Hex Enduction Hour
Hex Enduction Hour is the fourth studio album by the English post-punk group the Fall. Released on 8 March 1982, it builds on the low-fidelity production values and caustic lyrical content of their earlier recordings. The album peaked at number 71 on the UK charts and attracted the attention of several record labels.
About Hex Enduction Hour in brief
Hex Enduction Hour is the fourth studio album by the English post-punk group the Fall. Released on 8 March 1982, it builds on the low-fidelity production values and caustic lyrical content of their earlier recordings. Frontman Mark E. Smith establishes an abrasive Northern aesthetic built in part from the 20th century literary traditions of kitchen sink realism and magic realism. The album peaked at number 71 on the UK charts and attracted the attention of several record labels. In September 1981, the Fall travelled to Reykjavík, Iceland for the first time to play three concerts, organised by Einar Örn. While there, they recorded three new songs at Hljóðriti studio, normally used by local folk artists, a factor that gave it its otherworldly sound. Smith has said that the title was intended to invoke witchcraft, that he concocted the word ‘Enduction’ to suggest the album could be a listener’s induction into the Fall and that Hex was a reference to this being the band’s sixth release. The songs were deliberately produced in a raw and low- fidelity approach by Smith, Grant Showbiz and Richard Mazda in a sound described at the time as a ‘well produced noise’ that was acceptable by Fall standards. Three songs were written at rehearsal and the next day, the band played three concerts in Iceland. Smith intended the album’s lyrics to be a response to the contemporary music scene, a stand against “bland bastards like Elvis Costello and Spandau Ballet …
all that shit.’ The album’s cover art was seen by many in the music industry as coarse and lacking accepted layout or typographical qualities; HMV would only shelve it back to front on their racks. According to critic John Doran, “uncertainty around a record label seeps into the album’s sound, the work of a band with a gun pressed to their heads”. Hex Enduction hour takes influence from the Velvet Underground’s “Sister Ray”, Captain Beefheart and the early 1970s Krautrock band Can. It was the Fall’s first to include a two-drummer lineup, with Paul Hanley and Karl Burns in the classic band’s classic line-up. The group’s first single on Kamera Records was Lie Dream of a Casino Soul, which also featured drummer Karl Burns for thefirst time since Live at the Witch Trials. Kamera agreed to pay costs for the rest of the recordings and hired producer Richard Mazda, who suggested that the sessions would take place in a disused cinema in Hitchin, known as Regal Sound Studio, as the ambience would resemble the band’t live sound. The Fall recorded “Hip Priest”, “Iceland” and non-album single “Look, Know” and the remaining tracks in a disused cinema in Hitchin.
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