Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The Gordons - The Gordons (1981)

This right here is a really great iteration of post-punk from the great country of New Zealand and the really great record label Flying Nun. Angular, but not spastic, and really heavy. Super noisy in a really thick, aggressive way, not just washed out all gaze-style. Song structures are drawn out so that each motif can be properly damaged through improvised noise and dissonance.

Unlike pre-60's jazz in which dissonance is used in passing to lead into other chords, these riffs are diatonic and then dive into tritones and weird extended chords created by the ringing out of open strings. Groups like Husker Du used the open strings of the guitar to create nice little 9th and 13th chords, but here they are used in a much more mind-fucking, abrasive manner.

The triumph of this record is Coalminer's Song. You kind of feel that opening riff in your teeth. Just giving your teeth that good ol' in-out. Fuck I'm so pumped and I'm not even listening to it.

For fans of Sonic Youth, Joy Division, and jumping into an abandoned mine on Mars.

9 comments:

Andy said...

fuck this is awesome.

Anonymous said...

This is amazing. I never knew so much dissonance could be this enjoyable.

Roddus said...

Just to let you know that the cover for this is wrong, this is the cover for the second album.

the second album is now avaliable on Rare MP3

http://www.raremp3.co.uk/2009/03/gordons-volume-02-1984.html

Todd said...

Oh hell yeah, thanks so much, Roddus. I've never been able to dig that one up anywhere.

Roddus said...

Cool Todd, but all credit goes to Chuntao, over at Rare MP3, she found it when i couldnt find it either.

Roddus said...

Hey Sorry Todd, your album cover is corret for The CD reissue, I just checked out my copy, haven't listened to it for ages. I ust ot have the original vinyl years ago, so thats why I thought the cover was wrong.

Todd said...

Yeah, the one I posted is the reissue with the EP included - I was trying to get to the bottom of that cover situation before I posted a reply. Anyway, that guitar-arm guy is really too cool to pass up, so I don't know if I would have changed it anyway!

Roddus said...

Yeah, The guitar guy is really cool and it is better than the original 1st album cover, which you will see on the back of the CD case.

I don't understand why they never re-released Volume Two on CD, I tried to email the record company from their web page but their email link was invalid.

Cheers
Roddus

Deshi Knaves said...

Thanks for postinng this