Pere Ubu [Album Covers]

1978 The Modern Dance R	1978 Dub Housing R	1979 New Picnic Time R	1980 The Art of Walking R
1981 390 Degrees of Simulated Stereo: Ubu Live, Volume 1	1982 Song of the Bailing Man R	1985 Terminal Tower R	1988 The Tenement Year SR
1989 One Man Drives While the Other Man Screams SR	1989 Cloudland R	1991 Worlds in Collision SR	$[ 12 / 31 ] 1993 Story of My Life After the grand experiments of Cloudland and Worlds in Collision failed to make Pere Ubu the darlings of Americas youth, 1993s Story of My Life found them in less polished studio circumstances, though they were still in a new and different form. Pere Ubu had been pared down to a quartet when they recorded Story of My Life, and while guitarist Jim Jones, bassist Tony Maimone, and drummer Scott Krauss all manned various pieces of noisemaking equipment in the absence of Allen Ravenstine (and producer Al Clay added keyboards), this is still an uncharacteristically lean-sounding Pere Ubu album, dominated by Jones guitars and leaving plenty of open space for Maimone and Krauss to shine through. In many respects, Story of My Life finds David Thomas sounding a great deal freer and more playful than he had on Ubus two previous albums, but without an adversary to battle against as he had on Worlds in Collision, there arent any moments of unexpected genius like "I Hear They Smoke the Barbecue" or "Oh Catherine," either. However, the opening track of Story of My Life -- "Wasted," which starts out as some sort of damaged sea shanty and suddenly mutates into grand-scale guitar rock -- shows that regardless of what challenges faced them in the studio, Pere Ubu never failed to deliver the goods, and the head-scratching travelogue of oddities in "Postcard," the slightly fractured folk-rock of "Kathleen," and the childhood nostalgia of the title track are superb examples of Ubus witty side. If Story of My Life feels in retrospect like a stepping stone between Ubus art pop period and their return to classic form with 1995s Ray Gun Suitcase, it also brings together some of the virtues of both sides of their aural personality, and its a slightly flawed but underappreciated gem.$ 1993 Story of My Life SR
1995 Ray Gun Suitcase R	1996 Datapanik in the Year Zero	1998 Pennsylvania R	1999 Apocalypse Now R
2000 The Shape of Things SR	2002 St. Arkansas R	2006 Why I Remix Women	2006 Why I Hate Women R
2009 "Long Live Père Ubu!"	2013 Live at the Longhorn April 1, 1978	$[ 23 / 31 ] 2013 Lady From Shanghai Thirty-five years after releasing The Modern Dance, Pere Ubu delivered Lady from Shanghai, an album that bandleader David Thomas described as "dance music, fixed." Thats a pretty bold declaration, and almost as attention-getting as the band naming its 2006 album Why I Hate Women (after a fictional novel). Dance music may or may not need fixing, but for a band as dedicated to questioning authority and assumptions as Pere Ubu, even the mindlessness of a hip-shaking beat could become the enemy. While most of Lady from Shanghais controversy resides in its concept, the results find the band subverting the notion of danceable music in clever ways. "Thanks" starts the album by chewing up the melody of Anita Wards disco classic "Ring My Bell" and spitting it out as "go to hell" as tinny programmed drums make the track as stiff and wintry as possible. The band uses a colder-sounding palette here than it did on Why I Hate Women, but like that album and most of Pere Ubus work since their early-2000s reboot, Lady from Shanghai finds them looking to their history as much as pushing their legacy forward. Their previous album, 2009s Long Live Père Ubu!, featured songs from their adaptation of Ubu Roi, the 19th century surrealist play by Alfred Jarry that inspired the bands name and outlook. This album doesnt skimp on surrealism either; "And Then Nothing Happened" pairs a snippet of guitar pop with an extended passage of the bands best impersonation of alarm bells. Perhaps perversely, Pere Ubu succeed more when they use dance beats for their own purposes than they do when they try to thwart that power. "Mandy" is the pinnacle of Lady from Shanghais uneasy listening, where lurid synths, a relentless rhythm, and a clarinet suggest something sinister is happening as Thomas listens to a "crazy jukebox." On tracks such as this, "Musicians Are Scum" (which nods to the Chambers Brothers "Time Has Come Today" on its choruses), and the circular nightmare of "414 Seconds," where Thomas repeatedly wonders "What part of the dream is true/What part of the truth is a dream?," Pere Ubu provide just enough storytelling dots for listeners to connect them into darkly captivating tales. As with Why I Hate Women, Lady from Shanghai also has its share of rambling tracks; aside from the noir-ish "The Road Trip of Bipasha Ahmed," the collages of murky electronics and fractured rhythms on "The Carpenter Sun" and "Feuksley Maam, the Hearing" remain more interesting in theory than in practice. Nevertheless, Lady from Shanghai intrigues more often than not, and shows that Pere Ubu can tap into paranoia, loathing, and the downright weird with nearly as much ease and eloquence as they did almost four decades before.$ 2013 Lady From Shanghai SR	2014 Carnival of Souls SR
2015 Elitism for the People 1975–1978 S	2016 Coed Jail!	2016 The Hearpen Singles 1975–1977 R	2016 Architecture of Language 1979–1982 S
2017 Drive, He Said 1994–2002 S	$[ 30 / 31 ] 2017 20 Years in a Montana Missile Silo Over their decades-spanning career, Pere Ubu have changed and grown without losing any of their inventiveness. On 20 Years in a Montana Missile Silo, they reorient their music once again: inspired by the concept of putting people in a dark room with an object or animal and having them describe it based on what they felt, David Thomas had his musicians work on their parts independently, then edited the pieces together. Though these intentionally fractured tracks are much shorter than Lady from Shanghai and Carnival of Souls epics, unlike Pere Ubus early-90s alt-rock flirtations, 20 Years feels less like a compromise and more like a challenge to see just how much wild creativity the band can pack into a short amount of time. "Monkey Bizness," which opens the album with a dose of nightmarish nursery rhyme surf-punk, barely passes the two-minute mark. The brevity of 20 Years outbursts only adds to their mystique; when Thomas sings "Im the man you know so well/But which part of me is hard to tell" over chugging boogie-woogie, it distills the albums feeling of stumbling around in the dark, grasping for clues. Similarly, the bands inspired subversions of familiar sounds, whether its the stalking blues of "Howl" or the stomping punk of "Red Eye Blues," just add to the unease that culminates on the albums more experimental tracks. Pere Ubu remain masters of wasteland soundscapes on songs like "I Can Still See" and "Plan from Frag 9," on which Thomas compares himself to a pencils ability to leave -- or remove -- a mark over seething electronics, jittery handclaps, and Darryl Boons swirling clarinet. However, Thomas is 20 Years in a Montana Missile Silos main attraction, and he uses the albums wailing, clanking, and gurgling instrumentation to complement some of his most expressive vocals. On "Funk 49," he mutters "Yeah I got a bit of soul/I keep it in a cage" with the deadpan delivery of a comedian as synths and guitars lurch at Dutch angles. Later, hes surprisingly tender on the windswept acoustic ballad "The Healer" and "Cold Sweat," where hes both sarcastic and vulnerable as he sings "Thank you/Youve been great/And I really mean that" over a sea of synth strings. 20 Years in a Montana Missile Silos glimpses at lifes unknowability are disturbing, affecting, and always fascinating -- and prove that Pere Ubu are as vital as ever in the 2010s.$ 2017 20 Years in a Montana Missile Silo SR	2018 Les Haricots Sont Pas Salés 1987–1991