Well we do have a lot of Dazzling facts here, hopefully most of them dazzlingly correct? You see, way back In February of 1994, SkinGraft Records released their (the label’s) first full length LP, Dazzling Killmen’s Face Of Collapse, and as someone else has just said, what an album it was! Something to do with the heart, the head and whispered secrets and listening to the tension of sound…
“Having been sold out for many, many years, a pricey, deluxe double vinyl LP edition was issued in 2016, which compiled all of the studio recordings from that original quartet version of the band. Now for the first time since that initial 1994 pressing, Dazzling Killmen’s Face of Collapse has been restored to its original single LP format and issued on coloured vinyl for the first time ever. This deluxe, new “Bone Fragment” coloured vinyl edition has been mastered from Steve Albini’s original analogue tapes, and comes packaged with a double-sided, collectible “Footlong OBI”, an illustrated inner sleeve by artist Paul Nitsche and liner notes by Aaron Burgess, the former editorial director at Alternative Press. Also available (in limited quantities) is an Ultimate Edition Bundle – that includes a Glass-Mastered CD in a Six-Panel Digipak gatefold Jacket, that is packaged with a commemorative 16-page book packed with comics, artwork and an oral history of the album from Hank Shteamer (senior music editor, Rolling Stone)”.
Did we write about it back in 1994? Probably, I really should go look, we were rather busy with getting our own label flying back then, we released that (somewhat legendary) Huge Baby 10″ back in 94, dealing with the fallout from that was a full time job in itself, the taxi bills to get members of the audience to hospitals to be stitched up and such. Had we started doing the radio thing by ’94? The Killmen were regulars back in the early days of our various radio shows, I mean listen to them, of course they were regulars on our various radio shows. Yes they were ahead of their time and if this was a new album coming out this week (this out of control week where the crows be picking at our flesh even more than usual and we have no real control over the situation) we’d be thinking yes this it, this is the bees knees, this is the dogs, this is right here right now, this is not so much what we want as what we need. The band from St.Louis over there is the USA really were a breath of wired up right on the edge (properly) progressive fresh air back then. Math rock? Post Metal? No Wave Punk Rock, Prog? Something to do with the Central Scrutinizer and the breaking of all the then established musical laws? Falling upstairs, tantrums of a different colour, words that never smile, smiles as wide as crocodiles, a Motorhead for Yes fans wading out slowing into a black pool of who knows what? Hang on, a quick history lesson for it feels like skin, skin, skin and look down at the mess, all stripped clean…
Dazzling Killmen formed in the St. Louis area in 1990, a band composed of vocalist/guitarist Nick Sakes and jazz students – drummer Blake Fleming and bassist Darin Gray. The group issued four singles, a live cassette and two full-lengths before officially ending in 1995, with a majority of it released through the independent label SkinGraft Records. Guitarist Tim Garrigan later joined the band after guesting on their Medicine Me single. The group would break up in the fall of 1995, prior to a planned tour of Japan with Jim O’Rourke, Melt-Banana, Space Streakings and Zeni Geva. Sakes went on to play in the band Colossamite with future Deerhoof members Ed Rodriguez and John Dieterich and then the mighty mighty Sicbay (now Sicbay really were rather special). He is currently a member of the Minneapolis post-hardcore trio Upright Forms, who released their debut LP Blurred Wires last year, was it last year? There are a lot of blurred wires. Fleming was the founding drummer of Laddio Bolocko and then The Mars Volta. He recently performed with Jagels in the band Shatter on Impact, as heard on SkinGraft’s excellent Sounds To Make You Shudder! Halloween compilation….” there you go, if you didn’t know all that already, more than enough to go research for your homework while we dance around this architecture…
“Taking influence from hardcore punk and jazz music, Dazzling Killmen has been noted by critics and peers as having influenced the genres that came to be known as math rock and post-metal. The band’s final album Face of Collapse was reissued in a deluxe, expanded edition in 2016 and again in 2022 in by SkinGraft Records” – no, I can’t keep up with all these re-issues and represses either, beyond that though, far more important than the pigeonholes and the labels is the tension, the release, if there ever is a release from that tension? Nick Sakes in the master of tension, of intension, you are always close to an edge you can’t quite see or a tightrope you might now get to the end of. The Dazzling Killmen trademark is tension, relentless wound up tight tension and pecking and what you really need to know before you miss the chance, is that the band are over here in the UK this October, which right now on the eve of John Coltrane’s one hundredth birthday on the 23rd September is little more than a week away. It really is a righteous sound, dare we say a love supreme?
The Bandcamp page that will take you to the deluxe edition of Dazzling Killmen’s debut album with a load of bonus tracks including an excellent version of Poptones is here
Thsoe Dazzling Killmen European dates…
2.10 – BOLOGNA IT – Improved Sequence Festival
3.10 – TORINO IT – Blah Blah
4.10 – GENEVE CH – Cave12
5.10 – LYON FR – Grrrnd Zero
6.10 – PARIS FR – Point Éphémère
7.10 – LONDON UK – The Lexington (with Heckle Chamber)
8.10 – LEEDS UK – Wharf Chambers
9.10 – BOURNEMOUTH UK – Anvil Rockbar
10.10 – BRUSSELS BE – Magasin4
11.10 – LIEGE BE – La Zone
12.10 – FRANKFURT DE – Dreikonigskeller
14.10 – BERLIN DE – Neue Zukunft
15.10 – WOLOW PL – Nowa Forma
16.10 – WIEN AT – Rhiz
17.10 – LJUBLJANA SI – Channel Zero
Previously…
