PREVIEW MUSIC
‘What we're saying is. let‘s try and breathe some life into it.‘ Jesus Jones' lain Baker tells us that rock is dead. no exaggeration. So Jesus Jones make like the good Dr Frankenstein and seek to revive the hacked-together corpse. Here. though. there be no castle laboratory. no cathodes and diodes.
and no jammy lightning strike. Here, ;
instead. there be Mike Edwards‘s bedroom. computers. MIDI consoles. binary codes and. um. cyberpunk experimentation. Jesus Jones. cit-international bright young things. are now hardwired and headed for the future. No longer are they fussy about Stussy or mere pop philanderers. Their third album is called I’t’rt'erse. has no time for the prevailing winds of9()s rock. and is an androidal fusion oftechno jiggery-pokery and digitaliscd. virtual reality metal.
"The reason why we called it Peri-ersef expounds Baker. anti-Luddite and certainly no fan of Citizen Dick. ‘is that it's not a normal album to be recording at this particular moment. A normal thing to be doing just now is to be a grunge band. and we didn‘t want to record a fucking grunge album because we’re not a bloody grunge band. We hate all that retrogression that‘s rife in music today. We wanted to do , something a bit different.‘
; Cue technology-a-go-go and electronic circuitry a-fizz with Jesus LJones’s dark vision of a
computer-enhanced tomorrow. Little matter that Perverse yields up its hit single potential only gradually — that ‘The Devil You Know", that's decidedly iffy, that is— whereas its predecessors (October 89’s Liquidizer and January 9 l Doubt) dropped mutant dance-rock crackers with almost casual ease. Little
matter that young upstarts EMF— Jesus Jones‘s kissing cousins and cohorts in the 1991 Brit-conquest of the US charts— went much the same way with last year's Stigma, albeit with a less fevered techno-frenzy. and didn‘t make halfas much fuss about their disdain for rock’s mores l and bores. Little matter. Jesus Jones E are COMMITTED and PASSIONATE and KNOW WHERE IT’S AT. Or at least, where it will be. Or should be.
‘The people who know how to use technology are the people that are making dance music. Because rock music has just turned its back. and dance music has said. “Well fuck you. I’m offinto the future mate, you stay in the past." And we’re saying, ‘Let‘s follow dance music. into the future. uncertain though it may be. At least it‘s a future.‘
‘The torch of progression has been handed on,‘ reckons Iain. and Jesus Jones are up and running with it, bound for a barrier-breaking Olympia. and certainly not a record-breaking nirvana.
“One of the criticisms that people level at techno is that it‘s the heavy
metal for the 905. What‘s wrong with that? There‘s nothing wrong with heavy metal, it‘s just that there‘s something wrong with heavy metal from the 70s in the 90s. There’s something wrong with Stiff Little Fingers in the 90s. which is what all these grunge bands are. There’s something wrong with David Bowie in the 905, which is what Suede are. There’s something wrong with The Small Faces in the 90s. which is what The Black Crowes are. There is something wrong with regurgitation and retrogressive attitudes. Basically, you‘ve got to wake up.
smell the coffee. and make the music oftoday. Why don‘t we make something that sounds like it wouldn’t have been made at any other time but today?’
With this there can be no arguing, even if Perverse doesn’t possess quite the splenetic force of Baker’s logic. Perverse is fresh in its hi~tech aggression, up-to-the—minute with its programmed slashing guitars and space-age bleepe ry. Perverse is a sci-fi vision that can be variously bleak and vital, cold and adrenalising. Hardly surprisingly. in the Jesus Jones scheme of things passion and emotion come from computer love, love as made by techno rogering rock.
‘It’s a glorious synthesis of the two forms.’ says lain Baker. ‘This time the revolution will be computerised.’ say the lyrics. Perverse is on Food Records. j
V LISTEN!
them all up for distribution after the tour. Every little helps. Incidentally, the intention for ‘Gimme Shelter' is to get it to Number One — as if you needed to be told that. I Attempt: to bring more business back up to Scotland continue. This time, it’s Fife’s Dave Arcari, senior PR consultant, executive committee member of the Scottish Record Industry Association, studio rat and blues guitarist. who has set up Buzz Publicity with the aim ofservicing music and other arts with anything from one-off news releases to full campaigns. Bands at all levels - unsigned, or with indie or major deals — are invited to call 0592 264464 or drop him a line at 95 Hayfield Road, Kirkcaldy, Fife KY1 2JP. I The Beltane Finis now seemingly established as an essential date in the diary of nee-pagans, and anyone who basically likes a good outdoor celebration. The annual fire festival atop Edinburgh‘s Calton Hill on the last night of April was revived a few years ago, after almost a century and has grown in spectacle and attendance every year since. Now, the Beltane Fire Society Committee is ; looking for people who are genuinely interested in co-ordination, production, music, movement and the technical side of things to , help organise this year's. Further information from NVA on 041357 5299. t I More things to make and do: Over the last few years, there has been a great deal of interest in Gamelan, the hypnotically beautiful music produced by Indonesian percussion orchestras of metallophones, gongs and ! drums. Now the Scottish Chamber Orchestra has decided to get in on the act ‘ with its Recycled Gamelan Project. So far, they have two scrapped cars and ‘enough off-cuts of wood to build a bungalow‘, with which they intend to build a Gamelan orchestra, made up ofjunk materials, ‘but with an identity all ofits own.’The project takes place at Craigroyston High School, Edinburgh, with the first six weeks spent on its construction and the remaining time being used to create a piece of music. which will be performed with the orchestra in late March. The workshops are open to anyone interested in making and playing the instruments. from 2—9pm on Tuesdays. Wednesdays and Thursdays.
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List 15— 28 January l 993 33