Dub Housing

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Just didn’t get it. Singer does however sound like someone out of Rick And Morty! Won’t be listening again…

I didn't mind this. The scores and reviews led me to expect something really terrible and offensive. Cool in places, if a bit weird. I like weird. I am weird.

I feel like this band always smells bad :/

This is the kind of thing that this list feeds me over and over again and it makes me start to ask…. Do I even like music? Is any of it good? I know it is but this makes me lose my will to listen to anything

Weird and interesting but won’t be listening again

😟

Opções instrumentais interessantes e curiosas. Vocal um tanto quanto esquisito.

Wat de fuck haha

Average

Post-punk strikes again. I understand its place and importance in history but I just can't get in to it. This wasn't as bad as some of the others I have gotten on this list earlier. It didn't hurt to listen through. The part that stood out as better to comparatively to me is the singing and the keyboard playing. Still not something I really want to ever want to listen to again if I have a choice.

全体的に不穏な雰囲気があって、thriller?とかでは、その雰囲気だけを抽出した曲になってる。特にこの曲が良いとか、好きとかはあんまりなかったかな。 アルバムに通底してる雰囲気は割と好きだけど

It wasnt really brilliant or anything but better than I expected with a stupid title and name. Cant really remember that much about it now

Well, it's experimental. It sounds reggae and almost post-rock. This singer should make TikTok brainrot remixes, I think they'd do well. (2.5-3)

by my green candle, this is quite fun! it's probably not as well fleshed out as some of the other early avant-punk, but it has a lot of great moments. pretty cool! deserves to be one of the 1001? i don't even think i'd put this one on, but the more experimental choices, the better

“This is either madness or brilliance." "It's remarkable how often those two traits coincide.” Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

A strange but compelling record.

Not as good as their first album.

1978 art punk, bloc party, frank black On the surface Thriller Ubu dance party

I don't think I understand. Some of this is really cool. Some of this is clearly a prank... Right?

Definitely one of the more creative albums I've listened to. Not bad, cool musicality of this one.

There are some artists you just put in completely the wrong genre based on their name - I always thought Bonnie “Prince” Billy was reggae, for example, then found out he does rather nice gentle folk-type stuff. Equally, I thought that this lot were going to be some kind of world music, probably African. I was more than a little bit wrong, but I’m not sad. Sort of punk/post-punk/new wave/ noise rock, and it’s far from bad. Not going to be a regular listen, buts it’s ok.

I do appreciate the multiple Pere Ubu entries on this list; I really did enjoy the 'The Modern Dance' entry early on. And this record manages to feel even more drunken and disorienting than that one. Dave Thomas is a more "ruthless" vocalist here, squealing his way through these songs. But just like 'The Modern Dance', the best thing is just how grounded the album fundamentals are - yes, this feels like the worst fever dream you could imagine, but at its core, the drumming and bass are holding this thing down like nothing else. It gives the whole thing this dance punk feel that I really enjoyed. There were some really tight grooves here, like with 'I, Will Wait' or 'Pa Ubu Dance Part' Ultimately, though, it's still a very difficult record to grasp; there are no anchors here like 'Non-Alignment Pact' of their previous record; every song is equally as discordant, with Beefheart-esque guitar leads, weird call-and-response choruses that fade into seemingly nothing, some pretty out-there electronics - be they quirky synth arpeggios like 'On The Surface' or the weird industrial pulsating of a song like 'Blow Daddy-O' or 'Trhiller!'. And of course those wailing sax-esque sounds trying their best to match Dave's cadence and tone. It's a tense record; you're never fully at ease listening to it, even on the more deceptively "poppy" song. It's a bizarre record, and one I haven't fully grasped yet upon initial listen. But I appreciate it for sure, just such an experimentally dense record that feels like a dance-punk album being shredded to bits and broken down to its ugly fundamentals, before being haphazardly re-constructed.

I found most of this pretty annoying.

Nope

Weird album really. Not bad as such, but not really one that did anything for me overall. Somebody will absolutely love this. To me it was just jumbled up noise, with some decent sounds at times.

Second of 2 Pere Ubu albums in this experience and this one is more tamer than the first. That is to say its still bat shit crazy but it feels more organized than the first one I got. This could be because I knew a bit more of what to expect going in. I'm not the biggest fan of this album but I can respect what they are trying to do and like in my write up for the first one, I suspect there is an artist I like who took influence from this group and I just don't know it. 3/5

2/10 -pretty terrible, not dub but kind of hippy rock noise

God I wanted to like this. I maybe even though I might love it based just on the description, but it really missed the mark for me.

Not really.

I don't like the singer's tone, I don't like the music, I don't like the style, I don't like anything about it, I don't understand why anyone would need to hear this album. 1 star

Jolly good. Nice voice.

Ok

Was the last song written by a serial killer??

I fuck with this heavy dawg

I didn't necessarily find it as unlistenable or annoying as most of my 2-star albums are, but too unique for my taste. I do appreciate parts of the songs, just not the final product, and the grating vocals were too much.

Not sure how much I'd revisit it, but it was good. (Pa)Ubu Dance Party was a standout.

8/10 I was a bit nervous when this album popped up today since its rating is so low - it's in the lowest-rated albums list on this site - but upon listening I found myself confused because, well... I think it's pretty good. It's an incredibly experimental album that doesn't really stick to any one genre; I hear echoes of psychedelic rock, punk, krautrock, and synthpop, among other genres. The album starts off as traditional (although characteristically quirky) rock, before evolving into experiments with genre, sound, and song structure. Some of the experimental nature of the album doesn't really click for me, but much of it does, so it deserves its flowers for being radically innovative and creative.

I’m simply not on board with this album. I can hear the rock elements underneath it, but the whole thing feels too chaotic and messy for me. David Thomas’ vocal style is probably the biggest problem. It is so awkward, erratic and at times almost shrill that I find it hard to focus on anything else. Combined with the disjointed arrangements, the album quickly becomes more exhausting than interesting. I understand why some people might find the chaos fascinating, but I just can’t use this album for anything. It completely loses me. 1/5

Talking Head vibes. It’s not as enjoyable as Talking Heads. It’s interesting, if a little intense.

We have talking Heads at home…? Woew deze kan ik ff echt nie hebbe vandaag. They rlly let anyone make music enzo. Sjeempie. Just hootin and hollerin.

Didn't love every artistic choice on this album, but it was certainly never boring.

Post-punk? Avant-garde shit. Just another noise album. So edgy.

No me ha gustado, la única canción que podría considerar para mí playlist sería On the Surface, pero no me termina de convencer tampoco

Weirdo music, bit too cool for me. Fave Track: Caligari's Mirror 3.3/5

Most underrated album ever? Yes. Not only is this about five times as good as "Modern Dance," it's one of the truly great Post-Punk opuses - only Remain in Light, Pink Flag and Entertainment! come anywhere near it. David Thomas himself referred to this album as Ubu's masterpiece. It's an incredible synthesis of garage rock, warbled grotesqueries, and bubbling experimentalism, completely uncompromising yet compulsively danceable. It was wise of Pere Ubu to go in a different musical direction after releasing this - to ever try to recapture the otherwordly aura that surrounds it would be foolish. American industrial music in the truest sense of the word.

While I absolutely hate this, I do not find it boring or derivative. It gets a star for finishing something, and another for the thing being something I have not encountered. Should anyone hear it is a good question, but not many have, or something close to it and that is worth a listen. However, I'm never doing it again

What did I just listen to?

Tuneless shouting and repetitive arrangements. A band of the music papers only. Some of the playing is good but then the shouting starts.

There is more to this than sounding as if David Byrne had been forcibly injected with an LSD laced Morphine suppository. Although it is that as well. Energetic, joyful and quite demented, this was a revelation. My mental playlist of avante-garde/post-punk albums was previously.....zero. Now it is one, and hurray to that.

Never head of Pere Ubu so was a new experience - all be it initially disappointing due to insufficient dub. Its a short listen so was able to crack through a few times and there are a few cracking tracks - like Navv and On the surface. The shouted vocals are mostly annoying and get in the way. I am feeling grumpy today so the avante garde stylings are mostly getting on my tits. 3 feels a bit mean but not sure will rush back.

Angry Brian Eno? Proto-Pixies? One good song and a lot of weirdness.

Tapped into the oddity cove of my brain.

A little too weird for my liking and I like weird shit

At first there were some elements I could get behind but after awhile it became unlistenable. DNF

Will need to revisits. Didn’t connect with me in an early morning listen.

Very connected to the experimental sounds I adore. I hear influence on Parquet Courts which makes them essentiall.

Debiles Quietscheentchen? Mist hoch 3!

I dunno man. Vibed with some of it, did not vibe with other parts. The drunken sailor..

No.

yeeeeeesh what a disaster. I can't imagine making this album, finishing a take and being like "Yeah that was almost there...If only it had weird as squeaks throughout half the song". And that's saying a lot coming from me as a Tom Waits fan

8/10 The band name and title of this album really give no indication whatsoever about the type of experience it contains. I was expecting some kind of dub reggae sound, and this was... not that. On closer inspection, a band named after a character from an 1896 avant-garde play releasing an album named for the repetitive block housing of 70s Baltimore makes a lot more sense. From the off, this record surprises, thrills, terrifies and delights in equal measure. It dances back and forth from the border of insanity with wilful and skilful abandon, with moments of menacing sonic tension making way for music that, every now and again, in fleeting moments, eases its way towards the edge of new-wave pop. Front man David Thomas clearly has very few fucks to give, and approaches his task with a manic freedom that, in less deft hands, could easily have been unlistenable. Somehow though, he gets the balance exactly right to develop a sound that lives half way between his contemporary, David Byrne and the style that Frank Black would adopt with the Pixies a decade later. Only he also makes the decision to push that vocal style to the very limit, at various stages sounding like a rotating cast of Batman's most psychotic opponents having a jolly in Arkham Asylum. Musically, there is a fantastic rhythmic pulse that runs through the record, and underneath the bulk of the tracks, there is an almost traditional song structure or sequence. But over the top of that, they just go for it. There's sonic experimentation, sound art, deliberately obtuse and dissonant sections and, just when you think it's getting too much, it pulls back into focus and grounds you. Just for a moment. But that's all it needs. Those little sparks of melodic and harmonic excellence help to ground the sound in reality and show how deliberate the broader and more experimental edges of this are, which is a brilliant framing device. At times, I felt almost hypnotised by it, at times it was hilarious, and now and again it drifted into more challenging territory. Pere Ubu clearly opened a lot of doors and pushed a lot of boundaries that gave space for the music of the 80s and 90s. It's not a perfect record. Something like this rarely is. But it's an important, engaging and invigorating listen, delivers with a deftness of touch that allows its madness to shine. Navvy - It’s a rhythmically strong and delightfully weird start. There is a central thread to it that just about holds things together, but outside of that, it’s quite, quite mad. But in a way that is both fun and brilliantly quirky. The production is very cool and the madcap energy is infectious and engaging. On The Surface - As with the opener, there are actually some fairly well defined and straightforward musical motifs here, and the underlying structure is fairly standard. But all of the work outside of that pulls things completely into wackier directions. There’s more than a touch of Talking Heads to this, but if they just decided to piss about and indulge in their basest urges. Perhaps not quite as strong as the opener, but still delightful. Dub Housing - The band take things into a slightly creepier, more unnerving direction now, via a track that combines jazzy flavours with a cool strolling bass line. Things feel slightly twisted and threatening, but woven really well around some very pretty moments of musicianship. It’s certainly avant garde, but it paints such a picture in the mind that it’s absolutely fascinating. Caligari's Mirror - Another disturbing sonic blend to kick things off. It’s creepy, weird and deliberately challenging, but then they break into a chorus that sounds exactly like something that David Bowie would have been putting out at the time. That just proves how capable they are of making “normal” music, which makes the rest of this more impactful, I think. It’s deranged, incredibly interesting from a sonic point of view, and has a great underlying groove from the layered staccato elements. Very, very good. Thriller! - This is very BBC Radiophonic Workshop in production style, like the kind of thing that would be played when The Doctor was undergoing some kind of psychological torture at the hands of some men dressed in bubble wrap. It’s more of a sonic art piece, in some respects, but again, it’s so evocative and interesting that I can’t help but feel enthralled by it. It’s definitely challenging, but it’s also rewarding. Mad, mad stuff. I, Will Wait - That’s a pretty cool set of riffs. It’s got a Pixies feel to it, and reins in the extent of the bands madder edges, but still has a quirky side. It’s short, but sweet. Another very enjoyable little ride. Drinking Wine Spodyody - This leans back into the discordant, “collapsing nursery rhyme being played by a new wave band” sound. It doesn’t quite have the range or sonic excitement of the better cuts and does feel perhaps a bit more intense and unrelenting, but there are still real elements of quality in there (Pa) Ubu Dance Party - We get a more straight backing track now, even down to the backing vocals, which lean towards an almost pop music sound. But again, there’s a layer of madcap energy and experimentation that lives atop it. The fact that they dip backwards and forwards between more intense, challenging work and stuff like this that only has elements of lunacy to it really helps the record to flow without becoming too much hard work. This one is even quite catchy and hooky, despite its dalliances with sonic experimentation. Lovely. Blow Daddy-o - The pulsing, clipping rhythm at the core of this has such a great tone to it, and the band experiment so fruitfully over the top. Of course, it’s experimental and slightly deranged, but it also makes perfect sense in the context of the record. There’s something quite hypnotic to the repetitive nature of this, but it also feels like an evolving, enthralling soundscape. Some people would just chalk this off as noise, but I think it’s excellent. Codex - Back to something more musically coherent, but still with that creeping sense of dread and menace. Imagine delivering this chorus to a romantic partner. Just the thought of it tickles me. It’s so strong in vibe and delivery of concept and, while it is probably quite a challenging and disturbing listen for some, I think it’s another excellent piece of sonic world building.

Yikes.

Music that is intentionally annoying. It had a beat though. Was the singer in distress?

OK, who left the equipment on and the door unlocked to the downtown recording studio over the three day weekend? It took forever to get the mentally unbalanced and homeless out of the studio this morning and the place cleaned up again. Who knows what they were up to while they were here. Oh wait....

dude what the HELL am i listening to

(2/7) surely some of these tracks didn't need to exist

If dial up Internet put out an album

Deliciously weird, I'll have to get back to this

The first few seconds seem okay, but when that weird scratching sound started, alarm bells rang. Then the true horror of “Dub Housing” kicked in. This album is atrocious. Incoherent noise topped with comedy shouting. What a mess.

Dislike the vocal style a lot-why not try and actually sing? However, musically it was pretty good with some good rythym and decent tracks.

Yeah no

I‘d like to love them, but that record is unbearable tbh

No.

no

I can definitely see why this is rated so poorly very inaccessible and harsh but I found myself really vibing to this at points.

Truly awful. I wonder what the story is with this one.

I was really shocked to see that there was another album by these guys on the list, cause honestly I didn't really like the first one all that much. And truthfully, this has the same problem for me. The instrumentation is cool, but he's such an annoying vocalist that it doesn't matter. The best songs on here are the ones where he's either trying something new or silent. I think they should consider dropping him. Favorites: Caligari's Mirror, Thriller!, Codex

I didn’t get this albums brilliance at all? Nothing going for it in my opinion

Just what… the… fuck. Awful singer, awful tunes, awful lyrics. One of the worst on here

Not my fav.

Me avise se eu estiver louco, mas eu acredito que acabei de ouvir um disco de Prog Punk. Nunca imaginei que estaria profanando tais palavras. Bizarro. Isso é a vida real? Este sou eu? O que? Quando? Como? Interessante e experimental. O que mais causa pavor são os vocais nada ortodoxos, mas eu os achei legais e engajantes. Bom álbum. Sonoridade doida e imprevisível. 4/5

Unapologetically weird, Pere Ubu's sophomore record took me on a ride. The singalong chorus on "Caligari's Mirror" and the catchy backing vocals on "(Pa) Ubu Dance Party" are the only poppy moments in a record full of oddball post-punk. Singer David Thomas has such an eccentric voice that's hard to describe, but it is so distinctive. He sounds like he is riddled with anxiety and is on the cusp of having a meltdown as he sings. I will always admire a band that isn't afraid of doing its own thing, even if it is not going to be to everyone's tastes. After hearing their first two records by doing this project, consider me a fan of Pere Ubu.

The type of bullshit I'd whip up at the end of a middle school music lesson after doing fuck-all the entire time. Grating and annoying, did Pere Ubu really need EVERY bleep bloop possible? Surely, there must have been a time when this album was at the threshold of 'just listenable'. It could've stopped there. But alas, it didn't. So we have an off-putting amalgamation of eerie and repetitive noises. Fuck off.

Bizarre, différent et parfois trop volontairement spécial pour moi. Mais c'était quand même addictif. Je ne me verrais pas écouter ça de moi-même ceci dit

Cool, weird, fun. Bloc Party meets Talking Heads. Dug it.

Never listened. Expectations: Mid - Verdict: Good - The opening couple tracks are OK, but the title track is the first thing that really grabs me. Caligari's Mirror is also good, as is Drinking Wine Spodyody. Blow Daddy-O is a more relaxed track that I like and Codex as a closer is a different vibe again.

lol. I can easily understand how this band does not make a lot of fans on this site. This is an interesting listen, but challenging. It has the bones of some decent songs, but it’s intentionally weird, sometimes in an off-putting way. It kind of reminds me of watching a David Lynch movie vs watching Twin Peaks. Unbridled David Lynch weirdness can be too much, but when he’s got his producer Mark Frost reigning in that weirdness, it’s really good. I think Pere Ubu could use a producer to rein them in to probably really great effect, but I guess we’ll never know. Anyway, this record asks a lot of the listener, and sometimes it pays off. 7/10

I couldn't even get through the first song.

#448/1001. Refreshing to hear something old and different. I've been aware of Ubu, but not really actively listened to them. There must be something weird in Ohio water (too much fluoridation?), producing act like Devo and Pere Ubu. I listened to the album twice, first in a car and immediately after on headphones. Didn't really remember any of the tracks on the 2nd listen, excluding the one, where the singing is delibaritely horrible (not that it even aoms to be great in any other songs). Don't know if I would still remember too many of the songs. But I remember sonic experimentation, weird arrangements and song structures, uncompromising attitude and art/avant rock sound, which probably for so many reviewers is a curse that I have to give this at least a 4.

What the hell did I just listen to, very experimental but just didn’t click with me

Great album, nothing is quite like Pere Ubu. I liked The Modern Dance more but this isn't that far behind.

Whatever

Reminds of Talking Heads except worse in every way, that is when it isn’t just experimental noise.

Third no in a row. After the first song

Really did not like

i'll be honest, i gave this one listen, couldnt stand it and havent made the effort to try again. Some screeching and no tunes. im sure there is something there if i had headphones and some attention for it, but you cant win em all

I don't know what to make of this: funky, punky, jazzy, spacey...

I, Will Wait stood out. Didn't care much for his voice, but it's crazy this came out in the 70s. I respect the post-punk sound. 3/5

Abysmal