Presages(s): (1980/BAD 11)

             Not a suprise that a year that saw the beginning of 4AD, would field material of questionable quality along with some classics. Here we have an experiment by Ivo and Peter and releasing an EP of some demo tracks by mostly unsigned bands as some type of compilation. Overall all the bands here, except Modern English, aren't very good really, and some of the songs are just plain terrible. 

The Tracklisting is:

1. CVO: Sargaso Sea

2. Psychotic Tanks: Let's Have a Party

3. Psychotic Tanks: Security Idiots

4. Modern English: Home

5. The Last Dance: Malignant Love
6. Spasmodic Caress: Hit the Dead

7. Red Atkins: Hunk of a Punk

CVO's Sargaso Sea is a strange, electronic track featuring rather primitive keyboard tones, bad singing and a simple drum machine pattern. The track itself is ok, building on itself musically as the song goes, swaying along like a body of water. Psychotic Tanks' Let's Have a Party sounds like a half-hearted attempt at doing indie-funk, with some noise guitar, monotone vocals and some synth sound effects. Security Idiots is far more punkier and resembles an actual song, but is less interesting then Let's Have a Party. Modern English's Home is similar in many ways to their track Incident in it involves someone being killed lyrically, this time it's even goofier, bordering hammy. The music however is better with it largely being a textural  piece with no one really playing any chords, just strumming notes in a key to a continuous cymbal pitter-patter behind the singer. Last Dance's Malignant Love is just a mess of a piece, trying to do more than the band is capable. The production is weak (well it is a demo recording) but the keyboard tones are bad, the bass is murky, the drums soaked with to much reverb, and the singer sounding out of place with ever thing else. If it had better production it possibly could have sounded like a Siouxsie and the Banshees track but here its just not good. The most new wave track on Presage(s) would be Hit the Dead by Spasmodic Caress which besides Sargaso Sea is probably the best track. It's short, features a good delivery and a catchy melody/chorus. It also has a cool echo thing on the vocals in the chorus. Not bad. Sounds vaguely like Wire too, or at least Colin Newman. The last track is a joke track by Peter, at Ivo's chugrin. Red Atkins himself isn't a singer or an artist, and his track Hunk of a Punk is more like a surreal sing-a-long than an actual song. Overall Presage(s) is probably the worst thing the 4AD ever put out, things only got better from here.

Rating: 1/5