Devo

2025 repress. San Francisco's cherry-picking reissue label, Superior Viaduct, give new life to these crucial volumes of art-pop and pre-punk prototypes from Akron, Ohio's finest. 'Hardcore' documents the formative Devo's years, 1974-1977, of the brothers Mothersbaugh (Mark, Bob, and Jim) and Brothers Casale (Jerry and Bob) and their drummer Alan Myers (recently deceased, RIP), whose concept of DE-eVOlved blues is considered a pivotal notion in the history of rock music. It marks a point where rock and pop became self-aware of culture's back-cycling tendencies and consciously pedalled side-ways, stripping back the posturing and itching it up in line with po-mo sensibilities. The results, captured here, are equal parts primitive thump and jerky, angular synth and guitar agitation matched by lyrical themes touching on "post-McCarthy paranoia, middle-class ephemera, and DEVO's long-running topic of choice: sex, or lack thereof" and including some of pop music's most inventive, unique moments. We're talking the aut-right electrock of 'Jocko Homo' and 'Mechanical Man' - both included here in their earlier, arguably better versions, alongside the seductively eccentric disco euphemisms of 'Social Fools' and the wry blues of 'Auto Modown'; all essentials for anyone interested in pop's alternative potential and must haves in any respected collection. Highly recommended!

As with much of the Pinhas' music from this period, Interface is heavily influenced by the guitar treatments of Robert Fripp (King Crimson), especially those in collaboration with Brian Eno. More experimental than virtuosic, Richard Pinhas applies feedback and a jazz-like looseness to create otherworldly soundscapes. Interface is loud, dark and unrelenting with a maximal approach to minimalism that would go on to inform the Cold Wave scene in the late '70s. Few recordings are as menacing, although certainly Miles Davis' Dark Magus and Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music come to mind. It is Heldon's most crystalline work, building to the epic crescendo of the title track. Many fans consider this to be their masterpiece, but more importantly, Interface is a record that will continue to unfold for centuries to come.