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THIS HEAT - Deceit

Format: LP
Label & Cat.Number: Modern Classics Recordings MCR917
Release Year: 2016
Note: first ever vinyl re-issue of their second LP (1981) more song-oriented and subtle and less "industrial" than the debut album, this is still a milestone of truly innovative experimental post-punk and avantgarde music!! Comes with extra booklet with archival photos...
Price (incl. 19% VAT): €26.50
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"Second pressing of vinyl re-issue. First official vinyl re-issue in collaboration with original band members Charles Bullen and Charles Hayward. 24 bit/96 kHz re-master from original analog tapes. Includes booklet with track notes and archival photos. With their debut album and follow-up maxi single Health and Efficiency, This Heat sowed the seeds of post-punk, avant rock, noise rock and post-rock, placing the trio -- Charles Bullen, Charles Hayward and Gareth Williams -- at the forefront of experimental music. However, 1981's Deceit is the one that truly deserves its reputation as a classic of the post-punk era, tying up the myriad threads of their work so far and adding accessibility and melody to the still furiously forward-thinking sound. Recorded in a variety of studios including the band's own Cold Storage, the 11 tracks put a sense of social anxiety and global paranoia to the fore. Some lyrics were 'harvested' from TV commercials ('Sleep'), others described the curtain-twitching of surveillance society ('Triumph'), and some were screamed with raw, ragged abandon, like on 'Makeshift Swahili'. 'Makeshift was a big learning situation for me,' says Hayward. 'I learned to let go with my voice, to release the energy that each song required, no matter where that might lead. The song, about the collapse of language, was central to the Deceit idea.' Musical innovations abound too -- drum tracks were recycled from other recordings, albeit in manipulated and mutated form, and 'Independence' reverses the melody of earlier track 'Fall Of Saigon'. It's an album whose themes and sounds unfurl before the listener, the mood of edgy, pre-apocalyptic tension growing throughout. Says Hayward: 'I still think of this record as a dream within a dream.' This Heat split a year after the release, with Bullen and Hayward completing the final tour without Williams. Hayward went on to form Camberwell Now and Bullen recorded as Lifetones. A tentative 2001 reunion came, tragically, too late -- Williams died of cancer within a month of them meeting to rehearse." [label info]

www.lightintheattic.net



"Earlier this year, a few months back, we made the 40th anniversary This Heat vinyl reissues our Records Of The Week. More like Records Of All Time, really. The two full-lengths (This Heat and Deceit) quickly sold out, and have been sadly absent from our racks for the past little while - but now they both have been repressed, and are available again at a slightly lower price than before (thanks to no longer being in gatefold jackets). If somehow you missed out before, we urge you to get 'em now! Our review of this one...
Oooh, at last nicely reissued on vinyl, automatic Records Of The Week!!! All of 'em, 'cause as we've said before, we know very few people, whom upon hearing any music from This Heat, even a single song, weren't immediately compelled to get their hands on every single bit of recorded material they could find. The music of This Heat is most definitely that powerful, that intense, having informed almost all of the music we've loved since. And sounding as fresh and forward thinking today as it did when it was first recorded.
We're almost jealous of folks who have never even heard This Heat. The thought of entering into this music 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. Trust us.
Deceit was This Heat's second full length album, released in 1980, hot on the heels of the Health And Efficiency ep from earlier that same year, and sadly ended up being their final proper release. Deceit found the band continuing to expand and explore, consisting 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." [Aquarius Records]