From the long-standing Chicago based imprint, Nihilist, comes two deep dives from four experimental journeymen: “Idiots: A Laughing Matter”, a brand-new, long-awaited X2LP collaboration between The Hafler Trio and Wire’s Bruce Gilbert, and the first ever vinyl reissue of “Revenge Of The Selfish Shellfish”, the legendary 1992 album by Nurse with Wound’s Steven Stapleton and Tony Wakeford (Crisis, Death in June, Current 93, Sol Invictus). Each remarkably singular and ambitious, blending the respective talents of their partnerships into startling and unprecedented hybrid forms, they stand among the most striking statements that any of these four have ever made.

Viewed with hindsight, the 1970s and 80s British musical underground was among the most radically diverse and willfully experimental scenes to have appeared during the second half of the 20th Century. Very often encountering a collision between the youthful angst and rebellion of punk and the ideas and actions of the avant-garde, this momentary movement gave way to remarkably singular projects like This Heat, P.I.L., Throbbing Gristle, Coil, Psychic TV, The Fall, Joy Division, and countless number of others. Perhaps most notably, despite having been relatively fleeting in its first waves, not only is the power and importance of these groups signified by their lasting influence, but also by continued activity and evolutions of many of their artists. The long-standing Chicago based imprint Nihilist - run by Andy Ortmann with a focus on the outer reaches of electronics, noise, experimentalism, folk, and the absurd - now returns with two remarkable LPs that illuminate distinct aspects of these later day experiments.

As one of the most radical, distinct, and enduring projects to have emerged from the early 80s British post-punk scene, The Hafler Trio need little introduction. Founded by the duo of Andrew McKenzie and Chris Watson - the third part of the 'trio' was a fictional scientist named Dr. Edward Moolenbeek - The Hafler Trio quickly evolved into McKenzie’s solo project, that often engaged with collaborations with other artists. While often associated with the early years of the industrial and noise movements, McKenzie’s efforts under the moniker have constantly proved to be far more nuanced, delicate, and sophisticated. Utilising field recording, musique concrète, electronics, and other tactics, The Hafler Trio’s output over the decades has found far more sympathy within the context of experimental music, leading to a significant amount of its discography being housed on imprints like Important Records, Sub Rosa, Ash International, and Touch.

For anyone well versed in the most experimental trajectories to have emerged from punk, that McKenzie, under the guise of The Hafler Trio, would find himself in collaboration with Bruce Gilbert should come as no surprise. A founding member of Wire - among the most groundbreaking, ambitious, and forward thinking bands in English post-punk - Gilbert almost immediately dove straight into the fully experimental realm following that band’s initial dissolution in 1979, developing and working in projects like Dome, Cupol, and Duet Emmo, celebrated duos with his Wire collaborator Graham Lewis, and a striking body of rigorous solo work that has been issued on Mute, Table Of The Elements, Editions Mego, and Touch, that continues to this day.

For some time, rumours and anticipation have been brewing around a collaboration between The Hafler Trio and Gilbert. At long last, this brilliant meeting of minds appears as the stunning X2LP “Idiots”, comprising four side long compositions that journey into the twilight gloom at the borders of natural and industrial worlds, subtitled “A Laughing Matter”.

Slowly sculpted over a number of years into a series of rigorously experimental, flowing expanses, “Idiots” was conceived from a basic premise: "Whoever has contact with reality is an Idiot, the word having two meanings: A) to be oneself; B) being so, to those in illusion, such a one behaves like an idiot." From this departure point, plumbing notions of isolation and society in decline, Gilbert began to introduce elements of sonic materiality into the conversation, before stepping away and allowing McKenzie to take the lead and weave his magic, wherever it might go. The outcome, masterfully rendered, is a brooding universe of texture and tonality at the borders of ambient music, Industrial, and drone, shifting between more aggressively forward moments and enveloping passages within which delicate layers of bristling sound intertwine and continuously dart and descend into alternate pathways and arrangements.

An unquestionable masterstroke from two of the great figures to have originally emerged from the ashes of punk, not only offering a remarkable proof of that movement’s continued relevance within the contemporary landscape of music, but equally of McKenzie and Gilbert’s remarkable prowess as artists, continuously driving forward and searching over the decades, “Idiots: A Laughing Matter” is a record not to be missed.

Emerging into roughly the same creative landscape during the late 1970s as Andrew McKenzie and Bruce Gilbert, Steven Stapleton has remained over the years since, one of the most ambitious and experimental artists of his generation of British sonic voyagers. A founding member of Nurse with Wound, alongside John Fothergill, and Heman Pathak, during the original incarnation of that project Steven Stapleton forged a singular voice at the juncture of punk and avant-garde that laid the groundwork for industrial music, before adopting it as a vehicle for his solo endeavours and collaborations, incorporating a vast number of influences: cabaret, nursery rhymes, pop music, and krautrock, not to mention the wild and wonderful touchstones that made it onto the legendary NWW list.

Steven Stapleton’s work has always grown and evolved by making room for the collaborations of numerous ambitious fellow travellers. One such case is 1992’s “Revenge Of The Selfish Shellfish”, originally issued on CD by the British imprint Tursa in 1992, that encounters him working - in a rare instance - under his own name with Tony Wakeford, one of the founding members of seminal projects like Crisis and Death in June, and a regular member of Current 93, who had recently embarked upon Sol Invictus, a neofolk project that merged acoustic and electronic sounds into darkening soundscapes.

While Stapleton and Wakeford have both explored a wide range of territories over their careers, “Revenge Of The Selfish Shellfish” represents a fairly singular space within both of their discographies, offering some clue to why Stapleton chose to release it under his own name rather than as Nurse With Wound. Comprising ten tracks that encounter the duo eroding the boundaries between dense experimentalism and song, the album, despite the range in duration between its tracks - from less than a minute to over ten - each appears almost like a quiet, intimate vignette, free-standing and pursuing its own journey, while remaining cohesive within the larger whole. Perhaps most fascinatingly, where “Revenge Of The Selfish Shellfish” gains its strongest sense of distinction is through its dualistic use of abstraction, in the form of tense, texture driven ambiences and tightly wound atonalities, and melody and lyricism, effectively placing a stark sense of beauty within the broader context of industrial experimentalism. The achievement of this artistry is made that much more remarkable by the fact, as the liner notes state, both artists were saturated by alcohol and drugs during its session, possibly softening that may have existed between their respective creative sensibilities and pursuits.

Seminal, immersive, and remaining deeply engaging more than 30 years since it first appeared, this one is absolutely essential for any fan of Stapleton and Wakeford’s many projects and guises.