23 Minutes Over The Trenches - Malmo 26/11/05

Suicide. One of the great unsung groups of the pre / post New York punk scene. Undervalued and unloved, except by the few who were switched on enough, they released the seminal S/T release which deserves a place in everyone’s record collection. In 1978 they undertook a European tour and ended up recording the chaotic live release "23 Minutes Over Brussels". Only "Metallic KO" beats it in the extraordinary fucked up live stakes. I have a feeling that someone from UGP has a copy of this live release somewhere because "Live Aktion 01" has the words "23 Minutes Over The Trenches" stamped on the inside cover. Can’t fault them for taste if this is the case.

UGP features the combined talents of Komrade Blitz (Lirim Cajanai of Institut infamy) and Kommando Reinhardt (Martin Willford of Shift) having a free form drunken ball at a rather exclusive club deep in the heart of fucking cold Malmo, Sweden. Maybe exclusive isn’t quite the word… but you do pay fuck all to get in and all they ask in return is that you buy your drinks from the bar. Sounds fair to me. This release, limited to 77 copies, is the first CDR from these two noise mongers… although there is "The Koncept of Armed Struggle" - cassette limited to 40 copies and ‘What We Want,What We believe’ - cassette limited to 50 copies floating around out there… and what a thoroughly enjoyable excursion into the inner depths of ‘balls to the wall’ extreme electronic music it is. One track of utter craziness where the singer (as such) lets rip will all manner of shouting and screaming over a suitably frazzled noise extravaganza. The words being sung (a slight contradiction but never mind) are suitably passionate and aggressive and the electronics sear with the intensity of an exploding fireball.

That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less. Sounding slightly Whitehouse (ish)… or for that matter any other number of similar like minded artists… "Live Aktion 01" is exactly as described. A live recording of these two artists letting rip over 23 minutes with a gusto much to be admired. Being a fan of Institut (check out "The struggle never ended" and "Live Like Traitors, Die Like Traitors" non believers) with Martin also impressing me with his contributions to the Shift / Mutant Ape - "Split release" [read review here], "Live Aktion 01" fully lived up to everything I expected. My head hurt after hearing it blaring out of the amplifier… set to 11 naturally… which, of course, appealed to my masochistic streak. A little bit of extreme noise is good for the soul. I just hope the spectators enjoyed the gig as much as I enjoyed reliving the experience of it through this CDR.

ANM