Nurse With Wound – Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella

The title of this album comes from Comte De Lautréamont’s Maldoror.

does anybody know anything about this issue? how's the sound for example...

Despite its infamy - a mixture of the naked breasts on the cover, the enclosed hugely influential 'NWW List', the circumstances of the recording sessions, and it being the starting point of a huge, sprawling monster of a career - Nurse With Wound's debut album is far from one of the project's best.

The oft-told story of Steven Stapleton, Heman Pathak and John Fothergill entering a studio with some cheap instruments and no musical skill is very clearly true when listening to the album - this is very much the sound of an album being made up as the members go along. Opener 'Two Mock Projections' offers a relatively safe entrance, with engineer Nicky Rogers's "commercial guitar" riffing (his presence on the album being his payment for the recording job), as well as some unusually melodic keys from Pathak. The rest of the album heads off into even less traditional territory, and with it goes any sense of purpose. 'The Six Buttons of Sex Appeal' is led by Fothergill's scratchy guitar - played with no hint of musicianship, of course - which is invigorating at first, but exceptionally tedious after about five minutes. By the time it is cut from the mix at ten minutes, no amount of wailing vocals or fun wibbling noises can distract from the fact that the album is just becoming annoying.

'Blank Capsules of Embroidered Cellophane', taking up side 2 of the album, opens with a little more sense of direction. Organ drones and sporadically plucked piano strings are joined by percussive noises and a hefty load of reverb. Although, running to nearly half an hour, the mixture of drones and scratchy percussion becomes a bit tiring, the three members plus Rogers manage to create an atmosphere, and play reasonably successfully with dynamics. What sounds like a hoover starts up at one point, while Rogers reappears out of the blue with more bluesy riffing for a moment. It's not an avant-garde masterpiece, but using dynamic and structure, the track offers more rewarding repeat listens, and occasionally hints at the brilliance of later NWW albums.

Later CD editions of the album feature a bonus track, 'Strain, Crack, Break', which is little more than Stapleton and Colin Potter fucking around with a record of David Tibet reading the contents of the Nurse With Wound List (ending with 'these bands are all shit'). It's an interesting curio that will probably get skipped after one or two plays, and as neither Potter nor Tibet had even met Stapleton at the time, its sound is very much out of place here. Nevertheless, never let it be said that Stapleton doesn't at least make an effort to provide bonus tracks wherever possible.

Any photos of the shirt/pin/box itself..? I'd be very curious to see how it came out.

Well, Biba Kopf once wrote - "who said music had to be nice"?

Even Sounds Magazine were enthusiastic enough to give it five question marks for an unusual review... so, why shouldn't you - an open-minded listener give it a chance (meeting)?

It doesn't matter if it's a dissecting table, a sewing machine or an umbrella - a stunning hardcore it is.

Three themes, clocked well over 40 minutes or so, is nothing but an aural nonsense to conservative ears. But if you scratch beneath the surface, 'Chance Meeting' occurs with free improvisation that easily fits into a fetish silent film or is a weird reinterpretation of Ella Fitzgerald's legendary scat singing.

There are plenty of associations to this - it's all up to your imagination.

Albeit suggesting spooky imagery, the grotesque of 'Two Mock Constructions', 'Six Buttons of Sex Appeal' and 'Blank Capsules Of Embroidered Cellophane' offer typically dark humorous atmosphere; absurd electric guitars sliding in and out of focus with a claustrophobic drone, echo delays and uneasy synthdrum frenzy plus occasional vocals beyond particular description, all vouch for a stunning sound painting!

This compact disc edition is somewhat rare for replicating the original lp - like many early Nurse cd releases from the 90s. Yet I must object how exaggerating the price for a piece of plastic with surrealist music can be. Those interested in buying this particular edition should have in mind, 'Chance Meeting' and the like is a bit of a tricky affair! Once pressed by pdo pressing plant, this cd edition fell prey to the infamous disc rot. Sellers should be reasonable and not mindless profiteers overpricing this one alone up to $ 90.00 while selling a potentially dissolving compact disc.

Steven Stapleton was apparently offered some free studio time one weekend, and immediately called his record collecting buddies John Fothergill and Pathak Heman (sp?), persuading them to buy some instruments - none of them had played music before. The person who offered them the studio asked if he could play a little lead guitar over their "songs " and they couldn't really refuse, hence the cheesy rock guitar over the huge cacophonous slabs of chaos. Some of it is a bit unlistenable