One of the few American R.I.O. outposts extant during their existence from the mid 80's to the mid 90's, Fot Records during that time issued a spate of these Passed Normal compendiums as a means of documenting some of the crosstown traffic between the R.I.O. scene and a particular iteration of experimental rock as seen through a distinctly American prism that spans from Snakefinger to Eugene Chadbourne. Most of the excitement that's generated on the compilation at hand though is coming courtesy of the non-American contingent, the exception to this rule being the first number out of the gate, a total stunner from a seemingly short-lived outfit named Fred and featuring Amy Denio of the Tone Dogs, whose recently shared album this is in the precise mode of. Other peak bits here include a diamond cut R.I.O. gem in the dancing folkloric style of Samla Mammas Manna and Fred Frith's Gravity/Speechless period served up by a quartet featuring Quebecois R.I.O. stalwarts Rene Lussier and Jean Derome, working together here with avant cellist Tom Cora and R.I.O. godfather and monster drummer Chris Cutler (a slightly different version of a suite from their Three Piece Suite CD). Lussier and Derome also score another winner with a trio in tandem with their Quebecois compadre Robert Lepage, whose lyrical yet wonky clarinet work tugs their track into David Thomas "More Places Forever" territory.
Track listing:
1. Fred with Amy Denio-Golden Rule/Mad Furry Love
2. Peter Blegvad-Shirt & Comb
3. Jeff Kowalkowski-Prelude To Houdini
4. Eric Drew Feldman-One Stray Hair In The Beer
5. Tom Cora-Experts
6. Tom Cora/Chris Cutler/Jean Derome/Rene Lussier-Trois Pommes à Coté Du Sommeil
7. Edwin Pearce/Secret Dave-Blessed Are The Meek
8. Zozobra-I'm Blind
9. Jeff Michael & Scott Lucas-Space
10. Brave Combo-Tick Tock Polka
11. Blitzoids-Hell Hound
12. The Sediments-Old Man Campo Santo
13. James Mcmanus/Pink Bob/Tom Cora-Sleepy Old Snake
14. Rene Lussier/Robert LePage/Jean Derome-Adieu BiPede
15. Jeff Michael-Chimes
16. Snakefinger-Save Me From Dali (Live)
17. Snakefinger-8 1/4 (Live)
18. Shockabilly-I Keep The KKK In Line
19. Shockabilly-Shockabilly Weekend
20. Skeleton Crew-Killing Time (Live)
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What does the acronym "R.I.O." stand for?
ReplyDeleteanonymous-R.I.O.=Rock In Opposition.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_in_Opposition
Ah, interesting.. I had some Art Bears, Univers Zero and so on back in the day.
ReplyDeletebtw, is this post == the Bunny Lakers LP list in the "wants" column? Or perhaps it isn't complete...
http://bx59cppw.blogspot.com/2010/06/bunny-lakers-numbers.html
wow !
ReplyDeletewhat an obscurity !
believe it or not
i think i might have all the PN volumes oN CD somewhere around here
i used to have a bit of a friendship with one the FOT guys (who eventually changed their name to Ponk)
good guy - his name was Pink Bob and does the Sediments tracks ...
great !!
Wow! I never thought I'd see this again. Thanks so much.
ReplyDeleteIf nooneastern ponies up some more PN I would love to get Vol. 1.
ReplyDeletePart of a collection of cassettes stolen out of my monkey shit brown, 1979 Toyota Corolla in 1988...
I own this CD and I urge everyone to listen to it. A great collection of tracks. Most of the Bands represented here were unknown to me, but as a fan of the RIO movement, and seing Fred Frith and Chris Cutler on the list, I had to have this. There were 2 different artwork for this release; mine is blue, not white.
ReplyDeleteI eventually bought all the other Passed Normal volumes as soon as they were released. All of them are great.
By the way, this PN compilation is subtitled "Volume 4" but I think it was the first to be released on CD. Volumes 1 to 3 were released on LP only.
I own the the "Volume 1" LP which contains 20 minutes of Skeleton Crew (Fred frith + Tom Cora) live. The track "killing Time" on the "Vol. 4" CD is actually taken from this first LP release.
XM