Perfect Disaster

(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

By the late 1980s, Britain was crowded with neo-psychedelic bands, largely chasing commercial success, but Perfect Disaster stood out for picking up the thread where the true classics had left off.

The lineup featured three cornerstones: Phil Parfitt (vocals), Dan Cross (guitar), and Josephine Wiggs (bass).

In truth, their first album, Perfect Disaster (Kampa, 1985), still indulged in a mildly syrupy pop (What's Happening To Me and Hiding From Frank), and was hardly original. It took three years for their style to gain a more distinct personality: on Asylum Road (Rough Trade, 1988), Cross’s guitar work had become more aggressive (Hey Hey Hey), at times approaching the intensity of Velvet Underground’s trenodies (In Conference Again).

The progression toward a more powerful, incisive rock and roll continued on Up (Fire, 1989), shaken from head to toe by the pulsing thrills of Sister Ray. On this occasion, even Parfitt’s dark baritone borrowed something from Reed’s weary, laconic colloquial register. Yet the driving boogies of 55 and Shout—reminiscent also of the early Modern Lovers and making wide use of distortion—contrast with the three movements of the suite Down, which is slowed and classical in style. Crowning their achieved maturity, Hey Now triumphs in an explosive style halfway between garage rock and power pop (and borrowing the riff from the Romantics’ What I Like About You).

Mood Elevator (detunings and melodic-distorted riffs) and Rise (exuberant and extremely noisy) are the gems of the 1989 EPs, now freed from the fairytale pop of their beginnings and updated to the era of the Jesus And Mary Chain.

With the album Heaven Scent (Fire, 1990), however, the duo made an abrupt retreat, opting for a series of sad, soporific chants; except for Sooner Or Later, which remains as overwhelming as the tracks on Up. It was the antechamber to the end. Meanwhile, Wiggs had moved on to the Breeders.

Dusty Trails (Atlantic, 2000) is a collaboration between Josephine Wiggs and and Luscious Jackson's keyboardist Vivian Trimble. The album's songs are influenced by Sixties' easy-listening. The seven instrumentals, while meant as mere accessories, stretch the same technique to turn that style into a hynotic, dubby, ethereal new art.