Artistry and Distinction in Record-Making since 1980
AFTERIMAGE
There’s still much to uncover about the Los Angeles underground of the early '80s.
The new compilation Faces to Hide chronicles the short life of AFTERIMAGE, one of its most adventurous – if still overlooked – outfits, and helps defining the complexity of a fairly elusive scene and its era in the process.
It is true, AFTERIMAGE only existed for a couple of years and released merely one single and one EP.
But their take on post-punk – at once raw and explorative, with an eye to the sound that was emanating from across the ocean and one to a past-acknowledging future – left a mark in the sonic psyche of the City of Angels. Collected here are all of Afterimage’s studio recordings, plus demos and live tracks from performances at now legendary spots such as the Whisky a Go Go and Al’s Bar. Kicking things off are the two tracks that appeared on the band’s debut, the Strange Confession/The Long Walk 45 released in 1981 on Contagion Records. The opening attack of Strange Confession is probably the closest we can get to hearing what Gang of Four would have sounded like had X-Ray Spex’s Lora Logic joined their ranks. Frontman Daniel Voznick’s (aka Alec Tension) kick-out-the-jam blasts of saxophone immediately reveal a penchant for a quilt of sound that was more adventurous, playful and complex than most contemporary punks would have cared for.
Listening to Faces to Hide, it is easy to see how the four members of AFTERIMAGE – Alec Tension, A Produce (future ambient explorer Barry Craig), Rich Evac and Holland DeNuzzio – must have bonded over a love of Public Image Ltd, Pere Ubu, Magazine, The Fall, Patti Smith and Television. But there was even more to Afterimage’s abrasive sound. Surf Generator – which, in 1981, opened the band’s Fade In EP – is a case in point: lulled by keyboards that seem to come straight out of a cult favourite from the midnight circuit, A Produce’s guitar conjures The Ventures and The Chantays with spikes, revealing the older Afterimage member’s strong surf rock roots.
Coming to Alec Tension after a particularly memorable acid trip on the beach, Satellite of Love is another instant highlight, the sound of a raptured, frantic AFTERIMAGE driven by higher forces. Hearing the song makes it easy to see why, back in the day, the Los Angeles Times was compelled to call the band “LA’s Joy Division”. Similarly to the UK trailblazers (of whom they were among the first avowed admirers among the LA punks), AFTERIMAGE seemed to sculpt their sound in marble, coming up with hypnotic skittery sonics revealed to be chilly upon their surface and fiery in their details.
Now coming on double LP (available in both black and opaque white), special edition CD and digital, Faces to Hide proves as scathing, urgent, taut, angular and gripping as AFTERIMAGE’s scarce but unforgettable output must have sounded more than forty years ago. On the third track, a song that AFTERIMAGE titled after themselves, Alec Tension can be heard singing of “an early shadow, a thousand doubts”.
It’s a compelling metaphor for a band that still offers multitudes to unearth.
