Diagram Brothers - The Peel Sessions

LTM
(LTM2558: 5024545609820)
Release date: 1996

$13.99

Active between 1979 and 1982, Manchester post-punk art-noise quartet Diagram Brothers released four singles and one album (Some Marvels of Modern Science) on New Hormones, the label founded by Buzzcocks. Feted by John Peel, the band recorded three BBC sessions in as many years, and drew comparisons with Gang of Four, XTC and Fire Engines for their angular, dissonant dance music.

The Peel Sessions features all thirteen tracks from the group’s three visits to Maida Vale 4 and Langham 1, originally broadcast in March 1980, February 1981 and July 1982. “We always reckoned the Peel Sessions were our best work,” says Andy Diagram. “They captured the liveliness and spontaneity of live gigs, warts and all. It was always really exciting taking a day off work to go down the motorway from Manchester to London and record four songs really quickly, that you knew the whole nation was going to hear.”

Praise for Diagram Brothers: "Freakzone featured album of the week!" (BBC6 Music, 02/2007); "A dissonant, jagged, discordant form of Pavlovian post-punk not a million times dissimilar to their peers Gang of Four, Talking Heads and Dislocation Dance. Sweet" (Plan B, 03/2007); "The Diagram Brothers were funny, slightly scary and like no-one else in the world. For this I loved them - their repertoire of bleakly downbeat observational songs inspired insane devotion" (Stuart Maconie, Cider With Roadies, 2004); "No other band so effectively captured the feel of a time when, if one strayed from the mainstream, anything seemed possible. Excellent throughout - four stars" (Record Collector, 04/2007)

1. WE ARE ALL ANIMALS
2. BRICKS
3. BIKERS
4. THERE IS NO SHOWER
5. POSTAL BARGAINS
6. THOSE MEN IN WHITE COATS
7. I DIDN’T GET WHERE I AM TODAY BY BEING A RIGHT GIT
8. MY BAD CHEST FEELS MUCH BETTER NOW
9. HEY DAD!
10. TRACEY
11. YOU’VE GOT TO PICK A POCKET OR TWO
12. THE EXPERT
13. YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE