My own year zero moment, (sorry to keep banging on about it, but it's true), was discovering R.E.M. on the release of their debut album Murmur in 1983 when I was eighteen. I always think of myself as a late developer music wise, and in other ways too, but that was the Road to Damascus moment for me musically, in many ways personally too.
It was not so much the record, (great though that was in itself), as the way that it led me almost immediately to other things. Almost as if I'd been waiting for it to come to me without knowing it. R.E.M. were always extraordinarily generous in interview, spending as much of their time as they could spreading the word about lesser known American fellow travellers, those they'd learned from and played with during the emergence over the previous three years.
Probably the name most frequently mentioned name was Athens, Georgia contemporaries Pylon. Pylon had made a small splash in British waters upon the release of their debut Gyrate in 1980, no more than that. The record certainly wasn't readily available only three years on. But, besotted with R.E.M. as I was, I was determined to track it down. When my girlfriend of the time went to The States in 1987, my only request was that she get me a copy. When I went myself four years further down the line I bought the band's other album Chomp.
I still play them both, particularly Gyrate, on a regular basis almost thirty years later. Within the confines of its innate primitivism, it's an almost flawless Post Punk statement. Utterly state of the art in terms of its raw wanton youth but also deeply smart. Frankly you could hang it on the wall as a model lesson to future generations as to how to go about creating Art, having learned first of all that technical proficiency is not all.
Pylon was a side project on the Athens college and music scene that took on a life of its own and eventually came to be the defining act of authorship of its four protagonists, vocalist Vanessa Briscoe, guitarist Randy Bewley, bassist Michael Lachowski and drummer Curtis Crowe. In Lachowski's words, 'art students assembling things with sound and instruments.'
Originally conceived as a youthful diversion from studies and career planning it soon became much more than that as Pylon quickly gathered attention on the American underground. A trip to New York to support Gang of Four was a significant bend in the road and they became the second biggest players on the humming Athens scene. R.E.M. were next.
Gyrate's essence and beauty is in its simplicity. Short snappy song titles, clinical, functional lyrics. They learn their lessons from Gang of Four, Wire and Talking Heads primarily but this is quite its own thing. Rhythm driven, taut but fun, something you can dance to but also think about. With all the time Vanessa Briscoe's urgent, strident vocal turns, acting almost as punctuation, a gear stick to speed things up or slow things down as the mood requires.
R.E.M. clearly learned plenty from them and did their best to pay back the favour. Probably a fair proportion of the records Pylon sold from 1983 onward had something to do with R.E.M's approbations. Robert Christgau, who very occasionally gets it just right, wrote this on the record's reissue.
'Where are the songs, some naive young people will cavil, thus permitting the beat-wise hipsters at DFA to riposte, 'What the fuck you think these are?' Plectrists Randy Bewlay and Michael Lachowski's simple lines display untoward rhythm and melody, respectively. Cameron Crowe bangs away so obdurately it's hard to understand why he didn't become rich. Vanessa Briscoe Hay barks and brays whatever incantatory phrases seemed called for. Timeless. Cool.'
Timeless. Cool. There's little more to add. Gyrate seems both spontaneous and utterly thought through. It's an altogether marvelous album an exemplary lesson to choosing and sticking to your road. Turn up the volume!
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