Comicide - Moral Improvement.

Comicide – Moral Improvement (Live 1984 CE) – Cassette/download – Self Released  - 2019.

Track list.

A - Star Club, Birmingham.

     1.    Bloodmeat.

     2.    Bruised Organon

     3.    Muscular Jesus

     4.    Hatehouse

B - Eve Hill, Afro Hill Caribbean Centre, Dudley.

     1.    Bloodmeat.

     2.    Bruised Organon.

     3.    Muscular Jesus.

     4.    Hatehouse.

Comicide was an early Stephen Ah Burroughs industrial/PE project, later projects were Head of David, FRAG and Tunnels of Ah. There were two members, the other being Erik Jurenovskis, who was also a member of Head of David. This set of two live recordings were both played supporting Con-Dom in different venues in the West Midlands in 1984. The instrumentation used was vocals, manipulated synth and guitar.

The Birmingham performance doesn’t have vocals, it’s all instrumental. The synths add a suspenseful, anxiety to the work, the riffing gives a uniqueness and seems to melt into the synth work due to its repetitiveness, becoming noise in the process. The intuition of the guitarwork seems to convey emotion and add a layer of complexity to the work. Part of me sees this recording as Lynch like, it wouldn’t be out of place in Eraserhead or any of his other early works. In other parts, I feel it could fit in the Bladeruner, due to the futuristic synths - there was something cinematic about Comicide’s work.. The synths do become punishing and massive at times, this is where the Power Electronics aspect of the recording is.

The Dudley gig is edgier, there is more of an Industrial urgency to the work and the addition of shouting vocals is an added layer of intensity to the works and adds a further Power Electronics dimension to things. This is evident as there seems to be more volume at work to the point where it distorts and warbles things more. There’s some choppy noise communication going on, ticks and twangs create hallucinatory atmospheres, the esoteric aspects of future works, particularly Tunnels of Ah is demonstrated in its infancy here. The vocals distort and become noise as if in another dimension. The guitar work is even stronger here, as if more intuitive to what’s going on with the resonating synths.

This is a good, interesting document of the times and what was happening on the Noise live circuit back then and it can be complimented by the Con-Dom tapes of live recordings from that time. This can be bought at: https://tunnelsofh.bandcamp.com/album/comicide-moral-improvement-live-1984ce

Choppy Noodles 2019.