From: awrc@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Al Crawford)
Newsgroups: rec.music.industrial
Subject: Review: Monte Cazazza - The Worst Of Monte Cazazza
Date: 31 Jul 92 08:15:43 GMT
Reply-To: awrc@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Al Crawford)
Organization: The University Of Edinburgh - Department Of Computer Science

[ Apologies if anyone sees this twice, but it seems that since the switch
  of moderator in r.m.r. to Leo Breebaart any reviews I've posted to r.m.r
  have disappeared into the void rather than going to him. I can't
  establish if they ever arrived, since mail to him just bounces. Until
  the fault is fixed or Stewart returns, I'm going to have to post my
  reviews directly to r.m.m. or r.m.i. since, if I can't get mail to him,
  it's unlikely the news system will be able to forward postings either. ]
 
Capsule Review: Overview of the career of Monte Cazazza ranging from the
weird/disturbing stuff he did on Industrial in the late seventies to a more
contemporary industrial dance sound. Good coverage, interesting material.
Erland Rating: +2

Monte Cazazza		The Worst Of Monte Cazazza	Mute MONTE 1 CD [UK]

	Total Running Time: 78 min 12 sec

	1.	Psychiatric Review				2:09
	2.	To Mom on Mother's Day				3:26
	3.	Candy Man					2:32
	4.	Rabid Rats (Vietnam)				2:08
	5.	Distress					2:20
	6.	Mary Bell					2:21
	7.	Kick that Habit Man				2:04
	8.	First/Last					5:13
	9.	Tiny Tears					1:38
	10.	Stairway to Hell				4:49
	11.	Sex is no Emergency				2:57
	12.	A Snitch is a Snitch				8:59
	13.	Six Eyes From Hell				4:45
	14.	Liars (Feed those Christians to the Lions)	5:25
	15.	A is for Atom					6:09
	16.	If Thoughts Could Kill				4:45
	17.	Mark of the Devil				6:16
	18.	Climax						8:00

This aptly-titled compilation from Mute's Grey Area subsidiary catalogues
the career of the infamous Monte Cazazza, cultural terrorist, colleague and
contemporary of the Throbbing Gristle crowd and all-round generally weird
person.

The CD starts off with a spoken psychiatric review by Bart Alberti M.D. in
which he concludes that Monte is, to summarise his lengthy evaluation, the
sort of person who should be kept in a rubber room and well away from your
children lest he eat them. Having been through the CD a few times, I can't
really find any evidence of this, and have to conclude that the
"psychiatric review" is fabricated for disinformation purposes. Sure, Monte
has a pretty grisly sense of humour and a certain preoccupation with the
occult and matters sexual, but he generally seems to approach these more in
an interested, investigative sense than an obsessive one. Or maybe I should
be locked up too?

He does seem to have been at his, erm, oddest back in the late seventies
when he was associated with the Industrial label and Throbbing Gristle. The
material from this period ranges from "To Mom On Mother's Day", with
Cazazza mumbling unintelligibly over (well, "under" would be more accurate
to be quite honest) a Throbbing Gristle noisescape, to "Candy Man" with
Monte simultaneously narrating three threads documenting the deeds of a
serial killer over more TG electronics. Other goodies include a spoken word
(over synths) piece on the use of rabid rats in Vietnam, the toy piano and
female sing-song backing vocals of "Mary Bell" and, oh, lots of other
things, many of them quite odd. The only sections that make you wonder if
perhaps Dr Alberti had a point are "Distress" which is...well, distressing
in places and "Tiny Tears" which demonstrates a rather gory sense of
humour. As for the others - well, all Monte's doing in "Rabid Rats" and
"Candy Man" is documenting real-life. Would committing Mr Cazazza for this
be a case of shooting the messenger?

Later material gets rather more conventional. "Stairway To Hell" and "Sex
Is No Emergency" are pleasant enough musically, with only Monte's lyrics
taking them in odd directions. Hell, "Sex Is No Emergency" even features a
Casio VL-Tone, what more could you want? "A Snitch Is The Snitch" is an
extended musing on principles and honour (or the lack thereof) amongst both
criminals and the police. Interesting, but it goes on *way* too long.

Things get confused from here onwards since what's listed on the leaflet
and what's on the CD differ in their order. The track listing given at the
top of this review reflects the actual ordering on the disc. The annoying
thing is that the tracks *should* have been in the order that placed all
the Atom Smashers and Love Force tracks together, rather than mixing them
up.

Monte definitely seems to have mellowed over the years or at least to have
directed his more extreme impulses into other media such as film. While "A
is for Atom" is percussive dancy synth industrial (in the more contemporary
sense of the word), "If Thoughts Could Kill" is melodic stuff, almost like
conventional pop/rock. For some reason (probably my untutored European
ears) his speak-sung/rapped lyrics here make him sound vaguely like Fred
Schneider of the B-52s. "Mark Of The Devil" is in a similar vein and
liberally sprinkled with appropriate samples, although the guttural demonic
backing vox aren't exactly top 40 fare. Perhaps too *light* to be
classified as industrial in the modern sense, it's still good stuff.

The most recent material by the Love Force is to an equally high standard,
although rather less cerebral lyrically. "Six Eyes From Hell" features some
nice violin work and a purposeful, loping beat. "Liars" is decent dance
industrial with female vocals and some rather neat lion noises. The one
predictable piece is "Climax". You know before you even play it that, yep,
it's time for the obligatory industrial sex-noises song. A slow paced dance
track with Michelle Handelman on orgasmic moans and vocals, Monte on
keyboards and both Monte and Elden M on sampling (the expected mix of
sex-related samples). Unexceptional, but at least it sounds like Michelle
enjoyed herself (well, enjoyed pretending to enjoy herself anyway).

I personally really like this disc, much more than I thought I would.
There's stuff here to appeal to fans of both "old" and "new" industrial.
Those who like *both* forms are doubly lucky. Nothing represents the cream
of either genre, but it's still well worth a listen.

Erland Rating: +2
Crawford Rating: Vermilion/Strawberry/Borzoi

--
		      Al Crawford - awrc@dcs.ed.ac.uk
			   "Click click drone."