Breadcrumbs

Tracklist

  1. Scottish Shuffle
  2. Of Bad Teeth
  3. My Favourite Things
  4. Metro Stomp
  5. Fluorescent Showboat (to Tangier)
  6. Interlude: Sepia Turfs
  7. Saccharin City
  8. Gone to Gondwana [1984 Version]
  9. Dr. Rat
  10. Do Re Mi
  11. Green Candle [Bare Mix]
  12. Is This Tradition?
  13. Interlude: Wind Roulette
  14. Meanings of W.E.I.R.D. [1984 Mix]
  15. 16 Going on 17 [1984 Mix]
  16. Absence [1984 Mix]
  17. 120 Before Zero [1984 Mix]
  18. Brittle People [1984 Mix]
  19. Dying Inside [1984 Mix]
  20. Kimbolton Gnome Song [1984 Mix]
  21. The Bathroom Song [1984 Mix]

Release Info

Breadcrumbs collects all pieces that somehow didn’t fit onto the other deluxe CD reissues from Klanggalerie.

The first section, tracks 1 to 5, gathers up the extra songs from Struve & Sneff ’84 and gives them their own space. After an interlude (a new instrumental), the second section is mainly unreleased music.

After a second interlude (another new instrumental) the third section is the 1984 mixes of Struve & Sneff reconstructed in the original track order.

The music has been carefully remastered by the band in 2016. New artwork was provided by Renaldo M.

Track Commentary

Of Bad Teeth
‘Of Bad Teeth’ was a setting of a Bertolt Brecht poem, with a Madness influence, the group Madness that is.

Metro Stomp
‘Metro Stomp’ is the only piece from the ‘Swinging Larvae’ era. Metro Stomp is an anagram of Post Mortem and the basic track is the slowed down backing track to ‘A Medical Man’ copied out of phase with itself with some improvised guitar and clarinet overdubs – shades of a Henry Cow influence here.

Fluorescent Showboat to Tangier
This is a song about the pub we used to drink in after a hard day in the surgery. The title comes from the fact that the pub was called The Tangier and in the lounge bar was a tank of tropical fish. In the fish tank was a sunken paddle steamer or showboat, painted in rather lurid colours. So I think you can put the title together from that. As for the lyrics, each line is an observation about the pub, which I read out to Brian, backwards. He then had to translate it back to ‘English’. So, Frosted glass in the ladies door becomes Throsted glas in ledis dor. Fancy carpet on the floor becomes Fanky farket ol te flor, or something like that – you get the picture.

The vocals on ‘Showboat’ are interesting in that we used ‘prepared voice’ to modify the sound of Brian’s singing. As I recall Brian put an elastic band around his head so that it went around his mouth a bit like a horses bridle. This pulled his mouth out of shape and altered the sound of his voice.

Listen