The UK post-punk impulse was a sizeable one, its prolificacy ranging from cornerstone acts to DIY obscurities. Landing somewhere in the middle is The Mothmen, their 1981 LP Pay Attention! holding the distinction of being the second entry in the discography of Adrian Sherwood’s On-U Sound label. Upon release it failed to find an audience and for years has basically been a footnote to a handful of larger success stories. In a classy move On-U Sound is giving the record a welcome vinyl reissue with bonus tracks on the download; it’s available May 29th.
In the realms of reissuedom can be found a steady stream of uninspiring and occasionally downright dubious choices, but when underappreciated, totally scarce and frequently pricey items are granted new life the endeavor is largely vindicated. Of course, proper credit should be given to the individuals with the good taste and foresight to have documented said recordings in the first place; in the case of Pay Attention! that someone is Adrian Sherwood.
A key architect in late-20th century music, Sherwood’s early productivity is nicely detailed on Sherwood at the Controls, Volume 1: 1979-1984 as recently compiled by On-U Sound, the long-extant label initially conceived by the artist to catalog his work as a producer. Amongst the names corralled by the 2LP are Maximum Joy, The Fall, The Slits, Shriekback, Mark Stewart and the Mafia, Annie Anxiety, Prince Far I, and African Head Charge.
A major aspect in Sherwood’s method was collaboration, often with musicians of Jamaican descent, and a main ingredient in his sonic recipe was the boundary pushing echo-sponginess of prime dub. The inaugural On-U Sound release (On-U LP 01) is the self-titled 1981 debut from The New Age Steppers; produced by Sherwood and featuring contributions from Bruce Smith and Mark Stewart of The Pop Group, Viv Albertine and Ari-Up of The Slits, Vicky Aspinall of The Raincoats, Vivien Goldman, and Steve Beresford, it fits exceedingly well into On-U Sound’s MO.
Following shortly thereafter was the platter reviewed here, its contents fitting less tidily into Sherwood’s general scheme of things. For starters, he had no involvement with the recording, and in fact his only direct musical connection to The Mothmen was a dub mix of the disc’s opener on the ’81 Cherry Red comp of Sherwood material Wild Paarty Sounds Volume 1.
The Mothmen came together in late-‘70s Manchester as three members exited The Durutti Column; Dave Rowbotham, Chris Joyce, and Tony Bowers were part of the unit that appeared alongside Joy Division, John Dowie, and Cabaret Voltaire on the ’78 double 7-inch “A Factory Sample,” their departure cinching-up The Durutti Column as the project of Vini Riley as Bob Harding completed the lineup of The Mothmen.
Harding and Bowers were formerly in comedy rockers Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias. Both took part in ’77’s Stiff Records-issued “Snuff Rock,” a fun if minor EP (sometimes compared to the Bonzo Dog Band, they frankly weren’t in the same league) designed to accompany a musical play concerning a punk group’s attempt to work self-negation into their act.
The concept was inspired by the idea of snuff movies and specifically Michael and Roberta Findlay’s notorious ’76 grindhouse fake-out Snuff (utterly ‘70s tagline: “The film that could only be made in South America… where life is CHEAP!”). These ties to The Durutti Column and Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias provide vivid background as well as experience, but The Mothmen ultimately stand on their own achievements.
In September of ’79 “Does It Matter Irene?” b/w “Please Let Go” emerged on Absurd Records, Pay Attention! arriving the next year. Once “Afghan Farmer Driving Cattle” is heard, Sherwood’s decision to release the LP and to deliver the aforementioned dub version is unsurprising; commencing with a foghorn-like passage trailed by a swirl of strings and echoed percussion, as the strumming toughens the environs soon evolve into a full-blown reggae affair.
The atmosphere is suitably humid, and in its third minute the pace quickens for a coda driven by guitar melodiousness and a drum attack redolent of metal trash cans getting wacked by steel rods. “Afghan Farmer Driving Cattle” is the most Jamaican-influenced portion of the proceedings, however; the off-kilter wiggle in the opening seconds of “Animal Animaux” foreshadows countrymen Stump of C86 fame.
Loaded with sax skronk and angular motion, the meat of the track suggests a raucous merger of Rough Trade/Fast Product aggressiveness and No Wave abrasion fronted by a highly emotive Richard Hell disciple. Coming on its heels is the nervous catchiness of “Not Moving,” its brevity immediately taggable as a UK post-punk proposition.
Pertaining to labor and leisure in a nutshell, “Factory / Teapoint / Factory” underscores their conceptual mettle, its bookending sections somewhat (and almost certainly coincidentally) reminiscent of “Machines” by Lothar and the Hand People. And “Please Let Go” (the b-side to “Does It Matter Irene?”) presents an inclination for abstraction sandwiched between art-groove tangents; it underlines a recurring structural motif that thankfully resists hardening into formula, partially due to the heavy sax honk in the side-closing “Tardis (Sweep is Dead, Long Live Sweep).”
The flip is devoted to a solitary number, “Mothman” totaling 20 minutes. After a brief and rather eerie rise in volume the piece conjures a tribal grind and examines it for nearly the duration. While not transcendent, enough variation arises to justify the length. Maybe it’s just due to recent listening, but “Mothman” reminds me of the side-work of Wire’s Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis dating from the same period.
The appended entries, three previously unheard, effectively add heft to The Mothmen’s thrust as the utilization of digital preserves the LP’s integrity, a circumstance I consider preferable to the tacked on extras of the CD-era; there’s the terrific “Afghani Dub,” a radio version of “Does It Matter Irene?” and a cover of Syd’s “Vegetable Man.” Additionally, it seems nothing is culled from their subsequent output on Do It Records.
Perhaps more important than The Mothmen’s post-Pay Attention! stuff is that from ’84 to ’89 Joyce and Bowers were the rhythm section for neo-blue-eyed soul hit-makers Simply Red. Sadly, in ’91 Rowbotham was found dead in his flat, reportedly killed with a lathe hammer. The Happy Mondays’ “Cowboy Dave” from the ’92 album Yes Please! was written in his memory.
This reissue does more than temporarily return a too seldom heard component in On-U Sound’s narrative to easy availability for the benefit of post-punk fanatics and those bonkers for Adrian Sherwood. It also offers another look at the early motions of a worthwhile entity lost in the upheaval of 1981. In 2015 there is essentially zilch on the contempo scene that resembles The Mothmen, and that makes Pay Attention! a breath of fresh air.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B+
