Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Nice Strong Arm - Mind Furnace (1988, Homestead)

More glum music for another glum news day. To be honest, I had designs on sharing this one for awhile, especially after my entry for Nice Strong Arm's third and final platter, Stress City, garnered so much approval from you, my humble audience.  1988's Mind Furnace was their second LP and by and large doesn't compel like NSA's aforementioned follow-up...but Kevin Thomson & Co. were making strides.  Overcast, dissonant, and occasionally tuneful (check out "Windowsill" and "Faucet Head") Mind Furnace's pessimistic stanzas went a long way in characterizing the trio's sinewy stripe of post-punk, resulting in one of their signature songs, "Everyday an Ambulance."  The more I think about it, you can hear a heck of a lot of Nice Strong Arm in the first two Jawbox albums (Grippe & Novelty) if that's your thing, proving these low-profile, Austin, TX outliers had a deeper reach than even they might have realized.  And yes, I'm not particularly moved by the album jacket either.

01. Windowsill
02. Everyday an Ambulance
03. A Case for the Calm
04. You'll Never Know Me
05. Secret Languages
06. Framingham
07. Faucet Head
08. Swingset
09. Turn Me Grey
10. Centralia

https://www89.zippyshare.com/v/SJ60dT29/file.html

6 comments:

Andrew Christopher said...

Thank you! I used to have this and have no idea what happened to it. So thumbs up!

jes said...

a interesting band :) it might be a origin grunge sound :). thanks.

slovenlyeric said...

Beg to differ regarding the jacket. Greer Lankton was a great artist who sadly passed very young. The cover seems to be a self-portrait. You have to see a bit of Lankton's work to fully understand how mind-blowing it is. It was on the extreme edge of a very transgressive time in NYC. The music sort of fit right into this world. I admit this one close-up of a single doll does not give you much of an idea of what I was going on, but it is symbolic of the era in which this music was made.

Homestead was an amazing label.

Unknown said...

SUPER!!!

Tim 'Space Debris' said...

Any chance of a re-up?

Unknown said...

Any chance of a re-up on this and the other NSA albums? Thanks for a great blog!