manicured noise

This is such a great compilation album. It came out years ago (six years ago) and no-one told me. I am very happy to have got a copy recently. 

Forty years and a few months ago I had a big bunch of money, and for whatever reason I bought a few singles that proved to be highly influential in my tastes and interests ever after. Import singles were quite expensive (I don't remember how much, under $5 probably, but that was quite expensive then) and I really went with my instincts, but I am sure someone somewhere was mediating on my behalf (I don't remember where I was buying from though). Three things I recall buying that particular day, probably around August-September 1980, were Essential Logic's 'Music is a Better Noise', a record that is not my favourite Essential Logic record (that's probably 'Eugene') but I love all that band's output; I'm So Hollow's 'Dreams to Fill the Vacuum', a transparent vinyl single in a plastic see-through sleeve; and Manicured Noise's single 'Metronome'. In each case I knew absolutely nothing about these bands, and I mean nothing. NO THING. I had not heard of any of them! I liked the idea of 'Manicured Noise' as the name for a group. I liked the cover too:

Loved it then, love it now. Still have it (somewhere). The group is funky in that way that we now call post-punk and Steven Walsh - who apparently wasn't in the band when it formed but, in the nicest possible way (or rather, in the absence of anyone else) joined, took it over and made it essentially his own - sings in a slightly strangulated but articulate and smart way. It bugs me that more than one person has compared them to Talking Heads, which I kind of get but I don't like getting it. I mean the comparison is more than 'both bands had a really competent female bass player (Jodee Taylor in MN's case) who kind of defined their sound'. Although in the case of Manicured Noise the definition comes also from a really solid drummer in Stephanie Nuttall and a very busy, overbusy, superlatively excellent saxophone player in Peter Bannister. 

So the album above collects the sum total, apparently, of what MN recorded in their time (I just realised that in obtaining the vinyl version I diddled myself out of six more tracks on the CD, however, all tracks are on spotifuck so that's fine). (My favourite track is 'Payday', particularly the bit where they turn the bass up). 

The weirdest part of the story is, apparently, can this even be true? very soon after the band split up Stephanie Nuttall went to - I'm still not sure I believe this - Buenos Aires and either joined or formed a group called Sumo. That's one thing. But is this really a picture of her in that group?! 

I mean maybe it is. The discogs listing says that Sumo were a very influential band ('Considered one of the most influential bands of the Argentine 80s. ' - easy to say) but Stephanie Nuttall doesn't play on any of their records and indeed they didn't make a record until 1983 it would seem. If she was a member of this band then I guess I need to go and find some kind of emoji to express how weirded out I feel about this picture and the unknowableness of this story. Here's another picture of her though which indicates that she was definitely amongst the coolest looking drummers of 1980 (she was also a really solid and brilliantly inventive drummer as evidenced by the record). 

But I am still confused to what extent she was a member of Sumo, or I suppose more importantly what she did next and how she went to BA. There is a person on fb who loves Argentina, is called Stephanie Nuttall and had her picture taken sometime this century with the man who plays drums on most Sumo records, so I guess it's just something that happened.* 

(Incidentally basically no-one in MN did anything really prominent again. I have a 12" record Steven Walsh made under the name The Weatherman, but it's a little too 'straight' for my liking atm. I remember hearing once that he lived in Australia for a long time.)

* A comment on this page from 2015 reads (translated by fb): 'She is the first female drummer in Argentina and should be received as such, what memories of those beginnings of sumo by god, besides her parents did well to take her when the war broke out, there are many lunatics in Argentina.'