Thursday, April 2, 2009

From the Vaults: Simply Saucer


Cyborgs Revisited (1989, 2003, Sonic Unyon)

Byline: Forgotten paranoid Proto-punk classic from Canada's forward thinking Acolytes of America's Rust-belt punk explosion.

For: The Stooges, Husker Du, Blade Runner (the Movie)

"Here's some, uh, heavy metaloid music. It's called Illegal Bodies. It's a song of the future. It's, uh, when you don't have a metal body they won't allow you to walk the street." So posits Edgar Breau before Simply Saucer breaks into a flurry of palm-muted riffs, buzzsaw guitars, droning sonic freak outs, and manic assertions of mankind's eventual termination at the hands of rampant technology. If William Gibson fronted a psychedelic proto-punk band it would sound like this. Cyborgs Revisited is a compilation of archival recordings scattered through out the seventies. Sonic Unyon eventually did mankind a solid by releasing this pre-apocalyptic warning to us about the consequences of unchecked technology. The one of the best parts of this record are the song titles: Nazi Apocalypse, Illegal Bodies, Here Come the Cyborgs, Electro Rock. Behind the forward thinking - or blatantly sci-fi aped- ideas are actually forward thinking musical ideas. Cyborgs Revisited  touch on everything from Velvet Underground inspired psychedelic drones underneath British Invasion snarkiness to Can inspired sonic freak outs that would flatter Iggy Pop. Edgar Breau later took his ultra-conservative viewpoints into the political realm when he ran for the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1999 under the uber-conservative Family Coalition Party. I have no idea if the ideas in Cyborgs Revisited helped or hurt him, all I know is that I would cross party lines if Edgar decided to run again, in America.

No comments:

Post a Comment