In the fallout from the musical maelstrom of what was inadequately called ‘punk rock ‘ in the mid seventies, many bands especially those over the pond such as Talking Heads, Devo and Television decided to take a road less travelled. With a lineage that owed as much to the experimental vistas of the Velvet Underground and Trout Mask Replica era Beefheart, as to the Year Zero, three chord scorched earth policy of the Sex Pistols and The Clash, they had bollocks, but this was arty bollocks.
In much the same way that The Fall is Mark E Smith, Pere Ubu is David Thomas, a big guy with the strangest of vocals, part sung part spoken narratives over often discordant musical backgrounds, never more startling than on their 1977 debut ‘Modern dance’, which has worn extremely well and become something of a genre classic. Subsequent recordings have only further cemented his status as Akron, Ohio’s number one art noise supremo.
Thirty five years later Lady from Shanghai continues to see him confound and confuse, it’s as slippery as a bag of eels; it purports to be a ‘dance’ album, although the prospect of seeing Anne Widdecombe on Come Dancing, throwing some shapes to this one is frankly not going to happen (unfortunately).
Tracks like the opener ‘Thanks’ and ‘Lampshade man’ are almost conventional, I use the term conventional in its loosest sense, one sounds like ‘Ring my bell’ by Anita Bell accompanied by someone playing table tennis, the other is the blues played by a band who should be sectioned. On repeated listens the record reveals little bits of itself, snippets of intriguing lyrics and lines surface and niggle, there are places where the madness is a little too oppressive, ‘Feuksley ma’am, the hearing’ despite it’s weird title, slightly outstays its repetitive welcome, but everything else here will satisfy your craving for the experimental and strange. ‘
Mandy’ disappointingly isn’t a cover of the Barry Manilow classic, but a lovely melodic ode with a haunting refrain of ‘come out to play Mandy’.
‘And then nothing happened’ and the fantastic ‘Road trip of Bipasha Ahmed’ are descents into madness through the medium of rock n roll, ‘musicians are scum’ is just damn scary, with David sounding like a vindictive stalker who has refused to take his medication.
By turns, annoying, astonishing, atonal, Lady from Shanghai is a blast of icy madness, a perfect antidote to a public in abeyance to mediocrity.
7/10
by John Haylock
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