JERI ROSSI - I Left My Heart But I Don't Know Where (7" 1983)

If you enjoyed the Your Funeral single posted a couple months back you’re in for a exceptional treat because next up is the one and only, powerfully haunting solo recording from none other than Your Funeral vocalist/guitarist Ms. Jeri Rossi!

Recorded in 1983, this single has two tracks total, the A-side being an original song written by Jeri herself, and the flip a boldly feminized cover of the James Brown song It’s A Mans Mans Mans World. Both songs share the same spirit found in Jeri’s previous work, but the approach here is a little different, more poetic perhaps, with word and instrumentation woozily tangled together in a cacophony of mismanaged passion. For myself, the first track, I Left My Heart But I Don’t Know Where, is the easy winner of the two… a dense, dark, rhythmically bubbling brew of loud, confusing, disagreeable sounds recklessly spiked with Jeri’s wrathful tongue... within seconds the song’s contagious mood had me piled in goose-bumps and curling my upper lip in accordance. Highly recommended for fans of angry women like Lydia Lunch, Jarboe, and Bikini Kill.

I Left My Heart But I Don’t Know Where

I left my heart but I don’t know where
it’s beating on someone’s stairs
or in a dumpster where he tossed it
I wish someday to come across it…

I feel so hollow, made of tin
fingers quiver, chest sunk in
the question that comes to mind
“Why a heart is hard to find?”

Feel like a bullet in someone’s gun
he pulls the trigger, then he runs
into the banquet, pain and thunder
I’d rather be SIX FEET UNDER!

I left my heart but I don’t know where
I left my heart but I don’t know where
I left my heart but I don’t know where
I LEFT MY HEART BUT I DON’T KNOW WHERE!

JERI ROSSI - I Left My Heart But I Don't Know Where (7" 1983)

1. I Left My Heart But I Don't Know Where
2. It's a Mans Mans Mans World

DOT #13

AKA – Red Therapy (EP, 1980)

This is no-wave through and through –funk, jazz, blues, punk– it’s all here, smashed together into one big, messy, spastically bouncing ball with the letters AKA stamped across its bruised side. Now, I looked, and looooooked, and looooooooooooooked(!!!), but wasn’t able to find much information concerning this arcane Canadian crew. But what I do know is that this was their prized recording, and unfortunately the only recording they completed for that matter.

“Red Therapy” operates much like a wind-up toy… just twist the little thingy and stand back for a colorful display of animated derangement that pokes and prods while spilling guts all over the place. Each of these six songs -although easily identifiable as AKA- has a unique texture to it, making for a nice palette of seemingly mismatched sensations that will pester, delight, enthuse and confuse. The EP begins with stop-n-go jabbing from the short and abrasive opening track “God”, then abruptly shifts to a melody-driven, Talking Heads/Devo-esque song called “City Drugs”. The singer has a boisterous style, often quivering from low to extremely high pitches in the transportation of a single syllable… just imagine Alfalfa from Our Gang fronting a freaked out cartoon artpunk band and you’ve got the right idea. You’ll want to dance when “634 Dog” unleashes its ultra squeaky, raw funk attack; and you’ll keep dancing once the antigravity effects of the dizzy and twisting “Ragged Andy” kick in. But beware, because the next track, “Fear”, aims to molest the mood with its creepy crawly pace and disturbing declarations; while the closing song “Mental Timeboms” goes completely bonkers, threatening to push you over the edge with some really batty time changes and confrontational posture. Amazingly enough, there’s a great deal of pop sensibility camouflaged beneath AKA’s unconventional approach to their music, but after just one listen they should easily win you over with personality alone. Try it.

DOT #9

CIRCUS MORT - Self-titled (EP, 1981)

Before they graced us with the monolithic Swans, Michael Gira and Jonathan Kane released this curious relic of bash-you-up NY postpunk called Circus Mort. Sharing a musical approach not so terribly unlike their peers, Circus Mort were able to carve their own pint-sized niche by taking the basic angular, bass-driven postpunk formula, and injecting it with a good dose of grit and gravel resulting in something that might best be described as Wall of Voodoo smacked in the face with a Big Black shovel. This self-titled EP is the band’s one and only studio recording, and although only fourteen minutes long, it promises to bend your mind and body with it’s commanding presence and sour disposition. Gira’s trademark vocal style of testosteronian grunts is already in full force here, and if you listen closely you can almost hear a feathered white beast angrily wading through the music’s chunky, jagged no-wave underpinnings. From the dangerous pitter-pattering of “Swallow You” all the way to the super fun, slaphappy “Watch The Puppet” this EP will have you in state of blissful confusion - trapped somewhere between the dance floor and the moshpit.

DOT #7