Jody Harris / Robert Quine - Escape LP

A Contortion and a Voivoid walk into a bar...

Jody Harris of the Contortions and Voivoids/Lou Reed guitarist Robert Quine rub up against some odd edges with their only recorded collaboration. While both come from the Downtown NYC world of subversive art/music, aspects of this record subvert even that world of cool.

Is ‘avant-dag’ a term anyone has used? I could imagine the pair donning Hawaiian shirt at points of the recording session, busting out non-distorted hot licks over an ex-karaoke rhythm box. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all self-aware dag-iness, there’s a tigh balance of no-wave shronk and fretboard free jazz.

Cool and weird in a way that reminds me of Blues Control, Mikey Young’s You Feelin' Me (also guess who mastered it lol), The Durutti Column, John Cale & Terry Riley - Church Of Anthrax, Paul McCartney’s Bogey Music, and heck even those recent Steve Hiett reissues. - Nic