Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel

I just bought Limb, a recent collection of all super early 80s stuff, lots of Steve Reichian experiments, piano pieces, Severed Heads-esque tape manipulation. Some beautiful and awesome stuff.

i keep meaning to get this. do you know if the version of "sick minutes" is different to the 12" version?

ooh a foetus thread bump! 'finely honed machine' has been on my current ipod shuffle roster and is a most energising 9-minute trip into the dark heart of JGT

I don't know the vinyl bg...the version of Sick Minutes on Limb is 8 minutes long, while it's 2 minutes on Sink.

Looks like it may be the same...from http://www.foetus.org/ under Limb there's a ton of historical info about each track.

Sick Minutes was originally recorded in 1982 at Lavender Sound, an eight track studio in South London where I recorded my first two albums, DEAF and ACHE, with Harlan Cockburn engineering. It's working title was "Six Minutes", as I conceived it as two three minute sections, but I was very ill the day that I was recording it and it got re-christened "Sick Minutes". The percussion is toy wooden marimbas, aerosol cans played with small mallets, prepared piano. You can also detect a tin whistle. I later took it to Wave studios in Hoxton Square where I revamped it and added the vocal loops which pushed it well beyond six minutes.
The revamping session happened when I was recording the Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel album HOLE. I had created a lot of vocal tape loops by multi tracking my voice on 24 track. We then mixed these on to 1/4" tape in major and minor chords. We stretched the tape loop then I would "play" the tape machine as an instrument, pitching it with varispeed , and re-record that back onto the 24 track. I would mark the varispeed knob with a grease pencil to indicate the key notes that worked with the key of the song. Then those tape loop performances were submixed and bounced into an arrangement. This is the same method I used for creating the voices on "I'll Meet You In Poland Baby", like a mellotron without the mellotron.
The phrase "unmutual" that is sung at the end comes from an episode of the TV show The Prisoner, where Number Six is branded unmutual for being uncooperative. I seem to remember a part where the villagers converge on him chanting this. This piece also features acoustic guitars at the end, in one of the only times I have ever used them. It was released as the b-side of a limited edition twelve inch under the name Foetus Uber Frisco.

I have to say, I've always enjoyed what I've heard of his but never fully explored his catalog, I've gotten to know him a bit in NYC over the years, running into him every now and again, the last time at the Fairway supermarket in Brooklyn where he was confused because he misplaced his cart! (I think somebody else took it) but this has been a revelation to me. I randomly put on Primordial Industry which I had off a downloaded rip from the original NWW compilation and assumed it was a different Foetus, but when I looked it up and realized it was the same, I had to buy Limb.

thanks dan. "hole" was my foetus entry point and for years i thought it was the greatest album of all time, but now it's "deaf", "ache" and the early singles i listen to the most, so i really need to get this.

ordered.

ok. i know ysi is a no no but this is long out of print and it's a lo fi mp3, so.....

"kid hate kid"

genius.

https://rcpt.yousendit.com/712507604/587e3a44d33854437d81538080e67fb6

you know he played synth on the pragVEC! Lp before leaving London for NY? Their drummer Nick Cash was also in The Lines but Thirwell didn't seem to remember them when I asked.

Oh btw rife is available on emusic. Trying to resist the urge to burn all my foetus stuff and make a mint on amazon. One of the Marc almond singles is starting at $40!

Today is the first of september......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmO5N5TVwpc

nice. there was a cringe worthy interview on resonance fm this evening with jg thirwell. he seems like a cool a guy who's heavily into music but the interviewer was a complete dick. he even mispronounced einsturzende neubauten

I've been trying to find a podcast of this but cannot. Can you explain further?

(I mean, it just aired today and it's expecting to much that the host has uploaded a podcast and some website maintainer has put it up.)

too much

Feet are smellin' (Foetus Melon)

Today is the first of september......
― stirmonster

Meant to revive this yesterday then forgot all about it. Giving it a wee listen now.

http://www.last.fm/music/Foetus/_/I%27ll+Meet+You+in+Poland+Baby

Three years running this has had a "TODAY IS THE FIRST OF SEPTEMBER!" shout.

has Sink ever been remastered? I have an early Wax Trax and a later Thirsty Ear and now I see there is a 2007 Some Bizarre reissue, but no notes about remastering from the original 1989 version.

I don't think it has ever been remastered. The 2007 version in the digipack is not a remaster although it has been described that way when mentioned collectively with the remastered versions of Hole and Nail.

thanks!

JOHN JUSTEN if you are reading, I have now heard the cover of Shrunken Man and I am obsessed with it as it is *PHENOMENAL*

altogether now ..

"Today is the first of SEPTEMBER !!!!"

[anyone heard anything from the new album thats in pipeline .. ]

you beat me to the punch! :)

after my youngest woke me up with 'pinch punch 1st of the month' this morning, i was determined to hit this thread.

of course, reading the news yesterday that jim is to release a new album, hide, kind of got me in gear

Am watching a LOT of awesome Foetus videos tonight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYhU2RmbA5I

Like, tell me big-band jazz has been done better than this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azTQ12nyW_c

slung is the best thing on gash by far.

big-bnad jazz has been done better than that

big-nad jazz has been done better than that

Today is the first of Septembah!

LIVE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDre17rNvV0

i love this annual kick in the nuts to help remind us of jims excellence.

there aren't many records that mean as much to me as hole and nail do. there's an element of intense personal expression that i don't really get from his subsequent work. in an interview years ago he said something along the lines of feeling like he was going to die in the course of making each of these albums, such was the effort he was putting in to them.

so great

I listened to "Hot Horse" this morning in honor of the day.

Today is the first of Septembah!

so it is ....

Ach, missed it!

jim actually did the same thing on his official facebook page yesterday ..

made me laugh.

I was wondering about remasters and sound and stuff. Have wanted to get OKFM in decent sound for a while, I love the 3D intro section on that particular track. Subsequently wanted it in best possible sound.

Also would love a copy of Mother I Killed THe Cat. I had the single but every time I put it on tape the tape broke and I wondered if that was just coincidence.

Has anyone else noticed what feels like an unnaturally enormous number of used Foetus LPs out there in the world? I feel like I encounter Foetus as much as Carole King, or at least Poco.

you clearly have some interesting charity/used record shops as i have never ever come across any used foetus albums !

I have two Foetus related trivia questions of my own devising:

1. Which song by the Dickies is apparently sampled on which Foetus song?
2. What's the connections between Foetus and Phyllis Diller?

1. no idea
2. no idea

and i thought i was a fan !

more fool me.

i mean i could ask him, but he does not suffer fools gladly, and i am fearful that this would put me on the 'this f*cker needs to burn in hell pile !"

hole - nail - thaw

best trilogy ever ?

i think so.

just given them all a spin tonight and to say i got the same blood rush as i did back upon their release would be an understatement.

unbelievable stuff given the studio restrictions of the day ..

Male is maybe the best live album ever recorded.

i saw that tour

it was immense.

in london the support was gary clail and on-u sound.

which was perfect for me, but mad as a box of frogs for others.

and then when jim jumped into the moshpit and beat the living daylight out of one of the moshpit crew then the levels of intensity went up to a whole new level.

blood. violence. and elton john cover versions.

what more could you ask from a concert.

Yeah, it was an awesome tour right enough.

I remember hearing the album for the first show in Prong's tour bus - Troy Gregory was unusually proud of it.

Watch out for JG at 2:25 on this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No2ukc5V4EM