Mondo Bungle

yes

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Mondo Bungle

Here's to a graceful return. Now, this isn't really much of a review, I'm just talking about this album. I still need to work on my reviewing. I can promise this won't be my only RP post, I plan on doing a Spotlight On!!!! Nick Blinko.

Rudimentary Peni – Cacaphony (1987)

This is as much an experimental album as it is punk, the Gothic, black and white musings of a troubled artist. RP have veered away slightly from their punk rock politics to a deranged testament to H.P. Lovecraft, the macabre, and the downright crazy, but all the while just as radical. This is a challenging album. It takes you through many different tunnels and chasms that frankly never end. It's riddled throughout with crazed ramblings and groaning, Lovecraft quotation, and otherwise peculiar commentary, yet an underlying theme or message proves to be a difficult thing to locate.

Their previous full length, Death Church, was a classic punk effort, one of my personal favorites. Political and spectacular punk rock, yet, it strayed from the punk formula constantly. Cacaphony leaves it almost entirely, sure you can tell this is a punk band/album at it's very core, but you can't overlook the experimentation and oddities scattered throughout it.

Lovecraft baby....
Lovecraftian themes and characters are a focal point, with Cthulu even taking form here. “Crazed Couplet” features the lyrics “That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die” delivered through distortion. “Imps of the Perverse” is a criticism to Lovecraft from the point of view of another. While these themes are incredibly prevalent, this a musical equivalent of madness. Looping conversational delusions layered over one another, to such a point where the listener can only observe gibberish (and much of it in fact is). Incredibly bizarre interludes of hissing and teeth chattering and the like. At it's simplest, I'd call this a conglomeration of punk/post-punk and experimental rock, with a hefty old English influence, even sing along pub song stylings. Their guitar tone is much lighter than previous efforts, and the bass is incredible as usual. Grant Matthews is one of punk's best bassists, and RP recordings always show it off.

3 highlights for me, "Dream City" "Gentlemen Prefer Blood" and "Musick in Diabola" among others of course.

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bob.

one of my favorite albums ever.

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A kiss is the beginning of cannibalism.

Reach out, pierce the fine fabric of the sheltering sky, take repose.

Mondo Bungle

That was supposed to be in a quote

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Mondo Bungle

I always gotta give it to my man Stock-to-the-hausen. Easily one of my favorite, if not favorite period, composers of classical music contemporary or otherwise. Also a big boy pioneer of electronically produced music and all the goods. Electronic stuff from that time and influence is all pretty whacky and surreal.

I didn't know what to do for a Stockhausen "album" but this a good and important one. He has works that I prefer to this though. Even before getting deeper into various noise corners of music, I developed a love for early 20th century classical and proto-electro nonsense.

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Mondo Bungle

I'll have to give credit to my mom for being like the biggest Nick Cave fan.

Whether or not this is my favorite Cave release, I can still say for sure that I love it unconditionally number one, and number two, it's been with me in my life for as long as I can remember. While beginning to explore the music on my own accord, I came to this album and was shocked to know just how much of it was with me already. All these little organ melodies found throughout the tracks are all so nostalgic, and I guess I'd grown up hearing them all the time.

Sometimes before going to listen to this album I'll forget about all that, and then take another trip down memory lane.

It's one of my favs probably, from the band. A really solid and effective offering of folky post-punk/blues stuff, not as experimental as previous outputs and entirely memorable, musically and lyrically, for fans of all kinds of music

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Mondo Bungle

I mentioned it earlier and remembered how the **** nice the album is. I love SPK for their abrasive industrial noise terror and I love them for their more dancey electro-industrial, but more than both of those, I love SPK fir this album. It's a softer album, but so graceful and magic and esoteric and all kinds of adjective salad. A blend of neoclassical ambient style orchestrations and ritual-ish darkwave coolness from some of industrial music's most important players.

A while ago when hearing it the first time, it awakened some kinda neoclassical beast within. And it's just all so wonderful. It still stands as one of my favorite ambient releases of all time, and one if the most important for me

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Mondo Bungle

I think there's like four Biosphere albums that have helped shape my life but I'm putting this one because "it's the first I heard" seems to be the usual argument.

This one is very minimal and very sparse ambient music, with just a slight neoclassical infusion. There's not much going on dynamically, instead very distant and sometimes haunting string melodies and yhe like are passed over to your brain. It's a super quiet album, but it's real deep, like ultra contemplative.

It could also be my favorite from Biosphere, though that's a really hard decision when all the other contenders sound so different from eachother. But along with this, Cirque, Microgravity, and Substrata can all hold an equally impactful spot in the journal

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Mondo Bungle

I ain't gonna stop, losers. You can never break my SPIRIT



Never understood why they call this one art punk. Even post punk is a little stretch. But whatever. I love listening to it. It's perfect for all occasions and all company. Can never go wrong with Pink Flag. I've listened to it countless times and it's always fresh. It'll be with me til the end

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Frownland

I've never really been sure about that either.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.