Review Summary: C86 - I
Ask the right person, and the term C86 is synonymous with underground punk music. Started as a compilation cassette made by NME to promote the indie scene; it unwittingly galvanized a scene into existence, bringing bands into a tight-knit community that grew and fanned out into both the brightest and most forgotten corners of guitar music. A glut of fanzines, labels, venues and sub-scenes followed. Today, C86 has transcended its promo cassettes beginning and has come to be synecdoche of British indie, jangle punk and a multitude of other sub-genres that managed to boil right up to the edge of the mainstream in the 80’s. It’s had a handful of revivals and currently sits on somewhat hallowed ground, encapsulating something of a mid-point between the forceful shove of bands like The Fall, the oddball leanings of Josef K, and the playful pop affectations of Orange Juice.
There aren’t a ton of instantly-recognizable names rubbing elbows with C86 (Primal Scream’s short association notwithstanding), but even by the scene’s heightened obscurity standards, Twang were and remain a mystery. It’s next to impossible to dig up anything on the band, where they came from or whether its members would go on to play in anything more far-reaching. They came in ‘85 and went in the year 1988, putting out a string of 7”s, never to be heard from again. Which is why it’s all the more shocking and remarkable how art-tight and nimble
Kick + Complain is.
Twang walked the more aggressive side of C86, aligning with similarly unruly members of the scene, like Death by Milkfloat and the Shrubs (when they were feeling randy). It’s funk-punk at its best, full of jagged guitar licks and rubbery bass-work, more muscular than Gang of Four, and supremely danceable. “Every Home Should Have One” crashes through with such vigour and style, it’s hard to sit still. The call and response of “Cold Tongue Bulletin” is an instant earworm, and “Sharp”’s skittering guitar lines feel like they’re burrowing under your skin. Who knows what more could have come, but as it stands,
Kick + Complain is a small masterpiece of the time, the product of punks who couldn’t quite decide who they liked more – The Damned or Funkadelic.
