JFK

Massively potent retrospective collection of early work by Anthony Di Franco of Ramleh working under the pseudonym of JfK: Teenage Fantasy bundles the Il Pach Preserve and Woelf cassettes originally released on Broken Flag with two previously unreleased tracks and a track from the Inna Inner Amen cassette. Like the early Total and Skullflower sides, JfK seem deformed by the first wave of avant rock coming out of the USA post-Sonic Youth but with an intense/ecstatic Industrial overload appeal that is uniquely brain-boggling. Some of the tracks are hard to break down logistically, combinations of lightning strikes of bass, chainsaw fuzz, pugilistic a-temporal drum machine assaults and warped, urgent vocals – think Suicide, Chrome, the opening chords of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man”, all reduced to insane gravities of electricity. A track like “Follow Me 1” comes across like a satanic back-masked International Harvester while “Feel The Weight” combines relentless rhythm machine assaults with Operation Of The Sonne-era Dead C –isms. A fantastic set, a secret tributary of the UK noise underground and a must for fans of Skullflower, Total, Ramleh et al. All VT copies are part of a special art edition that includes a signed print from Di Franco. Highly recommended! (