Mike76

"For me, if these guys made an album, they would blow away the whole Eno compilation." To find some common ground, let's say that 4 tracks selected from the TG repertoire would not have looked out of place on "No New York" (and it seems they could have been included if it weren't for the ostracism from the other bands). The lo-fi recording, in my opinion, works well with the genre and I don't see it as a flaw; rather, I find it to be an essential ingredient of the music.

I have always found the primitivism and musical illiteracy of No Wave more interesting and exciting, a true break from the past, rather than other contemporary New York music that still dabbled in blues flourishes and quotes from cursed poets. No Wave, in short, has always given me the impression of a sick but spontaneous, streetwise music that lived in its present and therefore didn’t need to reference others or rummage through museums.
That said, I like Theoretical Girls even if I find them somewhat inferior to the magnificent four from Eno's compilation, perhaps because this posthumous collection (mine is eponymous because this one is called "Theoretical Record"?) is a bit uneven in both quality and intensity of the tracks.
Nonetheless, there are interesting things, including "Electronic Angie" (one could swear it's a live Throbbing Gristle performance), the excellent perverse divertissement "Chicita Bonita," the pre-emptive Sonic Youth of "Computer Dating," the obsessive and hammering "Lovin In The Red," the frontal assault of "No More Sex," and the vaguely Devo "Mom & Dad." The strange little march "U.S. Millie" is instead the only single they published while active. Instruments are often played in a percussive manner and the recordings are indeed not exceptional, but looking for sound clarity on a No Wave record is like hunting for experimentation on a Claudio Villa album.

The theme of the impossibility of deciphering reality is at least as old as the works of Pirandello (like "Così è se vi pare") and indeed the film is developed with a certain heaviness, using symbols that are at least for me obscure, if not completely self-referential (the propeller bought from the junk dealer, for example). However, it retains a certain vintage charm. My rating is two and a half rounded up.

The flat direction aside from the "interpretation of the aria by Callas" which still seems like a foreign body in the film and ends up being more ridiculous than moving. For the rest, it’s a little film of good feelings that touches on important themes with rhetoric and superficiality. The French comedy from 2001 "L'Apparenza Inganna" addresses gay discrimination in a much less predictable way (and is also much more entertaining).

@Reverse: well, a bit yes :-) but it also depends on the price you found it at! Now it seems to be out of stock, I found it used in excellent condition and at a very good price on Discogs.

Given Untitled's technical expertise and historical knowledge, I now ask him (if he has the time and desire) to take on the review of the monumental "Methodology 74-78." I would do it myself, but not being as familiar with the entire CV discography and, in general, the electronic landscape of the 70s as the reviewer is, mine would certainly be more incomplete.

I finally approached the CVs with a significant delay only in 2009 with "Mix-up"; before that, beyond something I heard in clubs or some YouTube videos, I didn't know them very well. I must say they favorably impressed me, certainly less "ferocious" than much of the contemporary industrial scene but no less unsettling, a grim music that evokes desolate landscapes both physical and mental.
So impressed that I didn't hesitate to adopt the posthumous triple collection "Methodology 74-78: Attic Tapes," the submerged history of what turned out to be one of the most surprising realities of 70s electronic music, from the early experiments done by our band in an attic used as a studio to the early versions of what would become their first publications with Rough Trade. That said, I still don't know "Red Mecca," but I think I'll soon make all the early works of the Cabs my own, at least up to the commercial-electro turning point of "Crackdown," which, from what I've heard, doesn't entice me much.

The term "Columbus egg" refers to something so simple and banal that no one had thought to do it (at least in my opinion). "It would have been clever if they had turned off the amplifiers," you say; I think that if they had turned them off, it would have been obvious to everyone that their music was "very normal music," and both the audience and the media would have perceived them as just another band. However, my critique is limited to a certain extent; it’s a nice album, make that clear.

@Chicken noose: Because those by J&MC are rather conventional songs with a sixties flavor, nothing innovative in short, only that they are smeared if not even submerged by a wall of feedback and distortions (no need to tell you that this isn’t a novelty either) whose originality lies only in their exaggerated presence, almost covering the song at times. "a great Columbus egg," quoting comment no. 5 from Popoloitaliano.

Definitely a "clever" record, but it’s still a nice feeling today.