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[by Alexander Laorenza]

“Everything is possible” says Stephen Stapleton, in one of the few decipherable vocal moments of Rock'n Roll Station.  And if he means by composing an rich album of formless noise and gritty loop-hop beats, then he has made a formidable stab at it. Originally released in 94' and now reissued by Beta-Lactam Ring Records, Rock'n Roll Station is one of thirty plus albums the British sound-experimentalist Stapleton has released under the moniker Nurse With Wound.

Aided by the tinkering post-production of Colin Potter, NWW offers up a collection of stark, industrial-hop opuses that borrow as equitably from Brian Eno and David Bryne's ambient classic My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and they do from Dada. The results are moody, unsettling pieces that expand the gray area between music and noise.  What is most impressive is Stapleton's perhaps purposeful, perhaps accidental foresight into the minimalist hip-hop production that would later take in the 21st century, from The Neptunes to downloaded drum sequencers available for free all over the web.

The title track invites one into NWW's surrealistic world with Pulp-y stream-of-conscious ramblings over a no-nonsense kick-snare.  Despite the fact that the beat could be found on a mixtape sold at your local bootlegger, when jangling hi-hats and indefinable samples begin blaring intermittently through the speakers, it becomes obvious that Stapleton wasn't fully in an urban mindset. Surprising, considering“The Self Sufficient Sexual Shoe” boasts the funkiest groove on the album. Its ephemeral space noise seamlessly coalesces in tracks as distinct as the backdrops of Dan the Automator and Kool Keith's influential Dr. Octagon.

Meanwhile, “Two Golden Microphones” starts off as an unlistenable mash of percussion and effects, before becoming something wholly insane. It is NWW's most ambitious and atypical number on the album. Schizophrenic bleeps emerge from the chaos, are subsumed by a surf guitar for brief seconds, all before the song evolves into an intense tribal paean soundtracking. There is even a didgeridoo!

The sonic brilliance of the aforementioned track is not matched by the remainder of the album, however. No surprise there either, as it mostly consists of some less focused tracks. “R+B through Collis Browne” is assembled from distorted lases, Manson cackles and some weak guitar chugs. The closer, “Finsbury Park, May 8 th , 1:35pm” is on the whole an interesting mood piece with a compelling intro begins seemingly built of found sound from a forced labor camp, but like too much of the effort it descends into absurd noise.  Its remix, offered as a bonus track, is even more muffled.

For its time, Rock'n Roll Station could be regarded as an innovative experiment.  It helped force still-expanding electronic-hop into a collision course with ambient noise. Whether or not it is a cited influence, its likenesses and deviaations can be heard in electronic production since.

October 4, 2006