Section 25 >> New day, clear day

Section 25 - "New Horizon"

(Factory Records, 1981; LTM Recordings, 1991/2000; Drastic Plastic Records, 2010)

Following a long, stunningly tense, hypnotic ambient intro, one of the most astonishing and sexy basslines ever cruises in from the æther and just dominates dat ass.  Hyperbole?  Decide for yourself.  The bassline and the snappy drumming give a cold, rubbery funkiness to this song, and the bass has that round, fat tone that I love.  The lyrics consist of mundane motivational-type phrases being repeated in a catatonic way atop random squalls of guitar.  Anyone reading the lyric sheet would think this was a corny children's ditty, but the musical presentation makes it menacing and quite heartbreaking.  It actually reminds me a bit of the last line of American Music Club's "Sick Of Food": "Another bright... nothing. Another... day."  Getting out of bed in the morning sure is an underrated component of success in life; as Woody Allen once said, "90% of life is just showing up."  An ambiguous line near the end: "It's a clear blue, a new clear blue" or "It's a clear blue, a nuclear blue."  If only we could goad George W. Bush into belting it out at a karaoke bar, the world would finally know what the actual lyric was.  This song could be said to have invented the musical genre called slowcore a good decade before most U.S.-based critics decided that it arose in America.  This mp3 is taken from my 2000 LTM Recordings CD reissue, which has a ton of bonus tracks and an extensive essay on the band.  You can read the essay here.

It's a great demonstration of the power of repetition, and proof that the sum can be much greater than the parts.  Any overly-wordy songwriting would've defeated the purpose.  Reggae and dub were hugely influential on lots of U.K. post-punk bands, which is of course why they tended to have such killer basslines, since stupid-ass American punk bands were too busy trying to sound like the Ramones.  Keep in mind that this is from Section 25's bleak early years, before they added a female singer and went synth-pop and scored a club hit with the undeniably catchy and Knight Rider-esque "Looking From A Hilltop".  I'm sure this only fanned the flames of those who liked to make "First they pulled a Joy Division, then they pulled a New Order" jokes, but in the end, in a perfect world at least, a band shalt be judged by the sum total of good songs that it recorded, even if they have to reinvent themselves at various times.  I also have their From The Hip album, but like I mentioned earlier, it was from their unabashedly synth-pop-ular era, so be forewarned.

From the Always Now CD booklet

Just because Section 25 is not exactly a very sexy band, here is inevitable future star Corina Calderón, protagonist of that movie All She Can (a.k.a. Benavides Born) that I mentioned in the last post:

Yes, this individual plays a powerlifter in the movie All She Can

I don't like to objectify women, but come on, we've all laid out at the beach, and we've all stretched on the floor by our fireplace, right?  These are everyday activities.  I've known many a great Latina lady in real life, and they are taking over Hollywood, so I don't want Cor-Cal to get lost in the shuffle.  She reminds me a bit of the (part Chilean) blogger / provocateur Natasha Vargas-Cooper.  Snookie is Chilean, but I don't count her as part of the "taking over" group.

Ron Swanson's Pyramid Of Greatness might help you to solve that thing that you need to solve.

Revenge is a dish best served pink

Planets with similar climates: For Against - "Echelons" (1986), Poem Rocket - "Contrail de l'avion" (1994),  Sonic Youth - "Society Is A Hole" (1984), Joy Division - "I Remember Nothing" (1979), Interpol - "Untitled" (2002), Idaho - "Year After Year" (1993), The Comsat Angels - "Gone" (1981), The Sound - "Possession" (1981), Stone Roses - "I Wanna Be Adored" [full 5-minute album version] (1985/89).