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Thinking Plague
Early Plague Years
While the copyrights on this disc indicate that Thinking Plague first issued these recordings starting back in 1984, I say we're still a good decade off from really absorbing them. When this Denver musical collective initially released them on vinyl, the musicians were lightly embraced as Midwestern avantists or hayseed spacerockers- fallen drastically behind the conventional new music curve. In truth, the works by bassist/drummer Bob Drake and guitarist Mike Johnson (with a dozen more in the ever-shifting personnel) were abundant in grafting contrasting styles together while provoking tangents of improvisation- a method that John Zorn would later apply to extremes. Yet, golden hindsight affords this opportunity to appreciate the Plague's early sampling techniques (called tape manipulations in the pre-digital age), minimalist song structures (barely post-Glass back then), and their no wave configurations (did anyone ever follow their instructions during "How To Clean Squid"?) that sound as if they were created last night instead of in the midst of George Orwell's Big Brother countdown. Fascinating history. -virginia reed (Cuneiform, P.O. Box 8427, Silver Springs, MD 20907-8427)
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