OFFICER! : Dead Unique

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Format: 2LP [BEBLP006]
Shipping Weight: 0.47lbs
Label: Blackest Ever Black

3,970円

'Blackest Ever Black presents to you Dead Unique, an album by Officer! recorded in 1995 but -- outrageously, inexplicably -- never before released into the public domain. This then is not a reissue or a revival; it's a new record that just happens to have been maturing in the cask for, oh, a little shy of 20 years. It also happens to be a lost classic of English art-rock, and the crowning achievement in the career of its mercurial creator, Mick Hobbs. Londoner Hobbs' roots are in the fecund RIO scene of the late '70s and early 1980s, initially as guitarist in The Work (alongside Bill Gilonis, Rick Wilson and Henry Cow's Tim Hodgkinson), and subsequent related groupings The Lowest Note, The Lo Yo Yo, and The Momes. Over the course of the decade he became closely associated with This Heat and their Cold Storage studio in Brixton. Officer! -- the project that this incorrigible collaborator and connector calls his own -- surfaced in 1982 with a cassette tape entitled Eight New Songs By Mick Hobbs. It marked the blossoming of a singular writer and improviser, with a gift for plangent melody, ingenious arrangement and lyrics at once caustic and courtly, playful and profound (two songs from this tape, "Life at the Water's Edge" and "Dogface," have been remastered for a forthcoming limited edition 7" release on Blackest Ever Black). The Cold Storage-recorded Ossification LP arrived a year later, followed by Cough (1985) and Yes Yes No No Yes No Yes (1988). Megaphone Records, responsible for Ossification's recent 30th anniversary reissue, rightly describe it as "one of the most unusual, pleasurable and character-filled 'pop' records anyone has heard -- a timeless anomaly in the history of recorded music." By the start of the 1990s Hobbs had joined Jad Fair's Half Japanese. In the early months of '95, Half Japanese were in Baltimore to record their Hot LP; Hobbs stayed on to cut the bulk of the songs that comprise Officer!'s Dead Unique -- songs drawn from a rich store of material written and refined in the seven years since the band's last outing -- with a talented assemblage of local and visiting musicians. Returning to the UK, Hobbs brought the tracks to producer Julia Brightly to mix at her 16-track home studio in Bethnal Green; by the end of the summer, Dead Unique had taken shape. And then? Nothing. For reasons that no one, least of all Hobbs, can remember, Dead Unique was shelved, all but forgotten about until 2012, when Blackest Ever Black chanced upon it while trawling the Officer! archive maintained for Hobbs by Andrew Jacques. Finally, rightfully, this album is available to all for the very first time. A complex but thrillingly immediate avant-pop song cycle that charms and confounds at every turn, Dead Unique will give immense pleasure not only to Officer!'s existing cult following, but to anyone with an appreciation of piquant, idiosyncratic songcraft -- fans of Kevin Ayers, Flaming Tunes, Art Bears, Woo, Dislocation Dance, R. Stevie Moore, Robert Wyatt, Cleaners From Venus, Lol Coxhill or The Monochrome Set should especially pay attention. It touches upon ragged-raw rock 'n roll, sumptuous chamber music, pastoral folk, blowsy prog-jazz and paranoid dub-space, effortlessly shifting from skronking abstraction to rousing harmonic refrain and back again. The tension between composition and improvisation is key to the LP's power, with Hobbs abetted by an extraordinary supporting cast that includes Tim Hodgkinson (bass clarinet), Pleasant Livers' Fred Collins (vocals), Legendary Pink Dots' Patrick Q (violin), filmmaker/animator Martha Colburn (vocal), Gilles Rieder (drums), Jad Fair (vocals) and Jason Willett (bass, keyboards, trumpet). Special mention must go to John Dierker, whose superbly expressive clarinet and saxophone parts are a fixture throughout, and to Joey Stack, who takes lead vocals on "Good" and the show-stopping "Elephant Flowers." Nonetheless, it is the voice of Hobbs -- as principal writer, performer and protagonist of these songs -- that resonates most powerfully. Blurring the roles of storyteller, poet and prankster, he turns memorable line after memorable line, booby-trapping them with mischievous puns, fleet-footed literary allusions, sudden digressions and shifts of register, nonsense rhymes and other wordplay. But his acute wit and flair for the absurd is moored by a deep romantic sensibility, and though it delights in the minutiae of the human comedy, Dead Unique ultimately addresses its biggest themes: love, loss, commitment, independence, the mutability and inconstancy of all things.'

Tracklist
A1 Nest 1:59
Bass ? Jason Willett
Drums, Voice ? Benb Gallaher
Keyboards ? Mick Hobbs
Vocals ? Fred Collins
A2 Elephant Flowers 3:42
Drums ? Mike Evans
Vocals ? Joey Stack
A3 It Goes Up / Revenge 2:34
Drums [Revenge], Banjo [It Goes Up] ? Mick Hobbs
Drums, Voice ? Benb Gallaher
Vocals ? Joey Stack
Voice, Trumpet ? Jason Willett
A4 Go Back 3:35
Drums, Vibraphone [Vibes] ? Mike Evans
A5 Cows Hum In The Fields 2:20
Cymbal ? Mick Hobbs
Drums ? Benb Gallaher
Voice ? Jad Fair
B1 Shrug / Good 3:19
Bass Clarinet ? Tim Hodgkinson
Bass, Keyboards [Shrug] ? Jason Willett
Cello ? Dan Livet
Drums ? Benb Gallaher
Drums [Good] ? Gilles Rieder
Music By [Good] ? Felix Fiedorowicz
Trumpet ? Peter Moser
Violin ? Patrick Q
Vocals, Keyboards [Good] ? Joey Stack
B2 Biteman 1:52
Bass ? Jason Willett
Drums ? Mike Evans
Vocals ? Fred Collins
B3 Nardis 5:22
Bass ? Jason Willett
Loops [Drum Loops] ? Amy Denio
B4 Someone At The Door 5:46
Drums, Vibraphone [Vibes] ? Mike Evans
Performer [Shortwave] ? Julia Brightly
Voice ? Jad Fair
C1 Stewed Fruit 4:41
Keyboards, Banjo ? Mick Hobbs
C2 All I Got 2:03
Drums ? Mike Evans
Guitar ? Julia Brightly
C3 V.I.M. 5:31
Guitar ? Julia Brightly
C4 Bugs In Amber 5:00
Drums ? Mike Evans
Vocals ? Martha Colburn
D1 Guess 1:10
D2 The Pony Was Contented 4:40
Bass ? Jason Willett
Recorder ? Mick Hobbs
D3 Rachot 6:24
Bass ? Jason Willett
Loops [Drum Loops] ? Amy Denio
D4 Lilac & Orange 1:16
Drums ? Mike Evans
D5 Clint 3:33
Recorder, Drums ? Mick Hobbs

Credits
Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Soprano Saxophone ? John Dierker
Compiled By ? Kiran Sande
Edited By, Technician [DAT Transfers, Special Services] ? Andrew Jacques
Engineer ? Jason Willett, Julia Brightly, Mick Hobbs
Layout, Typography [Typesetting] ? Oliver Smith
Mastered By ? Matt Colton
Mixed By ? Julia Brightly
Painting ? Claudia Schmid
Recorded By, Mixed By ? Tim Hodgkinson (tracks: B1)
Sampler, Effects ? Julia Brightly
Vocals, Guitar, Bass ? Mick Hobbs
Words By, Music By ? Mick Hobbs

Notes
Recorded at the Warehouse, Baltimore.
Additional recording at Studio 99, London E2 and Worldwide International, London W10.
All tracks mixed at Studio 99, 1995, except 'Good' recorded and mixed at Red Shop, London, 1990.
Mastered at Alchemy.