MINIMAL MAN, "THE SHROUD OF"

Minimal Man was founded in 1979, in San Francisco by avant-gardepainter and filmmaker Patrick Miller, and the band included a revolvingcast of musicians from fellow SF art punks Tuxedomoon and futuremembers of Factrix. Minimal Man have been historically marginalized ina fertile underground music scene that included many other influentialartists (including Z'ev, Flipper and Nervous Gender), and they are nodoubt unfavorably compared to stylistically similar artists such asSuicide, Chrome or even NON.Boutique
In truth, the Minimal Man sound wassomewhat derivative, but Patrick Miller's intensity and willfullyanti-musical aesthetic provide a fascinating footnote to the history ofpost-punk and industrial music. The debut album, The Shroud Ofwas released on Subterranean Records in 1981, and is presented here inits entirety along with some early singles and compilation tracks. TheMinimal Man sound is relentlessly dark and aggressive, with cheapsynthesizers and drum machines, jagged guitar and occasional shrieks ofsaxophone all purposely pushed into the red, creating a dissonantblanket of treble-heavy distortion. Patrick Miller's vocals areunmodulated and flat, his lyrics nihilistic, each line echoplexed,doubled or otherwise mutated into a synthetic oblivion. Chuggingsequencers spit out fuzzy non-melodies as Miller cultivates hisKafkaesque persona, full of anxiety, angst and existential dread. Withlyrics that indicate an adolescent fascination with Philip K. Dick,William S. Burroughs and J.G. Ballard, Miller creates a cinematicambience of high-contrast black and white, like a German expressionistfilmmaker let loose in a recording studio. Just listen to the hypnotic,swirling maelstrom of noise and dark, grainy atmospherics on "BlueStep." Perhaps because of its relative obscurity, Minimal Man's debutalbum has weathered the sands of time gracefully, and with legendaryacts Suicide and Tuxedomoon currently attempting to destroy theirlegacies with mediocre reunion albums, The Shroud Of soundspositively refreshing in comparison. LTM's Boutique label has done anexcellent job on this reissue, including hard-to-find tracks from twoearly 7" singles and an impressive eight-minute track called "ShowerSequence" from a Subterranean cassette compilation. The bookletreproduces some of Miller's excellent paintings and contains a detailedbiography of Minimal Man. I'm guessing that this disc is the first in aprojected series of Minimal Man reissues, and I am looking forward togetting my hands on the rest of the discography. - 

samples:

• Loneliness
• Blue Step
• She Was A Visitor

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