Y PANTS

Y PANTS

Y Pants were an all girl three piece art-rock band from New York city in the late seventies early 80's known for stripped down art-performance no wave minus the jagged screeching guitars but rather using a much quieter assult of thumb drums, ukeles and various toy instruments. Formed by Gail Vachon, Virginia "Verge" Piersol, and Barbara Ess who was an integral part of the NYC no wave emergence having been a prior member of Theoretical Girls and Static with her then boyfriend Glenn Branca. Branca produced their rare 1980 debut Ep on 99 records with the Rolling Stones cover "Off the Hook' reminiscent of The Slits, The RainCoats, and ESG. The band Later recorded a full length album titled Beat it Down produced by Wharton Tiers and released on Glenn Brancas Neutral Label in 1982. The Band was short lived as the broke up to follow their careers in Film, and Writing.

Barbars Ess (bass, ukulele, thumb drum, vocals)

Verge Piersol (drums, vocals)

Gail Vachon (keyboards, ukulele, vocals

Buy It Here.

Glenn Branca

In terms of musical architecture its hard to imagine what our record collections would look like without the first two albums by Glenn Branca Lesson No.1 and The Ascension. Glenn Branca is an extremely influential avant-garde composer who's experimental roots in the No Wave band The Theoretical Girls formed in 1977 with friend and producer Wharton Teirs laid the foundation for No Wave bands in New York City in the late seventies and the 1980's post-punk noise rock to follow. Forming his first avant-garde experimental guitar orchestra in the early 80's Branca's line-up of musicians included Lee Renaldo, Thurston Moore, and Michael Gira which spawned Sonic Youth and Swans and paved the way for much of the indie rock as we know it today. Around 1980 Branca created compositions for guitar ensembles and orchestras of droning electric guitars and percussion. On Lesson No.1 and The Ascension, Branca's first two solo albums, the chiming, droning guitars, squalls of feedback, sledgehammers, dissonance, mallet guitars, and cacophonous tribal rhythms mark Branca's work as the first of its kind in rock music mixing composers like La Monte Young, Steve Reich and Philip Glass with guitar work of the likes of Captain Beefheart, Joy Division. Lesson No.1 was the first album released on NYC no-wave label Ze records and is a suiting title for an album as important in experimental music as it is. Branca has gone on to create 15 symphonies including a remarkable piece written for a French Organization called 2000 Guitars in celebration for the millenium that Branca was not excited about so he scrapped it because of the technical monstrosity of orchestrating 2000 guitars. He reluctantly later performed the piece as Symphony No.13: Hallucination City stripped down for 100 Guitars for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in New York City consisting of a phenomenal group of 100 guitarists and a single drummer. 

Glenn Branca Website | Glenn Branca Info

Marine

Formed in Brussels in 1980, Marine played experimental & funk influenced post punk. Their brand of punk-funk was said to have influenced Josef K. The short lived Belgian band reached mild success in 1981 when their single on record label Les Disques du Crepuscule  "Life in Reverse" hit number 6 in the UK on the NME indie top ten charts and captured the attention of John Peel. Having booked a session with Peel in conjunction with label mates and fellow Beligians The Names,  Marine disbanded during the recording of their first Peel Session. Splitting up over creative differences, singer Mark Demarais went on to form La Muerte influenced by The Birthday Party and The Stooges.

James Chance & The Contortions Buy

One of the original punk jazz groups of the New York No Wave scene, the Contortions were led by saxophonist James Chance, aka James White. Their first recorded appearance, credited solely as the Contortions, was on the 1978 compilation, No New York. The following year, two albums were issued almost simultaneously on the ZE label, Buy the Contortions (an extreme jazz-punk LP) and Off White (a disco/standards hybrid released under the moniker James White and the Blacks, with one side vocals, the other side instrumentals). The same line-up recorded both records, although no one aside from Chance appears or is credited on the jacket of the Buy album. Following Chance and manager Anya Phillips' acrimonious break with many of the original Contortions, the line-up changed frequently.(wikipedia)

Fire Engines

While a product of the same Scottish post-punk movement that also gave rise to Orange Juice and Josef K, Fire Engines were far more abrasive and discordant than their pop revivalist brethren, forsaking melodies and hooks in favor of noise and fury. Fire Engines formed in Edinburgh in 1979; three of its founders -- singer/guitarist Davey Henderson, bassist Graham Main, and drummer Russel Burn -- were previously in the Dirty Reds. Rounded out by guitarist Murray Slade, the quartet took its name from a 13th Floor Elevators song and debuted in late 1980 with the primal "Get Up and Use Me," issued on the Codex Communications label. Packaged in a plastic carrier bag, Fire Engines' manic debut LP, Lubricate Your Living Room (Background Music for Action People!), appeared in early 1981. A subsequent move to the Pop: Aural label resulted in the single "Candyskin," an about-face that pushed Henderson's long-buried nasal vocals to the fore and even introduced a string section. The record was a major indie hit, but when the follow-up, "Big Gold Dream," failed to match its success, Fire Engines disbanded in late 1981. Henderson and Burn soon reunited in Win; Henderson also resurfaced in the 1990s with Nectarine No. 9. The Fond compilation, released in 1992, issued most of Fire Engines' official releases on CD. Codex Teenage Premonition, released 13 years later, compiled demos and live material.


Label Band Page: http://acuterecords.com/blog/?page_id=372

JOSEF K

Josef K were a Scottish post-punk band, active in the early 1980s, who released singles on record label Postcard Records. The band was named after the protagonist of Franz Kafka's novel The Trial. Musically, they resembled their label mates Orange Juice infusing post-punk guitars with funk and disco rhythms. However, in terms of their lyrics and image Josef K were always far more downbeat and austere than Orange Juice, and were never to have Orange Juice's commercial success. Mood-wise their sound could be said to be more in the realm of Joy Division to Orange Juice's more upbeat leanings. The band split prior to the release of the 1982 single, "The Farewell Single", which included the Peel session track, "The Missionary". While the Postcard label was cited as a key influence on the C81 and the later C86 indie-pop movements, Josef K's sound is echoed in acts such as Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party. "Sorry for Laughing" was covered by German synth pop group Propaganda on their 1985 album A Secret Wish, and in 2004 by French New Wave/bossa nova band Nouvelle Vague, on their self-titled debut. (Source: wikipedia)