Nurse With Wound - A Missing Sense album flac

Steven Stapleton has always had a very scattershot approach to his work, casually remixing and reworking tracks, making compilations of selected pieces from 12"s and mini-albums rather than simply reissuing them, making Nurse With Wound either a collector's nightmare or a collector's dream, depending on the kind of collector you are. A Missing Sense is one of the strongest compilations in this vein, bringing three side-long pieces together to form a relatively consistent album in its own right.The title track was originally issued on a 1986 split LP with David Jackman's noise project Organum. Inspired by Robert Ashley's 'Automatic Writing', and its affects on Stapleton under the influence of LSD, the piece is probably the earliest example of Nurse With Wound's sedate side. Although many of the noises featured in the track are somewhat harsh, the volume and spacing of them means they never overwhelm the quiet drones and whispering voices that form the backbone of the piece. 'A Missing Sense' is ambient in the truest sense of the word: it creates an atmosphere and is best listened to subconsciously, its aura being allowed to subtly colour the room.Second up is 'Swansong', a track almost entirely build around heavily processed vocals, and created as an outlet for Stapleton's angered response at watching a documentary on atomic bomb testing. Human voices are blurred and warped until they become little more than a washes of noise: waves of an electronic ocean rolling up on a beach. Much like the previous track, despite the harsh nature of much of the sound, the piece also has a calming effect, and 'Swansong' is much more at home alongside 'A Missing Sense' than on its original release, partnered with 'Nil by Mouth' (which found a better home on the Sugar Fish Drink compilation). The set closes on a re-recording of 'Dada' from 1980's Merzbild Schwet, taken from the 1983 album Ostranenie 1913. Effectively a remix of the original, which Stapleton was unhappy with, the track adds more layers and effects to the original, including an early performance by David Tibet on wooden trumpet and bone horn. These more traditionally musical elements, alongside the effects, shave some of the harder edges from the piece, giving it a certain affinity with the preceding two tracks. It lacks some of the stark bleakness of the original version, and thankfully hasn't replaced it on reissues of Merzbild Schwet, but is a nice addition as part of this compilation.Overall, the three tracks on A Missing Sense complement each other surprisingly well, given they date from a period of over eight years. As with all Nurse With Wound of this period, the music is confounding, jarring and frequently uncomfortable; it is also comparatively sedate and mellow, focusing more on subtleties and space than dense cut-ups and absurd humour. Overall, a very worthy addition to any NWW collection.As a bonus, the album comes with some of Stapleton's most strikingly brilliant artwork: the front cover is one of his most memorable sleeves, while the psychedelic imagery on the rear is uncharacteristically 'retro' looking, but equally superb.