Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Foetus- Deaf + Ache , LPs, 1981/2, UK


Jim Thirlwell(aka FOETUS) was born in Melbourne, Australia. He briefly studied Fine Art at Melbourne State College (now part of the University of Melbourne) before moving to London, England in 1978, where he played with the post-punk band prag VEC and formed the first of his numerous musical projects, Foetus. He released his first 7" single, OKFM/Spite Your Face, in 1981, on his own Self-Immolation record label. Over the next three years, he would release two more singles, a 12" EP, and three full-length albums, Deaf, Ache, and Hole, the latter his first release on Some Bizzare Records.
In 1983 Thirlwell moved to New York, where he is still based between his frequent tours. Since his move he has released six singles, fourteen EPs, including Stinkfist, with fellow New York artist Lydia Lunch, and seventeen full length albums, as well as remixing numerous pieces for such diverse artists as Nine Inch Nails, Front 242, The The, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Marilyn Manson, and Voivod. In the 1980s, under the pseudonym Clint Ruin, Thirlwell contributed to some releases by Nurse With Wound.
Since 2000 Thirlwell has become more active as a composer, having written commissions for Bang on a Can and Kronos Quartet and scored the Adult Swim cartoon The Venture Bros. He also began two cinematic instrumental projects, Steroid Maximus and Manorexia.
Alter egos and split personalities
Throughout the span of his career, Thirlwell has toyed with his own identity by releasing music in the guise of numerous alter egos. During the earliest phases of his recording, Thirlwell's "groups" were comprised of a plethora of fictional characters: Foetus Under Glass supposedly consisted of Frank Want, Phillip Toss and two Brazilian statistics collectors; Scraping Foetus off the Wheel was claimed to be the work of Want and Clint Ruin. Furthering the confusion, Thirlwell adopted these personas outside of his own recordings; for example, Frank Want can be found on The The's Soul Mining.
Thirlwell's persona of Clint Ruin was particularly notable. During the mid-1980s and early-1990's Thirlwell exclusively went by this pseudonym, even conducting interviews as Ruin. As Ruin, Thirlwell was a member of Wiseblood and Flesh Volcano, recorded two collaborative EPs with Lydia Lunch, and starred in and scored films of Richard Kern. Ruin is also credited on numerous releases for a variety of roles with Boss Hog, Coil, Fur Bible, Annie Hogan, Nurse With Wound, Pigface, Sonic Youth, Workdogs and others.
This practice seems to have been discontinued prior to 1995, and "J. G. Thirlwell" is credited on all subsequent musical recordings. However, Thirlwell currently makes DJ appearances under the pseudonym DJ OTESFU (an anagram of Foetus).
Music
J. G. Thirlwell's music - under his various project names: Foetus, Wiseblood, Steroid Maximus, Baby Zizanie, Manorexia and others - includes elements of punk rock, 20th century classical music, industrial music, big band, Americana, African and Cuban percussion, and epic/horror film soundtracks. Much of Thirlwell's aural output is built on a percussive, rock music-type structure, though to call it rock music would be inaccurate and a gross understatement. Thirlwell prefers not to categorize music in general, and this is evidenced in the way his music renders genres meaningless: by means of accomplished studio-as-instrument craftsmanship, Thirlwell combines percussion, strings, distortion, brass, electric guitars, electronic sounds and voice into a single, frenzied, epic symphony of hate, pain, violence, grief, beauty and fury - at once powerful, complex and primal. Recurring lyrical themes include destruction, persecution, anxiety, abuse, incest, masochism, angst, self-destruction, self-abuse, lust, prejudice, murder, failure and machismo, often expressed using American colloquialism and black humour. J. G. Thirlwell is also a member of freq_out and THE FREQ_OUT ORCHESTRA.
Musical projects
Foetus — Thirlwell’s main project. From 1990, up until 2006's 'Damp', all Foetus songs featured lead vocals.
Steroid Maximus — Primary instrumental project.
Manorexia — Experimental instrumental project.
DJ OTESFU — DJ work.
Wiseblood — Collaboration with Roli Mosimann.
Flesh Volcano — Collaboration with Marc Almond.
Baby Zizanie — Collaboration with Jim Coleman.
Garage Monsters — Collaboration with skater artist the P!zz.
The Immaculate Consumptive — Touring ensemble with Lydia Lunch, Nick Cave, and Marc Almond
The Venture Bros. — Musical score by Thirlwell.
from Wikipedia

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Many sweet, sweet kisses for this one!

My vinyl of these two were stolen a long time ago.

Loki said...

cheers for these... my only copy is one of those bootleg cassettes they used to sell at record fairs years ago... in fact, i discovered loads of music like that... looking forward to starting slogging again...

Loopy C said...

Wow, 'Ache' already deleted ;-(

Anonymous said...

is there anything different from the LP's and the CD's for these two albums?

foetus said...

To whom it may concern

It has come to my attention that you are offering free downloads of my albums on your blog. Although you may feel this is harmless, as the artist , author and copyright holder of these works and I choose not to have my works distributed or promoted this way. It is detrimental to my income and erodes my choices of distribution, including digital deals. It makes it impossible to recoup from all my hard labors.
If people wish to sample my music they can do so from my website. Buying a copy of the CD does not constitute a license to distribute its contents,stream it or use it as digital content or use it as digital content for your site or blog.. These tracks are not for free public download.
If I wanted to give it away I would do it from my own site.
Please respect my viewpoint and stop this immediately.

Yours sincerely
JG Thirlwell

Anonymous said...

well I guess that's that!

Anonymous said...

Oh well. I was never really fond of his works anyways. ;P

Anonymous said...

I've got both of these on vinyl fortunately. I should point out though that if Mr Foetus doens't want people trading copies of his OOP releases he should post them ALL as downloads, shounldn't he? Good to see that Deaf / Ache are (finally) available c/o his site though - I've (seriously) lost count of how many C90s I had to run off with those 2 LPs on! IBx

Anonymous said...

Good luck getting people to yr shows JG...

These records were made nearly 30 yrs ago, and no one was buying them then, so what combination of cosmic forces would drive people to buy up now?

I could understand yr position if its a new record yr actively promoting through touring and the like,

..but its being a tad precious getting yr back up about some records that hardly anyone could care for a quarter of a century ago let alone today...

Say hi to Lars Ulrich for me.

Anonymous said...

If hardly anyone could care anymore these days about hearing these albums, then why did we all wind up on this page? Regardless, nobody visits this site to hear the best-sellers of a particular era. If they did, then this page would be filled with albums by Journey, Loverboy, REO Speedwagon, Styx, New Kids on the Block, and yep, Metallica. Unlike Mr Ulrich, Mr Thirlwell isn't angrily waving around out user ID's, demanding justice. He politely informed us that (unlike a great deal of the releases on this site) his works are still available for sale, and that sharing them lessens the probability and frequency of newer releases, which, by the way, have been excellent. If you are not willing to pay for a legal download of his albums, then you'd most likely be the guy trying to get into his show for free, anyway. So many of us have worn the grooves out on our Foetus albums becsue it's such great stuff! The only cosmic force it took to visit Amazon and pay for a download was the awesome force of Thirlwells music. He's still working hard, recording and performing to this date. Isn't a little respect in order?