Why I Hate Women

Performer: Pere Ubu
Engineer: Paul Hamann
Producer: David Thomas
Distributor: Phantom Import Distributi

Notes: Personnel: David Thomas , Michele Temple (vocals); Keith Moline (guitar, background vocals); Robert Kidney (guitar); Jack Kidney (harp, tenor saxophone); Andy Diagram (trumpet); Robert Wheeler (synthesizer, Theremin); Steve Mehlman (drums, wood block). Recording information: Harvest Moon; Homer Page Farm; Suma Recording Studios, Painesville, OH; The Farm, Utica, PA; The Red Roof (Room 143), Willoughby, OH. Named after a hypothetical and non-existent Jim Thompson novel, Pere Ubu's 13th studio album is one of the most interesting of their long tenure, and testament to the continually replenishing spiky ingenuity of group leader (and sole original member) David Thomas. WHY I HATE WOMEN examines a living slice of dread, as expressed by nervous drums, atmospheric guitars, and Thomas's anxiety-ridden singing. The jerky rhythms and vocals of the opening number "Two Girls (One Bar)" are like opening a door and being greeted by the entirety of the early 1980s no-wave scene. Ditto the unsettling swamp-fevered "Blue Velvet," which reverberates with David Lynchian despair and desire, and the hopped-up "Caroleen," which plays like a love song for troubled adolescents, without the emo bravado.

Uncut (p.119) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Ubu engage in their own highly stylised Americana. Highly mature, desperately riveting." The Wire (p.59) - "[With] David Thomas's gloomily compelling rock-noir narratives, his braying, crooning voice now matured into an eerily versatile instrument."

Pere Ubu was aptly named for Alfred Jarry's Dadaist play. One of the prime movers in post-punk, the influential Cleveland, Ohio, group took the power and volume of punk and the fractured song forms of avant-gardists like Captain Beefheart, then sent David Thomas's free-ranging vocalizing careening across the top. Founded in the 1970s, the group has undergone a multitude of manifestations to become one of the longest-lasting avant-garde ("avant-garage," they have called themselves) music groups, continuing to make uncommercial audio into the 21st century.

Click Here for Shipping Options and Policies

Shipping or Dimension weight in pounds: 0.25