Obscenity

1983

Along with The Undertow of Evening, one of two albums that we were near to completing when both Cultural Amnesia and our relationship with label Datenverarbeitung sort of dissolved.

This is a working tracklisting taken from Gerard's notes at the time:

Kingdom Come¹
Finger-tip Testing
Tail in the Slipstream
Fetish for Today
Hot in the House
The Mother in the Mind
The Media Funk²
Shallow Water³
Living for Names
Spoilt Children
Four Letter Lady

Released on: ¹The Angels Are Coming, ²The Uncle of the Boot, ³Sinclair's Luck.

Living for Names is rather out of place here and really belongs on The Undertow of Evening and The Media Funk was already on The Uncle of the Boot so both of those would probably never have got included. I think that the track Sacre Bleu might have found a home on this album. BN

Living for Names is certainly Brother Michael stuff. Perhaps The Pigs are Coming (released on Sinclair's Luck and A Sudden Surge Of Power ), though an earlier track, could have fitted on here. Obscenity was to be our first vinyl release. Datenverarbeitung cancelled the agreement in early 1983. Who knows if the reason given was genuine. We we're behind in delivering the material, though I remember we estimated around the time that we were only two minutes short. Andreas Müller claimed to be in trouble with the taxman. Meanwhile life for the three of us outside the band was moving on. Ben rang me in 1984, I think, to say that there had been an approach from an Italian company, but the moment had passed. GG

We've made contact with Andreas recently and it seems as if a confusion resulted in the band thinking that Datenverarbeitung had folded - it acually continued well into 1985. Anyway, Andreas and CA never got back in touch and the album never got made. BN

A good twist to the story. GG

John Balance, in the midst of leaving Psychic TV and starting in earnest with Coil, prepared some sleeve notes for Obscenity. Here they are...

Q: Why has waking become painful?
A: We are propagating catastrophes with our able hands.

What does one say? Cultural Amnesia have never ceased to amaze me with their finely honed songs of innocence and insecticide. Each gleaming tune a button on their hair shirt. There is a raw spirit of experiment, of mis-adventure with emotions, that is almost awkward to listen to. Time shifts and personal twists reveal a complex web of older children, playing with something they know full well is not really for the general public. Using a vocabulary of myths and symbols, along with splintered shards of themselves, caricatures and alter egos weave and parade in drunken 'night on the town' scenarios, in crazy glasshouse confrontations with each other. All life is here. Bitter and sweet. Love, sex behind supermarkets, truth and lies, jealousy and an all-pervading earthy magick. And Death. Having lurked in the herbaceous borders of the DIY cassette scene, earning critical acclaim for their numerous releases, this record now marks the edge of that dark, tangled frustration of a country. Beyond... is another day.
John Balance, March 1983 GG

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