Saturday 5 July 2008

Ebola - "Imprecation" 7"



1997, Flat Earth/ Rufusenik Records, UK
A:
1. Fortress Europe
2. Dysphasia
3. Bombed Out

4. Scream Inside
5. Seized Up

B:
6. Smoke Screen
7. Strategically Unimportant
8. Spreek Op Of Anders
9. Avenging The Dead


http://www.mediafire.com/?mmst2gm4o3n

A pretty apt follow up to the last post. Made 10 years (approx) after Generic’s debut, this record features on guitar, previous Generic/ One By One member Mickey.

It’s hard to pick your favourite record as there are so many out there - but after years of careful deliberation, I decided that if I had to go somewhere and could only take one 7” and one 12”, this
would be the EP! For me, it is everything a hardcore record should be, it sets the standard. The packaging is incredible - a 16 page card booklet full with the beautiful cut and paste artwork and pen and ink drawings. The lyrics are highly intelligent, critical and political with out being dogmatic or mere sloganeering, and the music, well the music is something else. The booklet, which is worth the record alone, is fully scanned and included in the download.

This was one of the first hardcore records I bought. I remember been blow away by the sheer pulverising force of the first track, “how is this punk rock?” I remember asking myself. From start to finish it is just one intense stream of passion, each song perfectly leading into the next. Try singing a long with the words - I can get maybe half way through the first song before loosing it completely. The vocalists, yes there’s two, have some weird smokey Darth Vader-ish sound going on. There’s
even a jazz piano kicking in towards the end! In later records they were to sample extreme-white-noise/power electronics.

I believe there’s 3600 copies floating around in various pressings. The initial 3000 on Flat Earth/ Enslaved have the brown sleeve as shown above, but there was a later repress on Enslaved, which had two different variations. 100 copies had the same artwork but screened on black in blue card, while a further 500 had a new gold design on blue card.

Nick, one of the singers, ran Enslaved records and later went onto sing in Boxed In, while Karin, the other vocalist had previously served time in One By One. Jonathon Lobster, the guitarist, sadly passed away last year. Before that, he recorded with Southampton based thrashers Minute Manifesto, who I hope to share with you sometime in the future.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This brings me memories when I first got in U.K., my first 1in12 festival, summer of 1997 EBOLA, URKO, UNHINGED, POST REGIMENT, OI POLLOI.
Ebola was fast and powerful, I was amazed by Karin's growing voice.
Jonathan, rest in noise.
By the way, welcome! Great blog.

MickyMc said...

Glad you liked the record. I think it was our best in terms of recording and playing: the split 7" with Servitude would have been really good but the £50 recording budget killed it.
Andy now lives in Canada and plays in Endless Blockade and Slaughter Strike. I Played guitar in Jinn until about 2 months ago when Karin and I moved to Belgium with our two daughters.
Nick lives on a barge next door to Bri and Stick from Doom and still puts the odd gig on.
Chrissy has just joined a new band with Ash from SAWN OFF/War All The Time.

MickyMc said...

Glad you liked the 7”. For me it was the only record that came out the way that we wanted it to. The split 7” with Servitude could have been just as good but it was killed by the crap sound… but what can you expect for £50.
Just in case you are interested: Andy now lives in Canada and plays in The Endless Blockade and Slaughter Strike, Nick lives on boat next door to Stick and Bri from Doom, Chrissy has just joined a new band Death's Black Riders, I played guitar in Jinn until about 2 months ago until Karin and I moved to Belgium with our 2 daughters. I also write gritty hard boiled fiction and have collection of short stories which you can get from Amazon and all good bookshops.
Cheers
Micky

http://www.gibboncore.com/