RSSLiliput
- Liliput [Rough Trade, 1982] B+
- LiLiPUT [Off Course, 1993] A
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Liliput [Rough Trade, 1982]
Formerly Kleenex has kept the faith even though only the lead cuts pack the goofy punch of "Split"'s massed whistles and saxophones, or the chaotic rallying cry "Eisiger Wind"--not to mention "U," or "You," or "Ain't You." Where the Slits aspire to Mango and the Raincoats to ECM and the Au Pairs to Grunt, these women clearly belong with the rest of Rough Trade's amateur anarchohumanists; they're the best thing to happen to Switzerland since John Berger. In another context I might disapprove of the clumsy white funk toward which their instrumental atmosphere has evolved, or fret about just what their references to ichor, stilts, and kicking heels mean. But this music combines the spirit of a kindergarten rhythm band with the sophistication of a wartime art school, just like the real Cabaret Voltaire. B+
LiLiPUT [Off Course, 1993]
Completism is for obscurantists, only not this time. You want everything ever recorded by these English-speaking, English-singing, English-yelling, English-murmuring Swiss maids--46 1978-1983 tracks, precisely 11 of which were ever album-available in the U.S., where they sold some 600 copies. The evolution of Formerly Kleenex from punk primitives to postpunk postprimitives proceeds as if God planned it, without dead ends or maladaptations. They burst out with some of the funniest jump-up-and-down ditties ever to jolly bohemians into dancing. Then they mellow, musing sinuously without losing their feminism or their sense of humor. They remain my favorite girl band of all time. And their sound effects are a universal language. A