Chew Bastille Relevance

Ian S.

Cemental Health Records EEG02

All compositions by Ian Shuttleworth, © control Anal Memoranda.
Forged in the smithy of my soul (it’s a joke! It’s a joke!).

Recorded at Ghetto, December 1982–February 1983 except where noted; 
produced by Ian Shuttleworth.
Mastered at Ghetto, February 1983, by Ian Shuttleworth.
Digitally remastered October 2004.
This title (P) 1982, 2004 Cemental Health Records.

Surprise, surprise: cover photo by Ian Shuttleworth.

Thanks again to Steve there and Steve here for faith, 
and to all the toxic toxophilists.

A way a lone a last a loved a long the

Ian Shuttleworth plays a second-hand bass guitar (fairly well), a second-hand synthesizer (adequately) and a very cheap electric guitar (tolerably), and sings (appallingly).  The rhythms come from a Casio VL-1.  Rhythms and vocals have occasionally been treated with the synthesizer and a senile musicentre.

GENERAL NOTES
Once upon a time I intended to make a cassette album of my songs from the period autumn 1979–summer 1981, to be entitled Tube-Steel Elephants.  Then I got fed up with the songs and moved on to instrumentals, the first tentative stabs [sic] at which can be heard on Lovemaking In Irish £200 Damages (EEG01), the later (i.e. listenable) Roy Watson tracks on The Twinkie Plea (EEG05).  My subsequent musical potterings developed into a programme of salvaging some of the songs, which appear here thoroughly maryrosified.  Also included are one early and two recent instrumentals, and the only song I’ve written in 18 months, hence the modified title.  A couple of the songs were the result of an acute overdose of Talking Heads’ Remain In Light, and are fairly parodic; the rest are, as Martin Fry of ABC would say, “torn from the events of my personal life away from the glare of publicity”, and are therefore probably even funnier.

TRACK LISTING

ORIGINAL
    • Once (4:53) (written January 1983): Musically clichéd, I know, but I proved to myself that I don’t have twelve left thumbs.  Be thankful it was only once, or this would have been a song.
    • Pongo Das Mortes [restored full version] (5:11) (January 1983): Totally improvised.  When it grows up it wants to be the soundtrack to Fitzcarraldo.
    • The Last In The Pack (4:43) (June 1980): Written from an onlooker’s point of view when a friend (honest)’s lurve thang collapsed.  The numerical symbolism derives from a small blue card.
    • Evasion / Headtrip (7:53) (October 1980): Autumn walks along dark, tree-lined avenues, the pain of introversion, a lot of confusion and I’m not a piece of teenage wildlife, Grasshopper.
    • Future (5:17) (February 1981): Minimalist Funkout no. 1.  Note the impressive, if totally meaningless, hookline, and the technical breakthrough in the use of a minor guitar chord.
    • Truth (6:59) (February 1981): Minimalist Funkout no. 2.  Distinct influence of Crosseyed And Painless, and of Fripp/Belew-style guitar work.  “Truth is a tiger”, indeed!
    • Shake (3:00) (February 1981): Started out as Minimalist Funkout no. 3 but mutated as I wrote it.  Musical and lyrical resonances with Evasion / Headtrip.  And honest, I didn’t mean the treated vocals to sound like Feargal Sharkey.
    • People / I.J. (5:54) (February / July 1981): People was originally a capella, but my voice couldn’t handle it.  The lyrical structure was suggested by a motif in Dickens’ Little Dorrit. I.J. was one of the first instrumentals I wrote; the connection is musical only, not thematic.
    • C1(ii) (4:29) (June 1981): I’ve never been able to figure this one out myself; it sounds quite straightforward but there’s a lot of mystification, even guilt below the (originally young, marbled and gigantic) surface.
    • Christ [1984 re-recording] (7:16) (December 1982): ah, this remaster shies away from the original plaintive twanging of three-stringed guitars!  Only slightly changed from the improvisation it first emerged from.  Despite the horribly stylied vocals it’s sincere, if ultimately self-pitying (it’s true, I tell you  genius is pain).  The title is, of course, ironic.

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      The tracks are linked by excerpts from the soundtrack of John Carpenter’s film Dark Star.
       

 BONUS
    • Pulse [recorded ~January 1983] (3:43)
    • People [1984 re-recording] (2:26)
    • Evasion [1984 re-recording] (4:55)
    • The Last In The Pack [1984 re-recording](4:34)
Any specific queries regarding the songs, their inspiration, or any other pachydermatological matters should be directed to the artist, who will be only too happy to hedge.