People Like Us – Recyclopaedia Britannica (CS72)

SUC19

£6.00£7.00

The work of People Like Us rests gingerly between two dangerous positions: on the one hand, the risk of fashioning merely stylish pastiche out of borrowed finery for the sake of self-conscious kitschiness; on the other hand, the risk of making simplistic, heavy handedly “topical” audio-jokes at the expense of one’s raw material to a smug effect.

Clear

Description

Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us returns to Sucata Tapes with another epic radio collage from the archives.

“The work of People Like Us rests gingerly between two dangerous positions: on the one hand, the risk of fashioning merely stylish pastiche out of borrowed finery for the sake of self-conscious kitschiness; on the other hand, the risk of making simplistic, heavy handedly “topical” audio-jokes at the expense of one’s raw material to a smug effect. If the lounge creeps uncritically snack on their sonic ingredients and coast on being “groovy”, the cads of pseudo-critique take cheap shots at straw men and call it subversion. Happily, Vicki Bennett has yet to fall down either precipice, but yodels down contentedly from her own Alpine audio-cottage.

There, with loving care, she snips and tucks at the lycra jumpsuit until the fit is snug, places every plastic shrub on the Happy Valley Ranch just so, and throws another dance record on the bonfire. Undercutting her own utopian mirages with formal breakdowns and sneaky semantic pranks, Vicki Bennett is One Funny Lady, with a deadly sense of comic timing that puts her in my personal pantheon of edit intensive music makers: -Steinski and Mass Media, Hank Shocklee, Tod Dockstader, Teo Macero, the Hanatarash, John Oswald, Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock. Serving her birthday cake with a turd, her gags are always lined with a virulent creep factor.

You get the feeling that the vacancy and pointlessness of empty speech is being lampooned and mourned in equal measure. In sticking to this balance of celebration and critique, People Like Us genuinely hates and loves People Like You. The least you can do is head up to the Happy Valley Ranch for a spell and have a listen.” – Drew Daniel

Tracks

Another Kind Of Humour (Intro)
OB & Cha Cha
Guide To Broadcasting (Excerpt)
Smash & Grab
The Sacred Erm
Sing With Melodious Inarticulate Sound…
A Crossed Line (Excerpt)
Clippety Carl Horse
In The Panto
Ursula Fahrt Ski
T424plu (Excerpt 1)
More Plunderblunders (Excerpt 1)
Ski Hell (Excerpt)
We Believe (Excerpt)
T424plu (Excerpt)
Sound Escape (Excerpt 1)
Sound Escape (Excerpt 2)
HanDJob
f Someone Touches You
Music Of Your Own
Millenium Dome
My Son Jim
More Plunderphonics (Excerpt 2)
Oompah Pumpah
I’m 89
Take A Walk
Morning Pedro
We Believe (Excerpt)
Bran Mash & Crushed Beans (Excerpt)
We’re Gonna Be Around

Pressing Information

Release date: 19th October 2018
Pro-duped cassettes
150 copies only, no repress
Originally released in April 2002 on Mess Media (thru Soleilmoon)