Escape from Noise | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Studio album by | ||||
Released | 1987 (original) 1999 (reissue) | |||
Recorded | 1983–1987 | |||
Studio | 'Our home and other people's homes' | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 42:12 | |||
Label | SST/Seeland Records (original) Seeland (1999 "un-remixed" reissue) | |||
Producer | Negativland | |||
Negativland chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [1] |
Robert Christgau | B+ [2] |
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [3] |
The Great Alternative & Indie Discography | 6/10 [4] |
MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide | [5] |
Rolling Stone | [6] |
Spin Alternative Record Guide | 9/10 [7] |
Escape from Noise is the fourth studio album by Negativland. It marked the band's first release on an established independent record label, SST Records. The album continued to develop the band's experimental style, though it also featured shorter, more melodic songs than their previous material. The track "Christianity Is Stupid", a track featuring samples of evangelist Estus Pirkle from his film If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? , proved to be an enduring signature song. Negativland gained media attention a year later after issuing a press release falsely implying that murderer David Brom had been motivated by the song; this would inspire their subsequent album Helter Stupid . [8]
The original release of Escape from Noise came with a yellow bumper sticker with black letters reading "Car Bomb", and a booklet outlining the history of the band, along with photos of band members and reviews of previous releases. [9] In the booklet, Crosley Bendix (Don Joyce) describes how the band's apartment and studio space were destroyed by a two-alarm fire on the night of "Friday the 13th of February, 1987". [10]
The fire started in Smart Laundry, a dry cleaning business located at street level below Negativland's apartment at 10028 San Pablo Avenue in El Cerrito, California. When he saw flames leaping up past their kitchen window, band member Mark Hosler yelled to his friend Tera Freedman in the next room to call 9-1-1. Hosler and Freedman collected the finished master tapes and artwork for Escape from Noise and quickly left the building, just as fire crews arrived. Cleaning solvents in the laundry accelerated the fire and caused extensive damage to the building before fire crews gained control. Afterward, the band grimly assessed the total destruction of the recording equipment and the materials from previous releases before traveling to Los Angeles to meet with SST executives and "reaffirm their album commitment". [10]
In 1999, Seeland Records reissued the album in a new "un-remixed" edition, adding no bonus tracks and moving the text on the front cover to the booklet. A sticker was placed on the album, saying:
An old album from Negativland: Digitally exacto-remastered 331⁄3 rpm compact disc re-issue of Negativland's classic 1987 LP with no added bonus tracks of any kind!
Don't let the new cover design fool you – your audiophile friends might think that such classics as "Car Bomb" and "Christianity Is Stupid" sound crisper and cleaner on this newly un-remixed edition, but they're dead wrong! And even though there are no longer eleven time zones in the Soviet Union (and no Soviet Union, either) this re-release sounds exactly the same as the original. The only thing different is the sticker you are reading right now.
The original LP is still in print on SST Records.[ citation needed ]
In 1988, the group released a press release suggesting that the song "Christianity Is Stupid" was connected to murders by David Brom, and that the group was forced to cancel a planned tour in support of Escape from Noise. However, there were no connections with the murders, and the tour was cancelled only due to shortage of funds and free time. Their next album, Helter Stupid , made use of the event by sampling news reports on the case.
All music is composed by Negativland (Mark Hosler, Don Joyce, Chris Grigg, David Wills, and Richard Lyons).
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
0. | "Announcement" | 1:51 |
1. | "Quiet Please" | 2:17 |
2. | "Michael Jackson" | 2:08 |
3. | "Escape From Noise" | 2:36 |
4. | "The Playboy Channel" | 1:32 |
5. | "Stress In Marriage" | 1:35 |
6. | "Nesbitt's Lime Soda Song" | 3:08 |
7. | "Over the Hiccups" | 1:28 |
8. | "Sycamore" | 2:29 |
9. | "Car Bomb" | 2:03 |
Total length: | 21:07 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
10. | "Methods of Torture" | 1:23 |
11. | "Yellow Black and Rectangular" | 2:14 |
12. | "Backstage Pass" | 1:15 |
13. | "Christianity Is Stupid" | 3:55 |
14. | "Time Zones" | 5:28 |
15. | "You Don't Even Live Here" | 2:30 |
16. | "The Way Of It" | 1:12 |
17. | "Endscape" | 0:37 |
Total length: | 21:16 |
Negativland
Over the Edge is a sound collage radio program hosted and produced in the United States by Jon Leidecker ("Wobbly") and Robert Cole ("KrOB"), who took over in 2015 after the death of longtime host Don Joyce.
Helter Stupid is Negativland's fifth studio album, released in 1989. It is a concept album focused on the media coverage of a hoax formulated by the band claiming that "Christianity Is Stupid" from their previous album, Escape from Noise, had inspired David Brom to murder his family in Rochester, Minnesota, as well as other moral panics related to popular music.
Pastor Dick: Muriel's Purse Fund was the second volume in the Over the Edge series, which distills the best moments from Negativland's radio program Over the Edge, broadcast on KPFA. This album was edited together from several different broadcasts recorded between 1982 and 1986.
The Weatherman's Dumb Stupid Come-Out Line was the third volume in the Over the Edge series, which distills the best material from Negativland's radio program Over the Edge, broadcast on KPFA. This album was edited together from several different broadcasts recorded between 1982 and 1984.
Sister is the fourth studio album by American alternative rock band Sonic Youth, released on SST Records on June 1. 1987. The album continued the band's move away from the no wave movement towards more traditional alternative rock song structures, while maintaining an experimental approach.
U2 is a withdrawn EP by Negativland, released on SST Records in 1991. The EP and the band gained notoriety when lawyers representing Island Records sued Negativland over the EP's unauthorized sampling of the U2 song "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and misleading artwork. The EP's two tracks and related material were later collected on the compilation These Guys Are from England and Who Gives a Shit.
"Christianity Is Stupid" is a song from Negativland's 1987 concept album, Escape from Noise.
A Big 10-8 Place is the third album by Negativland, released in 1983. It was the first album with the involvement of band member Don Joyce. The album's title is a reference to the radio ten-code "10-8," which means "back in service" or "available for next call" in the context of common CB radio usage. The lyrics and collage sound clips on the album make frequent reference to the CB radio hobby, as well as mischief like jamming.
Negativland is Negativland's first album, released in 1980. Each copy of the album has a different cover. The initial pressing was 500 copies. Unlike all other Negativland albums, the album has no titles for the songs, just numbers. It is the rarest Negativland album, next to the misprinted Dispepsi albums and the U2 E.P.
Negativ(e)land: Live on Tour is a 1997 live album, released by SST Records. It was released against the wishes of the band, who had left SST following the U2 Scandal. It was released to compete with Dispepsi, a Negativland album.
These Guys Are from England and Who Gives a Shit is a 2001 compilation album by Negativland. It contains the two tracks from the band's 1991 EP U2 alongside related recordings from the band's Over the Edge radio show and tracks recorded live at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. As the U2 EP had been withdrawn due to a legal dispute with Island Records, the album is billed as a bootleg and ostensibly released under "Seelard Records", a misspelling of the band's Seeland Records. Several of the live tracks sample the same Casey Kasem outtakes that had appeared on U2, including a spoken portion quoting "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction". Other tracks reference the band's struggles with their former label SST Records and the 1960 U-2 incident.
Happy Heroes is an EP by sound collage and experimental musical group Negativland, released in 1998.
The Letter U and the Numeral 2 is a 96-page magazine and 25-minute CD by Negativland detailing their conflict with the band U2, over Negativland's EP of the same name. It was released in 1992 as a limited edition of 4000 copies. Two months after its release, SST Records blocked its distribution with a lawsuit claiming, among other things, copyright infringement based on reproductions of press releases sent to the press by SST; "in essence, suing the band for printing (their) threat to sue the band". SST's lawsuit is similar to the "Streisand effect".
Truth in Advertising is a 1997 EP by Negativland. It was released as a teaser for their up-coming album "Dispepsi". Some of the material on the EP dates as far back as 1987, where it was used on Over the Edge, the radio show masterminded by former Negativland band member Don Joyce.
Negativconcertland is a 1993 recording of a live concert by Negativland. It is a bootleg recorded from the audience. At the time of its release, Negativland had never officially released a live album. SST later put out "Negativ(e)land: Live On Tour" against their wishes to compete with Seeland's Dispepsi album. In 2006, they released an official live recording, It's All In Your Head FM, made on the tour of the same name.
Deathsentences of the Polished and Structurally Weak is an album and booklet by Negativland. The band describes the project as "a 6 by 12 inch 64-page full-color book which comes with a 45-minute CD soundtrack."
The Starting Line is composed of two program presentations, both of which are highly edited versions of shows that were originally broadcast on KPFA's Over the Edge radio show, hosted by Don Joyce weekly and featuring members of Negativland. The first program, "The Starting Line," is Tracks 1-5, and features a mock call-in radio show focusing on various aspects of cars, hosted by a character named Dick Goodbody. The second program, "The Rototiller Singalong," takes up Tracks 6 - 9, and is hosted by two people claiming not to be involved with Over the Edge, but are in fact David Wills & Richard Lyons. The program features a recording of a Rototiller, and over-the-phone "karaoke," where callers provide the vocal parts for music being played in the studio.
The Willsaphone Stupid Show is a two CD collection of recordings edited from two different broadcasts on KPFA's Over the Edge radio show, hosted by Don Joyce.
Negativland is an American experimental music band that originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s. The core of the band consists of Mark Hosler, David Wills, Peter Conheim and Jon Leidecker. Negativland has released a number of albums ranging from pure sound collage to more musical expositions. These have mostly been released on their own label, Seeland Records. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, they produced several recordings for SST Records, most notably Escape from Noise, Helter Stupid and U2. Negativland were sued by the band U2's record label, Island Records, and by SST Records, which brought them widespread publicity and notoriety. The band is also part of the Church of the SubGenius parody religion. Negativland coined the term culture jamming in 1984. Don Joyce added it to the album JamCon '84 in the form of "culture jammer". The band took their name from a Neu! track, with their record label Seeland Records also being named after another Neu! track.
The World Will Decide is the 14th studio album by Negativland, released on November 13, 2020.
The LP edition was originally issued by SST Records with a 20-page booklet featuring article reprints, reviews and photographs from 1979 to 1987 (the printing negatives for the book are now lost) and a yellow "Car Bomb" bumper sticker.