Lemon Kittens – “Spoonfed + Writhing” 7″ – Sanctuary Records [Lucky 7-inch #34]

Lemon Kittens – “In Wooden Brackets” MP3

One of the inherent pleasures of poring over music history is, strangely enough, discovering how little innovation is going on in the present.

With every new “find” one discovers more, bands that Did It First or paved the way in effect white-washing beliefs that were previously held. 

A good example of this ongoing transformation is Lemon Kittens. Like Disco Inferno, The Screamers, Suicide, This Heat and millions more, it takes a good-bit of digging to find their frosty little corner of punk history. But there it is, shrieking into your ear as soon as you find it, begging to be shared with the punters.

Like the aforementioned bands, Lemon Kittens have such a huge influence on the music trends of today I wonder if it’s better just to go to the source and forget about the current audio climate. Why pay attention to the hucksters peddling the wares of yesteryear when you can get the electricity of bands like Swell Maps, Desperate Bicycles and early Scritti Politti firsthand? 

Well shit — I’m not ready to give up my Wet Hair, my Xiu Xiu/Ten In The Swear Jar, my Blank Dogs, my Les Georges Leningrad (the latter being the most heavily and directly influenced by Lemon Kittens), so I’ll just have to shelve them all together. It’s a melting pot, man.

“Melting pot” is also a great way to start dissecting the Kittens’ winding staircases of bent, prurient electronic-tinged sound sculptures. The songs of the “Spoonfed + Writhing” 7-inch are creatively restless, incredibly advanced in their plumbing of unusual aural combinations. 

You’ll hear a song like “Whom Do I Have to Ask,” with its Casio cut-outs and childish yammering, and you’ll form a certain opinion. Then you’ll hear its follow-up, “Chalet d’Amour,” and you’ll wonder if this is Ian Curtis’ pre-Warsaw band by dint of the low-register panting and preening.

That is until you hear the Shags drums and the unskilled snatches of guitar. It’s a mess, a beautiful one.

The idea that this band is a scarcely recognized commodity in the day and age of Captured Tracks, Not Not Fun,