You've Got Foetus On Your Breath - Deaf
#447
September 1981
Foetus
Deaf
Genre: Noise & synths & shrieks & glurps
2 out of 5
It’s rare that Pitchfork and I agree. I’ve gone on record as saying that, if they like it, chances are I won’t. There are rare exceptions and this is one of them.
They say that this was probably unlike anything else heard at the time and I agree. And, I think you can easily hear NIN and Marilyn Manson, among others in Thirlwell’s experimentations. And, while I appreciate the loops and carnival weirdness of stuff like “Is That a Line?”, I’m not sure I really missed out on anything back in that day, unless I was planning on following a career in industrial music.
I was not.
But Thirlwell is building to something. Plying his trade, practicing his craft, using the tech at hand. And this will all pay off a few years later.
This is the early early days of what we have today: completely self-produced digital “music”. I’m certain that there are others but Foetus was there early and should be noted for their ground-breaking.
Side Two opens with…rap. Industrial lo-fi rap. By an Australian expat living in Britain. And “Today I Started Slogging Again” is…awful.
