HellO!!!
And then there was that album with Terry Ex and Han Bennink. A tough listen for me. I admit I couldn't stand it. Too disperse for my taste, although both are great musicians, of course.
This was a big dissapointment for me. Probably the least interesting of all The Ex related CDs. I have seen that dup live several times, and hey have always delivered some of the best punknoise impro I have heard of. But on CD, a lot of the energy was lost. Bennink is amazing of course, but Terry just doesn't cut it you can't see him running around hitting his guitar, dragging it across the floor and so on. It looks alot more than it sounds...
What do people recommend as a good starting point for Boredoms and The EX?
Well, like Sonic Youth they both changed alot during their ca 20 years of existance. Boredoms quie brutally around the middle of the 90s and The Ex more slowly. The Boredoms discography is mainly divided into two parts: pre 95, being totally crazy berserk comic book punk stuff, drawing on many genres. Post 95, being heavily inspired by krautrock, drone, minimalism and certainly techno and modern dance. Of the first, their absolut nmasterpiece is "Chocolate Synthesizer" from 1994 and of the second there is only two full albums so far (a new should be on the way) "Super AE" from 1998 and "Vision Creation Newsun" from 1999. Both are excellent, but you might want to give them a listen before you decide which one two pick up. The Ex started out as very, very simpel punk with very political lyrics, and slowly over the years developed a style mixing punk, experimental stuff, jazz, world music and many other things. For some of the really early stuff go for "The Dignity Of Labour". Their first real masterpiece and you can hear them already starting to stretch out. Another favorite from the 80s is incredible double CD "Joggers & Smoggers" which has pure punk songs mixed with many, many different things. My favorite of he newest stuff is still "Starter Alternators" from 1998. That's the one that really turned me on to them. Like Sonic Youth, Boredoms and The Ex both have a huge pack of side projets. Unlike SY, almost all of them are worth checking out, but it would be too much for me to get into here... BTW, Whatever happened to the "In The Fishtank" with Sonic Youth & Friends (= Han Bennink, The Ex plus other Ducth hip cats?!) Cheers, _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.