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$18.99 CD
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BLURT
Factory Recordings
(LTM)
 "Dyslexia"
"My Mother Was a Friend of the Enemy of the People"
Ah, perhaps never before has a band had a name as appropriate as that belonging to Ted Milton's Blurt. A trio of guitar, drums, and Milton's vocals and saxophone -- THE key ingredients, perhaps -- the band was loopy, arty, slightly obnoxious, and entirely direct. A self-described "performance junkie", Milton had come from a different area than most punks both geographically (Stroud, rather than the usual Mancunian roots of most early Factory groups) and in terms of his background as an artist -- prior to forming Blurt, Milton was a puppeteer (he contributed a puppet show to Terry Gilliam's film Jabberwocky and opened up for Ian Dury with a traveling puppet theatre) and a verse writer, his poetry appearing in Paris Review among other publications. It's interesting to note that when Milton first made an appearance on Factory founder Tony Wilson's program on Grenada TV, it wasn't with Blurt but as a puppeteer! It was shortly after that Milton picked up a sax, and Wilson encouraged Milton to let the former release some of this new band's early home recordings on his nascent label's second compilation.
The first four tracks on The Factory Recordings consist of Blurt's contribution to that compilation, one side of a 2LP set which also featured music by the Durutti Column, Kevin Hewick, and Royal Family & the Poor. These tracks are unlike anything else released by Factory in its existence, perhaps ever -- "Puppeteer" opens up proceedings with raw, skronking saxophone making disjointed sounds that somehow assemble into a riff, while the guitar rings in rhythmically with Jake Milton's thudding, tribalist drum beats, and then Ted opens his mouth, spitting lyrics like a British caveman. It's brilliantly, naggingly catchy, but entirely not user friendly. A success, then. The following track, "Dyslexia," provides an extended seven-minute exercise in Blurt's take on a funk groove, essentially stripping things down to bare essentials while Milton riffs and spits, the guitar simply humming and rubbing rhythmically as the drums -- outmoded and distorted -- hold things together.
That pretty much lays the foundation for the rest of the CD, variations on a theme of twisted tribal funk, jagged saxophone licks, and surrealistic lyrics. The disc is fleshed out with what would have been Blurt's second Factory release, the energetic live album In Berlin, originally slated as a 10" on Factory Benelux but pulled for various reasons; it would be released in 1981 on Armageddon Records, who would go on to release a few more Blurt singles and LPs.
The band frequently gets compared to the likes of the Contortions, but that's honestly really lazy -- the groups sound nothing alike aside from the two frontmen's occasional similarities in sax styles; rather than James Chance's affinity for James Brown and disco confrontation, Blurt are closer in style and approach to American pop primitivists like Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits, transforming roadhouse R&B styles and poetic lyrical and vocal abstractions into a surrealist mutation of its former self and creating an invigorating, thoroughly enjoyable body of work that continues to this day. This compilation is an entirely welcome addition to the LTM catalogue after Blurt's previous two compilations on Salamander Records have fallen into unavailability. One of my favorite bands, this CD is recommended to any fan of any of the artists mentioned above, and to those who like their punk arty, difficult, and a little squeaky. Highest recommendation! [IQ] |
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