5b. Tones on Tail, 'Pop'

So, Daniel Ash + Kevin Haskins + bassist Glenn Campling (who was also a roadie for Bauhaus) = Tones on Tail, which was > Love & Rockets by far. Odd. Also odd is this, their only full-length studio record, a marvelously schizoid collection of tracks influenced by everyone from PiL (check those basslines) to the Residents ("Slender Fungus," I rest my case). But it's not just odd and schizoid, it's also marvelous indeed, a seriously creative, avant-garde pop record the kind of which only seemed to come out in the early '80s. Opening strong with "Lions," Pop doesn't much let up (though "Real Life" lags, sounding too much like a L&R track) through closer "Rain," a gorgeous slice of ambient atmosphere oozing into soft guitarist textures (this is honest-to-God soft rock, meaning rock which is soft, not wimpy shit like a Foreigner ballad). This album begs for a remaster/reissue, and deserves it. A-