"It's Almost Impossible To Believe, That People Were Making Music This Progressive, This intense, This Fucked Up & Forward Thinking" Back In 1978...

Trying to explain why this band is so good is sort of like trying to explain why ice cream is so delicious. Or why Bush is such a terrible president.
Or maybe it's kind of like writing an introduction for the new Pynchon novel. Or telling a few jokes before Richard Pryor comes on stage. Or throwing a couple quick passes before Joe Montana comes on the field. It's that daunting, that overwhelming, that impossible.

The trio of Charles Hayward, Charles Bullen and Gareth Williams known collectively as This Heat were one of the few bands that literally changed people's lives. Changed the way folks thought about music. I (Andee) couldn't believe music like this actually existed. It was everything I wanted to listen to before I knew that THIS was exactly what I wanted to listen to. Hit It Or Quit It publisher / rock critic / indie scenestress Jessica Hopper once wrote that she literally pee'd her pants the first time she heard This Heat. And it's not hard to see why. Without This Heat, modern, alternative, avant-garde music as we know it would be a whole different beast. Post-rock, math-rock, avant rock are hugely indebted to the genre shattering experimentalism of This Heat. Tortoise, You Fantastic, Yona Kit, Brise Glace, Psychic Paramount, Laddio Bollocko, Radian, Village Of Savoonga, Larsen, Starfuckers, Circle, Salvatore, I Am Spoonbender -- none of those bands would even exist if it weren't for This Heat, or if they still did you can bet they would sound a whole lot different. And that's just off the top of our heads, AND that's -just- bands whose sound directly reflects the influence of This Heat. Imagine how many performers and artists were influenced by This Heat but who let that influence manifest itself in not so obvious ways.

We once described This Heat as "Krautrock-ish hyper rhythmic tape-looped prog." Which comes close to succinctly describing the magical musical alchemy of This Heat, but still only scratches the surface. The sound of This Heat is rhythm and texture and dynamics. The recording studio as instrument. Every sound and every song is based on rhythm and texture. There are hooks, and melodies, but they exist to serve the rhythm and are often born from the deft manipulation of sound and tempo. Even the most static and repetitive parts manage to sound -musical-. There are vocals, but they are minimal and otherworldly, weary and sing songy and completely mesmerizing. A droning musical accompaniment to the haunting whirs and clanging percussion in the background.

Their entire catalog has gone in and out of print over the years, mostly out, with all of these records pretty much completely unavailable for the last 7 or 8 years. Rumors of a complete box set began to circulate a few years back and it has finally surfaced and it's everything we could have hoped for and more. Every single release, remastered, repackaged in swank digipaks, including a bonus live disc, a huge booklet, amazing archival photos, extensive liner notes, all packed in a gorgeous box. It's a testament to the power this band holds over their fans that pretty much everyone who owns all of these records already will buy the box without a second thought. We're almost jealous of folks who have never even heard This Heat. The thought of entering into this box set completely blind, is almost frightening, as the world of This Heat is so singular, so powerful, it will be difficult to ever listen to music the same way again.

"24 Track Loop" (Blue and Yellow)
"Makeshift Swahili" (Deceit)
"Rimp Romp Ramp" (Made Available)
"Aerial Photography" (Live 80/81)

This Heat's self titled debut, originally released in 1978 (which is almost impossible to believe, that people were making music this progressive, this intense, this fucked up and forward thinking) is such a totally immersive and strangely lovely musical environment. From the machinelike krautrock of "Horizontal Hold" to the dreamy contemplative "Twilight Furniture" with its simple chiming guitars, muted tribal percussion and keening vocals, to the bizarre affected drum workout of "24 Track Loop", it's like wandering through some alien musical world. A sky full of greys and blues, smeary drones floating gently by, haunting quavering vocals drifting below, like tendrils of smoke, the barren landscape littered with all manner of rhythmic outcroppings, harsh jagged crashes and booms, as well as low rolling thumps and stutters, off in the distance simple spare melodies float and hover, each note a glowing spot on the horizon. Absolutely and utterly overwhelmingly brilliant.

The Health And Efficiency ep followed in early 1981 and took their sound in a strangely pop (for them at least) direction, sounding like some tweaked and twisted version of Wire, the title track all angular new wave guitars, monotone vocals, driving drums, strange convoluted arrangements and creepy background sound effects before the whole thing splinters into super abstract rhythmic experimentalism, looped grooves, played over and over, while sounds float and careen in the background, so incredibly hypnotic and repetitive. The second track on Health And Efficiency (which runs a brief twenty minutes) is "Graphic/Varispeed (45rpm)", a lengthy drone, a warm synth whir that surfaces within other This Heat tracks, recontextualized and often chopped up and reassembled, but here, it's a slow shifting slow motion single tone soundscape, with the tone occasionally being pitched up or down, very simple but quite haunting, and a cool glimpse at how This Heat managed to mix and match, use and reuse, without ever treading water.

"Horizontal Hold (Peel Session)"
"Repeat"
"Paper Hats"
"Health And Efficiency"

Later that same year came Deceit, with the band continuing to expand and explore. Deceit consisted of shorter songs, but that didn't mean their process, or disdain for convention was altered. If anything, they managed to subvert pop music in a way never thought possible. Imagine Brian Eno circa Taking Tiger Mountain, but filter that through some avant industrialism, angular new wave and hyper rhythmic krautrock and you'll begin to get the picture. The songs on Deceit are impossibly catchy, especially when examined closely. Abstract, obtuse, angular, convoluted, tangled up but without ever losing that thread, that melodic sensibility that grounded the songs, kept them from falling apart completely, instead, the perilous arrangements only added tension and emotion. An incredibly explosive sound that somehow hybridized all of the countercultural fury of punk and situationism, within a sonic context informed by the technological advances of musique concrete and electro-acoustic experimentation. The sound was definitely punk in its own way, but certainly wasn't expressed through three chord song structures or snarling postures, instead This Heat injected their own complex pop agendas with a jittery nervous tension always building to a dramatic and cathartic release. Deceit was sadly the band's final release disbanding soon after.

In 1993, a disc of unearthed This Heat recordings was released and consisted of three lengthy tracks of tape loop experiments and random rhythmic explorations. Repeat has come to be This Heat's defining work even though it is essentially a record of outtakes and pieces meant to be incorporated into other songs. But it's hard to argue with the 20 minute title track, and endless, almost funky groove, punctuated by weird electronic swells, sprinkles of woodblock percussion and occasional handclaps but held together by one of the most amazing drum parts ever. A relentless pound and shuffle, drenched in effects, sound very dubby, but also very krautrock, a tripped out blissed out drone drenched rhythmic space jam never matched to this day. Every time this is played for a friend, musician or not, the listener is inevitably confused, perplexed and then quickly obsessed with hearing more. The second track, appropriately titled "Metal" is an abstract soundscape of, well, metal, clanging, clinking, like some ancient junkyard gamelan, almost like the previous piece transcribed for sheet metal, garbage can, metal pipe and dumpster. The metallic symphony shifts and sways, melodies surface, rhythms twist and turn, all very hypnotic and quite lovely. The final track revisits a song on Health and Efficiency, but slows it down a bit to become "Graphic/Varispeed (45rpm)", the same sort of slow, murky drone, just made even slower, so more tonal colors surface, and the subtle shit is much more noticeable, a gloriously dreamlike warm warbly whir.

In 1996, This Heat's 1977 Peel Sessions were finally released and demonstrated once again that This Heat were untouchable, effortlessly unfurling a sound equal parts avant pop, krautrock, progrock, musique concrete and a handful of parts that defied easy classification. Every track here a jaw dropping, mind blowing performance. Especially the new version of "Horizontal Hold", one of This Heat's finest moments already, played here with much more verve and vigor and with a sound quality so much clearer, a recording so incredibly hot, that the song is reborn and completely confounds and amazes. The whole session is rhythmically dense, rife with bastardized pop, incredibly complex arrangements all rendered again in such a way that they are emotional and moving, instead of just intellectual musical exercises. And the sound is so crystal clear, that you can hear a band at the top of their game, taking over the BBC studio and using it like they would a second guitar or another drummer. The Peel Sessions also include a handful of songs that never made it onto records proper. All as good as anything on their official releases.

The bonus disc included in the box is a compilation of live tracks recorded between 1980 and 1981 all over Europe and sequenced to resemble the set list the band used on tour in the eighties. Recorded using a single stereo mic, the sound is less that crystal clear, but captures the band in their element at the top of their game. The songs are amazing, it's awesome to hear the band recreate pieces that on record relied so heavily on the studio, more evidence as to the genius of This Heat. Our only complaint about this box was that there is definitely more This Heat material out there, and anyone picking up this box, would have gladly paid a few bucks more for one or two more discs of lost rare material. But then we spied this in the liner notes of the live cd: "Further CD's from other stages in This Heat's music to follow, including collaborations, improvisations and site-specific work as well as other live cds." We can hardly wait! There are plenty of places on the web and in magazines to read more about the history of the band, the band members, various versions, releases and re-releases and past reissues, but none of that ultimately matters as much as the sound. And oh the glorious sound. Just take a listen to the sound samples and no words will be necessary.

This Long, Long, Long
& Deeply inquiring Text
Was Published By
Aquarius Records.

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