'Insects in upstate New York' inspired the chittering soundswarm of "Helen Forsdale", says Mars guitarist China Burg. 'We were trying to get the guitars to buzz'.
Mars - Helen Forsdale 1978
Burg's and vocalist Sumner Crane's vocals sounded like torture victims or people undergoing extreme states of dissociation or mania. Voice as weapon or wound, their singing sounds deeply disturbed and is genuinely perturbing - at the extreme (say, in "Hairwaves") resembling the debris of a shattered psyche.
Mars - Hairwaves 1978
"Orphans" is probably Teenage Jesus & The Jerks's most famous song (largely for its couplet 'No more ankles and no more toes/Little orphans running through the bloody snow'), but the group's archetypal 'short fast soundstab' is "The Closet". Drummer Bradley Field's hammer-blow snare and singer Lydia Lunch's harrowed shriek merge into a tolling death-knell rhythm midway between spasm and dirge. The whole vibe runs the gamut of vaguely Teutonic s-words: stark, severe, strict.
Teenage Jesus & The Jerks - Orphans 1978
Teenage Jesus & The Jerks - The Closet 1978
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