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Rating: After the mid-Seventies, the vices and headshrinkers acquired by the post-hippy/new reactionaries make their presence felt.
People are crazy.
It's no longer possible to maintain control. Visual arts and music start to become one and the same. The spectacular concept of live shows is embellished with lasers and Dadaist reinterpretations of artworks. All of the sound disarray, deconstructed compositions, and the American anarcho-free conception are absorbed by Arto Lindsay, a true genius of the no wave and proto noise movement.
The other enlightened one, Brian Eno, has a vision in grouping, almost scholastically, the best emerging minds of the experimental. However, in 1977, there is no jazz to favor the last-minute funambulistic jams.
If there is something worthwhile to highlight, it must know how to use feedback, explain noise-making with guitars, bass, or at least with the sax. No suites or flashes of electronics that so horrified the guru John Lydon.
The DNA, along with Mars and Lydia Lunch, propose the concept of No Wave. The refusal to belong to someone and to represent something. There is only the freedom to be. This new intriguing vision of producing art is linked to punk/hardcore due to the short duration of the tracks.
Small works tinged with the malaise of living, the horrifying box that imprisons our spirit.
There are precious gems for the next stars, like the logorrheic tornado of the wall of sound of the future Ranaldo & Moore, together with the unruly bass of Butthole Surfer. There is also an archetype of everything that was divinely heralded in the various Pop Group and Pere Ubu.
The twisted bass, almost boastful towards the funky revival so acclaimed by the free modernist sectors, emerges in the initial "New Fast". Fast notes, with perfectly interlocking geometries in the delirious struggle between voice and drums. Arto proves to be a master also in showcasing a vocal style that will be considered by the likes of Albini and Yow.
In the mere minute of "5 30", amidst the saturated sound of the guitar, the frontman manages to articulate phrases as if by magic. Demonstrating that amid so much chaos, one can find a way to pronounce something; not so much to be understood but at least to embody a message.
"Blonde Red Head" sees the instruments dialoguing in a more reflective mood, waiting for the right moment to explode. This time the signal is one of surrender.
But it takes little to bring down the composure achieved. "32123" introduces Lindsay's edgy shards in "New New" and the minimalist noise-making lied of "Lying On The Sofa Of Lie".
Alien musicians sink into Arcadia. Primitive visions. Man and the universe.
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