Rapeman - Inki's Butt Crack b/w Song Number One 7"

1. Inki's Butt Crack

2. Song Number One

Sub Pop Singles 1989

plus Live on WZRD 7/13/88

1. Intro

2. Radar Love Lizard

3. Superpussy

4. Trouser Minnow

5. Coition Ignition Mission

6. Up Beat

7. Outro

28 Minutes, 31MB 256K (single) and 128K (live set) MP3

What do you get when you cross Big Black with Scratch Acid? This. Anyone clicking this knows what they're getting into: Albini's antagonism, brittle guitars, angry bass and even the drums (with the dual snare attack) sound mean. I used to think that this record wasn't recorded well, but over time came to realize that the Rapeman material was in fact excellent recordings of instruments that are dialed in pretty weird. There's no bass to the bass (or I suppose I should say that the bass is all harsh upper-mids with David Wm Simms' trademark "strings slapping the fretboard" tone) The guitars have the presence knobs stuck at 30 and what is an otherwise scathing tone sounds perfect here. If Albini tried to play power chord rock, it would sound awful. The guitars tend to be sparse and annoying and violently stabbed into the music, with the bass and drums propelling everything forward. I listen to it now and think it sounds a bit hollow, but that's just because every other recording that's been thrown at me in the last decade has been brick walled. I threw the live on WZRD set on there for good measure. The recording is blown out and the levels go weird at times, but it's a good listen if for no reason other than to hear the in-between song banter, alternate lyrics and DJ's lack of charisma.

The Sub Pop Singles were limited runs released as part of a subscription. You didn't know what you'd get, but Sup Pop had great quality control back in the day. By the time I got wise, all of the "good" releases from that series (Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Fugazi, etc.) had come and gone. As such, I picked this one up on Yahoo's auction site when they were trying to make a run at eBay's business model sometime in the mid-90s. Seeing as I paid less than $10 for this, I think it's safe to say that Yahoo never attracted many buyers.

DL