Record of the Week: IRREPARABLES 12″
How can something be vicious and charming at once?! I heard the hit “I Wanna Make a Fanzine” sometime last year and, as seems to always be the case, the tapes were gone by the time I figured out how to get one. A bored sounding girl lists the things she is gonna put in her fanzine, with a snarled chorus “I wanna wanna wanna make a fanzine” true bedroom punker style. My heart stops; Spanish punx wasting time in an English coastal town by creating a bold and exciting sound… It’s got that Manchester Musicians Collective/John Peel show circa 1981 quality, handmade and earnest but not twee or throwaway like a lot of the C-86 drek, IRREPARABLES play with a true radical punk rock heart. The bare-bones punk soul of DEAD MOON meets the MARINE GIRLS!? Heartfelt songs about mix tapes may sound like the opposite of fun, but if I told you Teo of FIRMEZA10 fame was part of this endeavor and also one or two of the women from LAS TIMIDAS, (who put out the tape of the year last year[!!] which is also getting a vinyl reissue courtesy of some Hackney type) you might at least give it a listen?! Well, either way if you aren’t totally won over by deadpan girl vocals explaining that they don’t wanna go back to work, or that they are gonna spit on the pope, then you operate on totally different terms to me, in a separate reality… The songs Gwilym, the make vocalist, sings have a blood-thirsty DESPERATE BICYCLES-goes-anarcho manner of delivery that is quite compelling. These are simple melancholic masterworks, sort of like THE SHAGGS playing FEELIES songs, or simple rock ’n’ roll like “Roadrunner”—not bar rocker nightmare chug, but true sounds made by bedroom punkers and disseminated with a vision and soul. Really idyllic for people who live in foggy seaside towns and want to listen to sounds that capture that melancholy feeling while retaining their punk rock anger… US/Canada punkers can get this from Revolver, as Nominal is based in Europe now.
(Nominal Records)
