Reviews Search

Nurse With Wound, "Rushkoff Coercion"

cover imageThis limited run of rather expensive 7" singles by Steven Stapleton and Andrew Liles are a bit of a mixed bag. It is not Nurse With Wound’s finest hour but it will keep die-hard fans going until the guys get around to another full album. However, for the casual fan this is probably best avoided as the high price and variable quality of the music will most likely leave a sour taste in the mouth.

 

Tourette

The sleaze funk of "Sarah’s Beloved Aunt" at first sounds too cheesy and cringe-worthy to enjoy and the porno spoken word vocals also push the boundaries of good taste. However, with repeated exposure it all comes together in the same way as Nurse With Wound's lounge exotica album Huffin' Rag Blues did. The screaming guitars and unpredictable edits and manipulations of the source materials bring this from embarrassing porn pastiche to a celebration of wah guitars and smutty talk.

On the other hand and on the other side, "Bum Brush Effect" feels like a bit of a throwaway inclusion. Layers of meandering noodling on various instruments test my patience and despite trying to get into it, I am just not seeing eye to eye with Stapleton and Liles on this. The best part is unfortunately the brief outro that seems to be the kind of '70s sitcom/elevator music that, although awful, is oddly compelling.

One final note regarding the format, I had balked at the price of Rushkoff Coercion but buckled and went for the picture disc version despite my misgivings about its sound quality. Surprisingly, the usual extra surface noise associated with picture discs is completely absent and while I cannot say that the full cost to my wallet was justified, I can at least see that the overall production quality is high. The poster sleeve and picture disc match the music well; a collage of used porn, retro abstract graphics and DNA.