Consumer Guide Album

The Plastic People of the Universe: Passion Play [Bozi Mlyn, 1980]
In its heretical return to a time-honored people's form, its appropriation of available spiritual values as an antidote to materialist oppression, and its embrace of the Christ who "blasphemed against the order of the world," this smuggled religious message from the long-suffering Czech anarchists makes perfect sense. Out of context, however, it's a little hard to take--happy though I am to have a trot, I don't find myself personally enriched when I read along with the Biblical texts and stories. And despite the obsessive bass lines and ostinatos, the only "rock" it brings to mind is Henry Cow, which on a strictly compositional level seems purer to me. But that's not to say that this whatever-it-is music, masterminded by free saxophonist Vratislav Brabanec, isn't satisfying on its own terms--or to mention that side two, especially the long, painful "Father, Father," makes my stomach churn every time I concentrate. B+