Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth
Young Marble Giants formed in Cardiff in 1978 and split in 1980 having released less than thirty songs. And yet YMG’s influence far outweighs the size of the back catalogue and the brevity of their time together. As an example, Kurt Cobain named Colossal Youth in his list of the ten most influential and fifty favourite albums.
This is the 40th anniversary reissue of that solitary album, expanded to include pretty much everything that YMG ever recorded including tracks from YMG’s Salad Days compilation, Testcard EP, Final Day single and the various artists comp Is The War Over? Given the influence on Cobain, Courtney Love, Magnetic Fields, Belle and Sebastian and many others, this isn’t the indie-grunge fest that may be expected but neither is it as jazzy as the various members’ post-YMG work might suggest.
YMG’s sound was built on the vocals of Alison Statton, the minimalist instrumentation of the brothers Moxham and a primitive drum machine. It is post-punk influenced by the likes of Eno, Kraftwerk, Suicide and Pere Ubu rather than the Clash or Pistols. Stratton’s vocals are cool, almost disinterested, bringing to mind a melodically inclined Nico, whilst the music hints at electronica, trip hop and industrial before those genres really existed.
This isn’t all great. Sometimes it is just too minimal but it is often intriguing and always interesting. Well worth a listen.
7/10
