with a good dose of zoned out guitar noodling and big beat heavy metal drumming. Yeah! Right now they're playing with annoying modem sounds, but it's not like all those lame techno records that play with annoying modem sounds. This time they're somehow human-sounding and sort of playful and witty and warm. Okay, that's over. Now it's just a spastic drum solo over a two note guitar lick that's been going on for about five minutes. Now it's Hüsker Dü doing a carnival theme. Wonderful!
The full title of this record is Tactics for Instant Music: 20-27, 20-27 being the titles of the eight tracks. George reviewed 28-33 a couple of weeks ago. That one comes with a wooden cover. How cool is that? As you might expect, there's also a 1-17 7" out there somewhere. I want them all.
