While the sound collage of Negativland's first three studio albums pointed in the band's ultimate direction, they were really rough sketches compared to Escape From Noise. Escape is a full-on audio assault, more musical than ever, but with tight and well-constructed sound sections thrown in. Instead of simply a collection of sounds and snippets, however, each cut on Escape From Noise picks a target and takes aim. "Quiet Please" takes on market research in the world of radio. "Michael Jackson" is a laundry list of pop stars being charged with creating commercial pop. "Sycamore" turns happy, shiny, new pre-planned communities into something far more sinister. Although some other tracks ("Yellow, Black and Rectangular," "Car Bomb") don't really take on particular targets, they're fun nonetheless. Probably the most accomplished piece is the strangely creepy "Time Zones," which talks about how many time zones there are in the Soviet Union (there are 11, by the way, and it's not even funny). Although it wasn't apparent at the time, the centerpiece of the album would be "Christianity Is Stupid," a prime example of how sound bites can be rearranged to say whatever you want them to say. (The full sound bites appear on the album Helter Stupid, the first half of which was inspired by a media frenzy after the band suggested that a murder may be attributable to "Christianity Is Stupid," as an excuse to get out of having to tour in the wake of this album, which turned out to be a much bigger success than anyone expected.) Scattered throughout the album are unexpected guest appearances from some of the biggest names in underground music, including Jello Biafra on "toilet flushing," the Residents on "hoots and clanging," and the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart on mouth sounds and "processed animals." In addition to better-constructed material, the production quality on Escape From Noise is also top-notch, making it a joy to listen to. Although future works would prove more controversial, this is probably Negativland's masterwork.
Track List:
1. Announcement
2. Quiet Please
3. Michael Jackson
4. Escape From Noise
5. The Playboy Channel
6. Stress In Marriage
7. Nesbitt's Lime Soda Song
8. Over The Hiccups
9. Sycamore
10. Car Bomb
11. Yellow Black And Rectangular
12. Backstage Pass
13. Christianity Is Stupid
14. Time Zones
15. You Don't Even Live Here
16. The Way Of It
17. Endscape
Download: Negativland - Escape From Noise (57MB)
9 comments:
I already have this one but I would definitely be interested in anything else you migh be making available.
Many thanks
Ugoralph
negativland is teh best!
a great conceptual LP
thanx
used to have this back in the day. thank you so much.
I still have the "CAR BOMB" sticker that came with this on my guitar amp,excellent stuff ta
this is fantastic music! thank you very much...
sadly,
track 4 and 6 are not playable
is there a chance to upload them maybe separately? would be very, very nice.
(excuse my bad english skills - i hope this sounds not rude)
Anonymous: You aren't being rude. I'll check on the tracks that mentioned. You may want to download it again and see if you have the same problem. Sometimes rar archives can become corrupted when downloading them. If they still aren't working then I'll re-upload them for you.
Thanks for this one. I remember it from my younger flat-sharing days in North London.
But I must concur with Mr Anonymous. Tracks four and six will not play.
Re. the unplayable tracks 4 & 6
I converted to wav with dbPoweramp and then converted back to mp3.
They both play fine now!
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