The Homosexuals

The Homosexuals appeared, stunned everyone who heard them and then disappeared. Between 1978 and 1982 they released 2 singles and a 12" EP. The three of them individually, under various names, also released a stack of other material, but as The Homosexuals they, curiously, left a whole archive of unreleased material lying around on tape with no idea of releasing it. When everyone had moved on, I was given all the masters and a invitation - if I was really still interested, to get on with it. For them it was already ancient history. I thought then, and think now, that this trio produced far and away the best this genre ever achieved; to the point that it transcends the genre even as it epitomises it. This music is just perfect: endlessly inventive, frighteningly memorable, brilliantly arranged - and is performed with throwaway genius as if tomorrow had been cancelled. What is it? Post Punk, sort of, except with too many chords, too much turned around rhythm - where a horror of droning on meets a mass of inspired detail and still results in a pellucid simplicity. Great texts, three unique singing voices, absurdity, criminal talent and a lot of blackness, in every sense. OK, so some of the recording quality was a bit lo-fi, but these were songs thrown off like sweat - and in the hurry some of the most radical mixing I ever heard from the period got fixed onto these recordings. Recommended released The Homosexuals LP in 1984, gleaned from the surviving tapes, nearly all of which derived from one intense period of work. For this overdue CD reissue I went through all the surviving material again -there are 5 extra tracks, and they are not B sides - and then we re-mastered everything again to the highest possible current standard - without compromising the music. This is gold dust.