Word: sonics
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Farther away from the mountain, Northwesterners who were never in any danger heard what many at first thought were sonic booms and then saw a spectacular-and frightening-drama in the sky. Said Harvey Olander, a retired geologist who now cultivates a 40-acre apple orchard outside Yakima: "I was working on an irrigation ditch. The sky got dark, and I thought we had a hailstorm coming. Then it got deathly still, and all you could see through the darkness was the purple-pink glow of sheet lightning." Said Chuck Taylor, a reporter for the Tri-City Herald in Pasco...
...straight slice of rocking blues, with a sweeping crescendo of an opening fit for the King himself. The sheer crunch of two guitars with nothing to anchor them to the rhythm boggles. More often than not, all three instrumentalists seem to play a note or more apart, creating more sonic splash than a complete collection of Carl Perkins records. The middle eight finds either Ivy or Gregory imitating the sound of static on a portable radio as you switch from one station to the next...
...pure camp, and the full orchestral backing suits Lydia Lunch's voice perfectly. What prevents the whole affair from degenerating into the ridiculous is the presence of Pat Irwin's electric guitar. Irwin seems more of a collaborator than a player throughout, and she executes her sonic attacks with ruthless efficiency. The overall conception is very alien; as the band begins to swing, Irwin launches an atonal, heavily feedbacked solo that cuts right through the soul of the song...
...mine don't." Spector challenged the Ramones immediately-"Do you want to make a great album or a good album?" -then spent six months working in the studio, layering and miking guitars so they sound at times almost like chimes, overdubbing the vocals until they glisten like a sonic Simonize...
...Tear down the wall." Lysergic Sturm und Drang like this has a direct kind of kindergarten appeal, especially if it is orchestrated like a cross between a Broadway overture and a band concert on the starship Enterprise. It is likely, indeed, that The Wall is succeeding more for the sonic sauna of its melodies than the depth of its lyrics. It is a record being attended to rather than absorbed, listened to rather than heard...