Sunday, March 11, 2007

The Parasites of the western world-S.T.,LP,1978,USA

Down from Portland, Oregon came the two-man Parasites, spreading electronic weirdness throughout the land. Patrick Burke and Terry Censky play just about everything but the kitchen sink; they're aided by an occasional guitarist and drummer on their two combo albums, but it's mainly them.
The first LP is full of dense (but not monotonous) semi-electronic rock pieces. Some have words, but most are evocative, cinematic instrumentals that are good and loud ! As a treat, they run through the song that might have inspired them — the Beatles' "Flying."
From Trouser Press

This way out of print lp (though there is always hope for a re-release on cd, one of the members of the group is still releasing solo albums) is somewhere between a lost classic and a forgotten band. There was a myriad of post punk bands at the time and this is one of the weirder and more uncategorizable ones. The first track is a Chrome knock off (though this is when Chrome was just starting its essential line up so they might have shared the scene), the 2nd track is a bizzare, purposely cheesey take on the Beatles "Flying" (I always liked the Mellotron and sound effects on that track to begin with) that goes into hyperdrive. Other songs don't go anywhere and have a post rock type sound (20 years before that genre was invented though). It would be interesting as a game to re-release this as a new album and hear people claim how it ripped off Animal Collective or the Black Dice. Parasites of the Western World first s/t album is a fascinating investigation (I've heard their 2nd album is not quite as interesting and more conventional though) into a band, that yes, in a real world sense was ahead of their time.

Note: Link removed as this has recently been reissued by Destijl Records and can be purchased Here

5 comments:

GRK. said...

Great to see this link's still working. Thank you!

caleb said...

thanks this is great! the first track sounds a lot like chrome.

AEZ said...

Just bought the reissued vinyl (and paid wayyy too much for it). Thanks for the Mp3s!

AEZ said...

Just bought the reissued vinyl, but I didn't have Mp3s. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Just bought it as a download thru iTunes, and weirdly it has the same loud surface crackle as the old rip you posted years back! They have (sneakily?) selected their store samples so that this is not evident until you buy it and hear the whole tracks (you really only hear it at beginning and end of tracks). Damn, I was hoping for a nice clean sounding copy.