Brute Reason

My favourite album, probably because this was my introduction to Szajner's music (in my teens!). The revolutionary production and creativity of the arrangements still amaze me today. I'm not sure what to compare this music to, as the melodic style and unstructured structure is highly original for what is essentially a new-wave/rock/pop setting, albeit very non-mainstream. There's a great photo on the cover showing Bernard playing hislaser harp surrounded by modular synthesisers.

'Without Leaving' launches the album into a strangely drunken riff over which wails an insanely-processed cello. Added to this are the quirky lyrics of Howard Devoto from Magazine, who comes in with the immortal line: "You look as though you've been dragged backwards through a bush..." before the song opens up with spacious synths and the cello solo spirals upward. There's some impeccable rhythm guitar work and did I forget to say that Bernard Paganotti's bass was very funky?

'Snow Prints' is a glittering icy instrumental with female spoken voice. Crystal bell tones of digital synthesis drip from ice caves. "Centuries passed in the frozen city"

'Brute Reason' features Taiko drum master Joji Hirota on wordless vocals and percussion. Rotating alert signals herald danger, and then the groove gets up with it. Joji's vocal gymnastics punctuate the groove here and there, before he launches into a percussion solo hotting things up. A sax joins in at the next level up, then a synth, as the voice echoes around and the analogue sequences whirl like a dervish, before the whole thing falls to the ground.

'Saracen Cards' is a mellower instrumental with dueting sax, guitar and keyboards.

'Crash Diet' is a hilarious little ditty composed by guitarist Xavier 'Toxidose' Geronimi (what a name!) It starts innocently with that Casio VL-Tone snap-crackle-and-pop beat and some funky guitar picking. The vocals (which I won't spoil for you :-) repeat mantra-like as the mix gets subsequently 'thinner' in sound... You really have to hear this highly original production to appreciate the genius of humour at work.

'Deal Of The Century' features Howard's lyrics sung in a duet with himself and also the found voice of 'Snow Prints'. It begins with a lazy groove of bass harmonics and understated drums. After the first chorus, it paces up with a guitar solo, and the bass gets niftier still.

A timid electric piano introduces 'Domestic Casualty', an epic slab of electronic rock, reworking the opening theme of 'Execute' from Some Deaths Take Forever. Paganotti's bass dances along effortlessly as crazy cutup vocal samples weave an aural film. Thundering drums and massed synths chase the frightened voice into a frenzy of guitar passages. Heady stuff.

Distorted guitar and pulsing electronics announce the start of 'The Convention', with bass and guitar throbbing along with multiple sequences in changing time signatures while Howard sings passionately of some love affair:

I've been looking at all the candidates' wives 
you're the loveliest 
object of worship

The middle-8 features a sublime mellotron melody recalling Tangerine Dream's 'Rubycon'. This is another favourite track, if just for the analogue basslines alone, which seem to pulse in and out independently.

The final track is The Snark, named after a strange 2m-long performance device that Bernard uses to control his PPG synth. It's a majestic instrumental finale with Schroeder's lyrical saxophone (and two bass players :-) bringing the album to a close.