Released as an LP on the K.A.K. labelin 1995, Zero Beats Per Minute was conceived as the ultimateanti-rave statement, growing out of a series of after-club performancesalong the London-Swansea mainline in industrialized Newport. Anal wouldperform next to the train tracks, hoping to catch wandering acid andecstasy-fueled ravers as they wandered from closed clubs to after-hoursillegal warehouse parties. As anti-rave, I imagine Anal's brand ofnoise worked quite well, a series of rhythmless explosions ofaggravated analogue noise specially formulated to piss off all but themost anarchic ravers. Anal was far more interested in the bleak,industrial frigidity of Throbbing Gristle and Whitehouse than themid-90s weekend rave scene typified by Praga Khan and the Lords ofAcid, and it shows. As a punk-as-fuck, industrial-strength belch in theface of vapid dance and drug culture, the album works. As another wayfor synthesizer fetishists to get a cheap thrill, it also works; anyonewho likes Mount Vernon Arts Lab or Queen Elizabeth would likely alsoappreciate Anal. The question of whether or not it contains good musicis a bit more difficult, however. The album's first six tracks are allrelatively brief little sketches of Anal's delicious blasts of analoguedrones, blankets of static, steam-venting copper tubing and gale-forceplumes of thought-canceling noise, but nothing stays long enough tofully develop. The album's main attraction is the sidelong behemoth of"Journey Through a Burning Anal," which uses all of the techniques onSide A to build a long, slowly transforming odyssey through thegraveyard shift of a steel mill, with clever little nods to morepopular forms of techno here and there just to remind you of how faryou have traveled. Though this track is nice enough, when it was over,I couldn't help feeling a little shortchanged by the album. At 31:42,it's incredibly brief, the LP apparently having been shortened for thisreissue. I can only speculate as to why it would have been edited downin its transition to the digital format, but it seems an odd choice.Fans of Coil and Co. who have been waiting years for Eskaton to makegood on its promise to release "I Am Newport" b/w "Kiss Me Ringland"will doubtless be disappointed that this material has not been includedas bonus. Also, Cope's Fuck Off & Di label apparently engineeredthis release without the consultation of Jody Evans or Thighpaulsanda,making this entire release of somewhat questionable pedigree. Let thebuyer beware.samples:
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