Chris Heazlewood - Hellmouth 66 Cass (1991)

Not a bad collection of Heazlewood. I'd lent some assistance to his self-released cassette Raefink and it seemed like a good idea to do this one. Shortly after I had a falling out with him, as most people do at some point, and that encouraged roe mightily to kick the label in the head. This must be one of the least common ones, I think we made about 150 copies.

There is a sound to twisted music-it's a sound that is bent, wild, and wrecked and it's usually the work of a deranged and comically brilliant amalgam of musicians. Flipper had it early on, but the band who epitomized that "sensibility" was New Zealand's Axemen. Ironically, bands who practice such unrestrained mania fused with such a sparkling sense of humor are often seemingly fit with an aggressive desire to be taken deadly seriously. I've seen exchanges in the NZ monthly Rip It Up whose The Axemen fought tooth and nail with those who challenged their "seriousness," all the while releasing gloriously biting and deranged bits of mind shatter. I have to assume that was all part of the fun.

Heazlewood seems almost too angry and selfconsciously hip at times to carry this muse, but early solo projects like Hellmouth 666 are very much in Axernen's territory. Robert Cardy (one of the mighty Axemnen) even wrote the one cover song here. Unlike The Axemen, though, Heazlewood's style is much denser, with guitars drenched in a thick and fuzzy overdrive. Heazlewood's songs don't always have the shambolic humor of the Axemen, but songs like "Who's Dead-essentially a dialogue of "you're dead" "No you're dead"-is a scream. I'd call Hellmouth 666 winning, I'd call it. what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah.. . supergood!

-Bruce Russell