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Avg: 3.5 (24 ratings)
- Date Released: January 1, 1986
- Genre: Alternative/Punk
- Style: Punk, Indie Rock
- Label: Atavistic / The Orchard
The art of noise.
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We Say...
Darkness itself isn't scary. What's scary is darkness combined with some kind of malevolent uncertainty — groping through hot, steamy, pungent darkness toward something you know means you harm. By that yardstick, the scariest record I know is 78+ a collection of sessions by the amazing late-'70s New York no wave band Mars, which never got around to making a proper album. The four members of Mars were basically visual artists, and their approach to playing music was to smear sounds across tape like paint and dirt across an abstract artist's canvas. Their first single, "3-E," has an actual riff; everything after it just sounds undead. It's prickly-hot noise, punched and screamed and mumbled, and what's scary is that they know how to repeat it. "Puerto Rican Ghost," in particular, is a minute-long wave of bubbling ectoplasm, an accident that morphs into a conspiracy. They've killed the lights, they're on their own turf, and they're coming to get you.
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They Say...
Originally released in the mid-'80s, and then slightly expanded for its late-'90's resurfacing on Atavistic (thus the "+"), 78+ puts together pretty much everything the band did in the late '70s in one form or another. Then again, there's a bit of after-the-fact tweaking, in that J.G. Thirlwell (aka Foetus) did a fair amount of remixing of the tracks, so until a straightforward version of "No New York" resurfaces properly, this will have to do. For all the complaints at the time of the band's supposed unmusicality, the original 7" single that kicks things off, "3-E/11,000 Volts" is actually pretty dang catchy, the former practically inventing bass-led post-punk without trying, while Sumner Crane's nervous vocals slip between the shuddering, deeply strange percussion. That said, there's plenty in the overall clamor and discordant nature of the band's songs that pretty clearly show where any number of bands, not least Sonic Youth, picked up on what the group was doing and then ran with it as desired. The "No New York" tracks themselves are certainly more in the way of textured and strange noise -- Brian Eno was clearly having a great time being a new kind of studio-based producer, at the least, with the metallic wash and murky mix really finding a missing link between the Velvet Underground and the Jesus and Mary Chain's early industrial strength abuse. On the best number, Crane's snaky bass holds down the center of "Helen Forsdale," while China Burg's lead vocals take a nervous, post-Yoko Ono approach. The live tracks are comparatively clearer in comparison, though the band does their best to capture that sense of compressed, dank chaos just as well on stage as in studio -- the extreme drift and float of "Hairwaves" is particularly haunting. As for the new extras that conclude the reissue, "Scorn" is a quick, clanking, overdriven-treble rant of sorts (not a bad thing, really!), while "N. N. End" is pure bass-stab feedback-howl freakout in excelsis.
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| 01. |  |
3-E |
2:48 |
|
| 02. | |
11,000 Volts |
3:29 |
|
| 03. | |
Tunnel |
2:41 |
|
| 04. | |
Helen Forsdale |
2:29 |
|
| 05. | |
Puerto Rican Ghost |
1:02 |
|
| 06. | |
Immediate Stages of the Erotic |
3:40 |
|
| 07. | |
Monopoly |
3:15 |
|
| 08. | |
Cats |
1:40 |
|
| 09. | |
Cairo |
2:52 |
|
| 10. |
Hariwaves |
5:25 |
|
|
| 11. | |
Outside Africa |
2:15 |
|
| 12. | |
Scorn |
1:57 |
|
| 13. | |
N.N. End |
2:59 |
|
| 14. | |
[Untitled] |
3:54 |
|
14 Total Tracks, 40:26 Total Length
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Credits
- Mark Cunningham - Director // Mars - Main Performer // Patrick Roques - Design // Constance "China" Burg - ? // Melinda Zampetti - Photography // Melinda Zampetti - Cover Photo // Michael Romanowski - Mastering // Nancy Arlen - ? // Sumner Crane - ?
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