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Atomizer

LP released in 1986 on Homestead (HMS043), Blast First (BFFP11), reissued in 1992 by Touch and Go (TG93)

atomizer front cover
back cover
cassette version
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  1. Jordan, Minnesota
  2. Passing Complexion
  3. Big Money
  4. Kerosene
  5. Bad Houses
  6. Fists of Love
  7. Stinking Drunk
  8. Bazooka Joe
  9. Strange Things
  10. Cables (live)

This album marks the debut of Steve Albini's incredible guitar sound. On Kerosene it sounds like he's playing shards of broken glass rather than a musical instrument, and when he's beefed up by Sant and Dave, and driven forward by Roland, the song becomes something more akin to a train derailment than a musical experience. Bad Houses, which immediately follows, is one of the darkest and moodiest songs around--I rank it with Pere Ubu's Final Solution, just to give you something to compare it with. The live version of Cables is a shimmering, simmering, nasty piece of rural living recorded at 7th St. Entry in Minneapolis--it's also obviously one of Steve's favorite versions, since it also appears on the Big Money 12" and Sound of Impact LP.

Originally to be released in mid to late 1985, this didn't see the light of day until early 1986--possibly due to problems licensing artwork (the cover was originally going to be Marvin the Martian pointing a deathray at Earth). Anywho, it was definitely worth the wait, this is the toughest, nastiest, noisiest Big Black stuff, bar none. Forget Songs About Fucking, this is the sound of Big Black at their peak.

The whole album moves forward in a lurching, explosive fashion that few bands can duplicate. It's easily one of the ten finest albums I own. The only weak spot is Strange Things, which was wisely cut from the Rich Man's Eight Track Tape CD.


reviews:


Big Black - Atomizer

Bloody hell...this is THE brutal, buttkicking record of 1986. See, there are some ugly subjects...things we just don't discuss at the dinner table. That's why people like me need three guys and a machine to tell us what it's all about. "Stinking Drunk" is awesome. Roland is god.

(***)--Brian, Ink Disease 12


...I dunno if that shavetail Albini's been holdin' out 'r what, 'cause this offers lotsa the overt punch that previous efforts only threatened. His squeakin' gtr is the perfect complement t' Santiago's head-removin' riff-slashes & a song like "Kerosene" advances Shreve's writerly status to a whole new level. Wotta queer.
--Byron Coley, Forced Exposure 10


BIG BLACK
Atomiser (Blast First)

THESE ARE songs about battering boredom; more exactly, this is the noise of white Amerika desperately seeking forms of fun which can fill up its slow and empty hours.

There are many ways of making time pass quickly, but Big Black keep coming back to the most perverse sorts of "amusement". They remember 'Jordan, Minnesota' where a whole town was in on the game of sexually molesting each other's children; in 'Kerosene', Big Black tells us that "in small towns there are few forms of amusement" besides sex, arson or a combination of the two; they talk of "a cop who sleeps In his car, a cop who goes into 'bad' neighbourhoods for recreation, a cop who uses his position as a bludgeon"; Big Black sing about "slaughter-house entertainment."

'Atomiser' is consumed by these twisted images of sex, violence, madness and death. It's the best rock record to be released all year because the Big: Black sound proves that every depraved 'Atomiser' word is true. And, more than that, 'Atomiser' batters your own boredom.

Donald McRaec


Most Important Albums of 1986
Sounds, 1986/12/20

BIG BLACK 'Atomizer' (Blast First BFFP11)
AUGUST

A FRENZIED, sometimes frightening onslaught, 'Atomizer' builds on the legacy of Husker Du with an accuracy and purpose that leaves you drained. In the aftermath of hardcore's golden age, a few American bands are picking up the pieces left by the pack leaders, and Big Black's Chicago-based roar is one of the most distinctive survivors.

The drum machines on this record give their rhythms a brittle, crisped quality: the whole sound is scorched, charred to a black twist of metal. Although, like Husker Du, they know how to sneak pop licks in among this terrible sound. In 'Big Money' or 'Fists Of Love', Big Black's music sings.

They're eaten up with the little crimes of small-time America, and their notebooks are actually more reminiscent of The Minutemen than the Huskers. Where some hardcore is a high, screeching sound that seems to whistle through city blocks, Big Black sound like they're trapped in some subterranean plant, hatching out a furious underground sound.

They already have nowhere else to go, like their predecessors; say this sort of thing once and there's not much reason to say it again. But 'Atomizer' is lacerating proof of the way the American underbelly keeps releasing its dark offspring.

RICHARD COOK


'ATOMIZER' was an OK record. Having listened to most of that stuff for the first time in seven years yesterday, most of it is pretty embarrassing. I was sort of trying to figure out a way to weasel out of re-releasing it.
--Steve Albini, NME 1992/11/07


insert:


JORDAN, MINNESOTA

you can't think about it, really, because if you do then you go crazy, stark gibbering spitting and pissing in your pants crazy, so you don't think about it. but once in a while you do think about it, and there's all this weird shit going on and you can't believe it can all really be like this. you think of all the bad, bad things you do to yourself out of some weird need. you go places, bad places, to fulfill some gnawing need, and you do ugly things to yourself and other people not because of the ugliness--well, sometimes because of the ugliness, i guess--but usually because there's something else there and you'd do it no matter what. there are people who do. no matter what. they fuck their children, for shit's sake. a whole town. bus drivers, school teachers, cops, storekeepers, housewives, little boys, little girls. very little, they play games with it, like very special hide-and-seek, and very special spin the bottle and very special poker, and every day the little boys have to get up and walk to the bus stop with the daddy who mouth raped them the night before, and they have to get on the bus with the bus driver who rubbed his shit in their hair, and say "yes maam" to the lady who made them lick her the night before, and then they have to go home, you know, where daddy and mommy have been making martinis for the little get together later on, and go hide under the covers where they know they'll be found anyway and day in and day out for the rest of their motherfucking lives and then they grow up and they have babies and like i said, you don't think about it because you go crazy.

PASSING COMPLEXION

in certain circumstances, a man could prefer to lose his entire heritage, when another more comfortable one presents itself, especially if he plays piano, especially if it's 1926.

durango said, "i'd really like to be playing this two octaves higher," and burgess said, "no problem."

BIG MONEY

greed that manifests itself in laziness. a cop who sleeps in his car. a cop who goes into "bad" neighborhoods for recreation. a cop who uses his position as a bludgeon.

the digital screams are our first move into the lucrative disco/beatbox genre, where we plan to concentrate our future efforts once we quit our jobs.

KEROSENE

in small towns, there are few forms of amusement, two prominant onces are easy sex and arson, when the more simple exercises lose their bang, new combinations develop.

any similarity between the rhythm patterns used and led zeppelin drumbeats is entirely appropriate.

BAD HOUSES

we do things, bad things, and go places, bad places, even when the thrill is seldom worth the degradation. maybe we need the degradation, maybe we associate it with the thrill, and after a while, they become inseperable. then the thrill becomes secondary.

a toy organ the size of a paperback book through a guitar stack the size of a walk-in freezer, god, how excessive we get sometimes, we like seventeen seconds, all of us.

FISTS OF LOVE

take expression of emotion to its physical end. until the expressions take on meanings of their own. they become almost rituals in their gravity, fist fucking, wife-beating, whatever.

you can hear the change drop out of his pants pockets as he drops them in the toilet stall, microphone feedback is pretty fucking loud if you're standing in front of the speaker for five minutes.

STINKING DRUNK

if you haven't been for a while (a long while), then the reasons you quit lose focus, you forget the sensations that used to be all-important, then curiosity-overcomes you.

something was wrong with one of the guitar mics, but we didn't know it until we tried to mix it a month later. the miracles of modern technology saved our balls.

BAZOOKA JOE

joe comes back from the great war very different, he has done nothing but kill and watch death for many long months, he has trouble adjusting until a friend suggests a new line of work, compatible with joe's new skills.

part of the drum track is an M1 carbine being fired in a field exercise, by a guy named joe.

STRANGE THINGS

strange things i have seen. strange things i have done.

can a good mix save a bad song? we'll find out, i guess.

CABLES

our interests in death, force and domination can change the way we think, make us seek out new forms of "entertainment." ever been in a slaughterhouse?

recorded october 5, 1985, by brian paulson at the seventh street entry, minneapolis, minnesota. the only benefit gig i've ever heard of where the club owner insisted on taking his standard cut from the door.

BIG BLACK

dave riley: bass, flyswatters
santiago durango: train guitar, vocals, stranglers impersonation
steve albini: rocket guitar, vocals
roland: roland
iain burgess: burgessness

produced and engineered by big black and iain burgess in chicago, does anybody care which studios we used? thought not. thanks to sam fishkin too.

all music and other shit (c) 1986 big black, infringement subject to mutilation or murder.

hellos to; sonic fucking youth, squirrelbait youth, byron y jimmy, terry and chris, corey and lisa, minneapolis. butthole surfers, jack rabid, sfb, appliances, sfb killdozer, and anybody who likes the bishops.

our address is p.o. box 442 evanston, il. 60204


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