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With words as weapons and public infrastructure as his blank slate, John Fekners City Squad are always questing for the ineffable, even as they yearn for concrete change. Make no mistake, Idioblast is a serious party where everyone is welcome.
Released in 1984, Idioblast is a lost classic, a future shock narrative ahead of its time, and yet completely of its era, like few artifacts before or since. The cover tips you off from the jumpa crude but effective collage featuring classic Fekner slogans like Toxic Junkie, Growth Decay and Soft Brains Watch The Screen And Buy The Jeans. In an uncanny and tragic coincidence, the very first lyric on the albumThe place to be is on the space shuttle/if youre brave enough to get on itseems to anticipate the Challenger disaster just two years later. But for the most part, the tracks on Idioblast directly reference the concepts that inspired Fekners visual art.
Musically, Rapicasso utilizes pneumatic pounding with an industrial edge as Fekner equates the great and controversial painter with risk-taking graffiti kids bombing trains and billboards across the city. Art is in a constant state of explodingforms, paradigms, outdated ideas. Splitting the difference between hip-hop and new wave, the Santaniello-sung The Beat is like Thomas Dolby meets Run-DMC and shouldve been a radio staple for at least one sticky summer. It could soundtrack either a couples roller skate or a drug-fueled evening out.
Channeling Fekners slogan-stencil aesthetic, Travelogue The 80s is a tour de force reminiscent of Negativlands experiments in audio culture jamming. As Fekner details, I grabbed all of the sounds via a shortwave radio picking up transmissions from LaGuardia airport and the TV. I recorded and edited on a Sony Pro Walkman and an Aiwa dual cassette deck.
A1. Halleys Comet A2. Rapicasso A3. The Beat A4. Travelogue The 80s B1. 2-4-5-7-9-11 (ft. Bear 167) B2. I Get Paid To Clap B3. The Sight Of The Child B4. Wheels Over Indian Trails (ft. Dave Santaniello) C1. Rock Steady (ft. Dave Santaniello) C2. Another Four Years C3. E Z Gee Jammin D1. Concrete People (John Fekner, Dennis Mann & Al Belfiore) D2. BD Cycles (ft. Sasha Sumner) (previously unissued) D3. Rhapsody In Black (previously unissued) D4. When The Future Collides With History (previously unissued) D5. Concrete Concerto (John Fekner, Dennis Mann & Sasha Sumner)
- Format Detail: 2LP, 12x12 "Beauty's Only Screen Deep" Stencil
- Format: Vinyl
- Genre: Rap & Hip-Hop
