I've been getting into NON's stuff more recently, first I got "Easy Listening for Iron Youth" which seems to be a retrospective of his early stuff, and "Recieve The Flame", which I quite liked. Recently I ordered for "God & Beast" and "Children of the Black Sun" (the latter because I'm interested in gnosticism and I hear the album is about that) and a friend is sending me "Blood And Flame" and "Physical Evidence". I find his style very interesting. Personally, I doubt he's a Nazi (a Satanist, maybe, you never know). Actually, he's associated with a lot of musicians I like, such as Coil and P-Orridge, so he can't be THAT bad (I hope!) I actually don't know that much about Boyd Rice, but I read an interview he did once where he said something that I thought sounded kind of misogynistic, but maybe he was just joking or something.
Whitehouse is a bit trickier. A lot of their albums from their Come Org period (1980-1985) I'm not that crazy about because they seem very poorly recorded and put together, kind of slap-dash to be honest. Still, I think some of those old records do hold up in terms of noise music and they did pretty much create the power electronics genre. I liked how they deliberetly set out to make the most repulsive records ever concieved, and in many ways they stuck to that vision, some of their early stuff is virtually unlistenable from that period. What I don't like about them from that time was their arrogance, especially as to how William Bennett was always dissing Throbbing Gristle and Industrial Records, what he didn't get was that TG didn't want to be the most hardcore noise band ever, they were more about subverting music (and people's idea of how music should sound) in general. Ironically Come Org stole a lot of ideas from TG. The swastika-like logo of the label wasn't very different an idea then TG using a picture of an Auschwitz oven as a logo, for example. And TG did a song about Ian Brady and Myra Hindley 7 years before Whitehouse did. Basically Whitehouse just expolited the imagery TG had explored (visually and sonically) already and just took it to the next label. That's why Whitehouse's serial killer/facist phase seems so half-hearted to me (then again, the phase only lasted about 3 or 4 albums between 81-83). The only really misogynistic album Whitehouse did at that time was "Right To Kill" but I blame a lot of that on the fact that Kevin Thompkins of Sutcliffe Jugend was a member of the band at the time and writing most of their songs (though I'd be lying if I'd say that I didn't like Sutcliffe Jugend's "When Pornography Is No Longer Enough": But I got that album for free anyway so I can sleep easy at night). You have to remember William Bennett was only like what. 18 or so, when he started Whitehouse so I think a lot of the imagery used by the band in those days was just immature shock tactics.
To me Whitehouse's most important work started around 1998 (though they did have a good album around 91 and 95) when they did "Mummy & daddy", an album about domestic abuse. This was the first album where they really began to use digital technology and it was a vast improvement, for the first time they had songs with lyrics going on for pages, and the new lyrics were much better then the old stuff.
Some of the lyrics were still repellent, but one track, "Daddo" (about child abuse) has some lines like "No, these words that slide out of their lazy holes are the same as any other road noise/noise as sad representation/myth/a safe remove. aggrandizing, desperate, resigned and ultimate seperation/only words". I'm not quite sure what Bennett's talking about but I think he may be addressing Whitehouse's older lyrical stance. With their 2001 album "Cruise" the band moved into a type of arty intellectual territory, with lyrics critiquing religion, self-help, and things of that nature.
But for me the definibg Whitehouse moment has been their newest album released recently, "Bird Seed". A lot of the hardcore Whitehouse fans seem to hate this album but I think it's one of their best, if not their best period. This album, for the first time in Whitehouse history, actually has rhythm on some songs, though it's very subdued. One song, "Cut hands has the solution", is just lyrics being shouted over a pounding tom drum. The lyrics seem to be about Sierra Leone and self-help books and victim culture and that Barrymore actor guy who had someone drown in his pool or something (?) But there's one song, "Philosophy", that begins with an a misogynistic rant but, halfway through, changes tone and suddenly gets personal, with Bennett whispering about the death of a friend of his who was stabbed to death. His voice on this song seems resigned and broken, and it's hard to believe it's the same man who was singing "It's your right to kill" 20 years before. Suddenly, the violence that Whitehouse mythologized on their old albums seems very silly and pathetic when viewed in the light of reality, and maybe Bennett realizes this because now the band only plays songs from "Bird Seed" and "Cruise" live now, with only one or two old songs.
My only gripe with Whitehouse as of late is each of their last 3 albums has at least one track that consists of ten minutes of samples recorded off TV, mostly samples of people talking about their rape/abuse as children on day time talk shows, these tracks are really dull and not really shocking at all, Peter Sotos makes them, but Whitehouse kicked him out of the band (finally!) before Birdseed so hopefully I'll see no more of those. I was actually always a little squeemish about Whitehouse's association with Sotos and I'm glad he's gone now, I can't say I like that man very much.
What interests me about Whitehouse is that they are one of the only industrial noise bands from that period that is still around today, and the fact that their new stuff totally blows their old stuff away (with most bands it's usually the opposite). It interests me that they've gone from being one of the most hated bands in England to critically acclaimed artists (namechecked now by people like Sonic Youth, Aphex Twin, Autechre, etc.) In fact for their 100th live show they were supported by Aphex Twin, Merzbow, and Bill Russell, so the band has really come into their own I think. I read that "Bird Seed" was recently nominated for a prestigious electronic music award, I hope it wins, it's quite a good album. |
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