Nectarine No 9 - I Love Total Destruction

  by Olga Sladeckova

published: 3 / 4 / 2004

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25 years of making music and still as inspiring and inventive as ever, these are the musicians from the Scottish band Nectarine No 9. The singer and songwriter Davy Henderson first appeared on the music scene in 1979 when he formed the Fire Engines with bassist Graham Main and drummer Russell Burn. Unfortunately 2 years later the band split up and went their seperate ways Henderson and Burn regrouped in the mid 80’s in Win along with keyboardist Simon Smeeton. Henderson’s most stable and popular band are, however, with no doubt Nectarine No 9 which he formed with Smeeton, bassist Iain Holford and drummer John Thompson. Since forming in 1991, they have released 4 albums ‘Niagara Falls (1995), ‘Guitar Thieves’ (1995), ‘Saint Jack’ (1996) and ‘Received, Transgressed and Transmitted’ (2001). Now Nectarine No 9 are back with a 5th album ‘I Love Total Destruction’. The 11 track album opens with the title track . It is faithful to the angular and experimental spirit of the likes of Richard Hell and Captain Beefheart, but its melodic tune streams through. Henderson half speaks and half sings the lyrics while the backing vocals from the other members of the bands shoot in edgily. The rhythm of the following song ‘The End Of Definition’ is sped up and agitated. One of the characteristic features of Nectarine No 9, which is very much in evidence here, are their relatively long and story telling lyrics. Anyone who used to be a fan of the Scottish label Postcard will be interested to know that Malcolm Ross (the guitarist with one of that label's main acts, Josef K ) guests on this song and also later on on ‘I am Stop Taking Pot managed 35’ . ‘Till The Moon Comes Up’ then mellows the album out slightly. It has a more subdued sound and backing vocals which echo and dissolves one into another. The 4th track ‘Leonard’s Foam’ and the 6th ‘The Unfunkadelic’ are both instrumental numbers. These songs are fluent , but without Henderson's lyrics don’t quite have the same lively appeal as the rest of the album. The members of the group's long musical experience allows them to play around with many different instruments and toy around with lead and backing vocals in a very natural way which then makes their music unpredictable and unique to any other band. A perfect example of thisis ‘Fat Mafia’ or the following ‘Hanging Around’. Both songs have on the surface a very casual character but if one looks deeper one will see that they are more complicated. The whole band sings the lead vocals on the latter track. Finally, the album closes with one more instrumental song ‘I Love Robert Ryman’. The song is more like an epilogue to the whole album leaving it with the feel of an open end. ‘I Love Total Destruction’ is a fine album offering a lot of variability and flavour in its music. It will certainly appeal to Fire Engines, Win and Nectarine No 9 fans, but there is much to be gained from it even if you have never heard of any of these bands before.

Track Listing:-

1 I Love Total Destruction
2 The End of Definition
3 'Til the Moon Comes Up
4 Leonard's Foam / Kremola Cone
5 On Fire Stickers
6 The Unfunkadelic
7 I Am the Sky
8 Fat Mafia
9 Hanging Around
10 I Am Stop Taking Pot Man
11 I Love Robert Ryman

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