Customer Reviews

Killing Time

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This Fred Records edition of the classic 1981 "Killing Time" album is the one to get -- the sonics are the best these admittedly scrotty tracks have ever sounded. It includes all six bonus tracks from the RecRec 1993 re-issue, plus an additional two 1981 live tracks, for a total of almost 64 minutes. Add to that, Fred tells us in the liners, "at the correct speed and pitch and without added reverb" for the first time.

Musically, I probably don't need to tell you this is the epitome, possibly the apex of the Downtown NYC sound of the 1980s -- raw, wicked, uncompromising and unapologetic. Grapple with it.

This album is one of the finest 80'ies-avantgarde-rock recordings at all! Funky, elegant and full of an intellectual and artistic flavour. You can really feel the creative and sometimes very humourus way both bass, guitar and drums are treated. It is also a relatively early Bill Lasweel production, and seriously, I don't think he has done any better bassplaying than here! Remember Laswell has produced more than 50 albums, (Herbie Hancock, Material etc.), and here you find his characteristic style in a young and unspoiled version. I highly recommend this album for all 1980-culture feinschmeckers!

Killing Time is an absolute power prog masterpiece of writing and playing! It is interesting in that some people call this punk and some progressive. It is complex, musical mastery with exceptional musicians with prog backgrounds. It is interesting to me as well that the sheer anger and fury with which this record was made is right in keeping with the energy of the punk-rock movement of that time... but nobody is breaking their instruments here (smile)! Contrast in to Playbak80 by Daevid Allen. Dark complex and forboding. Excellent spin!

This is probably what The Magic Band - circa Trout Mask Replica/Lick My Decals Off, Baby - would've sounded like if they'd hired Arto Linday as an additional guitar player and tried to be punk.

A couple of corrections to the reviews below :

1 - this album was recorded in '81, not in the late 70s, so they were right in the thick of the No Wave movement.

2 - this is not a "Bill Laswell production". He was just a member of the group. In fact there are no production credits on the album, so I think it's safe to assume that it was "produced" collectively by the group.

At this late date I don't think anybody who is willing to actually review this 1981 recording will give it anything but a 5 star. So ditto. This was the shiznit for us back in the 80s, and the damned shame of it was of course that so few recognized that. Fred Frith maybe never got the welcome he deserved when he came to the States, but there are a few of us who remember how f&ckin great they were then. Hence my buying this album years after. This is the stuff, at its most pure.

Look, think of Adrian Belew joined with Dan Van Vliet, and you have something of the spirit of this (I am old enough I keep wanting to say "record") album. If you have come this far as to read this, I'd just say buy it. It sounds great, they play with a great focus. Rocks.

Fred Frith, Fred Maher, and Bill Laswell power Killing Time, undoubtedly the finest avant-rock studio recording of the 1980s. One mark of great art is timelessness, and maybe 25 years isn't an eternity exactly, but over a quarter century after the album was recorded it sounds as fresh as ever. Forgive the oversimplification but imagine Ruins or Naked City but without the short attention span-ish Carl Stallings-esque sensibility. Killing Time is as close to being a perfect rock instrumental recording as any recording I know. Invention, power, execution, vision, uniqueness. On my top 10 list of all-time recordings.

Amazing!!! Although it sounds like a new "no-wave" release, this was actually recorded in the late 70's-not bad for an era of flared jeans and disco fever. This record pummels, jerks and roars like a broken robot on the freeway. It's a shame that musicians today are not nearly as daring as this trio. A must for fans of U.S. Maple, Melvins & Boredoms - It's not heavy metal...just HEAVY.