Nurse With Wound - Gyllensköld, Geijerstam And I At Rydberg's (1983)

Last Friday's selection from the NWW List reminded me that there's been no postings of Mr S himself for quite some time.  So here's some prime early emanations from the haunted house, which sit chronologically in the list below between Homotopy To Marie and Sylvie & Babs.  Stapleton had just met one of his lifelong friends and major collaborators in David Tibet, and this album (often regarded as a mini-album due to its notable brevity compared to most other NWW releases) marked their first time working together.

Stapleton puts Tibet's voice to good use straight away, mangling it into a ghostly hall of mirrors whilst his own clangs and drones from the Homotopy era continue to evolve.  Sped up bits of music, buzzing, creaking and much more fill out the ten minutes of Several Odd Moments Prior To Lunch.  Other, female phantoms are also present, and the whole thing showcases Stapleton's increasing skills in mixing, editing and contrasting dynamics.  Following Tibet's intonation about wild beasts, we're straight into the queasy horns, piano stabs and banjo loops of Phenomenon Of Aquarium And Bearded Lady for another five minutes of classic early NWW.

Taking up the whole of Side 2 on the original LP (for the shortlived Disques Du Crepuscle sub-label LAYLAH) is Dirty Fingernails.  Opening with some of the noisiest NWW outside of Stapleton's earliest collaborations, it only lets up occasionally for more playful or atmospheric sounds.  Eventually, a period of near silence gives way to more scraping and slurping, before an epic crashing and swirling finish.

Until 2007, vinyl was the only way to hear Gyllensköld in its entirety, as only remixed and shortened versions, known as Odd, Aquarium and the third track at least keeping its title intact, appeared on a couple of NWW compilations.  Odd was the most strikingly different, highlighting the more musical aspects of the track in under three minutes, Aquarium was the most similar with the rhythm more pronounced, and the reworked Dirty Fingernails managed to add in some more NWW scraps that also appeared on Stapleton's 1989 clearout exercise A Sucked Orange (must post that sometime).  All three are appended as bonus tracks to the original versions on this 2007 CD reissue.

link
pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
To The Quiet Men From A Tiny Girl
Merzbild Schwet
Insect And Individual Silenced
Homotopy To Marie
The Sylvie And Babs High-Thigh Companion
Spiral Insana
Lumb's Sister
Soliloquy For Lilith
Thunder Perfect Mind
Alice The Goon
A Missing Sense
Salt Marie Celeste
Angry Eelectric Finger: Spitch'cock One
Paranoia In Hi-Fi
The Surveillance Lounge 
Painting With Priests