Supreme Dicks - Breathing and Not Breathing [Box] [10/18] *

Artist:

Supreme Dicks

UPC:

656605215525

Description:

Liner Note Author: Florent Mazzoleni.
Photographers: Alex Konheim; Colin Loggins; Caroline Newstead; Jason Danziger; Rich Lee; Azalia Snail.
The Supreme Dicks so completely thrived off a sentiment of "if boxed in or defined, immediately leave" that the idea of an all-encompassing box set that covers their truly cryptic recording career is almost impossible to contemplate. But Breathing and Not Breathing provides exactly that, pulling together both of their formal albums, The Unexamined Life and The Emotional Plague, the odds-and-sods compilation Workingman`s Dick, and their Italian-only EP This Is Not a Dick -- plus even more obscure moments -- into one convenient spot. If anything, their resistance to summary makes further sense in a new century; while acts like No-Neck Blues Band and practically every last part of the Tower Recordings family tree are only two similarly inclined agglomerations of across-the-map artistic impulses, the Supreme Dicks set a particular tone even earlier. Perhaps even more so than the three longer releases, This Is Not a Dick captures just what is so hard to easily say -- whether it`s the twisted, na?ve bursts of reverbed steel guitar (or steel guitar-like) on "Untitled," the sweet bitterness of "Summertime (Childhood`s Impossible Now)," or the apparently live recording chaos of "Leaning on the Everlasting Arm," the sense is of putting things together just because, a curiosity that constantly shifts ground, as much roots work as futuristic oddity. The fact that the one definitely live track, "Harmonic Convergence," begins with a member asking the audience "Does anyone want to play drums with us?" sums up the spirit of the band as well as anything else, the wryly voiced request seeming to elicit little more initially than bar chatter and snippets of background butt rock. The further five cuts on the disc include both sides of their only stand-alone single, "Sky Puddle," and the creepy guitar-as-music-box feeling into murky jam of "Country of Nuns." Then there`s "Careful with That Axe, Steve," presumably referring to member Steve Shavel; if the result isn`t as psychotic as the Pink Floyd it references, it`s still a quick, wiggy blast of demi-space rock jamming. The remaining full-length efforts sound as enjoyable and strange as ever, including the group`s one sort-of hit, "Jack Smith" (courtesy of Low`s cover version on their Transmission EP), and the whole is a portrait of a collective creative spirit that sounds as unsettled and fascinating as when the original recordings were made. ~ Ned Raggett

Track Listing:

DISC 1: THE UNEXAMINED LIFE:

1. In a Sweet Song
2. Arabian Song, The
3. Sun`s Bells, The
4. Jack Smith
5. That I May Never Forget and Stay
6. Garden of Your Past
7. Jack-O-Lantern
8. River Song
9. Fallout Song, The
10. Azure Dome
11. Forest Song, The (Or Especially When the October Wind with Frosty Fingers, Punishes My Hair)
12. Hyacinth Girls
13. Ten Past Eleven
14. Woody Would`ve Wanted It That Way
15. Strange Song

DISC 2: WORKINGMAN`S DICK:

1. Ranada`s Demon
2. Language You Learnt, The
3. All That Returns
4. In the Whippoorwill`s Sad Orchard
5. Blue Elephant
6. Pear Thripe, The
7. Flaming Day of the Locusts
8. Andy Herman Song
9. For Now
10. Descension Song
11. Pusher, The
12. Hyacinth Girls
13. Arise! Life Giving Seagull
14. Talking Moby Dick Blues
15. Shroud-Like Remains
16. Baal Shem, The
17. Searcher, The
18. Night at the Opera
19. Chateaux Banana!, Pts. 13-16
20. Viva la Speedy Orgone

DISC 3: THE EMOTIONAL PLAGUE:

1. Synaesthesia
2. C?chulain (Blackbirds Loom)
3. Columnated Ruins/Seeing Distant Chimneys
4. Along a Bearded Glade
5. Swell Song
6. Showered
7. Donkey`s Burial in a Tower on a Mirage, A
8. Adoration de l`Agneau Mystique
9. Porridge for the Calydonian Boar
10. Siberian Penal Colony (Ode to Joel Stanley)
11. Green Wings Fly Adventure (Showered Reprise)

DISC 4: THIS IS NOT A DICK & RARITIES:

1. Invasion from Mars
2. [Untitled]
3. Summertime (Childhood`s Impossible Now)
4. Hunchback, The
5. Mark`s Phonecall from Orgoneland
6. Leaning on the Everlasting Arm
7. Harmonic Convergence - (live)
8. Last Jam
9. Country of Nuns
10. Sky Puddle
11. Huckleberry Fetal Pain - (previously unreleased)
12. Cows of Light - (previously unreleased)
13. Careful with That Axe, Steve - (previously unreleased)

Album Information

Release Date:

10/17/2011

Type:

Boxed Set

Genre:

Rock & Pop

Label:

Jagjaguwar

Catalog Number:

JAG155

Original Release Year:

2011

# of Discs:

4

Studio/Live:

Studio

Mono/Stereo:

Stereo

Runtime:

250 : 59

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