« Today's TIMES Magazine-- J.G.L. | Main | Ghostly; Grant »

February 22, 2006

Geniuses, vol. 4: HULA

More from the "music nerd" department... I just discovered that two of my all-time favorite electronic bands of the 80s, Cabaret Voltaire and Hula, have their stuff on iTunes. Most of CV's catalog is there, as is virtually ALL of Hula's until-now-only-on-vinyl amazing albums (with the exception of the "Walk On Stalks of Shattered Glass" ep, which I always thought was a terrific title). I'm REALLY excited about this, especially in the case of the far more obscure Hula, a band my college friend Coby Ellison introduced me to in college. I totally worshipped them. My first band in college (me on drums; Coby, bass; and Marc Tweed, guitar) even used one of their song titles, "Hot House," for a name, briefly. Hula sounds just as heavy and complex and strange and loud and paranoid and sweaty and innovative now as they did back then. They're pretty much uncategorizable (funk? industrial? electronic? none of the above?); they have one of the most amazing rhythm sections ever, and were doing weird shit with cut-up sounds and tape loops and samples long before tons of other bands. Their album MURMUR was my favorite. 1000 HOURS was half live, one-quarter funky, and one-quarter creep-out instrumental stuff I used to listen to back in 1987-88, before I'd fall asleep, in my college dorm room.

Anyway, there isn't much on the internet about the band, but I did find this smallish fan site, as well as a myspace page. If you're interested, listen to the 30-second iTunes snippets of "Ghost Rattle" or "Black Wall Blue" or "Big Heat" or the genuinely scary "Cold Kiss." Or better yet, the amazing club mix of "Freeze Out." Or even songs from their final album, the much more commercial but still groovy VOICE. Anyway, this little discovery has made me happy tonight. Next thing you know, Clock DVA and Chris & Cosey will be on iTunes... then I'll be even happier.