Cultural Amnesia - Did You Hear The Music

Forty-four years after their debut and eight years since Super Whippy (their last download-only release), Cultural Amnesia return with Did You Hear The Music, a new tape on Aberdeen's Ice Cream For Crow Records label. This new release arrives just a year after a compilation of Cultural Amnesia tracks featuring John Balance as lyricist or as performer appeared as part of a Vinyl On Demand boxset. That recent reissue placed the group within the broader Coil-adjacent orbit, but Did You Hear The Music confirms that Cultural Amnesia, once an integral part of the early '80s cassette culture, remain idiosyncratic, cerebral and still able to surprise.

Side 1 opens with 'Force Field', all flickering electronics, spiky funk guitars and multiple voices tumbling over one another as they sing of scientific discovery, focus groups and of entrepreneurial intent. "Soon, I shall make lots of money" one voice declares, despite "the side effects". It's a clever opener and fine example of their abstract electronic pop songs. 'Every Body' rides on electro squelch and chiming, clipped guitar while a twisted vocal reels off a catalogue of human activity - from melting butter to doing algebra to being "hot and sexy". It's abstract, poppy and playful. 'Hyacinth Boy' shifts tone entirely, its wiry guitars and downbeat electro rhythms underpinning a song of summery infatuation. It's a love song of sorts with spoken passages of observations, reflections and emotions where descriptions like "Heraclitean fire" are followed comfortably by a chorus of "ooh, baby". Few bands could make that work, but Cultural Amnesia do so with a deadpan grace. The hushed vocals and conspiring talk of others on 'They Know What They're Doing' closes the first side. Stuttering pulses, digital processing and squalling frequencies mirror the song's theme of unseen observation.

Side 2 opens with 'Baby, I'm Cursed', a taut piece of ricocheting beats shot through with droning guitar. The stern vocal offers the opportunity of a relationship with reservations. Then comes 'Beston Forest', a highlight of shimmering ambience and quiet wonder. It's filled with location recordings and an eerie sense of suspended time. Beautiful, ghostly and contemplative in equal measure. The title track is a restrained piece of subtle electronics and rhythms, referencing nature in its repeated questionings.

"Was it in the forest, amidst the darkness of a forest?
Was it in a haze, in a haze of light?
Did it leap up in the sky?
Did it tremble in the earth?
What sky, what earth, did you hear the music?"

Finally, 'Blues' closes the album with an an unexpected abstract blues piece of treated vocal, skeletal guitar and subtle rhythm. A slight distant voice repeats the mournful refrain of "I feel so lonesome all the time" as another recalls a dream lover. This is Cultural Amnesia channelling Hank Williams and it is a fittingly strange, poignant end.

After more than four decades, Cultural Amnesia still sound like no one else. Did You Hear The Music is arty, clever, playful and fun. The pop sensibility that runs through these narrative and song based electronic songs is delightful. Did You Hear The Music is released on cassette in an edition of 100 copies from Ice Cream For Crow Records bandcamp with only a handful left from Cultural Amnesia bandcamp