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TMAST 008CD
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Admirers of Red Krayola, The Residents or Pere Ubu and anything to do with avant-garde rock will be happy to see the legendary New York band The Scene Is Now releasing another album. Formed in the early 1980s and caught between the fascinating New York City scenes of no wave and new wave, The Scene Is Now have retained an interesting but secretive aura by releasing few but excellent albums since that period. Originally from Minneapolis, the band nucleus Phil Dray and Chris Nelson were submerged in this New York scene as Dadaist Marxist art-terrorists The Information together with co-founder drummer Jim Sclavunos (Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Grinderman). By the mid-'80s, the Minneapolis gang had evolved into a NYC boho outfit called The Scene Is Now. Phil Dray & Chris Nelson always remained as the core with the band having a fluid membership of excellent and sharp musicians in their past such as Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu), Will Rigby (The Db's), Elliot Sharp and Sue Garner, to name a few. The Scene Is Now breeze through difficult genres and create diligent music which is in stark contrast to the commercial new wave and underground bands of their day. Phil Dray is an accomplished author in his own right on the side and together with fellow wordsmith Chris Nelson they create a beautiful awkwardness -- knotty tunes dressed with sharp intellect. Chris Nelson's booming and crackly voice is the perfect topping to their exotic slices. Australian label Lexicon Devil reissued the legendary BarNone albums from the past Burn All Your Records ((LEXDEV 024CD), Total Jive (LEXDEV 025CD) and Tonight We Ride (LEXDEV 026CD) and it is the perfect time to continue with new release Magpie Alarm. The four members that currently comprise the rest of the band are: Greg Peterson (guitar and vocals), Steve Levi (cornet), Ryan Walsh (bass) and Chery Kingan (baritone sax). Tight arrangements and wordy meanderings are still in abundance, making Magpie Alarm another gem from New York's original downtown artists.
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LEXDEV 024CD
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Lexicon Devil presents part three of three in their reissue series documenting the great works of New York's '80s avant-garde group, The Scene Is Now. TSIN were formed at the dawn of the 1980s by Philip Dray and Chris Nelson, a band born from the ashes of no wave trio, Information (the third partner of that outfit being Rick Brown). Influenced equally by the ragged avant-folk sounds of the Holy Modal Rounders and The Fugs, the screech of DNA and Mars, and the traditional Americana of Bob Wills and Hoagy Carmichael, TSIN instantly set themselves apart from the pack. Their music was an indefinable mixture of the old and new, the impenetrable and the accessible and the weird and wonderful. Some folks compared 'em to the Red Krayola or Pere Ubu, some to SST outfits such as the Meat Puppets and Slovenly, and some people even hail them as the world's finest no wave jug band. The point is this: between the years 1984 and 1988, they released three magnificent albums on their own label, Lost (the last two being in co-operation with the Twin/Tone label), which have been out-of-print for a dog's age and had never seen the light of day on compact disc. Until now. This is their extremely rare 1985 debut, Burn All Your Records. Recorded in 1984, BAYR was laid to tape when the band was still musically pretty raw and yet to blossom into the melodic powerhouse they became over their subsequent two LPs. From an almost amelodic chaos through to a streamlined pop band in three shakes. On BAYR, The Scene Is Now were tearing out a ramshackle brand of Dada-infused post-no wave folk-rock which was part DNA, part Fall, part Fugs and equal doses of Pere Ubu and the Red Krayola. BAYR is 20 tracks of primo slop-pop in just under 40 minutes. It's the sound of four NYC gentlemen kicking against the pricks in Reagan-era America. It's some of the best hardly-discovered underground rock 'n' roll made in the 1980s, and it's finally available again, remastered from the original tapes and featuring a full-color, 16-page booklet with liner notes by Wire/Uncut scribe Jon Dale and Dave Lang and a wealth of exclusive photos from the period. And, yes, it does feature "Yellow Sarong," as later covered by Yo La Tengo.
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LEXDEV 025CD
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Lexicon Devil presents part two of three in their reissue series documenting the great works of New York's '80s avant-garde group, The Scene Is Now. This time around, the label reissues their sophomore album from 1986, Total Jive. TSIN was formed in the early '80s by Philip Dray and Chris Nelson, born from the ashes of no wave outfit, Information (documented in Thurston Moore and Byron Coley's No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York. 1976-1980 book). Joined by Dick Champ and Jeff McGovern, they went on to release three LPs in that decade which remain amazing and scarcely-heard gems from underground America. With a sound which was distinctly New York -- equal parts Velvets/Feelies strum, angular geekoid rock a la Television/Talking Heads and choppy avant rhythms straight from the no wave -- the band also melded influences from such disparate sources (The Fall, Minutemen, Bob Wills) that they remain a tough band to musically pin down. They truly are/were a unique blend of the avant-garde and the traditional. Total Jive was originally released on the band's own Lost label in 1986, manufactured and distributed by the Twin/Tone label. Roughly half of the tracks are produced by downtown wiz-kid, Elliott Sharp, and it has never been issued on CD before. This version is fully remastered from the original master tapes and features a 12-page, full-color booklet with never-seen-before photos of the band from the period, as well as liner notes by Lexicon Devil honcho, Dave Lang. The 1980s produced a lot of great underground sounds from the U.S.A., and The Scene Is Now is certainly one of them, begging for some much-deserved 21st-century recognition.
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LEXDEV 026CD
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Between the years 1984 and 1988, The Scene Is Now released three magnificent albums which have been out of print for a dog's age and have never seen the light of day on compact disk -- until now. This exclusive Lexicon Devil CD reissue of the band's third album, Tonight We Ride, has been fully remastered from original tapes by the band. Some folks compared them to the Red Krayola or Pere Ubu, some to SST outfits such as the Meat Puppets and Slovenly, and some people even hail them as the world's finest no wave jug band. The Scene Is Now (TSIN) were formed at the dawn of the 1980s by Philip Dray and Chris Nelson, a band born from the ashes of no wave trio Information (the third partner of that outfit being Rick Brown). The beauty of TSIN lies in their deceptive simplicity. What at first appears to be a straightforward, rootsy rock tune twists and turns throughout its lifespan into something completely different, keyboard lines and guitar licks darting out to and fro and seemingly pulling in different directions. The Scene Is Now remain -- as indeed they still exist -- one of the great post-Beefheart harmolodic American pop bands. Influenced equally by the ragged avant-folk sounds of the Holy Modal Rounders and the Fugs, the screech of DNA and Mars, and the traditional Americana of Bob Wills and Hoagy Carmichael, TSIN instantly set themselves apart from the pack. If you like the music of their fans -- Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo (who covered an old TSIN track on their Fakebook LP) -- the music of their peers -- Mofungo, Pere Ubu, dBs, Fish & Roses, The Feelies -- or the sounds of their acknowledged influences -- Sun Ra, Red Krayola, Minutemen -- you'll love the music of The Scene Is Now. Their music was an indefinable mixture of the old and new, the impenetrable and the accessible and the weird and wonderful. Certainly the most accessible of the three, this album features the added talents of ex-dBs Will Rigby and Pere Ubu wunderkind Tony Maimone, expanding the TSIN clan to a family of six. Playing it 20 years after its original release, it still stands tall as one of the great, virtually unknown albums from 1980s underground America.
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