The 1981 Listening Post - Bamboo Zoo - Look! Listen! Consume!

 Reviewed by Paul J Zickler / LISTENING POST DISCOVERY

Released: 1981 Bamboo Zoo Look! Listen! Consume! Genre: Post-Punk Rating: 4 out of 5 Highlights: Look! Listen! Consume! The Interminable Twang Grow/Strive/Fall Brave New Whirl Emerging Do The Archipelago “Look! Listen! Look! Listen! Look! Consume!” track one begins. Frantic tribal drumming, high pitched guitar with heavy tremolo, hypnotic bass line, chanting, singing, weird noises. It’s crazy ass post-punk, and I’m here for it. Bamboo Zoo was a Manchester band featuring former members of IQ Zero: Mick Duffy, Russ Entwistle, Joe Duffy and Gordon Holden. A song of theirs called Ghost Party got lots of airplay from John Peel. Both that single and this album became highly sought-after collector's items among post-punk fans. I get it. There’s a restrained tension and energy in songs like Grow/Strive/Fall and Brave New Whirl that’s pretty intoxicating. Lead singer Mick Duffy straddles the line between melodic and annoying with great skill. Chiming guitars alternate haunting and taunting the listener. Drums teeter on the edge of losing the beat, then pull it all together. And of course, since this is post-punk, bass anchors everything, although sometimes it’s notable for its absence, as on the minimalistic Wires and String: just one guitar with rhythmic sound effects, bell chimes, and the occasional floor tom thump. They dip into goth a bit on tracks like The Box and Aku-a-Calling, but there are also echoes of early R.E.M., Wire, and Pylon. The Interminable Twang feels like all of the above, plus a little Pere Ubu. You might be reminded of Talking Heads on the track Submarine (although the vocals drift too far toward annoying, the super creative instrumental work makes it worth hearing) or Emerging (there’s a Bush of Ghosts feel, but the whispering takes it in a slightly creepier direction - “these obsequious things / are killing you”). Well Done Earthling might give off the faintest whiff of Bowie, but the unpolished, DIY approach begs to differ. Do the Archipelago marries a Bow Wow Wow beat to some surf guitar and inscrutable lyrics. I would have loved to see what the preppy kids at my high school would have done had it been played at an after game dance on a Friday night. I’d like to think I would’ve pogoed my ass off, which I was tempted to do when I listened to it on a Tuesday night just now. Track twelve, The Beat to Eat, reprises the “Look! Listen! Consume!” chant, only this time in echoed, panned, effect drenched vocals, accompanied by primal drums, snatches of guitar and bass, and more weird sounds, finally ending with a repeated echo of “Consume!” over and over into a fadeout. The album cover makes bold claims: “The Dance to Chance! The Disc to Whisk!” It’s just a damn fine post-punk outing that scratches that itch over and over again on twelve tightly wound tunes. The YouTube link was missing a few tracks, so I did some digging in various online locales and managed to listen to them all. If it didn’t cost $35 or more to get a copy shipped from the UK, I’d consider picking one up. I quite like this record.