Ghost Box

The news that New York based band SUSS is going to release a new album made to listen to their debut album released one year ago. The music is hard to describe but ambient country music comes very close to it. The quintet is led by Bob Holmes a multi-instrumentalist and member of a cowpunk band called Rubber Rodeo. All the members of the band had worked with different artists like B 52's, Lydia Lunch, David Bowie, John Cale, Burt Bacharach and many others. SUSS once asked What would it sound like if Brian Eno had produced the Western film scores of Ennio Morricone? Certainly like SUSS but I can also hear a bit of Boards of Canada in their music. The songs are quiet and slow but showing great musicians doing a fantastic job.

Funky Friday

I think it was in the late 70s when the ZE-label appeared on the scene but I got aware of it in the early 80s. The No Wave scene was gone and many artists were signed by ZE-records. In these days a new fresh and weird sound slopped over from the other side of the Atlantic ocean. James Chance, Material, Lydia Lunch and others fascinated us with their new and unbound sound. Lizzy Mercier Descloux was a forming member of French punk scene together with Michel Esteban the co-founder of ZE-label. Soon they moved over to New York to join the local punk scene around Patti Smith and Richard Hell. Her first record Press Colour was a brilliant little masterpiece of funk-influenced punk. Like many others she made cover-versions of well known songs and her version of Arthur Brown's Fire might be a good example how to interpret an old song. With her second record Mambo Nassau she had more influences of African music in her sound. But still the funky guitar ruled the sound although the sound was warmer than before. After a few more records she quit the music business to live in the Caribbean and working as a painter. She died 2004 at her birth place in Corsica.