Dans
Language Recovery
Guru
Nzambi Ia Lufua
Killing Hurts Give You The Secrets
Ruthless Babysitting
Dumping The Fucking Rubbish

Some Whitehouse trivia for you to enjoy. "Asceticists" is the 18th CD release by Whitehouse. This figure includes the two compilations "Cream of the Second Coming" and "Another Crack of the White Whip". There’s also been three Japanese fanatics CD releases and some vinyl only releases. The only back catalogue releases not yet out on CD are "Right to Kill" and "Psycopathia Sexualis". A long story but don’t expect to see them any day soon…although a trawl through Record Collector magazine or eBay sees them occasionally turn up for exceedingly stupid money. Stupid as in £200+. If you visit the Susan Lawly website you can also find various Live Action cassettes and VHS tapes to add to your Whitehouse collections. People, or should I say Whitehouse fanatics, just can’t get enough of their product. William Bennett is the veritable cottage industry for everything Whitehouse related. "Asceticists" will therefore sell out, no matter what sort of reviews it receives, thanks to the grip that Whitehouse holds over their fan base.

I like Whitehouse. I have all the CDs. I wear the t-shirts with a sordid pride. Though I have stopped short of the cassettes and VHS tapes…but…if they put out a DVD I would buy it. And for the life of me I don’t know why this is the case. Whitehouse haven’t progressed musically, although sound quality and production has, in any form over their many years in existence. Sure members come and go like a revolving door policy. Peter Sotos is the latest MIA but Whitehouse rolls on. It never hurt Mark E Smith so why should it affect Whitehouse. I’ve read countless multi-worded reviews that have tried to dissect every word in an ‘oh so serious profound’ manner and the intellectual arguments put out by WB in interviews on the Whitehouse experience and I’ve laughed out loud. Come fucking on folks. It’s Whitehouse. And they exist because we the buying public want them to. We want the shock of hearing ‘Fuck’ and ‘Cunt’ and other offensive profanities being yelled out. The furious words of a hatred we all associate with but are too scared to speak ourselves. Whitehouse are the spokesmen for our generation. They talk of sex as it is. Dirty and messy. Of dying relationships seething with resentment. Of lives stuck in a static rut. Of technology shack jobs fucked beyond repair. WB has come a long way linguistically. Where once the words were simplistic and raw now they are almost poetic in structure but always, always challenging. "Asceticists", like its illustrious predecessors, doesn’t move from this formula of searing electronic noise and ten to the dozen spoken monologues. Yeah…so they’ve bunged in a music only track which was nice…and the best track as far as I’m concerned is ‘Killing Hurts Give You The Secrets’ which has to be heard to fully appreciate it. And it’s a Whitehouse release. What more do you want. I have it. I’ve played it countless times. I enjoyed it in the same masochistic perverse way as all the others. It will fill the gap until the next one gets released.

But the truth is…even though I have this soft spot in my heart for Whitehouse…I anticipate the continuing "Anthology" and "Extreme Music from..." series and the proposed WB solo release far more. Perhaps it’s because I’m getting older and wiser that I’m immune to whatever Whitehouse can throw at me. All known taboos have been broken by Whitehouse and the 100’s of their imitators. I’ve heard it all before. Then again…I bought this exactly because it was Whitehouse. "Asceticists" is to date their best recording. Only to be bettered by their next release probably. I just wish I could explain or comprehend why this should be. Same as it always was.

ANM