From Russia With Love

A Russian Tribute to Pigface (Invisible)
by Lex Marburger

Siiiiigh…

OK, once more for the slow ones. Pigface is, among other things, a collaboration, an ongoing experiment of interacting principles, and one of the main principles is the beat (courtesy of everyone’s favorite label owner, Martin Atkins, and his hi-hat). Now, I have no problem with interpretation, but you gotta identify the most important parts of a song before you try to cover it, y’know? So, a buncha Russian bands have tried to honor Pigface on From Russia with Love, and it’s a nice idea, and there are a few good moments. For example, the first 45 seconds of Boxhead‘s take on “Tits are Cool,” or NHL‘s “Liajki Siski… Htl Power” (that’s “Hips Tits Lips Power” for the rest of y’all) chorus. Russian is a cool language, the sheer amount of consonants makes it a good match for Pigface’s music. But in the end, all of these guys take it for too long, with not enough inspiration. Case in point: Tomatoes‘ “Kiss King,” which not only buries the drum beat, but tries to replicate the Middle Eastern melody with a horrible keyboard performance. Not to be entirely unfair, if these songs were original creations and not covers, I’d say the potential of all the bands on From Russia with Love would be enormous. But since Pigface already wrote these songs, some of them over a decade ago, well, the bands didn’t have to do too much, y’know? Other participants in this Red Scare: Spiec Boys, Brompton’s Cocktail, Das Reut, Deti Solnca, Arzamas, Porch Nap, Crovj S Mololom, and Der Printer.
(PO Box 16008 Chicago, IL 60616)