It’s the summer of 1996 and yours truly has decided it’s high time he pretended to be an adult and got himself a ‘proper job’. (He would live to regret this, but that’s another much less interesting story…). Entering the realm of the Civil Service he has far too much time to daydream and whiles away the generous tea-breaks scouring music mags looking for undiscovered treasures and fresh sonic delights. He comes upon a short review for a newly released box set. It’s a band he’s never heard of, (the soon to be mighty) Pere Ubu. He has lately developed a penchant for the late 70’s New Wave scene and Pere Ubu seem destined to be added to the pantheon of established greats.

The box set contains their first five albums and various live and rarities discs, most out of print for a number of years. To these undersized ears, their sophomore record, Dub Housing, is the masterpiece of this early incarnation of the group. The evidence starts with the imagery on the album cover, brooding, dark and mysterious. On a jet black background, a rough looking (ware?)house sits beside the outlined windows of a block of flats. Various figures can be seen at a few of these windows, oblivious to one another, each with their own imagined personal agenda. It has a photographic and filmic quality, perhaps Hitchcockian, and certainly architecturally portrays Pere Ubu’s nascent environment, as the band members all hail from the industrial suburbs of the decidedly less than glamourous US metropolis of Cleveland, Ohio.

“I’ve got these arms and legs that flip-flop, flip-flop….I have desire”. So unmistakeably yelps Pere Ubu’s frontman and omnipresent lynchpin, David Thomas, at the start of the first track, ‘Navvy’. Anxiously delivered, one is reminded of an even more off-kilter David Byrne from fellow New Wave outfit, Talking Heads. We are firmly in awkward lead singer territory as his band whips up an angular, guitar-led noise around him, befitting of the lyrical obtuseness. Although as far as this album goes this is a straight-ahead (art)’rock’ track and much more varied material lies ahead. ‘On The Surface’ is next and features a very pleasing, recurring earworm synth riff which snakes in and out of the track. For keyboard aficionados, Allen Ravenstine is playing an early EML analogue synthesizer and it is employed extensively and brilliantly throughout this record, though usually for darker, more rough-hewn textures than the sound employed here.

The tempo is slowed down and broadened significantly for the title track, the atmosphere almost matching the album’s cover, the overall feel a bit sleazy with the introduction of Ravenstine’s discordant saxophone skronk into the mix. A wonky, prog-jazz world resonates with urgent guitar, excellent complementary drumming and spectral vocal passages. ‘Caligari’s Mirror’, named appropriately for this most abstract of bands, after the German Expressionist cinematic masterpiece, ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’, showcases the variety of Tom Herman’s guitar playing and has a part sea shanty, part waltz-time structure . It is lyrically and musically both mournful and playful in equal measure. Ubu are a band where frequently opposite moods work wonderfully in juxtaposition, flowing in and out of each other effortlessly as a track progresses.

‘Thriller!’, the exclamation mark presumably ironic?, is a prime example of a Pere Ubu constant throughout their many albums, a wonderful instrumental interlude, synth-led, encompassing this band’s idiosyncratic aesthetic. ‘Pere Ubu’ derives from an early avant-grade French play, Ubu Roi, itself a precursor to the later Dadaist and Surrealist avant-grade movements. The music here has sustained surrealistic intent; it’s fractured, dreamlike and disturbing, the sonic equivalent of a David Lynch film, a multi-layered dark reverie. ‘I, Will Wait’ follows, a short, sharp blast of post-punk groove in comparison to the previous song’s nightmarish qualities. The album is paced very well with largely uptempo ‘rockers’ interspersed with sonic experiments at the outer limits, head music to get lost in.

The terrifically titled ‘Drinking Wine Spodyody’ is next, classical, slightly comic art-rock in a Captain Beefheart vein. ‘(Pa) Ubu Dance Party’ does just as it suggests as the band cut loose and launch headlong into a funky rhythm, the track closing with an ecstatic vocally arranged coda, both surprising and (surprisingly) moving. ‘Blow Daddy-o’ is (virtually) Side B’s instrumental with the occasional disembodied vocal emerging amidst Ravenstine’s squiggly synth attack at the forefront.

The closing track ‘Codex’ deserves a special mention as it shows yet another side to this fantastic band. A lovely acoustic guitar figure opens proceedings and features throughout, offset, as in the opening track, by Thomas’ lyrics and slightly creepy romantic musings, the repeated line of “I think about you all the time” sticking in the head. The song ends gorgeously with just acoustic guitar and piano, the album blissfully fading out…

Here we have music seemingly forever on the verge of collapse, yet which somehow meshes together rather beautifully. (Like life itself really).

An EP of six songs, an album really in old money at nearly 31 minutes long, ‘Beaster’ was recorded during the same sessions that produced ‘Copper Blue’, the band’s exceptional noisepop debut from the previous year. It was keenly anticipated and heralded in the music press as that album’s darker, evil twin. I was musically salivating at the prospect and the cover drew me in further, tangled rope surrounded by bloodstains, it hinted at the serious intent of the subject matter. Aged 20 I was becoming highly serious (about music, anyway).

Bookended by two (slightly) gentler, shorter songs; one a dirgy guitar strum intro, the other a dirgy organ-led outro. ‘Dirgy’ in a good way, ‘Come Around’ and ‘Walk Away’ function narratively as the calm before and after the storm…and what a storm!

The other four central songs form a gripping suite and are up there with the finest of lead singer/guitarist/chief songwriter Bob Mould’s entire 40 year career. Musically there are strong echoes of his previous band, Husker Du, in the overdriven, heavy, corrosive guitar playing on display here. Commercially there is certainly a kinship with the prevalent grunge sound of the era. Lyrically we are in very bleak territory as Mould essays the gradual deterioration of a close personal relationship with his usual melancholy and dark, mordant wit.

Pete Shelley, the much missed legendary frontman with The Buzzcocks was a formative strong influence on the young Mould and his way with a lyric is reminiscent of Shelley’s at times, both sarcastic and acerbic. “Don’t try to hang me up again, don’t try to hang up on me, wait up” is a prime example from ‘Tilted’, a standout cut and the entry point to ‘Beaster’s narrative arc.

‘Judas Cradle’, the next track, musically bristles with coiled energy as the subject matter darkens further still. The title is taken from a medieval torture device and is Mould’s chosen symbol for the pain being suffered in (t)his caustic union. ‘JC Auto’ literally tightens the unfolding drama as Mould’s narcissistic bent is pulled into sharp focus as he likens his predicament to Jesus Christ’s on the cross – ” somebody nail my hands (I needed pain)”. Serious indeed!

Luckily and, as is usual with Mould, he counterbalances this dark, depressive material with his knack for an uplifting guitar line and adds layer upon layer of these, song after song. This is perhaps most apparent on the penultimate track, ‘Feeling Better’ which features a recurring, trumpeted short synth solo and a bass solo to broaden and brighten the musical palette. Lyrically some sort of catharsis has been achieved as the relationship has been ended before Mould hints at a possible reunion on the final song, ‘Walking Away’, a quasi-Beach Boys woozy organ lament. Perhaps it is better to be with someone than being alone if one reads (between) the lines.

Overall, an astonishing piece of work which I have revisited time and time again over the past 26 years. A stronger set of songs than even ‘Copper Blue’ and a high point in a career of many highs for Bob Mould.