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Rating:
Tear Down to Build Up.
This is the musical philosophy that Mission Of Burma intended to embrace from the very beginning of their career, that is, to abolish conventional structures, sounds, and lyrics. This somewhat summarizes the intentions of the post-punk and no-wave currents: to refound punk, indeed, and Mission Of Burma did so by ferrying the experimental advancements made by the exponents of the New York no-wave into a pop that sometimes borders on the mainstream. Avant-garde music, therefore, that could easily be listened to on the radio. Put in these terms, it might seem like a contradiction, a paradox, but this is precisely the essence of the Mission's music: hardcore-pop that gradually allows itself to be tainted by distortions, tribalism, screams. An evocative and alienating noise rock.
"Signals, Calls And Marches" (Ace Of Hearts, 1981) is a seminal EP, which potentially contains all the characteristic aspects of indie rock bands of the '80s and '90s of the caliber of Sonic Youth (first and foremost), Nirvana, R.E.M., Pixies, Fugazi. "That's When I Reach For My Revolver", as the opening track, is quite a simple piece, relying entirely on the melody and Clint Conley's bass, who we also find here as a songwriter. Ultimately, it sounds like listening to a Wipers song sung by the Buzzcocks, yet so damn current. The rest of the EP won't have the same immediacy as the opener, but it exudes genius and innovation. "Outlaw" can be considered, in my opinion, the absolute masterpiece of the record: based on contrasts, that is the mumbles alternate with screams, precise rhythms, and tribalism. The lyrics are incomprehensible, the bass begins to dissociate from the rest, recreating a surreal atmosphere, evoking Pere Ubu and no-wave, indeed. "This Is Not A Photograph" is instead a psychotic-psychedelic hardcore to which Hüsker Dü of "Zen Arcade" will resort: fleeting, shouted, convulsive. The title, according to leader Robert Miller, was inspired by the famous surrealist painting by Renè Magritte "This Is Not A Pipe", making it easy to compare the visual surrealism of the painting to the peculiar lyrical surrealism of Miller's songs. The other pinnacle of the record is "Red", a perfect combination of noise and melody, an apocalyptic punk that culminates in a moving and emotional chorus, and in Conley's discursive bass lines. If "Red" concretely demonstrates how Mission Of Burma taught to play hardcore without losing sight of the melodic component, the instrumental "All World Cowboy Romance" seems to decidedly foreshadow, with a good seven years in advance, the sound of Sonic Youth's "Daydream Nation", with the two guitars brought to the foreground (for the most part of the track, Conley plays the guitar). The freshness of a track like "Academy Fight Song" is astonishing, which could easily be a hit single of any indie rock band today. Conley's melodies indeed impart a radio-friendly air to the piece, which did not achieve particular success at the time but managed to define the coordinates of the American college rock played by R.E.M., Lemonheads, and Soul Asylum.
The aspect that distinguishes Conley's tracks from Miller's is the sunlit, pop warmth with which they envelop the listener. Miller's tracks are instead pessimistic, melancholic, paranoid, as they are strongly inspired by the surrealist-Dadaist movement, which indeed promoted the philosophy of tearing down and building up.
"Signals, Calls And Marches" is prophetic right from the title; the «signal» of what rock would be like in the years to come. Mission Of Burma could have been conceived and ceased with this record and still be essential and highly influential, but no. "Signals, Calls And Marches" will only prove to be the prelude to what will be the band's true masterpiece, the even more anguished "Vs.".
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 That's When I Reach for My Revolver (03:53)
Once I had my heroes
Once I had my dreams
But all of that is changed now
They've turned things inside out
The truth is not so comfortable, no
And mother taught us patience
The virtues of restraint
And father taught us boundaries
Beyond which we must go
To find the secrets promised us, yeah
That's when I reach for my revolver
That's when it all gets blown away
That's when I reach for my revolver
The spirit fights to find its way
A friend of mine once told me
His one and only aim
To build a giant castle
And live inside his name
Cry and whispers sing in muted pain
That's when I reach for my revolver
That's when it all gets blown away
That's when I reach for my revolver
The spirit fights to find its way
Tonight the sky is empty
But that is nothing new
Its dead eyes look upon us
And they tell us we're nothing but slaves
That's when I reach for my revolver
(...but slaves)
That's when I reach for my revolver
That's when I reach for my revolver
That's when I reach for my revolver
That's when I reach for my revolver
That's when I reach for my revolver
02 Outlaw (02:33)
I have slipped into
I have slipped into
Saw those creatures in the back of my heart
Opened the door and attacked them at the start
Pushed my blood into a deeper trance
It consumes my thought, it alters my stance
I have slipped into a mighty stream
Open my fins, open my scream
I saw you sleeping with your coat on a hill
While my face lay at the windowsill
I walked down the street on the sidewalks so cold
I walked down the street into the coat that folds
You turned around, screamed at the scene
Grabbed my hand and leapt out of the screen
I won't be there when the monster flips
I'll have it buried with an axe and a pick
I have seen you in your jacket
Now I am an outlaw
Outlaw
03 Fame and Fortune (03:35)
Fame and fortune, facts of life
Most of what makes it is useless tripe
So change the angle of the battle plan
To hit the target
Fame and fortune, fancy that
Nothing but rabbits come out of the hat
So try to catch a falling star,
Crush it into dust and stuff it down a jar
And throw it far away
Now the point is back to front
See-through people
See-through monuments
No empire
The beginning, at the ending (one goes up, one goes down)
Smash a face against the wall
Grind a face into the ground - Oh No
Pretty faces on the wall - They Fall
Heat to boiling, disappear in the sky
Slash the ashes, and bake into a pie
Pretty faces on the ground - Oh No, No, No
Fame and fortune is a stupid game and
Fame and fortune is the game I play
I play forever
04 This Is Not a Photograph (01:56)
This is not a photograph - no
(This is not a photograph)
And these are not the Elysian Fields
(This is not a photograph)
This is not a bigot's head - no
(This is not a photograph)
(This is not a photograph)
This is just a perpendicular line to the grain
(This is not a photograph)
This wants to be outside the cage of the age
(This is not a photograph)
This is not a bigot's leg
(This is not a photograph)
(This is not a photograph)
(This is not a photograph)
...photograph
...photograph
...photograph
...photograph
...photograph
05 Red (03:37)
There's a window in my head.
There's a window in my heart.
I look out of them when I'm sleepy
and then I fall apart.
Things are crumbling outside of me
and they're crashing at my door.
There's a crest that keeps arriving.
I strip my face off of the mirror
and then I take another breath.
The animals are still screaming, dreaming
Screaming for a human's death
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