Wicked Witch

Unless Sun Ra's most out there moments, one of many behavioral components from Chaos 1978-86, were beamed alongside televised presidential messages for years, or the ravenous fire from Jimi Hendrix's burning guitar had a heated soundtrack of its own on the Billboard charts, it's hard to imagine anyone being ready for this crazy shit in the early 80s. The appropriately named Wicked Witch, a richly decadent and spooky avant-garde affair of off-kilter rhythm and blues-based x-spunk, was the mastermind of vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Richard Simms— a somewhat frightening dude, at least in appearance, photographed in a full leather get-up, and once part of a late 70s outfit called Paradiagm. Although devoid of any significant pop caché, or any kind of relative musical easy listening, Chaos 1978-86 is a treasure of eccentricity and dysfunctional sound art. Take my word, this is 30 degrees colder than any kind of Prince-like angularity. Its self-indulgent machine-funk brilliance— not to mention the impressive violins on "Vera's Back", the ESG-like dance of "Electric War (Instrumental)", and the nutso keyboard fuzz from "Fancy Dancer"— still sounds years ahead of its time