Essential Logic
Wake up

This is about Miss Lora and her group Essential Logic.

Essential was a keyword in post punk. It spoke of a stripped-down sound. And of a fine butchery work, something like deboning a chicken.

And the chicken, of course, was rock.

And, obviously, all we were left with were the bones.

Not the chicken...

To be honest, punk had already started that stripping work to some extent, although not with the same surgical precision. The difference between punk and post punk is like a plate of picked-over leftovers (punk) and a pile of bones after a precise job (post punk).

Bones. Shiny bones.

Very shiny.

I remember well the disgust of us young proggers at the arrival of punk; few things are as horrible as leftovers. And we were used to pudding.

A pudding with too much liquor to boot.

Oh, punk had returned to the abc of rock'n'roll and scattered treatises of urban philosophy in small plastic bits.

What else was “Oh bondage up yours”, with its relentless portrayal of social relations, if not punk philosophy? And wasn't the B-side 'I'm a cliché' perhaps overdoing it, depicting the world as a collection of lifeless figures?

Oh, it was in that magical forty-five that Lora Logic, joining Poly Styrene's shrill voice, played the sax without taking prisoners. Those two were truly the portrait of anger and urgency.

To that anger and urgency, post punk added intellect and art. And put together an ultra-aesthetic operation all based on the minus sign (take away, take away, take away).

And take away again.

But it wasn’t just the minus sign, there was also the plus sign, given that to that dry, essential, stripped-down sound, a lot of stuff was then added, from time to time...

Pretty much anything went, except rock...unless it was super cool stuff like Velvet, Stooges, Roxy or Bowie or Eno, which in my days was called decadent rock.

But more often they drew from elsewhere: from dub, funk, free jazz, the kraut middle ground.

Of course, Lora went fishing too, and her rod pulled out nice little fish.

A little fish, for example, came from the Canterbury pond. But imagine a post punk Canterbury, how cool!!!

But it wasn’t just the little fish...

There were also the bunnies...like the one wonderfully incongruous on the cover of this album almost everyone has forgotten.

Not everyone, not me. And maybe someone else too, I don’t want to brag, or maybe just a little.

These ten minutes (and a bit less) are one of the most bizarre and amazing pages of post punk. I've wanted to talk about it for so long, but I couldn't find the words.

Firstly, the grace...that Lora was both crow and dove.

And then a chilled joy, like an art school thaw, or a whim from a funny miss. That's why that bunny fits perfectly.

Because here there is like a smile, and the avant-garde doesn’t touch the ground, but flies lightly. Even very lightly.

And if at times there’s an air almost like Pop group, soon after comes a Zappa/Ayers joke, or a marching band effect, or a circus act.

Or the Salvation Army with spiked drinks. Or the sounds of a Looney Tunes cartoon just a tad over the top.

Then yes, the bunny fits perfectly.

The bunny sets the idea.

That one day while walking, Lora saw a man dressed as a bunny...someone advertising a Disney movie. She must have been in the clouds and dreamy, I imagine, or in that magical state where everything can turn into a good idea,

But then, above all, who would have imagined that Lora sang like that? Where the hell did she find that voice?

That human instrument that almost seemed a parody of the hysterical singing of those times...

That crazy instrument capable of switching, in an instant, from almost tenor-like ironic flourishes to fabulous and rich Beefheartian thickness...

Where? Where?????????

Dammit, she was a saxophonist, not a singer.

But let’s hear from Greil Marcus, filtered through Google Translate, which as always tells us something important, not Google Translate: Greil Marcus:

“Lora started almost every vocal high, with a trembling voice, agitation becoming a style, a point of view...then her voice thickened, seeming to suck the fast pace of her band into its doubt...”

“Seeming to suck the fast pace of her band into its doubt”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And anyway, let’s summarize: dry sound, rich or fluttering voice, art school, sax assaults, about a million sarabands, about a million jokes, urgency, grace...and a bunny...

All very quickly, four songs, ten minutes...All in magical balance...All greater than the sum of its parts.

A balance that will not last. Because this is music that needs urgency, crazy speed...always remember that “seeming to suck the fast pace of her band into its doubt”..,

And it will be that very pace that will vanish (that pace which if isn’t Pop group, is very close) and the madness will become predictable, without the delightful Confusional step.

Confusional? Oh yes, because at times, on the bunny album, it almost sounds like a kind of Confusional quartet sound (ante litteram).

Do you remember Confusional quartet?

No?

Bad, very bad...

They were toys, futurism, and madness in the imaginative excitement of Bologna Rock.

Well, song four is a kind of reggae, lazy, absurd, and silly...then everything speeds up and the Confusional quartet arrives...then the reggae again, then the Confusional again...then on the reggae beat, Lora’s voice moves from rich to fluttering several times in no time...then on the Confusional beat Lora’s voice becomes furious...

Oh damn!!!

I wonder if the Confusional liked Lora Logic. I think they did...

I like it a lot...

Ps: highly recommended also the previous 45 rpm, “Aerosol burns”...which alone deserves a separate review.