Croatian Amor - LA Hills Burn At The Peak Of Winter

Xiu Xiu + Ceremony

Cut The With The Cake Knife was recorded by Rose McDowall in 1988/89 following the break up of her group Strawberry Switchblade. Produced with the aid of several musicians in several studios, the album features songs written for the fabled second Strawberry Switchblade album. More importantly perhaps it showcases the honest, direct and life-affirming songs of one of the greatest unsung songwriters of the modern pop era at a tumultuous time in her career.

Tibet opens the set and could be one of the best pop songs you’ve never heard. The innate sadness of the songs’ content – the loss of a friendship, impending sorrow – is heightened to heart-melting level by McDowall’s pop nous and melodic sensibility. Choruses and hooks are everywhere on Cake Knife, from the outsider take on stadium 80s pop in Wings Of Heaven to the spiraling, ecstatic So Vicious, a glorious anthem that highlights the human fragility in McDowall’s vocal performance, an instrument that has never lost the naïve purity it first exemplified in Strawberry Switchblade’s early 80s recordings. The centerpiece of the album, the title-track, is the greatest Switchblade pop chart hit that never was. Like the veiled melancholy of her former group’s hits, Cut With The Cake Knife hints at a darkness beneath the gloss, a darkness that saw McDowall delve into more esoteric territory with her subsequent recordings and collaborations. Cut With The Cake Knife serves as the bridge between the pop music McDowall had been making with her friends Jill Bryson, Lawrence from Felt and Primal Scream to what became a more extreme, deep sound informed by neo-folk and post industrial music.

Rose McDowall’s role in the canon has always been one of an outsider. Beginning in Glasgow’s East End in the avant proto-noise group The Poems, achieving fame briefly in the 80s and then disappearing into counter-cultural folklore, the emphasis in the internet-age has been skewed towards her image and cultural significance. Unseen to many, her solo work, her groups Sorrow and Spell and her collaborations with a whole host of underground luminaries have still touched lives. As McDowall elucidates: “They're real sad songs, about real life. I've had people come up to me to say I'd connected with them and helped them. I remember a gig in America when we made a whole room cry. It was bizarre. A couple at the front of the stage started crying and then these two boys beside and  suddenly everyone was crying. And I thought, "that's power."

Night School’s issue of Cut With The Cake Knife includes unpublished photographs, extensive sleeve notes from Rose McDowall and 2 bonus tracks culled from the bootleg 7” “Don’t Fear The Reaper.”


ROSE MCDOWALL - Tibet (from Cut With The Cake Knife LSSN027)

http://leavingrecords.com/tapes/lr011-ssaliva-thought-has-wings/
A reissue from the Leaving Records catalog, tape limited to 200 copies. Belgium resident Francois Boulanger makes mutant-house and warped disco productions for tape, features Jeremiah Jae on "Moonblood".

LTD TAPES & DIGI

Ssaliva - Moth to a Flame

face on my wall

vomit

made this morning w/

mpc2000           0     0
Dr202                     3~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(thnks4listening)
Sp404
KorgPoly800

recorded with
Tascam DP01

Mary '96

Just Fall Asleep [Single]

Just Fall Asleep - Aphex Twin

the city screams for the guillotine and i pray that they will never find me
my hair shedding everywhere leaves a trail from burdens i can't bear
just a teen wipe my record clean when i become what I dread to be
shut eyelids i was only a kid dip my toes in solace they forbid

tell me what to do
im nothing without you
would you tell me what to do
what is wrong and what is true

pretty face put me in my place as the people celebrate your grace
wont bat an eye as my veins run dry and i leave to a jolly goodbye
don't ascend through the decadent cuz the gods will never be your friend
youre unfit so just submit know that probity is not worth it

tell me what to do
im nothing without you
would you tell me what to do
what is wrong and what is true

no convictions of my own
only words that make them groan
i cant do this all alone
push me i wont say no

OTTO - Massachusetts Cowgirl

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