Rip Rig and Panic:
Cherry Red:
Out Now:
God (8/10)
I am Cold (7/10)
Attitude (8/10)
Here come reissues of RR&P's three Virgin-released albums from the early '80s and subsequently, pretty much their entire catalogue if you count the dozen or so extras across the discs. Well-presented with sleevenotes comprised of a three-part interview with founder-members including Gareth Sager and Mark Springer, these CDs have been researched to the max and compiled with feeling.
RR&P themselves were an odd bunch, even for Virgin, a label previously given to signing deals with eccentrics (Henry Cow and Gong, spring to mind) and not afraid to push a few boundaries to boot. Formed of Sager, Springer, a young Neneh Cherry (with contributions from dad Don), The Slits' Ari-Up and the late Sean Oliver, here was an uncompromising free-jazz, trash-funk, avant-garde mess of a band. They defied definition and confounded critics - which actually makes them all the more fascinating. Think The Pop Group, think Lol Coxhill, think Defunkt, Pigbag and John Coltrane all living in a squat above a book-shop and you're someway nearer understanding what the Bristol-then-London collective might have been about.
Debut-album God features track-titles that range from the bizarre (Constant Drudgery Is Harmful To Soul, Spirit and Health) to the bawdy (Knee Deep In Shit), many (most) of which reveal little about the anarchic contents on offer. It isn't easy-listening but it is enthralling in places with the pick of the bunch being the extra tracks Bob Hope Takes Risks and Go Go Go (This Is It), both issued as singles. Change Your Life boasts a neat little Latin American piano-powered groove and The Blue Blue Third almost passes for lounge in its own lilting, but ultimately discordant, way. If you dig Blurt, Beefheart and Bush Tetras, you'll want to discover God.
The follow-up, I Am Cold, was issued as a double 12" and isn't quite as essential, despite sporting the best RR&P singles You're My Kind Of Climate and Storm The Reality Asylum. It does have its moments though - Misa Luba is rather pretty while Hunger has some soul in its funk. Craziest titles include She Gets So Hungry At Night She Eats Her Jewellery and the frank Another Tampon Up The Arse Of Humanity.
Final album Attitude is perhaps the most straight-forward - well, as straight-forward as you can get with a bunch of raving sax lunatics grinding out grooves from the belly of the beast. There's more groove, albeit with every drum, pot and pan imaginable, with Keep The Sharks From Your Heart, Sunken Love and the near-hit single Do The Tightrope almost resembling verse-chorus normality. But before long, the Panic well and truly sets in and another tidal-wave of weird piano jams and sax blasts come hurtling from the speakers like warring pets. Tellingly, this last long-player before the band split, has less Attitude than its predecessor and sounds all the better for it. The best extras are here too, including a dubbed-up 12" mix of You're My Kind of Climate and the super Leave Your Spittle in the Pot.
My advice? Just buy them all. At a push, start with Attitude.
Cherry Red:
Out Now:
God (8/10)
I am Cold (7/10)
Attitude (8/10)
Here come reissues of RR&P's three Virgin-released albums from the early '80s and subsequently, pretty much their entire catalogue if you count the dozen or so extras across the discs. Well-presented with sleevenotes comprised of a three-part interview with founder-members including Gareth Sager and Mark Springer, these CDs have been researched to the max and compiled with feeling.
RR&P themselves were an odd bunch, even for Virgin, a label previously given to signing deals with eccentrics (Henry Cow and Gong, spring to mind) and not afraid to push a few boundaries to boot. Formed of Sager, Springer, a young Neneh Cherry (with contributions from dad Don), The Slits' Ari-Up and the late Sean Oliver, here was an uncompromising free-jazz, trash-funk, avant-garde mess of a band. They defied definition and confounded critics - which actually makes them all the more fascinating. Think The Pop Group, think Lol Coxhill, think Defunkt, Pigbag and John Coltrane all living in a squat above a book-shop and you're someway nearer understanding what the Bristol-then-London collective might have been about.Debut-album God features track-titles that range from the bizarre (Constant Drudgery Is Harmful To Soul, Spirit and Health) to the bawdy (Knee Deep In Shit), many (most) of which reveal little about the anarchic contents on offer. It isn't easy-listening but it is enthralling in places with the pick of the bunch being the extra tracks Bob Hope Takes Risks and Go Go Go (This Is It), both issued as singles. Change Your Life boasts a neat little Latin American piano-powered groove and The Blue Blue Third almost passes for lounge in its own lilting, but ultimately discordant, way. If you dig Blurt, Beefheart and Bush Tetras, you'll want to discover God.
The follow-up, I Am Cold, was issued as a double 12" and isn't quite as essential, despite sporting the best RR&P singles You're My Kind Of Climate and Storm The Reality Asylum. It does have its moments though - Misa Luba is rather pretty while Hunger has some soul in its funk. Craziest titles include She Gets So Hungry At Night She Eats Her Jewellery and the frank Another Tampon Up The Arse Of Humanity.
Final album Attitude is perhaps the most straight-forward - well, as straight-forward as you can get with a bunch of raving sax lunatics grinding out grooves from the belly of the beast. There's more groove, albeit with every drum, pot and pan imaginable, with Keep The Sharks From Your Heart, Sunken Love and the near-hit single Do The Tightrope almost resembling verse-chorus normality. But before long, the Panic well and truly sets in and another tidal-wave of weird piano jams and sax blasts come hurtling from the speakers like warring pets. Tellingly, this last long-player before the band split, has less Attitude than its predecessor and sounds all the better for it. The best extras are here too, including a dubbed-up 12" mix of You're My Kind of Climate and the super Leave Your Spittle in the Pot.My advice? Just buy them all. At a push, start with Attitude.
