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- The galaxy, getting a thorough swirly.
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- Nurse With Wound – “Space Music” LP – Beta Lactam Ring Records
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- The world needs dreamers … and dreamers need pictures of, you know, planets …
Nurse With Wound – “Space Music” Side A MP3 sample
Nurse With Wound – “Space Music” Side B MP3 sample
Nurse With Wound – “Space Music” (more ample samplin’)
It’s best to “HURRY-UP-and-wait” when it comes to abstractionists like Nurse With Wound, nee Stephen Stapleton. Space Music, housed in a glossy, hard-bound book-style gatefold, is no exception.
It glows, drifts, slides and whispers; then, for a few seconds out of every, say, 10 minutes, you get the goods: pulsating, piercing streams of sound that pop up like hippo heads (if you’re playing a certain game, a certain game called … called … Hungry Hippos) and dip down under the water just as fast.
Side A is an almost total wash, a tin-drone that only momentarily breaks its cubicle monotony. Spacing out is one thing, ZONing out is another altogether. I have high hopes/big plans for Side B …
… which, turns out, sorta soft-chugs in a similar fashion to Side A. I’m waiting for some sort of pay-off, a 2001: A Space Odyssey-during-the-colorful-climax moment to set my spirits to stunned. Knowing who I’m listening to, I back off, relax … absurdists like Stapleton use your traditional listener needs to laugh at you with every knew record.
It’s what you need, but it’s not necessarily what you want. At least in my case. If you do cotton to the following artists, however, you will be right at home in Space:
- Tim Hecker
- Subtract By Two
- Dead Texan
- Rameses III
- No Fun, Kranky, Soft Abuse, Siltbreeze, Gnarled Forest
- Current 93 / David Tibet
- Eluvium (though I’m not a big E-vium guy myself)
Side B never gets off its feet, btw. It’s a damn shame. I guess the quote from a Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story outtake is right: “Dreams don’t come true … ” Hell, in America isn’t that more true than ever these days?
