Flood Bank

I've got a new review published up at PopMatters of The Lines's second and final compilation. It's a mix of their two studio LPs, Therapy and Ultramarine. Listening to it, I kept thinking about how this could have easily evolved into a weird version of the early 4AD aesthetic (early Colourbox, the first Cocteau Twins LP). Only after reading the liner notes and doing some research, I found out that the engineers and bandleader Conning himself had actually played integral roles in the production of much of that music. Ultramarine especially seems to form a nice bridge between the guitar-based experimentalism of post-punk and ethereality of the aforementioned music.

Read the Review Here

Memory Span Makes a Memory Spin

I've got an article up at PopMatters on forgotten postpunkers The Lines, who were akin to a combination of A Certain Ratio and Soft Boys. Memory Span is a collection of their singles, but the band also has two fantastic LPs worth downloading (they're long out of print), which includes some fascinating things (and a few misses) like potentially the only fully backwards-masked track that even sounds remotely good and one track on Ultramarine so oddball spacey-feedback-oriented that it almost seems to anticipate A.R. Kane (or at the very least the rest of the 4AD roster).