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Nurse With Wound, “Trippin’ Musik” (United Dirter, 2020)

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As a longtime NWW fan, the prospect of an ambitious, long-gestating triple LP release entitled Trippin’ Musik naturally filled me with glee and anticipation, as I envisioned another Soliloquy For Lilith-level classic. That enthusiasm remained undampened by the jabbering and splattering loop lunacy of Experimente II: Son of Trippin’ Music, as it seemed like that was intended as more of an outtake collection than a teasing glimpse of what was to come. As it turns out, however, it was very much the latter, as Trippin’ Musik is often an obsessively loop-driven affair that basically expands upon Experimente II rather than transcending it. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but Trippin’ Musik is occasionally surprising in both its extremity and single-mindedness. This is a bizarre and challenging album even by Nurse With Wound standards.

A strong case could be made that the vinyl version of Trippin’ Musik is the logical culmination of several conceptual threads that have always driven Steven Stapleton’s work, as it combines a lavish visual presentation with a playfully twisted and enigmatic “hall of mirrors” approach to the actual music. It is both an art object and a kind of surrealist game of chance: some songs are weirdly beautiful and immersive, while others are grinding, one-dimensional endurance tests. None of the songs or records are numbered or identified, so the album’s sequence is dictated entirely by the choices of the listener (and those choices will unavoidably be blind ones at first).

The newly issued CD version, on the other hand, offers a significantly altered and enhanced version of the Trippin’ Musik experience, as there are actual song titles and an ostensible sequence. I definitely appreciate the former and I also quite like the digital format, as using the “shuffle” feature enables probability to dictate the sequence rather than my own vague memories of which colored record I liked the most. I also like the clarity of the digital version, as some of the nuance and detail is definitely lost in the omnipresent crackle and hiss of my record player. The differences between the two formats go much deeper than that, however, as the CD version throws in roughly 35 minutes of new material and excises almost half of the material from the pink record (basically 15 minutes of rhythmic metallic scraping that I definitely do not miss at all). Consequently, the CD version is considerably more melodic and listenable than its harsher predecessor.

Notably, one of the new pieces (the 20-minute “Or”) now opens the album, which dramatically transforms its overall feel and trajectory. “Or” does contain some elements of the now-deleted piece from the pink record though, as it eventually locks into a similarly heaving and metallic pulse. However, it is considerably more compelling in other ways, as it undergoes significant transformation over the course of its journey, slowly building from simmering tension and hallucinatory feedback drift into a massive, churning mindfuck.

It is followed by the brief and delightful “The” (plucked from the pink record), which unfolds as warm and bubbling reverie of shivering and shimmering synth-like loops. In classic Stapleton fashion, however, that pleasant interlude ends abruptly to make way for the album’s most relentlessly and obsessively sanity-destroying piece (“Fall”), which mercilessly jabbers in a locked-groove style loop for almost 20 punishing minutes. It basically sounds like a room full of shuddering and puttering old engines, but with an uneasy “squirming” element thrown into the cacophony as well. 

Naturally, that piece ends in jarring and abrupt fashion as well, but it unexpectedly gives way to the surprisingly understated and composed-sounding “Of,” which kind of resembles a German Expressionist Horror twist on jazz. It is a truly inspired and disturbing piece, as it feels like it was once something quite melodic but has since been slowed and stretched into a curdled and reverberant abstraction. It calls to mind an imaginary film noir in which the requisite seductive chanteuse is performing in a smoky nightclub, except that everyone and everything is slowly rotting and melting and all the sounds are smearing queasily together.

The second disk also opens with an entirely new piece (“The”) and it is another interesting one, as it feels like a considerably less disturbing extension of the previous “Of.” Instead of distending and smearing into a phantasmagoric hellscape, however, its foundation of lurching and stammering slow-motion percussion gradually blossoms into a meditative haze of buzzing string drones and gently pulsing, rippling guitar chords. At times, it almost sounds too sun-dappled and benignly psychedelic to be a Nurse With Wound piece, but it also sometimes sounds like a rehearsal tape of Barn Owl/Calexico-style desert rock being played at the wrong speed.

The following “Eye” then makes a triumphant return to the “nightmare jazz” aesthetic of “Of,” which is the aesthetic niche where Trippin’ Musik truly shines. In fact, “Eye” is easily one of the strongest pieces on the album, unfolding as a spacious and heady swirl of flickering, time-stretched female voices and flanged metallic swells. It evokes the sensation of being lured into a hallucinatory forest of swaying metal trees by some kind of half-malevolent/half-seductive forest nymph, which is a stylistic niche that certainly warrants further exploration.

The remaining two songs seem to the ones from the green vinyl, albeit in remixed and altered form. Both are among the finest pieces on the album, though they take very different directions. For example, “OF” essentially unfolds like a complex and multilayered 20-minute loop, but it is a remarkably hypnotic and absorbing one, as snatches of vocals warble and flutter inside a mechanized, churning pulse that is slightly out of phase. The closing “Sound,” on the other hand, actually sounds like the work of a tight, focused, and unexpectedly melodic band. It is quite a lovely piece and is all the more striking for how nuanced, deftly arranged, and purposeful it feels, as it has an actual groove and a lazily burbling and shifting melodic figure. More importantly, it is allowed to run its entire course without being pulled apart, mangled, and dragged into darker, uglier territory.

I would be curious to know what led Stapleton to make the vinyl and CD versions of this album so different, as it genuinely seems like the latter is a punched-up and improved release rather than just the same album with added material thrown in. When I first listened to the vinyl edition, I actually found myself somewhat mystified that this album had taken so long to make, as the pink record just seemed like two abrasive loops stretched out for 20 minutes each. Given Andrew Liles’ extreme work ethic, that seems like something that could have been knocked off in a single afternoon.

Now that the whole album has been rearranged, enhanced, and re-edited, however, Trippin’ Musik feels like a considerably more coherent and focused statement. In fact, I think it could have been one of NWW’s stronger albums if it had been edited even more aggressively than it was, though I imagine the allure of releasing an attention-grabbing triple LP epic was impossible to resist. I certainly was not immune to the appeal of that approach myself and can find plenty to like about both versions of the album. However, Trippin’ Musik could have easily been an album that I absolutely loved if it had been paired down to just “Of,” “Eye,” and “OF” (with “Sound” possibly thrown in as a chaser).

That said, I am about forty years too late if I want to convince Steven Stapleton of the (financially ruinous) merits of being much more selective in what he releases. Embracing imperfection and indulgence is inherently part of being a life-long Nurse With Wound fan, as the occasional rewards are usually worth it. They certainly are in this case, as Trippin’ Musik fitfully shows that Steven Stapleton and his collaborators are just as capable as ever at conjuring up distinctive and radical sound art unlike that of anyone else.

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Nurse With Wound, “The Great Ecstasy of the Basic Corrupt” (Dirter/Jnana, 2016)

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This is a long-awaited CD reissue of a largely unheard 45 RPM art edition LP from 2014. Although the idea of getting a small Steven Stapleton painting with an album was certainly appealing at the time, I was understandably a bit apprehensive about buying an expensive album that could easily turn out to just be a bunch of regurgitated studio scraps or live recordings. I passed. As it turns out, however, The Great Ecstasy was (and is) actually a surprisingly excellent and cohesive album. More importantly, this reissue appends another great rarity to the original release in the form of Silver Bromide‘s “Circles of Confusion,” which is one of my favorite NWW pieces in years. Given that copies of Silver Bromide are currently going for $1500, this humble CD holds an awful lot of appeal.

In classically cryptic Stapleton fashion, The Great Ecstasy of the Basic Corrupt offers no real information other than the track titles, but the line-up is rumored to be just Stapleton and Andrew Liles. I am happy to accept that, as the pieces themselves do not offer much in the way of any further clues: each of these three 20-minute pieces sounds like it could stylistically be the work of a completely different band, though there is an admirable consistency in both mood and pacing that unites them.

The opening “No Meat for the Dogma” is a nice bit of menacing Eastern drone built upon a sinister-sounding two-chord bed of buzzing tambura or sitar. It seems like Liles had an especially prominent role, as the foreground is devoted to a fitfully unfolding and surprisingly musical harpsichord solo that sounds like something an especially sensitive and melancholy vampire might play alone in his castle in one of his darker moods. Since I cannot picture Steven Stapleton ever playing a harpsichord, he presumably focused upon the nightmarish and hallucinatory drone-blossoms that bleed together and undulate in the periphery. It is quite a wonderful piece that would lend itself well to a La Monte Young-style marathon performance (or one of NWW’s own sleep concerts), as it feels like it could endlessly ebb and flow forever without getting boring. 

The other piece from the original album, “Feed the Loathing,” is a bit more minimal and understated at first, but nicely continues the theme of psychotropic droning—in fact, Coil’s Time Machines initially springs to mind as an apt reference point. The piece quickly evolves beyond its foundation of slow, hypnotic pulsing though, adding in some haunted-sounding atmospherics in the form of mysterious creaks, metallic washes and clatters, discordant chimes, and tense swells of “horror movie” synths. Much like “Dogma,” it is not exactly a structured and evolving composition so much as it is a rich, shifting, and evocative tapestry of ominous ambiance, albeit one a bit more intent on conveying an escalating sense of dread. More than anything, “Feed the Loathing” feels like the soundtrack to a paranoid and sleepless night in a remote cabin.

Silver Bromide’s “Circles of Confusion” is a different animal altogether, though it is similarly restrained and slow-burning. The big difference is that “Circles” sounds like the work of a brilliant psych-rock band with seemingly limitless patience. It opens with a loop of a beautifully lilting snarl of feedback that repeats several times before a simple two-note bass line chimes in to mirror it. As with “No Meat for the Dogma,” it is the kind of perfect and elegantly minimal motif that could be hypnotically repeated forever, but even more so. 

Tempting as it may have been, however, Liles and Stapleton did not just leave the piece on autopilot. Rather, they imaginatively embellish their glacially unfolding groove with a bevy of guitar-like noises worthy of Sonic Youth: clattering de-tuned strings, warbling and oscillating overtones, and some unexpectedly poignant swells of feedback. Another big difference is the mood, as “Circles” completely eschews any sense of menace for a sustained reverie of bittersweet and dreamlike beauty. Gradually, it blossoms into a somewhat straightforward and sustain-heavy guitar solo, losing a bit of its brilliantly deconstructionist otherness, but it is still quite an all-around stellar piece.

Obviously, long-time NWW fans are going to pounce on this album regardless of what any reviews say, as both Great Ecstasy and Silver Bromide (along with Xerography) are among the most maddeningly elusive releases in NWW’s entire discography. The good news is that they will definitely not be disappointed at all when they finally hear these pieces for the first time. I know I certainly was not. There are admittedly some other NWW eras that I prefer to this one, but I do very much enjoy what Stapleton and his collaborators have been up to in recent years and this feels like an atypically strong and painstakingly crafted batch of songs. I did not expect that at all for releases that were issued in such small editions. 

In particular, the wonderful “Circles of Confusion” is a revelation, as it does not sound like anything else that I have yet heard from either NWW or Liles. In fact, if it had been recorded by someone like My Bloody Valentine (not an absolutely insane stretch) as an experimental b-side tucked away on some single, it would probably be widely revered as a left-field noise-guitar masterpiece. Thankfully, songs do not have feelings, so it is perfectly fine that “Circles” will instead lead a quiet life as an unexpected gem on an obscure but extremely satisfying NWW reissue.

Listen here.

 

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Nurse With Wound, “Dark Fat” (Dirter/Jnana, 2016)

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I gave up trying to make sense of Nurse With Wound’s sprawling, self-cannibalistic, and absolutely inscrutable discography quite some time ago, but it definitely seems like it has been a very long time since Steven Stapleton has released anything that meets my not-particularly-stringent “this is an actual, legitimate new album” criteria (excellent Graham Bowers collaborations aside, of course). 

Consequently, I was hoping Dark Fat would be the album to end NWW’s long and perversely prolific silence (it was explicitly billed as “long-awaited,” after all). Alas, it is not exactly the bold new artistic statement that I was hoping for. Instead, it is a sprawling collection of “live” recordings ranging from rehearsals to sound checks to actual gigs. Despite its dubious hodge-podge origins, however, Dark Fat actually feels an awful lot like a studio album—quite a damn good one, even. While longtime NWW fans will probably experience many flickers of recognition over the course of these two hours, Stapleton and his collaborators have so thoroughly reshaped and recontextualized everything that it all feels fresh, vibrant, inspired, and appropriately disorienting all over again.

The best way to summarize this album is to say that it feels like Steven Stapleton assembled an entire village-worth of like-minded artists for a very abstract and cavalier traipse through some of NWW’s greatest hits. In a way, I suppose that is exactly what he did, but the twist is that it was a very fitful, slow-motion, and “revolving door” process that spanned six years. In any case, aside from the core group of Stapleton, Colin Potter, Matt Waldron, and Andrew Liles, Dark Fat features a head-spinning roster of avant-garde luminaries in cameo roles ranging from Jacques Berrocal to Stephen O’Malley to James Blackshaw. 

As if that were not enough, it also features some unwitting contributions from Klaus Schulze, Michael Schenker, and Cream’s Jack Bruce (if the roll call during the final untitled track is to be believed). Clearly, even the deceased were clamoring to get in on this party. Naturally, that deranged eclecticism extends to the instrumentation as well, covering everything from Hawaiian guitars to saxophones to cornets to smoke bombs. Given all that, it is unsurprising that Dark Fat is a deliciously difficult album to wrap my head around, as it is massive, freewheeling, and kaleidoscopic in the extreme.

Lamentably, I do not have total recall of NWW’s entire back catalog (does anyone?), so the only real “hit” that jumps out at me is “Rock ‘n Roll Station,” which turns up twice in impressively mangled form. On “Rock n Rolla 1959,” the original groove is transformed by the addition of a laid-back bass line and a bizarre, stream-of-consciousness monologue from Jacques Berrocal. Later, on the untitled album finale, the band reprises the song in more recognizable form, but stretches it out into a lazy 9-minute jam peppered with squalls of wah-wah guitar, hard rock shredding, stage banter, and bouts of extreme noise chaos. 

If any one piece can be said to represent the entirety of Dark Fat in microcosmic form, it is undoubtedly that one, as a recurring theme throughout the album seems to be hallucinatory abstraction coupled with amusing nods to conventional rock tropes. The lion’s share of the album, however, just feels like an amorphous and unpredictably evolving collage of everything NWW does best: ominous ambience, garbled vocal cut-ups, odd juxtapositions, snatches of old exotica records, and a host of electronic blurts and squiggles. 

The sole significant exceptions are “Devil Dreamin'” and “Devil is this the Night,” as Huffin’ Rag Blues vocalist Lynn Jackson returns for a satanic pair of blearily soulful noir-jazz numbers that actually feel like legitimate songs. In addition to being the album’s finest moments, the Jackson pieces highlight yet another recurring theme that pervades this collection, which is inventively recalling the spirit of a previous NWW highlight rather than just explicitly reprising it. Consequently, much of Dark Fat feels simultaneously new and familiar, like hearing some lost outtakes from a favorite album.

Naturally, a two-hour retrospective of soundchecks and rehearsals is going to have some faults, but Dark Fat actually has far fewer flaws than I would have expected. The worst offenses are probably just that a few pieces overstay their welcome and that the band was definitely in a very self-indulgent mood at times. Also, the variations on “Rock ‘n Roll Station” are not nearly as good as the original, though the intent was clearly aimed towards gleefully pulling it apart and détournement rather than something as banal as improvement. 

A far more fascinating subject is how Stapleton inventively makes a virtue of Dark Fat‘s flaws, as this seems like a totally phoned-in album on paper. In reality, however, this eclectic, free-form grab-bag is actually one of the strongest NWW albums in recent memory. It is not definitely not new for high art, low art, homage, surrealist lunacy, impish humor, and just general dicking around to all coexist on a Steven Stapleton album, but it rare for them all to do so quite this effectively and naturally. Dark Fat is essentially an unexpectedly brilliant editing tour de force, masterfully distilling a large part of NWW’s bizarre and wide-ranging legacy into richly textured fever dream of an album.

Listen here.