Thursday 8 November 2007

Nurse With Wound - I've Plummed This Whole Neighborhood



Nurse With Wound or NWW is the main recording vehicle of British musician Steven Stapleton. NWW was originally a band, formed in 1978 by Stapleton, John Fothergill and Heman Pathak.

Their early recordings, all made quickly, were heavily influenced by free improvisation and Krautrock and were generally considered industrial music, despite the objections of the group.

By 1981, only Stapleton was left from the original trio and he now regards 1982's Homotopy to Marie, as being the first proper Nurse With Wound release. There are now over 30 full length NWW titles. Stapleton's fondness for dada, surrealism and absurdist humor are demonstrated in much of NWW's output, which, though it draws directly on nearly every musical genre imaginable (from cabaret music to nursery rhymes to John Cage to The Beach Boys to krautrock to pop music to ambient music) retains a distinctive and recognizable aura. Musique concrete may be the most prominent touchstone, due to Stapleton's frequent – and often humorous – use of creative tape loops and editing. This aesthetic is fully represented in the artwork that features on the album covers, virtually all of which is created by Stapleton, mostly under the pseudonym "Babs Santini".

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