Summary.
Steven Stapleton's project, Nurse With Wound,
harked back to the satirical and iconoclastic experiments of Dadaism and
Futurism.
His early, formative works (frequently shared with David Tibet of
Current 93), such as Homotopy To Marie (1982)
and Sylvie And Babs (1985),
were similar in spirit to the Fugs' Virgin Forest,
to Frank Zappa's breakneck operettas and to the Residents' multiform suites.
His art of the collage turned decidedly cacophonous with works such as
the EPs Gyllenskold (1984) and Brained By Falling Masonry (1984),
but achieved a sort of "classicism" on the album Spiral Insana (1986).
Later works would veer towards a type of ambient music akin to the static,
buzzing pieces of minimalist composers such as LaMonte Young and Alvin Lucier.
Full bio.
(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
Nurse With Wound, the moniker behind the sonic experiments of Steven Stapleton, ranked as one of the most creative figures of the British industrial scene of the 1980s, distinguished from his peers mainly by an absurdist and satirical attitude that contrasted with their pretentious seriousness.
Initially assisted by John Fothergill and Heman Pathak, Stapleton launched in 1978 a project of cacophonous and catastrophic industrial music, inspired by the dadaists and futurists of the early 20th century. The first records were pressed in very few copies.
Chance Meeting Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella On A Dissecting Table (United Diaries, 1979 - Durtro, 2005) was improvised in the studio in December 1978 by a trio of pranksters who used anything they could get their hands on to create an aberrant vortex of noise. The result sometimes resembles free jazz and sometimes musique concrčte, but is in fact simply childish chaos, its most natural reference being early 20th-century futurism. Of the three suites, the most colorful is Blank Capsules of Embroidered Cellophane (chains, voices, noises). Two Mock Projections and The Six Buttons of Sex Appeal are the other two.
Chance Meeting Of A Defective Tape Machine And A Migrane (United Dairies, 2003) is a remix album.
To The Quiet Men From A Tiny Girl (1980) contains three even more difficult pieces (Umbrella Link, She Alone Hole and Open, Ostranenie), explicitly drawing on dadaist collage and surrealist stream of consciousness,
The other album released the same month, Merzbild Schwet (1980), even includes programmatic compositions such as Futurismo and Dada X.
Insect And Individual Silenced (1981 - Raash, 2007), featuring Foetus and considered by Stapleton himself a failure due to excess alcohol and drugs, Homotopy To Marie (1982 - United Jnana, 2007) and Ostranenie 1913 (Third Mind, 1983), featuring David Tibet of Current 93, favor the format of the extended suite, recycling experiments in collage and electronic sound manipulation in the style of Pierre Schaeffer and Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Homotopy To Marie is perhaps the best of this period, and The Schmurz (26 minutes) is the most daring cut-up. There is a bit of Virgin Forest by the Fugs, some Frank Zappa of Absolutely Free, and a lot of the Residents in cheerful and explosive interlocking games such as I Cannot Feel You as the Dogs are Laughing and I am Blind. Homotopy to Marie (ten minutes) is orchestrated for gongs and vocal samples.
Automating (United Diaries, 1986), Automating Volume Two (United Dairies, 2002) and Automating Vol. 3 (United Dairies, 2010) collect rarities.
NWW sublimate their perverse Nordic ambitions in two EPs: Gyllenskold, Geijerstam and I At Rydberg's (Layla, 1984 - United Jnana, 2008), a cacophonous suite with David Tibet, and Brained By Falling Masonry, a wild sabbath of voices from beyond the grave performed with Tibet and Foetus, works that place them in the realm of the violently expressionist collage of Neu!.
The junk-culture collage of Sylvie And Babs (1985) represents an early technical peak. You Walrus Hurt The One You Love is a suite in the vein of Third Reich And Roll by the Residents (re-recordings of famous songs, phonetic distortions, and stitching together of fragments with electronic interludes), a baroque homage to the big bands of the roaring twenties presented in operetta form with a host of alternative artists. Great Balls Of Fur revives the feats of Lumpy Gravy by stitching together dozens of sonic fragments (soprano solfeggi, rocking riffs, dissonant chamber music, deranged chants, kitsch orchestral relics, conversational pieces, electronic effects, jazz-rock jams).
Spiral Insana (Torso, 1986 - United Diaries, 1997), featuring keyboardist Robert Haigh, formalizes the fusion of industrial and ambient music with a suite in eighteen short movements (some, such as Sea Armchair, clearly in the vein of Brian Eno; others, like Pulse Interplay, influenced even by Sun Ras intergalactic free jazz). It is their most technically daring collage.
Drunk With The Old Man Of The Mountains (World Serpent, 1987 - United Jhana, 2005) compiles rarities.
Their move toward new-age and ambient forms is confirmed by the EP Alas The Madonna Does Not Function (United Diaries, 1988), with one side consisting of ocean waves, and especially by the monumental Soliloquy For Lilith (Idle Hole, 1988 - Ourobouros, 1993 - Durtro, 2005), a collaboration with Calhoun Phelan. An electronic string instrument of their own invention is used, producing a sound similar to the mellotron. Each piece is an endlessly repeated vibration with minimal variations. The method recalls the works of LaMonte Young, but the goal is meditation. The first part (17:56) explores dark frequencies, an ideal soundtrack for a metaphysical thriller. The second part (17:06) is filled with disturbing noises and is perhaps the most animated. The third part (17:51) approaches the mantric drone of Indian music. The fourth part (17:51) is cosmic and psychedelic. The fifth (17:29) and sixth (17:30) parts are perhaps the most static.
In 1988 Stapleton retired to the countryside. His best-selling album was Spiral, which reached a pressing of eight thousand copies.
Posthumous offshoots include A Sucked Orange (United Dairies, 1989), reissued together with the cassette Scrag (1987) on the double CD A Sucked Orange/ Scrag (United Dirter, 2012), and Psilotripitaka (United Diaries, 1990).
After collaborating on Revenge Of The Selfish Shellfish (Tursa, 1992) by Sol Invictus, Stapleton returned to the scene and recorded under the old name Thunder Perfect Mind (United Diaries, 1992), an album paired with the homonymous one by Current 93, containing two long experimental suites. Contributors include Tibet, Colin Potter, John Balance, Rose McDowall and many others. Cold is a concerto of deafening frequencies, a sort of In C (the minimalist manifesto of Terry Riley) for the industrial generation. The frequencies overlap chaotically until they generate the percussiveness of a jackhammer. Colder Still is a much more chaotic composition, in which the dynamic range is extreme, from the orchestral blast at the beginning to colossal harmonic voids filled by Stapletons devastating humor; it ends in an esoteric ritual marked by McDowalls voice and driven by a Middle Eastern rhythm amid a storm of hisses.
In line with the neutral, continuous sound of this phase, Stapleton composes with David Tibet the suite Sadness Of Things (United Dairies, 1993), a worthy continuation of the drone science of Soliloquy For Lilith, while the new Nurse With Wound work, Creakiness (United Diaries, 1991), a half-album, is marked by a jovial cartoon-like humor, a dadaist collage of musique concrčte.
The singles Red Flipper (1991), Steel Dream March of the Metal Men (1992), Alien (1992), Exploding Head Movie (1993), Rock'n Roll Station (1994) and Yagga Blues (1995) brighten the late phase of this tireless futurist, whose albums Large Ladies With Cake In The Oven (United Diaries, 1993), Who Can I Turn To Stereo (United Diaries, 1996), featuring Tibet, Balance, Christopherson and Ka-Spel, and the limited-edition EP Alice the Goon (1995 - Jnana, 2009) grow increasingly comic and less grim.
Rock 'N' Roll Station (1994 - Beta-Lactam Ring, 2006) was meant as a tribute to French pop-jazz composer Jac Berrocal.
Collaborations with violinist Aranos, namely the mini-album Acts Of Senseless Beauty (United Diaries, 1997) and the album Santoor Lena Bicycle, are more interesting, though certainly not revolutionary.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
Crumb Duck (United Diaries, 1997) contains the singles
Steel Dream March and Exploding Head Movie (with Stereolab).
Funeral Music For Perez Prado (United Dairies, 2001) collects
Yagga Blues and Soresucker (1990). The title is taken from
the B-side of Yagga Blues, a futuristic, droning manipulation of
a Japanese flute.
Musical Pumpkin Cottage (DUrtro, 1996) is another collaboration
with David Tibet.
The Nurse With Wound moniker was resurrected for
A Missing Sense (1997), originally conceived as a soundtrack to lysergic trips, a reworking of Robert Ashley's Automatic Music,
and
An Awkward Pause (United Diaries, 1998), that contains
the ten-minute Two Shaves And A Shine, recites by a particularly raving Tibet and followed by 93 variations, and the
childish 25-minute sound collage The Penis Fruit Loop.
Man With The Woman Face (World Serpent, 2002) is a collaboration
with Ora's Colin Potter, a gentle, pastoral collage of sounds and noises.
The 62-minute suite Salt appears on a split album with Current 93,
Music for the Horse Hospital / Sounds From the Horse Hospital (2002),
and was remixed (in ambient fashion) on
Salt Marie Celeste (United Dairies, 2003), a rather boring experience
after the first few minutes.
Other than having Stapleton sing for the first time,
She And Me Fall Together In Free Death (Beta-lactam Ring, 2003)
is not even indulgent, just improvised doodling. The title-track is
a compendium of avantgarde techniques of the 20th century.
The Musty Odour Of Pierced Rectums (Beta-lactam Ring, 2003), subtitled
"A collection of obsolete primitive variations", collects rarities.
Angry Eelectric Finger was Stapleton's divertissment about taking an
album-worth of his music and letting three musicians
(Jim O'Rourke, Irr. App. (Ext.) and Cyclobe) rework it. The original music was released on
Images/ Zero Mix (Beta-lactam Ring, 2003).
Angry Eelectric Finger (United Diaries, 2004) could be the
biggest rip-off in the history of British industrial music (a history
overflowing with rip-offs): a three-disc set of NWW's material remixed
by four musicians.
Stapleton is also working on a hip-hop album with a female rapper.
The problem with this prolific and eclectic composer is that he tries a lot
of different ideas, but almost everything he has done since 1992 turned
out to be quite trivial.
Angry Eelectric Finger (2005) is a trilogy of remixes performed by
three friends: Jim O'Rourke, Cyclobe (Stephen Thrower and Ossian Brown)
and IrrAppExt (Matt Waldron).
The droning music of
Shipwreck Radio Volume One - Seven Sonic Structures from Utvaer (IRC, 2004) is based on the
environmental sounds of a fishermen's village.
Shipwreck Radio Volume Two (IRC, 2006) is a bit more varied.
Shipwreck Radio - Final Broadcasts (ICR, 2006) concludes the
"Shipwreck Radio" three-volume series of radio broadcasts.
Echo Poeme: Sequence No 2 (Durtro, 2005) is a tribute to Alain Resnais' film "Last Year At Marienbad" built from manipulating the vocals of the actresses.
Livin' Fear Of James Last (Castle, 2005) is a double-disc anthology (but many tracks have been rearranged).
Soundpooling (ICR, 2006) documents a live performance.
Rat Tapes One (United Dairies, 2006) collects rarities.
Stereo Wastelands (Beta-lactam Ring, 2007) collects outtakes from the
sessions of Who Can I Turn To Stereo.
Two Shaves And A Shine Remix Project (United Jnana, 2008)
collects remixes by other artists of the song from
An Awkward Pause.
Disconnected (2007) was a collaboration with Faust, mainly an exercise in droning.
Huffin' Rag Blues (United Jnana, 2008) was his take on the vintage
sounds of exotica, easy listening and lounge music.
May The Fleas Of A Thousand Camels Infest Your Armpits (United Dairies, 2009) documents live performances from 2006.
Od Lot (United Dairies, 2009) collects solo pieces by
Steven Stapleton, Colin Potter, Andrew Liles, and Matt Waldron.
Paranoia In Hi-Fi (United Dirter, 2009) is Stapleton's remix of Nurse With Wound material.
Space Music (Beta-lactam Ring, 2009) was the soundtrack to a planetarium show, and one of his mellower recordings.
Surveillance Lounge (United Dirter, 2009) compiles parts of
a soundtrack for Murnau's film Der Brennende Acker and is probably
the best of this era.
Some kind of remix or alternative mix of
Surveillance Lounge appeared on the
triple-disc The Memory Surface (2009).
Erroneous - A Selection Of Errors (Important Records, 2010)
was a collaboration with Larsen.
Nurse With Wound remixed and reworked Sunn O)))'s Zero Zero Void into The Iron Soul Of Nothing
(Ideologic Organ, 2011), four lengthy tedious tracks of stereotypical doom sounds.
Rupture (Dirter Promotions, 2012) was a collaboration with
Graham Bowers that relied on samples, particularly symphonic samples.
They followed it up with Parade (2013),
ExcitoToxicity (2014) and Mutation (2015).
The quality of his music got even more amateurish on
Experimente II (2018), that seems to include leftovers and alternate
takes of what would later be Trippin' Musik,
The Vursiflenze Mismantler (2019) and
the triple-LP Trippin' Musik (2019).
