Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Culturcide - A Day At My Job

(Nuf Sed, 1991)

Culturcide was a group of punk weirdos and smarties from Houston which, while often missing the mark with its experiments, at least had IDEAS up the arse that allowed it to break out of the pissed-off-youngster norm to occasionally interesting effect. The Wolf Eyes-endorsed Tacky Souvenirs of Pre-Revolutionary America album – on which the band simply sings over tapes of major hits from the early 1980s – is probably the perfect half-funny, half-obnoxious, mostly-dumb example of the group’s work, but this single (recorded in 1984, released in 1991 on the godly Nuf Sed label) goes beyond that gimmick to show what else the goofs in Culturcide were capable of churning out.

“A Day at My Job,” which sounds like it was recorded live, is noisy social commentary with a decent beat and some OK guitar skree; the lazy, sardonic vocals are the weak link here and hold it back from being a minor knucklehead classic. Split over a side and a half, the delightfully annoying “Mommy and I are One” shows a degree of studio and/or sampler creativity, its looped “check…check…check” providing an introductory beat of sorts to the disturbingly phrased titular sentiment, which repeats endlessly over wisps of non-instrumental field recordings. A jerkoff minimalist’s “Revolution #9,” designed more as piss-take than high-falutin’ art; make of it what you will – Culturcide probably doesn’t care. Absolutely buy the aforementioned LP for yuks and groans, then check this thing out if you absolutely must dig deeper.

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