1981 - Prole Art Threat

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31 March: 4th John Peel session - Middle Mass, Lie Dream of a Casino Soul, Hip Priest,
C 'N' C/Hassle Schmuck
24 April: Album - Slates
15 September: 5th John Peel session - Deer Park, Look Know, Winter (Hostel Maxi), Who Makes The Nazis?
13 November: Single -  Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul

"Everybody hears a hum at 3am"

Is this the year it all came together? Two stunning John Peel sessions (Hassle Schmuck maybe excepted!) the brilliant Slates mini-album and yet another in a great series of singles in the shape of 'Lie Dream'.

Both Peel sessions looked into the future and four of the eight tracks recorded would feature on 1982's Hex Enduction Hour LP. In between those sessions came Slates.

A six-track record costing £2 only (u skinny rats), it was neither eligible for the single or album charts. However you view it, the ideas that swirled around Grotesque are now fully formed. It has a bit of everything.

Middle Mass has Riley and Scanlon's guitars sawing away on top of Hanley's bass while Smith does his stuff. An Older Lover etc is quieter, more considered but Smith's voice, multi-tracked at times, works through it's full menacing register. It's not everybody's idea of classic Fall sound but I love a bit of keyboard now and again so the occasional piano(?) interjections on Fit and Working Again take it up a notch.

Slates, Slags etc. has the feel of a live performance. Distorted vocals and feedback chime through while the group just gets on with what it does best. Leave the Capitol closes the record with Smith painting lyrical pictures of why he hates London and evoking author and mystic Arthur Machen into the bargain.

The year finished with the Lie Dream of a Casino Soul/Fantastic Life single either side of which would be more than worthy of inclusion here. The release showed off the double-drumkit line-up
(Paul Hanley and Karl Burns on this record) that would feature from time to time in the group's life.

In the end it's Prole Art Threat for me. It takes me back to early Fall listening and marvelling at the pace of this, rattling on like the 'one class train' that Smith is riding in the lyrics. (I was a fan of The Dickies before the Fall came into my life so appreciated the 'song at 100mph' treatment.)

You can try to unpick this tale of "'gent' and 'man' in ASDA mix-up spy thriller" or you can just sit back and get swept along by its magnificence.



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