80b. The Mission - Serpent's Kiss (Chapter 22)

Two further weeks at number one from 12th July 1986

It's been awhile since we've seen a rebound number one on the NME Indie listings, but if you were settling comfortably in your seat expecting not to be interrupted again, you reckoned without the enduring popularity of "Serpent's Kiss". As soon as the already battle-weary "Almost Prayed" plummeted from the number one position, Hussey and co were ready to take back the throne again for a whole fortnight. 

As always, the only relevant question to ask at this point is "What was happening lower down the charts, then?"

Week One

13. Bogshed - Morning Sir! (Help Yourself)

Peak position: 4

Well, Bogshed pushed forward one of their best known singles for a start off. "Morning Sir!" is a delight and a curiosity in that it's one of the biggest and strangest hooks the indie chart saw in 1986, but the group lost none of their downright provocative oddness as a result. The chorus of "Morning Sir!" will stay in your brain for the rest of this week - indeed, I even thought about making it my mobile's alarm sound for a bit - but that doesn't stop the song as a whole from sounding warped, detuned, scuffed and discourteously kicked around. 

This is like modern-day skiffle if it were composed by village outcasts rather than handsome and clean-cut kids in Soho coffee bars which, in case you need telling, is a good thing. Suck on that, Terry and Gerry. 

20. Age Of Chance – The Twilight World Of Sonic Disco (Riot Bible)

Peak position: 20

The Age of Chance were rapidly getting closer to becoming one of the more "important" C86 acts, but at this stage, "Motor City" off the "Twilight World" EP shows no signs of them budging from their own tinny and uncompromising groove - it's stark, harsh and devilish, and as Steven E repeatedly urges "If you can get through my wall of sound" beneath the metallic beatings, it's hard not to hear it as a direct challenge to you, the listener. 

28. The Mekons - Hello Cruel World (Sin)

Peak position: 20

29. Hawkwind - Silver Machine (Samurai)

Peak position: 29

Week Two

14. The Creepers - Baby's On Fire (In Tape)

Peak position: 6

 

Marc Riley and his cohorts covering Brian Eno must have raised a few eyebrows in the old Fall camp at the time, with Mark E Smith doubtless opining that he was right to sack him. Nonetheless, in much the same way that his original group used cover versions as templates to scrawl their own impenetrable avant doodles over, The Creepers rip "Baby's On Fire" to pieces, making it somehow feel even more menacing as a caterwaul of sound builds up steadily with each instrumental break.

71/72 - Cocteau Twins - Tiny Dynamine/ Echoes In A Shallow Bay (4AD)

Tiny Dynamine – number one for one week on w/e 7th December 1985

Echoes – number one for seven weeks from w/e 14th December 1985

Tiny Dynamine – number one again for one week from w/e 1st February 1986

Echoes – number one again for one week from w/e 8th February 1986

My Mum was idly browsing through the charts in my copy of Record Mirror in 1985 – uncharacteristic behaviour for her, but you’ll have to trust me on this one – and kept muttering the same group’s name as she went through the indie section. “Cocteau Twins” she murmured. “And there they are again. And again. And again. David, do you know this group? I’ve never heard of them but they’re all over these charts in here. They’re doing very well”.

Sometimes flippant comments made by people who aren’t invested in a band or genre reveal truths, and indeed, the Cocteaus were an utterly unshiftable force in alternative music in 1985. Unlike the Morrisseys, McCullochs and (Robert) Smiths of that world, though, their presence was often only felt through mentions in the music press, plays on evening radio, and their largely unintentional farming of the indie listings. Their records frequently slowly drifted around both the singles and album charts, gumming up the works and leaving long, murky pastel trails.

The absolute peak of this phenomenon occurred at the end of 1985, when 4AD saw fit to release two of their EPs in quick succession. Both “Tiny Dynamine” and “Echoes In A Shallow Bay” were recorded in short order as the group tested the facilities of their new recording studio, producing results they felt were good enough for public consumption in the process. The two records were not particularly stylistically distinct and could easily have been mashed together to create a mini-LP without losing any coherence, and history doesn’t record why the EP approach was taken instead.

Even if you didn’t already know that the songs featured here began life in a laboratory-like, testing environment, it becomes clear that something fresh is afoot almost immediately. Whereas previous Cocteaus singles had a sense of openness and vastness, particularly their previous release “Aikea-Guinea”, with both these records you feel – or at least I feel (never assume!) - as if a glass dome is being pulled over the group. The production begins to take on a radiated indoor warmth as thick basslines meet airy but artificial sounding washes. It’s hardly Dire Straits, but there’s a precision and slickness to the sound which causes you to imagine wandering around an empty shopping mall where only brief glimpses of natural light are seen through occasional tiny windows on the edges. The rest is strip lights, potted plants and tasteful muted colours.

You can hear this particularly strongly on tracks like “Pale Clouded White” on “Echoes”, where the ambient whine of treated guitars constantly linger in the background like the gentle echo of unoiled machinery, or on “Great Spangled Fritillary” where the background instruments approximate creaks, clicks, groans and distant foghorn blasts rather than providing any traditional anchor. In a sense, this is industrial music, but it sounds nothing like Foetus. Instead, it cuddles up to the machinery, accepting it as a tool which can be something other than a weapon.

It’s not as if “Tiny Dynamine” offers anything vastly different. The epitome of the phenomenon can possibly be found on there first, the instrumental “Ribbed and Veined” offering artificial cricket clicks alongside hazy muzak hums, occasional touches of wow and flutter, and a steady, unchallenging backbeat. If anything, this track almost sounds close to the modern idea of Vaporwave, where relaxing, smooth melodies meet cavernous echoes and badly recalled memories of the wonders of the eighties indoor shopping centre; it’s just that while those songs generally veer towards the bright and even groovy, “Ribbed and Veined” is closer to the music you hear in a jammed elevator just as the place is due to close for the evening; a gentle, unobtrusive thing wobbling its way towards the unintentionally nightmarish. Nor is the Cocteau’s music ever as straightforward as some dork pushing a few Garageband effects buttons over a loop of an instrumental break from some dinner party soul album.