Track Listing
1. Eve Future
2. Lucky Devil
3. Do I Know You?
4. Insignificance (Conversation With Boche)
5. His Bad Dream
6. Our Bad Dream
7. Flame That Killed John Wayne, The
8. Ice Rink in Berlin
9. Spinning Round in Flames
10. Machine
11. Hostile Mascot
12. Chemical Wedding
13. Spirals of Paranoia
14. Missing You All
15. Submerged
16. Soldier
17. Never Work
| Details | | Producer: | Ducky | | Distributor: | Alternative Dis. Alliance | | Recording Type: | Studio | | Recording Mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | n/a |
Album Notes
The Mekons: Sally Timms, John Langford (vocals, guitar); Tom Greenhalgh (vocals, guitar, synthesizer); Sarah Corina (vocals, bass); John Langley (drums).
Additional personnel: "Mitch" Milligan, "Barry" B. (vocals); "Sammy" Ladvig (acoustic & electric guitar); Dave Trumfio (guitar, background vocals); Susie Honeyman (fiddle, piano); "Willy" Goulding (drums); Mike Hagler (samples, background vocals); "Gomez" Henderson (background vocals).
Recorded at Kingsize Sound Laboratories, Chicago, Illinois in November, 1993.
1989's MEKONS ROCK'N'ROLL was the band's only US major label release, the result of a short-lived alliance between A&M and the Minneapolis indie Twin/Tone. Pointedly, it was also their most lyrically direct album, endlessly castigating the corporate structure of rock & roll music. After this and the middle-finger-salute of the EP F.U.N. 90, where the band drapes every song in the then-fashionable acid-house beat, it's unsurprising that A&M quickly dropped them.
Four years later, RETREAT FROM MEMPHIS finds the band returning to the same themes, not to mention the same squally guitar-lacerating sound. From beginning to end, RETREAT FROM MEMPHIS is a meditation on the state of the music industry, but these 17 songs are less splenetic, more resigned. Dave Trumfio's characteristically clean production brings out every nuance of the bitter lyrics, making this one of the Mekons' most powerful records.
Editorial Reviews
3 Stars - Good - ...They sound like punk, they sound like rock, they sound like nothing has changed them...
Q (08/01/1994)
6 - Good - ...spirited and largely enjoyable romp...Lazily Fall-like and, sporadically, surprisingly fine...
NME (08/06/1994)
...Cynical, sardonic, and mired in their own slapdash punk history...Their politics, aesthetic assumptions and self-mocking attitude always undermine them at crucial moments...
Option (08/01/1994)
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