Alien Sex Fiend, Fiend At The Controls

Witty opening remarks are being abandoned as there are simply too many good things to say about this record to waste space fellating my own hack ego. For whatever reason, Alien Sex Fiend have become one of those anthologised-to-death bands, whose original albums are swiftly disappearing, leaving countless "best of" CDs to bewilder the potential consumer. A quick scan at their discography reveals eight anthology/compilation records (not including live albums), compared with ten honest-to-Hastur LP's (with an eleventh to be released this Halloween). Not quite as bad as poor Gary Numan (who says people are still bringing records for him to sign that he's never even heard of), but the devoted Fiend-head can't help but scream out in the night "When? When do I get an ASF compilation that meets MY needs? Huh?"

In a word, now. "Fiend At The Controls" is nothing less than twenty six tracks of pure heaven for long-standing admirers of Nik and the missus. Consisting of demos, B-sides and remixes, almost everything here has never been released on CD elsewhere, and the majority of the material's been out of print for well over a decade. The remixes and B-sides are uniformly strong, with the former often managing to do the impossible and make Alien Sex Fiend sound even crazier than usual. The band's affinity for dub is heavily accented, with the throbbing percussive elements of their sound being pushed to extremes. "On A Mission" in particular gets dubbed out to Mad Professor levels. Then there's the "Toytown Mix" of "Lips Can't Go": play your copy of the original at 78rpm to get the idea. More than anything, though, it's the snippets of ephemera which occupy the spaces between songs that raise this collection above the status of a mere rarities compilation and into an entry in the Fiend's larger oeuvre of no small stature (yes, I'm willing to make myself sound like a pompous ass describing this thing, because it's that damn good). Produced and mixed by Nik and Mrs. Fiend to resemble a late-nite radio DJ set, we get hilarious bits like an interview between Nik and a Finn whose pronunciation of the words "Alien Sex Fiend" has to be heard to be believed. Highlights:

"Anything can happen...Why are you so weird?"
"You're weirder than I am, you've got a weirder shirt."
"Why do you call yourself...'Alien Sex Fiend'?"
"Coz it's interesting. It's better than being called The Shirts...or The Bums, or something like that, innit?"
"What do you want to say with you music"
"I want to say...I'm hungry. Feed me."

Then there's the message from Bowie (himself a die-hard Fiend fan) left on the band's answering machine. Yes! Bowie sounds confused and disoriented while leaving phone messages JUST LIKE YOU! Seriously, this shit is gold. Gold! The liner notes (written by the two fiends themselves) are almost worth the price of admission. It truly amazes me that this album was released by Cleopatra, as I can't find a single botched track title, spelling mistake, or any other general annoyance. Then again, everything on this album, from the mastering to the liner notes, was handled by Nik and Mrs. Fiend.  Looks like those goofs in California realised that the best way to present the Fiends' work is to let them take the controls themselves.

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