Tales of unease

HRIEKBACK is back;

Nina Hagen roots

are revealed; Lil’ Ed shows the blues can be plenty o' fun.

Shriekback — Sacred City, Capitol Records 1992

After a hiatus, alternative-type Britisner codgers pull from their bag of tricks a concept album consisting of loosely affiliated tales of unease, sensory overload and urban entropy.

Barry Andrews’ monotone sing- speak-sneer threatens to overly sap the low-key momentum of the project, but right decisions made as a producer coupled with neatly-detailed production and engineering work by lan Caple make a few of the songs stand out when standing alone.

You free your head to focus in on some musical lines worthy of further exarnination. by ditching the concept of a uniform whole and the attendant pitfalls of at- tempting to connect up all of the dots.

Signs, Exquisite Corpse and Beatles Zebra Crossing offer up a

Michael Becker RECORD REVIEW

metro-melange of ironic challenges. The best tunes are also rife with the piquant sense of si- multaneous attraction and repul- sion always to be savored in con- crete corners of Big City Any- where,

With lyrics just telegraphic enough to be interesting and a de- liberately cocl-toned electronic patina to counterpoint the intent, Sacred City is worth a ramble through.

Nina Hagen — Rock Aus Deutschiand Ost Voi. 12, Deutsche Schaliplattes: 1992

For major fans only, this import shows us what this over-the-top pop creature was doing long be- fore east met west in Germany.

She screams, she gusgles, she twists her vocal chords like a strudel, She hops up and down the vocal register through a collection of 13 tracks recorded in German aad culled from the mid-1970s when Hagen recorded with Gruppe Automobhil, Fritzens Dampterband and sundry studio musicians.

It's plastic oompah pop, clunky yet cute like the east German people's car, but her roots music shows the kind of up-yer-bum- chum cheek she’s built a durable career with.

Li’ Ed & The Blues impezials — What You See Is What You Get, Alligator Records 1992

Ed Williams plays a mean bot- tle-neck boogie — the jumped-up chooglin’ kind,

Eddie McKinley holds down the rowdy bottom end on tenor sax for a full-steam packet of churning rhythm,

Lil’ Ed deals in basic aphorisms — it always somehow seems to come down to not treating your woman wrong.

What You See Is What You Get is goodtime blues music, unadul- terated and simple as all good things in life are.

Ulrich financed recording herself

From pege 3%

get all the wheels turning again by - myself. i’d never done that before

— it was all sort of handed to

me,” she explains.

‘4 started singing to Valdy’s audience, (then went) to having a record dea! and recording three

“albums, to having all the tours or- - ganized. Then all of a sudder: | had nothing.

“44 sort of did it backwards from most people, and | had to start paying all the dues that most peo- ple pay to build up to that point.”

lt was seven years before she released Every Road, which she

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financed herself.

Produced in 1990 by former Skywalk keyboardist Graeme Col- eman, Ulrich did most of the work on the album in home studios which helped to keep costs down, and eventually secured a distribu- tion deal with CBS.

Looking back, she says she feels a great sense of satisfaction know- ing she made Every Road without the initial backing of a record label or major management.

“For years | sat there and

‘thought I was at the mercy of the °

record companies. Once | realized it was strictly economics it gave

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me a lot of power.”

On the other hand Ulrich says she will always be frustrated knowing there are millions of people out there who would like her music if they only knew it ex- isted.

lf she can’t get funding for a new album she says she'll upgrade her studio and record from home.

Barring any romper room mis- haps, Ulrich and her music are sure to be around for a long time.

“It goes way too deep,” she says of her music. “It’s nota hobby | was successful at. | can’t imagine ever letting it go.”

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