The Stick Figures

Reviews

The Stick Figures Disturbance CD

As soon as the opening track on this collection of previously unreleased tracks from 1980–1982 kicked in, my ears perked right up. “The Other Myth” comes right in with some urgency, and I was so eager to hear where it would go, hoping it would continue to sound like “Ambivalence and Spark Plugs,” the only single released by former Chicago new wave outfit IMMUNE SYSTEM. Unfortunately, the urgency that pulled me in gave way to more of a dreamy art pop that just felt too impactless. There is a certain curiosity that is enjoyable to explore here, as it feels a bit like stepping into a time capsule with these tracks being offered up for the first time in over forty years. But a lot of these tracks spend a bit too much time exploring their space, and the end product just doesn’t seem to land. Should these tracks have stayed buried? No, no, nothing like that. But perhaps I was set up for failure expecting one thing right at the drop of the needle and only getting something else entirely.

The Stick Figures Archeology LP

Tampa, Florida’s best (only?) contribution to the turn-of-the-eighties art-punk discourse gets anthologized! The STICK FIGURES were five University of South Florida students enamored with the serrated grooves of first-wave UK post-punk who found each other in 1979, duly inspired to craft their own ripped-up, danceable sound that wound up running roughly parallel to what bands like OH-OK, PYLON, and the B-52’S were devising about seven hours due north in Athens, Georgia. Archeology starts with the the four tracks from the STICK FIGURES’ one-and-done 1981 EP (released before the band relocated to New York; they would call it quits soon after), and it’s the sort of beguiling creative jumble that often comes as an unforced by-product of operating far outside of a rigidly-defined scene—”N-Light” is a frenetic bricolage of taut funk bass, trebly guitar scratch, and group-chanted vocals that clearly betrays the STICK FIGURES’ interest in the works of GANG OF FOUR and DELTA 5, while the jangly “September,” with its winsome femme vocals and playful crashes of xylophone, falls closer to presaging early K Records/C86-era shamble-pop. The remainder of the LP is fleshed out with a half-dozen unreleased studio recordings, a pair of live tracks, and an extended, electronically-damaged 2021 revamp of the EP’s “Otis Elevator Dub,” but don’t write them off as filler scraps, especially the keyboard-driven, rhythmic twee rush of “Make a Fire,” the totally sideways mutant funk beat that cycles through “Energy,” and Rachel Maready Evergreen’s deadpan spoken delivery over the angular new wave bop of “Yesterday” like a Third Coast SUBURBAN LAWNS. Undeniable weirdo genius.