Image ofPere Ubu

Pere Ubu

Musical Group
Forlisteners interested in post-punk, art-punk, experimental rock, and the history of late-70s/80s alternative music who don’t mind challenging records.
11 Reviews 21 Definitions 40 Charts
New Wave Post-Punk Alternative

The Profile

Pere Ubu were an American rock band formed in Cleveland, Ohio, known for combining punk-era energy with avant-garde experimentation, noise, and electronics. Fronted by singer David Thomas, they became influential in post-punk and new wave, with The Modern Dance (1978) frequently cited as a defining work.

Formed in Cleveland in the mid-1970s; widely associated with art punk/experimental rock and post-punk; fronted by David Thomas; released the debut album The Modern Dance in 1978; active until 2022.

Across 10 DeBaser reviews, Pere Ubu are framed as a Cleveland-born art-punk/new wave force that turns noise, electronics, and surreal/Dadaist writing into portraits of alienation and post-industrial anxiety. The Modern Dance is repeatedly treated as the central milestone, while Dub Housing and early singles/Terminal Tower deepen the band’s hallucinatory, psychologically charged approach. Later-era albums like Cloudland and The Tenement Year are described as more accessible without losing the group’s surreal character. One outlier review finds The Art of Walking divisive and partly boring, underlining how confrontational the catalog can be.

Notable Quotes

❝ I love Pere Ubu! I think everyone should love Pere Ubu as much as I do!
❝ How to slap technology without experiencing a deep sense of bewilderment and fear.
❝ The modern dance of Pere Ubu takes on obscene and dark connotations, its sole purpose is to delve into the human soul to bring to the surface its fears, its delusions, and its perversions:
❝ This is an irony-free recording
❝ What does it matter, listen and be silent.
Loading

You and Pere Ubu

Log in to DeBaser
 Send an image  Send a work

Who knows Pere Ubu?

Loading...
Add image
Image Id: 76914 Resolution: 619 x 320
Image Id: 2566 Resolution: 126 x 92