Nurse With Wound – Gyllenskold, Geijerstam and I at Rydberg’s (United Jnana) 2008)
This is the remastered re-release of Nurse with Wound’s 1983 album. In addition to the three original tracks this CD also has a reworked version of each of the tracks. The reworked version was originally released in 1993. This is my first exposure to Nurse With Wound. I quite frankly found their back catalogue intimidating (and fucking expensive) and I just had no idea where to start. Luckily that problem resolved itself when friends of mine turned up to my birthday lunch with this in hand. I had no idea they were Nurse with Wound fans and had no idea what to expect when I took this home. Nurse With Wound is basically Stephen Stapleton and friends and I wasn’t too sure whether this was going to sound more like Throbbing Gristle, Coil or Current 93. What I quickly discovered is that Nurse with Wound, at least on this record, sounded nothing like those bands. This is extremely weird tape loop experiments. It’s hard to say much more than that really. I can’t figure out how to explain the sounds on this. I suppose the first track the bizarrely titled Several off moments before prior to lunch could work as a sado-horror movie soundtrack. It’s creepy, unsettling and oddly compelling.
The main thing that strikes me about this re-release is just how good it sounds. If you didn’t know that it was recorded in 1983 you’d be none the wiser. This is a thoroughly modern weird, experimental record. Unlike their contemporaries this has aged very well indeed. It’s not going to be for everyone but I find it strangely listenable. I have no idea whether this is representative of Nurse with Wound and in some ways my desire to find out isn’t really there. I like this and have listened to it everyday since I got it a couple of weeks ago. Excellent stuff.
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