Sunday 25 September 2011

Seems Twice - Non-plussed 7" Doublethink DTDT 12, 1980

In the spirit of today's subject, we'll keep things short and to the point. Salient features:

  1. Average song length = 25 seconds.
  2. There are more building blocks on the front cover than are used in the construction of each song.
  3. Like the Sheiks single, excellent production comes courtesy of Scattered Order and the M-Squared studio.
  4. Heavy influence is drawn from Wire, whose 106 Beats That was covered live. 
  5. Conversely, approximations of the D-beat found in Salient Feature and Warhol are less a direct influence than a shared response to a technical limitation (viz. independent coordination of right hand and right foot).
  6. Check out that guitar sound - monstrous, like nuclear stockpiles; enormous, like a door slamming in the depths of hell. Grown record collectors are said to weep at the guitar sound on certain DIY records. As we drop the needle on side 1, we laugh at those crybabies and proceed to trash our living rooms when the descending riff kicks in.
  7. A live cassette was released on the 2 Tapes label from Wollongong. To maintain the self-contained conceptual integrity of the 7", don't click here
  8. Play loud.

Salient Feature [Download]


Wish It Is [Download]


Non-Plussed [Download]


Side Effects [Download]


Column One [Download]


Warhol [Download]


No Clear Ideas (Absorption Retention) [Download]


Real Arafat [Download]


Metropolitan Recluse [Download]


Look At It [Download]


Abrupt Alteration [Download]


Anglican War [Download]


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I always loved this one. I remember seeing them at the Rockgarden, maybe the same night the tape was made. It is quite amazing that compared to the rest of the EP, Anglican War (37 secs)seems to go on for ever.

Steve

milos said...

what a great bunch of songs!

Anonymous said...

Yes!

Anonymous said...

A Canberra band I was in (The [Vacant] Lot) played in Sydney on a bill with Seems Twice one time. When we played, we thought the crowd was stand-offish. When Seems Twice got on stage, EVERYBODY packed down close. As I recall, bass amp blew up a few times. The songs absolutely blew our minds :-)

Anonymous said...

The drums were recorded as a two part overdub and as result are slightly out sync and sound like shoeboxes. The whole sound and mix was damped down by the limitations of the four track tape recorder. In other words I always hated the mix. The drums on the live recording at The Rock Garden are more in keeping with the Seems Twice sound. Cheers
John Douglas drummer of Seems Twice.