Even in a trajectory that was filled with drastic bends and turns, 'Joggers & Smoggers' came as a surprise. If 'Aural Guerilla' (1988) was an attempt to catch the band’s manic live energy in the studio, with seething results, follow-up 'Joggers & Smoggers' was an attempt to ignore nearly all limitations.
These 34 songs brim with a limitless eclecticism, combining the band’s legendary intensity with playful detours, literary inventions and references, and successful collaborations (from noise-rockers Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo to Amsterdam-based improvisers Ab Baars and Wolter Wierbos, and a string of already familiar friends and allies). What you get is no longer a tightly executed batch of songs, but a generous burst of creativity. On this double album, The Ex combines restlessness, playfulness, ethnic influences and improvisatory ideas of the kind that were already hinted at on releases such as 'Dignity Of Labour' (1983) and 'Blueprints For a Blackout' (1984).
The result is their most sprawling and unique album up to that point, perhaps one of their true ‘key releases’, and one that provided the foundation on which their upcoming collaboration with Tom Cora could flourish.
These 34 songs brim with a limitless eclecticism, combining the band’s legendary intensity with playful detours, literary inventions and references, and successful collaborations (from noise-rockers Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo to Amsterdam-based improvisers Ab Baars and Wolter Wierbos, and a string of already familiar friends and allies). What you get is no longer a tightly executed batch of songs, but a generous burst of creativity. On this double album, The Ex combines restlessness, playfulness, ethnic influences and improvisatory ideas of the kind that were already hinted at on releases such as 'Dignity Of Labour' (1983) and 'Blueprints For a Blackout' (1984).
The result is their most sprawling and unique album up to that point, perhaps one of their true ‘key releases’, and one that provided the foundation on which their upcoming collaboration with Tom Cora could flourish.
TRACK LISTING
1. Humm (The Fullhouse Mumble)
2. At The Gate
3. Pigs + Scales
4. Coughing
5. Morning Star
6. Wall Has Ears
7. Invitation To The Dance
8. Tightly Stretched
9. Ask The Prisoner
10. To Be Clear
11. Gentlemen
12. Make That Call
13. The Buzzword Medley
14. Shopping Street
15. Crackle Engines Vrôp Vrôp
16. Greetings From Urbania
17. Wired
18. Got Everything?
19. Waarom Niet
20. Courtyard
21. Burst!Crack!Split!
22. Brickbat
23. Hieronymus
24. Nosey Parker
25. People Who Venture
26. Watch The Driver
27. Let’s Get Sceptical
28. Tin Gods
29. State Of Freedom
30. Provisionally Untitled
31. Kachun-K Pschûh
32. The Early Bird’s Wo R M
33. Catkin
34. Upstairs With Picasso