Unrest Classic or Dud?

102 Beats that publication date = 26th September by the way, i.e. six months after part 1.

I get the feeling it needs to be thought of somewhat in context to be appreciated. American indie rock coming through into the nineties was pretty much deplorably rock: the 80s models were bands like the Replacements or Fugazi, big shouty crunchy-chord American rock bands, and just before 93 -- when Perfect Teeth was released -- a great grungy shot of even rawkier influence had been injected and toppled the whole thing over toward the mainstream. Meanwhile the UK was seeing stirrings of a less traditionalist indie approach -- Too Pure, roots of post-rock or what-have-you -- but while plenty of American bands were following this, they weren't really impacting the overall course of American indie, and even the American bands flogging that stuff in the UK, like Th Faith Healers, still had heavy doses of very American grit.

Perfect Teeth was not only an antidote to that but an advancement on it. It was entirely clean-lined: Robinson's big guitar blasts pretty much lacked distortion -- in America! in 1993! -- and instead gave us that frantic sped-up jangle that's distinctively his contribution to the lexicon. The record was also spacious, and spacey. At the point Stereolab was still working its wall-of-sound drone, but a lot of the tiny blip-tone melodies Unrest were constructing pointed ahead to the stuff Stereolab would be doing during a much later phase of their career -- the backing vocals at the end of "Angel I Will Walk You Home," for instance, this sort of concrete tone-placement approach that's all over the record. They managed to turn the foreground of their music into something like a Mondrian painting, the clean-lined blocks of particular tones, in a way that seemed to turn away from most of the other things going on at the time, and the sort of techy spaciness of those tones combined with Robinson's vague leaning toward some image of a 50s-style pop combo to create and probably surpass what would, four or five years later, become a major theme in indie internationally, even though no one connected that with anything Unrest had been doing.

It seemed cleaner and spacier and more friendly and cerebral than the highly-emotive rock idiom of the moment, and more bedroomy, and more personal: "Back when I was twenty / I didn't think anyone liked me." And it managed to set all of its most fascinating impulses in context: it functioned terrifically as a rock album, as a pop album, and as an "experimental" album. Which is, I think, a lot of why it gets praised so often, but also a lot of why it gets slated as a run-of-mill record: it certainly seems continuous with most of what else was going on at the time, but really it's quite difficult to come up with anyone else who sounded quite like them, or even anyone else who's particularly followed the techniques that were actually uniquely theirs.

Well, I probably shouldn't have used the term "indie-pop" so loosely, as I meant it colloquially, and not as any sort of "pop" at all. Ooops.

Don't get me wrong. "Make Out Club" and maybe "Cath Carroll" had at least some potential for radio play, IMHO. But as a whole, "Perfect Teeth" is certainly not a 'pop' record.

Nabisco did a GRATE job of his summation of said record. Though, I'll add that since listening to a heavy dose of early Factory record bands since, I can now definitely hear those elements in almost all of Unrest, unique they may be, in the 90s. Mark Robinson would be the first to admit it. (Well, "A Factory record" is pretty much an admission right there)

Also I think their post-Unrest projects do a good job of pointing up what was uniquely theirs: the minimalist concrete rock of Flin Flon is really quite intriguingly assembled, and deserves credit for feeling more like the propulsion of let's say Gang of Four than most of the bands actually imitating Gang of Four; and I still think the Air Miami record is lovely, a perfect showcase for the side of Robinson that's obsessed with arranging these clean hypnotic tones into breezy beachy pop songs. It also gets at his weird habit of taking Factory-style sounds but swinging them toward punchy major-key pop (the Stockholm Monsters are maybe the only precedent I can find for this, and it's still sort of different) -- as generally "new-wave" as they sound, it's tough to find very good analogies for the approaches of "Sweet Little Heartbreaker" or "Neely."

I saw them live at Maxwells after Perfect Teeth and they did this long a capella bit that was beyond goofy. Bridgid Cross started to crack up in the middle of it, which was cool.

The bonus tracks aren't hugely revelatory (and fans probably have 'em already, except for the demos), but do buy it for the nice remastering job.

this is the truest statement on this thread. as a guitar player, "cath carroll" makes me jealous. as a songwriter, "isabel" makes me jealous. as a grammarian, this paragraph is loaded with problematic sentences, but i'm too lazy to edit it.

There are a million things about the album I love, but I particularly love the double-tracked vocals on "Blushing" and how they diverge into non-obvious, amazing harmonies. Or on "June" where Bridget sings a pedal note for the "How did it feel to be 26 degrees?" part along with the main vocal melody.

...or how they put two instrumentals back to back, as if to say, "These are not throwaways" - and they are indeed essential! (On the other hand, I wouldn't have cared if they had left off "Food & Drink Synthesizer" from Perfect Teeth.) You have the drum machine precision of "Champion Nines" followed by the kinda-sloppy-but-in-a-good-way drumming of "Sugarshack".

Mark's guitar sound is just perfect. I mean, when I listen to the opening notes of "Goodbye," I'm practically in tears.

How does ILX rate the Phil Krauth solo albums? I only have Silver Eyes - it's okay, didn't really inspire me to buy more, though. That Panax song that was on one of the TeenBeat samplers was great. Do they have anything else?

http://64.224.76.125/miva/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=KRAD&Product_Code=KCD016&Category_Code=IJ

The Panax 7" is so so so so great. Their entire output is that 7" and the comp track which is also great.

i'm gonna have to top and say completely fucking classic! i love this band so much.

I totally love their cover of "God Gave Rock and Roll To You". After being blown away by that in the early 90s I picked up Perfect Teeth and never really got into it. But that one cover was amazing.

And right you are for it! xpost

After not listening to them for a year or so I random-shuffled onto "Imperial" the other day and was elated all over again. What a great band.

Yeah, to me they are just undeniably fantastic. Its so easy to call them one of my all time favorite bands.

The comparison to "what goes on" way up thread is very otm

Was just thinking about them a bit yesterday. Very glad to have caught them twice, both times great.

I saw them the night Bill Clinton was elected! They were great.

Was just reading Matos' "great out-of-print albums" column on Perfect Teeth in Idolator the other day.

'I do believe that you are blushing'was always a favourite of mine
Beautiful. That album (Imperial...) on the wonderful and badly missed Ajax records for a while?

I have an album by Unrest in my loft that sounds more like I thought Unrest would sound - punk. And it's not the one with the girl on the cover.I've just done a fruitless, probably lazy, google and not found it. Any ideas?

Sorry - talking to myself here - think it was their first album

Malcolm X Park?

One of my favorite bands of all time.

Fortunately, I was visiting friends in DC and was there for this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQbUIgn7PIs. You find crazy shit on the internets.

Hmmm, I just noticed that the two Air Miami demo cassettes are available from Teenbeat on CDR. I have mp3s of one of them...not bad. May have to place an order.

Listening to Imperial F.F.R.R. for the first time in forever (nice remastered LP reissue). Might like it better now than I did then, and that's saying a lot. A lot a lot a lot a lot. Especially digging the more abstract tracks that seemed so much less immediately appealing when I first heard it. Best semi-unheralded U.S. indie rock LP of the early 90s? I dunno. How much competition is there? More than anything, I like how of its time and genre it sounds without sounding like anything else out there. It presents itself superficially as this casually scruffy, almost tossed-off object, very much in the style of the moment, but the arrangement and sequencing are incredibly well integrated. is It doesn't "break barriers" or invent a whole new pop aesthetic, but it hums along with this oddly propulsive slackness and hits it out of the park song after song after song. I can see why some might be annoyed by the sentimental directness of "Isabel", but it's short and sweet enough for me to accept without qualms. In fact, Isabel's only deficiency is its tendency to be held up as the album's avatar (when Imperial & Loyola obviously deserve that honor). Only thing I really miss is "Yes She Is My Skinhead Girl", and maybe the 7" version of "Cherry Cherry". "Wednesday and Proud"?

Now I wanna dig out Kustom Karnal Blaxploitation and Perfect Teeth.

It's just not Imperail ffrr without Yes She is My Skinhead Girl and Wednesday and Proud.

Must be a UK v. US thing - I don't associate those songs with Imperial f.f.r.r. at all. Good songs, but in my mind would tip the album toward a poppier vibe than it should be.

I'm North American but have a UK version. Those are two of the best songs on the album, and I couldn't live without them (I guess US distributers were a bit sketched out about songs about fucking skinhead girls on sandy beaches?)

Also I was shocked to find out how bored I was by Perfect Teeth about a month ago. I spent a long time looking for a copy, and now aside from utter classics like Angel I'll walk you home, Breather xoxo and six layer cake, I can barely be bothered. Not a criticism, per se, as much as a personal feeling of disappointment.

Don't think US distribs were sketched about anything. It's just that the UK version tacked on a few contemporaneous singles that might have been hard to track down outside the States. I.e., those songs really don't properly belong on Imperial F.F.R.R. Sort of standard practice for US vs. UK releases. Most of the US Fall LPs include singles not on the original UK versions.

And, yeah, I always saw Perfect Teeth as a disappointment in the wake of Imperial. Decent record on its own merits, just a bit of a let-down in comparison.

perfect teeth is great!

so, is it weird that i LOVE almost everything i've heard from mark robinson since 1991 (cherry cherry single), but that i've heard very little before 1991? i mean, i just never sought it out. i love unrest, i love mark solo, i love flin flon, i love air miami, i like (maybe not love) grenadine. i think maybe i'm afraid i won't like the earlier stuff as much. or maybe i'm just a weirdo. and i still need a copy of origami and urbanism.

Early stuff is very different, so your trepidation makes a kind of sense. Prior to Imperial, I don't think they really knew what they wanted to do or be, so they sort of bounced around through their influences. Kustom Karnal Blaxploitation seems like the epitome of this. Slots in with the loud guitars, funk-metal tendencies and dangerous/transgressive fascinations of early 90s indie/avant culture, but the band doesn't seem to feel terribly comfortable in that clothing. Skinhead Girl single seemed like the breakthrough at the time, the point at which they became themselves (kicking off a rush of great material on the run-up to Imperial: Factory EP, Bavarian Mods, Cherry Cherry).

Don't think US distribs were sketched about anything. Since they were on the label they ran I would say no, too. Also noteworthy that they didn't tack those on to the remaster.

Scott -
The further back you go the less pop and more post-punk Mark's work is; if that's your thing, it's worth exploring. I have copies of some of the early cassette stuff but never dif out anything pre-Imperial.

x-post

Picked up a copy of the Isabel Bishop EP at the shoppe this morning - after trying and failing to find the "Skinhead Girl" 45 (where do things go when you aren't looking at them?). So great, and it's especially interesting to hear Teenage Suicide and Nation Writer in the context of this discussion. They seem like the bridge between Kustom Karnal and Imperial, along with She Makes Me Shake Like a Soul Machine, which sounds totally out of place on KK.

Now I gotta track down BPM and the Cath Carrol EP...

As far as I know, the two older tracks that fans of late Unrest need to hear are, "She Makes Me Shake Like a Soul Machine" and "Can't Sit Still." Not to say that the other stuff isn't worth hearing. My favorite song of theirs is still "Vibe Out!" Completists shouldn't forget the Mod Fuck Explosion soundtrack, only one song of which is on CD to my knowledge.

2nd Can't Sit Still - that was the song that first caught my attention, twenty goddam years ago. Would add Christina to the S list, also from Malcolm X Park.

"Vibe Out" is one of my favorites also, so good.

also search "Headringer" from the Magic Flowers 7" box and the acoustic "Cath Carroll".

Forgot about Headringer! Box was called Magic Ribbons, irc. A lot of it was crap, but that's a great Unrest song it also had a whole bunch of early Sebadoh tracks, including Cyster, which I liked a lot. Plus I loved the shit out of Mystery Tramps' The Trip, though I don't think I ever heard anything else by the band. Kind of CVB-esque.

The label, Leopard Gecko put out some early Seaweed stuff, a Treehouse single that I remember half liking, cool stuff by an Melvins-y Oly band called Dangermouse and a Barbed Wire Dolls 45 that's still a guilty pleasure (vaguely reminiscent of The Cult).

[/waybackmachine]

Apologize for the terrible prose/grammar there. And elsewhere.

the 'fuck pussy galore' cd has at least five tracks that would appeal to fans of the imperial-era stuff. i think it's pretty easy to find cheap secondhand

i just remembered that courtney love did a cover of 'skinhead girl' that i don't think i've ever heard, i should seek it out for laffs

those Sebadoh tracks are now on the Domino reissue of Freed Weed (xpost)

Picked up a copy of the Isabel Bishop EP at the shoppe this morning- - love love love this version of the song & also the Marine Girls cover. I wish I had access to it right now, actually, but it is buried in a box somewhere..

Aaaaand this afternoon I picked up BPM, just to get full coverage of the circa-Imperial singles & cetera (OCD kicking in hard). Nice that this stuff is so easily available used in indie shops. Again, the entire whoosh of songs they released between late 1990 and early '93 is just incredible. Sudden outpourings of all-genius material in otherwise uneven careers are strange. Welcome, but strange...

Why why why hasn't some aspiring rapper sampled "Champion Nines" (off Imperial)?????

I own this album in a few different formats as it is, plus many of the bonus tracks on various singles/EPs, so I probably won't buy the reissue unless it's attractively packaged. (Please don't let it be attractively packaged.)

It's not, but like I said, it sounds great!

Why why why hasn't some aspiring rapper sampled "Champion Nines" (off Imperial)?????

― Mr. Snrub, Monday, October 12, 2009 1:22 AM (fifteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

And also why why why did it take me so long to get into this band? I had only ever Imperial but until last week that was it. Holy shit, their albums are all awesome!!

Folks throw around the term "underrated" a lot these days, but (imo) Malcom X Park and Kustom Karnal are secretly two of the best & most underappreciated albums of their era/"scene".

Not to overdo it, but I’m so pleased with how this reish has “opened up” Perfect Teeth for me… I always considered it “good, better overall than Imperial, maybe not as strong as Air Miami”; but now it feels like a true classic.

Shit, now I'm probably gonna buy it again.

It kills me that 4AD didn't release the deluxe remaster of the Air Miami album on CD! I like how they mixed the three extra songs into the track list, instead of just stick them at the end. (This remaster sounds nice, too, as far as I can tell from the digital version.)

(I didn't know that Mike Fellows was AM's original drummer, and played on the (excellent) Airplane Rider / Stop Sign single!)

He was also the drummer on American Water.

It's being weirdly underplayed in the official announcement from the Wedding Present, but their Seamonsters anniversary tour in North America next year has Mr. Robinson doing Unrest songs as the opening act. Minor detail there!

https://media.brooklynvegan.com/xxrzsfjkyw/uploads/2025/10/27/wedding-present-seamonsters-tour-2026.jpg

@Ned: Mark's opening for Coffin Prick and Fred Frith in a couple weeks in the Richmond. First SF show since Perfect Teeth.

https://www.4-star-movies.com/calendar-of-events/live-music-fred-frith-coffin-prick-mark-robinson

Quite a combo there!

Mark has been doing solo medley sets where he tries to jam in as many Unrest songs as he can do in a row

man i gotta say that does not sound good

not to yuck other people's yum but i don't think i could sit through that and i love unrest

I dunno, I think I'd totally be up for a huge medley of Unrest tunes played at "Cath Carroll" pace.

Mark Robinson is a master of the 30-second song snippet, as evidenced by his Cotton Candy turn.

I mean if I'm going to see the Wedding Present anyway (and I am)...

Saw him a few weeks ago. Was introduced by a comedian talking about Gen X music stuff and laying out the rules of what the performance would be - 50 songs in 30 minutes (or was it 30 songs in 50 minutes?). MR was pretty delightful/charming, but a little goes a long way / the songs really do blur together, when played truly solo. YMMV of course!

somebody posted a video of him doing the medley set and it rules

I would take either the medley or 50 mins of "Hydroplane", nothing in between.

ha oh look I posted that video upthread six months ago

Steve Shasta r u going to this: https://www.4-star-movies.com/calendar-of-events/live-music-fred-frith-coffin-prick-mark-robinson

I've really been on the fence because I'm stuck downtown until 7:30pm.

But if YOU are going perhaps that tips the scales. Plus that lineup is so weird and funny.

Robinson is gonna do an annual dc area holiday show with other Teenbeat acts December 28 at little Galaxy Hut in Arlington, VA