Harry Pussy - S/T
(Superior Viaduct)

This is a mean and nasty record. Almost everything about the extreme sonic experience on this album is explained from the cover alone. It's a stark and crude presentation, only displaying what information is truly vital, and leaves the rest up to mystery. The cover art is an upside down photograph of what looks like some sort of physical confrontation, or a close up of a rowdy crowd throwing it down at a hardcore show. The only other noticeable text besides the song titles is a lone, out of context literature clipping, "In case of an emergency you can shit on a Puerto Rican whore." A sentence which has become an unofficial title of sorts for the LP. Harry Pussy's landmark debut LP is an absolute necessity in the genre of noise rock. It's a suffocating, pulverizing and absolutely intoxicating listen. Starting off like a gunshot with the track "Youth Problem". The shortest track on the album, maybe coming close to 20 seconds, comprised of nothing but raw screams and twisted, clanging guitar instrumentals. It's barely even a song, more like a build up to the madness that's to come. Like the duo is just trying to warm up or check the recording level. As if it mattered anyway; this whole thing is rooted firmly in the red!
The remaining 8 tracks are pure sonic perfection. Some of the harshest noise rock from America in the early 90's. Chaotic, blurtastic, beautiful noise; incredibly extreme make no mistake. What Harry Pussy created and held integral on this album and through their whole career was their own unique style and chemistry aided and abetted by the marriage of guitarist / vocalist Bill Orcutt and drummer Adris Hoyos. It was the magical and signature guitar stylings of Orcutt that first drew me into Harry Pussy's music. How interesting that someone who was apparently first inspired by the great Muddy Waters would eventually develop one of the most interesting and brutal guitar sounds in noise rock / free improvisational music. Taking the feelings and scum-coated scales of the blues, and mangling them with punk viciousness into an unprecedented bastardization. The perfect compliment to this is the completely free, bombastic, structure-less drumming of Adris. There is some semblance of "songs" that are being performed, sometimes. Bill Orcutt does eventually go into modal pieces but a distinctive, free-looseness always remains. I always get a little bit of a chuckle at the start of the song "Riot Riot", where Bill proclaims: "Alright, let's play a song."
From front to back, the A-side is violent rock perfection. Flip it over, and the surprises keep coming. In particular, the highlight track for me is "I Don't Care About Sleep Anymore." One of the longest tracks on the album (almost 4 minutes), where Bill and Adris give themselves a lot more open space to let different emotions come through. Personally, I find this track to be exceptionally beautiful since it allows Bill a chance to let his guitar playing breath to magical effect. The last track on the album, "Showroom Dummies", is a cover tune. A track by none other than German kraut-lords Kraftwerk!  As expected, the duo mangles it and dirties it up to a unrecognizable condition, stomping the shit out of the beat and creating a wonderful rock song to close it out. If you take an interest in extreme music, and have yet to experience this record, I can't recommend it enough. A true gem and a timeless relic that holds up brilliantly today. (VII)
Check out a track here.