Gigapus ++ updated!

Artist: Severed Heads. First Released: 1994. Last Issue: 2009 Sevcom

Disc 1 Tracks: Heart of the Party, Tiny Wounded Bird, ANIMal, The Importance of Hair, Repeditive Strain Injury, Arrivederci Coma, $ex, Cabalaland, Snow, Somewhere Over The Gigapus, Courier, Pure, About Leah and Adele, Nightime Falls

Disc 2 Tracks: We Have Come To Remix The House, Snow Remix, Heart Of The Party Sketch, $ex video mix, First Resonant Bank, Calling All Goth Girls, Tenderizer, The Importance of Hair (analogue), ANIMal (digital), Life's Oven, Cabbala Baby, Twelve Inches of Snow, 40Box

Made by: Ellard

Recorded and rejected throughout 1992-1994 Gigapus was our last flirtation with mainstream labels. Notably the album was recorded at first using multitrack tape, but once rejected it was recorded again using samplers and synthesisers direct to DAT. In those days of 2Mb samplers this was a major undertaking. More notably the universe decided around 1992-3 that electronic music by white people was 'dated' and somehow good ol rock 'n roll was BACK.

Nettwerk records smelled the glove and dumped the band as not featuring enough female folk singers, although it would have better to have done it in 92. As it was, we were in limbo until 1994 which is why there's at least 3 versions of everything.

Decibel records picked up the album in the USA, in Europe it came out on Dark Star (horribly maimed with excessive bass) but neither could get much traction and the band was left with some minor success in Australia only to lose everything in the crash of Volition records in 1995.

To be honest it's a patchy record. Some tracks are strong but there are quite a few which are druggy in-jokes, which is odd as we didn't use drugs. Maybe it was the influence of the neo-hippy rave scene that sprung up in the early 90's. It seemed right at the time, it seems a little daft now. But here in 2009 I thank the gods that I didn't jump on the retro rock bandwagon - 'dated' just means 'too far ahead'.

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