Nurse With Wound
Bar Maldoror (2lp/silver)
The long-running and infamous project known as Nurse With Wound - essentially Steven Stapleton joined by a rotating cast of characters - mixes the overly serious chin-scratching of the contemporary avant-garde with a healthy dose of absurdist humour and wit. Often unfortunately branded with the industrial tag, Stapleton's music actually reflects elements of musique concrète, ambient and free improvisation juxtaposed against more traditional forms. No one pigeonhole can adequately describe this diverse and immense catalogue: only by diving in can one truly appreciate the varied sonic possibilities of Stapleton's unfettered imagination. He's that weird, and he's that good. In the mid 1980s, Nurse With Wound existed as a live band for only eight shows, of which only five were in front of an actual audience. 'Live At Bar Maldoror,' released in 1991, documents these various live incarnations and makes up the first CD of this two-disc set. Having been remastered by Andrew Liles, the diverse and lengthy pieces (which were actually recorded in disparate locales, none of which are named Bar Maldoror) sound rather contemporary. Sparse percussion, tape manipulation, loops, noise, dark drones, improvised semi-musical instrumentation and strangled glossolalia all expose the many facets of Stapleton's oeuvre. In 2023, as part of the silver editions, Rotorelief Records released 'Bar Maldoror' as a double vinyl album, a luxurious gatefold with 4 panels of artwork by Babs Santini.