Throbbing Gristle's Twenty Jazz Funk Greats (33 1/3)
"Daniel brings erudition and clarity to the 33 1/3 series with writing that's both meticulous and giddy...Daniel achieves a fantastic hat trick— a love letter to an unacceptable band about their least-loved album in a book series that, until recently, was reserved only for acceptable albums. Let the wrecking of civilization begin." —Brian Joseph David,Eye Weekly(Brian Joseph David)"Drew Daniel employs a very rich lexicon, but chooses hiswords judiciously. More importantly, he admits right up front to being a hugeTG fan boy, and that enthusiasm translates — even when he veers towardshead-scratching territory — particularly in some of his interview passages withthe band members (all of whom participated in the creation of his book). And byfocusing squarely on the group's music, not their sensationalistic trappings,in a song-by-song analysis, he opens up the listening experience, both toneophytes and diehards. I might never have imagined such a thing was possible,but Daniel's musings on 20 Jazz Funk Greats have made me a committed ThrobbingGristle fan. And that kind of connective tissue I can heartily endorse." —Weirdat my School Blog, KXEP"Always perverse, Throbbing Gristle was perhaps never more sothan on their 1979 release, 20 Jazz Funk Greats. From the cover art, which atfirst glance appears to your standard "band outdoors" snap, (but is actuallythe group assembled at Britain's Beachy Head, a suicide hotspot) to the almost"normal" synth pop found within, TG deliberately alters reality until it nearlycomes back around- nearly. Drew Daniel, one half of the electronic groupMatmos, draws on new interviews with the group to craft a look at one ofmusic's most extreme, intense and provocative artists, who delighted here insubtle rearrangements of benign elements into darker statements, such ascaptured field recordings of young children, mashed against a simple drummachine to create "Persuasion". Daniel ably illustrates the sheer brilliance ofthe record, in which TG turned down the volume but upped the intensity of theirmessage. At nearly 200 pages this is one of the longer "33 1/3" releases, butis such a captivating look at the legendary group of pop culture provocateursthat you won't put it down." —The Big Takeover"This is afascinating and thought-thorough accompaniment to the album, augmented byinterviews with all the group members, which uncovers a trove of pertinent unfamiliaritiesin songs which feel like longstanding parts of the mental furniture afternearly 30 years." —David Stubbs,The Wire,UK(David Stubbs)"I fell into this book likeAlicedown an unfathomable darkrabbit-hole.It reads like a rivetingdetective novel, so concisely has Daniel (AKA one half of Matmos) wovenpersonal history (both TGs and his own), (un)reliable narration (thanks to themembers of TG themselves, contradictory bastards the lot of them), closedissection (a forensic/anatomical tank being particularly appropriate with TG)and overarching pop-cultural critique...this tiny volume on only one album in themassive TG oeuvre situates the group so powerfully in the appropriatehistorical, personal, and musical contexts that I never wanted the book toend.It's a vivid, revealing, and verypersonal work that is beautifully written from start to finish, and my favoriteof the 33 1/3s so far. " —Warped Reality Magazine