Rare or Unreleased 10: Nurse With Wound

Nurse With Wound: «(I Don't Want to Have) Easy Listening Nightmares» [mp3]

Commissioned by a festival in Nevers, France—Musiques Ultimes—in 1995, Dada noise outfit Nurse With Wound a.k.a. Steven Stapleton's Alice the Goon was originally issued on vinyl, limited to an edition of 500. The album was re-released on CD in 2000, but now that one's out-of-print.

Which is a shame, because Alice the Goon featured the above doozy, my all-time favourite party number. It has everything: it's gutsy, it's danceable, it's warped and it's humourous. In fact, I'd venture to say it's the funniest a nightmare could ever be. It doesn't lend your ear as much as bend your mind. With no lyrics to anchor your imagination, the exotica—perverted by a child-like glee of noise and squall (the sonic equivalent to Schadenfreude, or of the messy anal stage)—makes you want to dance the chachachá, take hard drugs and punch someone in the tits, all at the same time. Like a crackhead sexual offender out on parole, making a living as a clown at children's parties, it's just wrong. I mean, how can anything that feels this wrong be so right? Don't look to me for answers; it just is.

No wonder new copies of the 2000 CD reissue start at $120.00. But fuck parting with that kind of green; here at Toilet Guppy's, we put the «arty» back into «party»—and you're all invited!