The track is an earlier alternative version of ‘Fly on the Wall’ from the Down LP. According to the Touch and Go website it was released on 17th January 1994, although it appears there was an earlier green vinyl pressing limited to 1000 released in 1993.
The cover artwork juxtaposes a bizarre upside-down photograph of a bound man impaled on a stake with pictures of fireworks. If I had to hazard a guess then I’d say it was pretty likely that this issued forth from the mind of Mr. David Yow
Side A is a fine example of a mid-tempo Jesus Lizard song. The rhythm section lurches along with dizzying guitar from Duane Denison, leading to a jazzy breakdown. David Yow is a picture of paranoia, drinking to block out the sound of insects in his room (“It’s that fly that’s making me drink so I’ll pass out and sleep through his screaming.”) I can’t hear that huge a difference between this version and the album version. The album version is a little slower. The single version also has double tracked vocals on the choruses that don’t really work that well, cluttering the intensity of the chorus. The Albini treatment on the album version really focuses on that sick groove, emphasising the punch of the bass and kick drum.
Down is generally a very bass-heavy album and has a grimy vibe to it. The songs don’t really grab you at first. It seems to be considered somewhat of a disappointment in many quarters, but I used to consider it my favourite as it was their first album I bought. At the time, as a fourteen-year old Nirvana fan, I found it completely impenetrable, but after putting it away for a few years and discovering Liar something clicked and its full brilliance revealed itself to me. Down is the tar-pit of The Jesus Lizard’s back catalogue: black, bubbling, dense and dangerous. It amazes me to hear even the band speak about it disparagingly. David Yow has hinted at being dissatisfied with the way it was recorded, but in a recent interview with Rock-A-Rolla, Duane Denison defended the record saying “there’s parts of it where the jazz and blues kind of thing comes through a little more, it’s more of a slow-burning intensity.”
The B side of the single is ‘White Hole’ which represents a very much overlooked and under-explored aspect of The Jesus Lizard’s music. Following on from ‘Breaking Up is Hard to Do’ on their debut EP this track goes into the leftfield of more cold and clinical ambient/experimental rock. The track could be said to be a deconstruction of their work, as if the band were playing one of their usual numbers, but it was being distorted and skewed … by having travelled millions of light years through an intergalactic wormhole? Yeah, something like that. It shimmers and chimes while an undistinguishable sound whirls away in the background. A drum beat comes in that is sporadic and jerky, while someone mumbles at a barely detectable level. A searing scream melds into a harsh guitar sound (I think) and then it’s all over. This is evidently what The Jesus Lizard gets up to when there’s no pressure to produce a killer album as they produced a couple of similar tracks on their 1998 stop-gap EP for Jetset Records that were produced by John Cale and Jim O’Rourke. Although it’s pretty quirky and interesting it’s hard to get too excited about a track like this and it’s certainly more of a curiosity than a necessity.
All-in-all, this is a nice disc representing two extremes of The Jesus Lizard’s output. Both tracks were included on the 2000 singles compilation Bang, so go buy yourself a copy!
Roll on, Monday!
No comments:
Post a Comment