“I Can’t Stand It Here On Quiet Nights is centred around the trio of singles the band released on Dick O’Dell’s Y Records between 1981-1982. Their first, ‘Stretch’, was licensed to seminal American label 99 Records and soon after became an anthem on the New York club underground, a cult staple at Danceteria and on late-night radio. Closer to home and a shared personal favourite is their first B-side, ‘Silent Street / Silent Dub’: a languid, haunting tribute to long summer nights in St Pauls (where the Idle Hands shop presently resides), and specifically the Black & White Cafe, “where dub-reggae reigned supreme, 24/7”. Llewellin’s mesmerising one-drop kit and Catsis’s outrageously heavy bassline anchor the track, allowing Rainforth’s exquisite vocal and Wrafter’s trumpet to soar within the intense, expressionistic dub mix. In both subject matter and execution it is the definitive Bristol tune. ... Listening today, three-and-a-half decades later, it’s easy to hear Maximum Joy as a relic of their era. The defining characteristics of their music—rope-like basslines, squalls of dub delay, and alternately soaring and honking horn parts—peg them to the early 1980s, when punk rock, funk, disco, and reggae were all mixing together. But the Bristol, UK, group has never enjoyed the acclaim of contemporaries like Rip Rig and Panic, Pigbag, or the Pop Group (with whom they shared members), to say nothing of New York acts like ESG or Liquid Liquid (with whom they rubbed elbows on the roster of New York’s 99 Records). ..."
Holland Tunnel Dive
silent street (Audio)
Pitchfork (Audio)
Discogs
W - Maximum Joy
YouTube: Stretch, Silent Street & Silent Dub, Building Bridges (Building Dub)
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