Gentlemen Taken And Done For

The Problem Of Pain

Cemental Health Records EEG10

All tracks written by The Problem Of Pain, © control Mad Arab Music.

Recorded April 1983–February 1984 at the Winter Headquarters. 
Produced and engineered by Iain Walker, 
except Rider On The Bat-Winged Horse produced, mixed and engineered on a TEAC PortaStudio by Jon Silverside and where noted elsewhere. 
Mastered at the Winter Headquarters Iain Walker and Patrick Young, February 1984.
Digitally remastered November 2004.

Thanks to John, Jon and Patrick, 
and a special shout-out to He Who rends Without Mercy.

To new worlds of Gods and Monsters.

Cover: Qadok Yaii (The Grasper In The Bidet), © control D.N.I.

This title (P) 1984, 2004 Cemental Health Records.

 

“Where am I?“
“In the Winter Headquarters.”
“What do you want?”
“A guitar overdub.”
“You won’t get it.”

The Problem Of Pain came into being amidst portents and earthquakes when, one afternoon in November 1982, the three permanent members were mysteriously locked in the R.B.A.I. Music block and with nothing better to do, recorded the percussive epic Hawking At The Gargoyles, later to appear on the infamous Show Us Your Nuts compilation.  A collection of subsequent recordings was then brought together under the title Gentlemen Taken And Done For (which is said to contain hidden meanings), and released in order to confirm the false impressions engendered by that earlier track.  And thus did the Problem acquire flesh.

—from The Dogmatic Book Of Uncertainties by Dionysus Rimshot XII.
Cast in order of appearance:
Roy Watson: bass guitar, piano, guitar.
Eoin Patterson: drums, acoustic and electronic percussion, piano.
Iain Walker: synthesizers, vocals, piano, occasional treated bass guitar and guitar, rhythm programming and electronic percussion, radio, vinyl, treatments.
With:
John Catherwood: guitar, Going Breadbasket and The Liquid Plagues.
Jon Silverside: creative stereofying, Rider On The Bat-Winged Horse.

Free subliminal brain-washing device on every CD.
Now wait for instructions.
 
 

TRACK LISTING

ORIGINAL
  • Run Like A Posnet (4:13): feel the fragile beauty of the fragmented orchestra shatter under the inhuman pounding of the bass and drums.  Brute strength always wins out in the end and neither you, nor I, nor the posnets will be able to escape.
  • Going Breadbasket (5:49): intensely improvised industrialism pared down to its barest essentials and then some.  Music for the monolithic and monochromatic.
  • A Man Though Naked May Be In Rags (5:42): quite possibly an unconscious homage to Ambrose Bierce, from whose The Damned Thing the title originates.  On the other hand, quite possibly not.  One does not always eat what is on the table.
  • Some People Don’t Die (When They Ought To) (6:02)walk round your horse at your own peril.  The Problem Of Pain will not be held responsible for any stigmata, poltergeists, inexplicable disappearances or cattle mutilations which may occur during the playing of this track.
  • The Liquid Plagues (5:05): what’s this?  Bass, drums, guitar, playing with each other?  Ah, but there’s still some piss-artists who wants to be Eno messing about on top of it.  Only semi-conventional.  A near thing.
  • To Be A Machine Gun (4:10): ...his first avowed intent...  Title courtesy of Chris Stewart.
  • I Sandpaper Grass (6:50): Ricocheting around a tale of love and jealousy we unveil further true-life stories.  Title from Zeimbekiko by Robin Magowan.
  • E Is For Elevator People (1:49): a highly colourful sound sculpture incorporating every known shade of leaden grey churns its way up and down the derelict lift-shafts of the highest of the sterile skyscrapers...
  • Rider On The Bat-Winged Horse (4:28): “A solid, danceable rhythm track overlaid with crystalline shards of piano and synth best appreciated with headphones,” quoth the Raven, and flew off before we could play him anything else.  Solve the problem yourselves; we’ve got to go and wind up a pendulum.  Title from The Bad Habit by Charles Henri Ford.
 BONUS