Smell & Quim - Spaceshit

Smell & Quim - Spaceshit
Must Die Records.
MDR026


I first heard Spaceshit at Diz Willis’ wake. Not feeling quite sure as to what it was exactly I was listening to I asked current Smell & Quim accomplice Paul Harrison for clarification and when he said 'its the new Smell & Quim album' nobody could have been more surprised than me. For it sounded nothing like any Smell & Quim album I'd ever heard before.

Appearing at the end of the millennium on Nigel Joseph’s Mental Guru label its 40 continuous tracks contained prank calls to prostitutes, the theme from the Onedin Line, twisted beyond recognition songs, very little noise and a sleeve that had green aliens on it. It was, and indeed remains, the most ‘out there’ Smell & Quim release to date.

Spaceshit saw a particular Smell & Quim era come to an abrupt end. The death of Diz and the departure of Neil Campbell, Harrison and the slow falling apart of the Sowerby Bridge crew led to more drinking, less gigging and a hiatus of about seven years in regards as to any significant Smell & Quim activity. Containing contributions from just about everyone who’d ever been involved with Smell & Quim up to 2000 the end result was put together by Srdenovic and Holly Hero [no doubt over a few gins] and is in some ways a tribute to Diz and those Sowerby Bridge years.

Thanks to Must Die Records re-releasing it in a split track format you can skip to track 19 and ‘Fannies and Priests’ to listen in on a drunken conversation about shagging that must have taken place in Graceland [the house cum studio in Sowerby Bridge where drink sodden S&Q activity loomed large] at three in the morning [or, quite possibly three in the afternoon] after large amounts of alcohol had been consumed. ‘Fannies and Priests captures for posterity the slurring before it turned into snoring and then there’s ‘Fucking Ada’ which consists of thirty seconds worth of a room full of drunken people shouting 'fucking Ada' at the tops of their voices. A snapshot of everyday folks lives in a hill side West Yorkshire town circa 1999.

Littered throughout Spaceshit are two recurring tracks of an Hawaiian nature in which a lap steel and a Martin Denny rhythm are fed through short loops upon which a manic ‘yeah, yeah yeah’, some pummeling drum and bass and the sound of a needle being carelessly pulled from a record are slopped all over it. 30’s Jazz, 80’s pop and old blues records are all looped and mutated into shapes far distant from their origins. Frantic film voices become deranged chatter, stuck CD’s come and go, The Hollies ‘He Aint Heavy’ is just about discernible [going backwards, stuttering, breaking up] under a drum beat that's also treated and breaking up and going backwards. When Milovan sings ‘Too Much Dipsy Doo Will Make You Cooney’ right near the end of it all on track thirty six against, what is possibly Stewart Home reading from one of his books, you want to punch the air, pull down your pants and tip a bottle of Buckfast Tonic Wine down your neck in drunken homage.

There is little in the way of ugly noise on Spaceshit and some people may find that rather odd. What It does have though is buckets of Smell & Quim humour and a gentle hint of nostalgia. After listening to it again for the first time in 13 years I now find myself loving every daft sodding minute of it - the juvenile track titles: ‘Any Other Arsehole’, ‘Master Testicle In the Knickers of Time’, ‘Can’t Fuck, Wont Fuck’, ‘Beef’, the recurring Hawaiian lap steel, the dopey prostitutes who don’t realise they’re being taken for a ride [‘do you have any girls who can do circus tricks?]. Every daft and glorious sodding minute of it.

Thirteen years later its a sentimental ride and an affectionate one too. A release whose purpose is that of a fingerpost to a time past. It is also, quite possibly, the best Smell & Quim album to date. Go and argue over that one. Over a few beers obviously.       



Must Die Records