Music Arcades: Pere Ubu: Terminal Tower

This record doesn't have its price tag on it, but I think I bought it in Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street in 1985 or '86 (around that time the Megastore, which had the broadest range of stock of any record shop I knew, was unique in having the records in the covers on display rather than behind the counter, so the price tag would have been attached to a sealed cellophane cover). It was the first Pere Ubu I bought, though I'd known of them for some time by then. Sounds was always going on about them in the early '80s.

I really fell in love with this album in 1987 after I moved to Sheffield, where I listened repeatedly to a cassette recording I'd made of it. Hearing it now, it's Side 1 that still really does it for me. Heart of Darkness, 30 Seconds Over Tokyo and then Final Solution are musically and lyrically complex and rewarding, and packed with visceral energy, too. Then there's the quirky guitar lines on Cloud 149 and Untitled (the Modern Dance), which, Paul Morley might say, are the missing link between Captain Beefheart's Magic Band and Talking Heads (in Words and Music, Morley has a seemingly endless stream of comparisons saying Q is the missing link between X and B).

I'd forgotten — as a result of listening more to later Pere Ubu material in recent years — how danceable they could be.

The official Pere Ubu Buyer's Guide recommends buying this album second after Dub Housing, but I say start right here.

P.S. A bit of googling uncovered something I didn't know until today: Terminal Tower is the name of an iconic skyscraper in Cleveland, the birthplace of Pere Ubu.