Pain Teens
Beast of Dreams

Houston, Texas, mid-'80s. Our protagonists are Bliss Blood and Scott Ayers, they love analog delay, the kind achieved by unwinding magnetic tape over metal heads for hundreds of meters, along interminable serpentines wrapped around themselves, which perhaps reminds me of the thread of the Fates (what an ugly metaphor, Debaser!), or more like grandma's unravelled ball of yarn. They also love the gritty sound of sand, psychedelia, open flames, the desert, and the embryonic stoner ("Joshua Homme where are you?", 1984).

I met Bliss Blood at the Village two years ago. She lives as a musician as only one can in NY, performing for a respectable fee with her enigmatic smile that's so much like Lydia Lunch, except that Bliss Blood still sings on stage. She recites to me: "Angry little teeth, sharpened pearl cuts and bitten, my bruised lips if I miss..." and I'm in a catatonic state before I can even realize the quote. She plays the ukulele and at that moment I understand many things about Amanda Palmer too.

I bought "Beast of Dreams" years ago from a friend who was going bankrupt: he had to sell all his CDs and escape to Spain. He signed too many papers in the wrong place, he tells me, and I notice a drop of sweat sliding, silent as a gecko, from his forehead down his smooth face, past the golden frame of his Cutolo-style glasses. Take everything for 50 euros, there's good stuff but I just can't take it with me. It's not exactly the romantic story of buying at the memory stall, hand in hand with the unhappy love of your life, all memories of sex, motorcycle trips, wind in your hair, before the abandonment. It's about someone who's fleeing, anyway. He's a practicing gnostic (sic!) and has strange tastes. At the top of the stack, or anyway just below, are Traffic, the Temptations, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. He helps me load the boxes into the trunk of my cat-lady Twingo, looks around worriedly, pockets the 50, quickly says goodbye, and disappears forever.

I randomly pick a CD, for the return trip, and it is this Pain Teens "Beast of Dreams"; as always I go with shuffle and it kind of makes my day because the damned laws of chaos give me as the first track that Voluptus which is a slow-tempo punk, wisely laid out in the sun with the pegs of Bliss Blood who evidently sings without panties on, like Iris Blond. So much so that my pelvis sways unconsciously because we are in the stoner period and the most popular verb is "penetrate".

Next, randomly, is Manouche, hypnotic and sensitive like a metal butterfly's wings (damn this Debaser), then there's Moonray that oozes Indian moods, but not Native American Indians, Indian Indians, those from Hollywood Party. Ok enough with my crappy impressions.

I've never listened to "Beast of Dreams" following the tracklist order, but I'm not sure, because the probability that shuffle will give you the exact ordered sequence 1, 2, 3, 4...12 is remote but it exists. However, it's a changing, kaleidoscopic album that shifts every time you hear it. Characterized by excellent production typical of the Trance Syndicate label and how many excellent things came out in those '90s.

Every now and then, if I drink too much wine, I return in memory to that meeting with Bliss Blood at the Village and overlay it with the image of my fugitive friend who in Nero d'Avola visions resembles the Boss of Ceremonies, I get up, go to stir the ragù, track 3, I collapse on my knees, get up aching as if I had come out of a rugby scrum, stretch the abs, Ember and Ashes, Invitation, hot bath, Swimming, sex, Swamp. Enough, I want Mark Lanegan.

Yes, in a way, "Beast of Dreams" has changed my life.