CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Truly repulsive music imposes the most stringent of aesthetic standards—who wants to listen if it’s just good? So while I’m sort of impressed by the (relative) accessibility of their first full-length LP—guitar that might actually win over some wayward metal freak seeking bizarre O-rated thrills—I must report that only “Lady Sniff,” punctuated by perfectly timed gobs, pukes, farts, belches, and Mexican radio, lives up to “The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey’s Grave.” Address: Box 433, Dearborn, Ml 481221.
CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
ROBERT CHRISTGAU
BUTTHOLE SURFERS “Psychic...Powerless... Another Man’s Sac”
. (Touch and Go)
Truly repulsive music imposes the most stringent of aesthetic standards—who wants to listen if it’s just good? So while I’m sort of impressed by the (relative) accessibility of their first full-length LP—guitar that might actually win over some wayward metal freak seeking bizarre O-rated thrills—I must report that only “Lady Sniff,” punctuated by perfectly timed gobs, pukes, farts, belches, and Mexican radio, lives up to “The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey’s Grave.” Address: Box 433, Dearborn, Ml 481221. B +
“CONJURE”
(American Clave)
Ishmael Reed or no Ishmael Reed, to hear Taj Mahal, David Murray, and Allen Toussaint playing not alongside but with one another is really something. Thank Murray for his virtuosic atavism on the smartly paced blues side, and Mahal for his progressive heart on the more desultory jazz side. Thank Steve Swallow and Billy Hart for their humble shuffles. And then hail Ishmael Reed, whose pan-AfroAmerican modernism was the occasion of these miracles. Nothing like an oral tradition to make written words sing. Address: c/o NMDS, 500 Broadway, NYC 10012. A-
DIRE STRAITS “Brothers in Arms”
(Warner Bros.)