PRICE:
$12.50
IN STOCK
ARTIST
TITLE
Burn All Your Records
FORMAT
CD

LABEL
CATALOG #
LEXDEV 024CD LEXDEV 024CD
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
11/24/2009

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.