My Top 1000 Songs #451: Eating Noddemix
With today's recording technology, musicians can record "bedroom records" which sound as fully-formed as a big-bucks studio recording. But when I first heard Young Marble Giants' 1980 lone LP Colossal Youth back in college, it felt like nothing I'd ever heard before. A couple kids with some rudimentary instruments (and musicianship) sitting next to you in your bedroom, recording strange, idiosyncratic, yet deeply affecting little mood pieces.
That sensation has never really dimmed, and while I don't pull the record out that often, whenever I do it just feels like hanging out with old friends in a cramped room as they noodle around. Most of the record is of a single piece, but "Eating Noddemix" is one that's always stood out a bit for me. The lyrics are interestingly pointed--the most mundane details of a woman's morning routine (a Noddemix is apparently a Swedish cereal bar), juxtaposed with the world exploding around her on the televised morning news--and that sparse, staccato instrumentation, clicking percussion and rumbling bass, leaves room for the listener to fill in their own orchestrations, whatever's swirling around in your head.
Live:
I had a friend who was the 'Import Guy' at a local record shop and he tracked down this CD for me (as well as a cool VHS tape about the band) This is a delightful album from start to finish and it always makes me think of my good friend and his detective work in tracking this one dawn.
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