01	Warheads						08:17
	02	Etude For Combo						07:01
	03	Collarless Fog That One Day Soon						03:25
	04	Inside Out						04:13
	05	Moonsongs						15:32
	06	I Do Not Live						05:04
	07	Possessed						08:19
	08	How To Clean Squid						05:02
	09	A Light Is On And Name The World						01:32
	10	The Taste That Lingers On						02:12
	11	Four Men In The Rain						02:33
	12	Thorns Of Blue And Red / The War						15:28

Thinking Plague [USA]
Updated 2/23/01
Discography
A Thinking Plague (84)
Moonsongs (87)
In This Life (89)
In Extremis (98)
Early Plague Years (00, A Thinking Plague and Moonsongs together on one CD)


Reviews
Probably the weirdest new progressive band around, US ensemble Thinking Plague are one of those bands, which makes your neighbors and relatives scream "This is out of tune" while you are trying to enjoy it. Definitely unconventional (as Recommended bands tend to be,) I can't really compare them to anyone, but if music in the vein of the Art Bears, Slapp Happy, or Henry Cow takes your fancy, you may like this. In This Life is highly recommended.

Although In This Life was released on a UK label, Thinking Plague are a US band. The CD packaging typifies punk music, with hand-scrawled layout and roughly sketched drawings. Sitting on a shelf in a record store, the cover doesn't scream "Progressive Rock!" However, the music is one of the stronger examples of the modern progressive genre. Imagine what would happen if Dead Can Dance, the Cocteau Twins, and the Art Bears joined forces and tried to sound like Iconoclasta. This 70 minute disc captures a unique style that is about as reminiscent of Iconoclasta as that band is of Lamb-era Genesis. The guitar riffs have that unstructed, sloppy approach and the vocals remind me of Dagmar Krause at her best (or, as some might say, her worst). Actually, they are a hell of a lot more palatable than Dagmar ever was. One of the things I appreciate about this band's technique is that everyone pulls their weight. There are no virtuosos, no show offs. But the way that multiple guitar lines flow and intermesh with a tight, busy rhythm section show compositional insight. No plodding bass lines or drummer BOOM-BAPping his way to putting you to sleep. But don't run out just yet - this is pretty far from mainstream progressive music - Thinking Plague falls into the "progressively weird" category, but in a way no one has before. Keeping all this in mind, I give In This Life a resounding two thumbs up.

In This Life contains two tracks, "Moonsongs" and "Possessed" (both fantastic, with two different female vocalists), from the first two albums. "Audion" magazine refer to them as "a modern day Art Bears." I think this is pretty accurate. The guitar sounds uncannily Fred Frith-like in places. A really great release but not for those who don't like way-out RIO.

In Extremis is their newest CD, the first they have released in nine years. This is still plenty RIO styled, but it's not as difficult to listen to (to my ears at least) as In This Life. As a matter of fact, some of the pieces remind me a bit of Gentle Giant at their most raucous (The Power and the Glory). Maybe it's like Gentle Giant on a bad acid trip. But I know I'm in trouble when I find myself humming this bizarre stuff "... Moisture for Spiders Now ..." This is a truly spectacular CD, and I recommend giving it a listen even if you normally don't care for RIO. This is more melodious than most, though still plenty strange. -- Fred Trafton


review added 7-10-00
Thinking Plague: Moonsongs
Thinking Plague
Moonsongs
Cuneiform (rune 141)
USA 1987

note: this is reviewed as part of Cuneiform's reissue of ...A Thinking Plague and Moonsongs on a single CD, due for public release in September 2000.

Bob Drake, bass, drums, percussion, keyboards, voice; Mark Fuller, drums, timbales, simmons drums; Eric Moon, keyboards; Mike Johnson, guitars, drums, percussion voice; Susanne Lewis, voice; Mark McCoin, drums, percussion, voice, samplers; with Fred Hess, alto sax; Glenn Nitta, soprano sax

Tracklist:
1. Warheads - 8:03
2. Etude for Combo - 6:59
3. Collarless Fog that one day soon - 3:20
4. Inside Out - 4:12
5. Moonsongs - 15:23

total time 38:28

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Bob Eichler:
Another great avant-prog album from Thinking Plague that fortunately has been re-released on CD coupled with the band's self-titled first album (under the title Early Plague Years). The downside of this two-for-one arrangement is that parts of Moonsongs were edited to make it all fit on one CD - more on that later.
The disc kicks off with one of my favorite Plague songs, "Warheads". An eight minute song with anti-war lyrics, this track is a real rocker. The band used it as the set closer at all three shows I've seen, and it works as well as a grand finale as it does on this album as the opener. In fact, I enjoyed the live version even more than the studio track, so I'm hoping the band can get a live album out of their recent festival appearances.
Those who have In Extremis should recognize the first few minutes of track two, "Etude for Combo". A reworked version is incorporated into the beginning of "Les Etude D'Organism". Some people have commented that the band sounds like a Yes album played backwards - to me this particular song sounds like an 80s King Crimson song played backwards. Great stuff. According to the liner notes, this track was recorded "live in the studio", and the production makes it sound like you're right there with them.
After that the album quiets down for a while. "Collarless Fog that one day soon" is a floating, moody, dark improv full of long synth chords and ringing, sustained guitar notes. It occasionally swells to a head, only to drift back down again. "Inside Out" is even more atmospheric, with an ominous, echoy chord floating on forever in the background while vocalist Susanne Lewis sings lyrics of twisted love in a plaintive voice. This song sounds like it would make a great soundtrack for a movie about someone lost in space.
The rest of the album is given to the epic title track. Featuring tribal rhythms with lots of percussion (similar to Paul Simon's work of around the same time), this track makes for great high-volume music to drive to. Around five and a half minutes into the song, there's a neat section of minimalist repetition of odd vocal snippets. There's also a semi-comedic jazzy section around the nine and a half minute mark that reminds me of the "circus" music of "Les Etude D'Organism". The last third of the song gets fairly heavy, finally switching to an atmospheric sound for the final half minute or so before fading out.
The only downside to this CD release is the editing that was necessary to get it all on one CD. According to the liner notes, four bars were cut from the "final dirge section" of "Warheads", a percussion section of the title track was shortened, and most disturbingly the full first two minutes of "Collarless Fog" were removed. I would have rather seen "Possessed" dropped from the other half of the album, since that song is already available as a bonus track on the In This Life CD. Oh well.
Overall, the Early Plague Years disc is a must-have for fans of avant-prog and music that is "progressive" in the dictionary sense rather than the genre-name sense.
Brandon Wu:
Oddly enough, I find this early Thinking Plague release to be more easy to listen to than In Extremis, which is often cited as the example of "accessible RIO". The album opens with the rocking "Warheads", which at times is relatively straightforward: loud, consistent bass playing, precise picking from Mike Johnson, and everything else a fan of hard-rock prog would want. I get King Crimson vibes, a bit more skewed, obviously, but a similar feel. "Etude for Combo" continues this feel, getting a bit funkier and a bit more light-hearted. Again, sharp electric guitar picking characterizes the piece; not quite up to the level of the opening track, but still a solid, very rock-oriented song.
After this, the music gets weirder and strays away from the rock foundations of the first two tracks. As a matter of fact, the extremely slow, atmospheric bleakness characterizing "Collarless Fog" and "Inside Out" fail to entertain me. They're kind of a jolting shift from the flat-out rock of the other three pieces, and I find it difficult to adapt. In any case, I'm not sure I would like "Inside Out" in any context: Lewis' vocals are nice enough, and the song effectively evokes a seriously, well, lost-in-space feel (thanks Bob), but I find myself skipping over it consistently.
After these two slow-paced pieces, the album closes with a masterpiece. The title track is, in parts, even more aggressive than the first two tracks, heavy on the percussion and marked with periodic heavy guitar and bass riffing. Of note is a neat call-and-response section, punctuated by the aforementioned guitar riffing, and an even cooler psychedelic-ish vocal sample section, backed by headbangingly aggressive bass playing (which actually I wish was mixed a teensy bit louder). The rest of the piece follows through admirably.
Despite those middle two pieces that I tend to skip over, Moonsongs is by far the Thinking Plague album that grabbed me the quickest and the hardest, and it still hasn't let go. I'd recommend it to pretty much anyone with adventurous tastes.

Other resources:
Bob Drake's new Thinking Plague website.
An old Thinking Plague home page, run by (I think) Bob Drake.
A little bit at the GEPR.
Cuneiform Records' website probably has some info.






review added 6-30-00
Thinking Plague: ...A Thinking Plague
Thinking Plague
...A Thinking Plague
Cuneiform (rune 141)
USA 1984

note: this is reviewed as part of Cuneiform's reissue of Moonsongs and ...A Thinking Plague on a single CD, due for public release in September 2000.

Sharon Bradford, voice, noise, mini-synth, "drake noise box"; Bob Drake, bass, drums, percussion, voice, guitar, bowed balalaika, synths, piano; Harry Fleishman, piano, organ, voice; Mark Fuller, drums, simmons drums; Mike Johnson, guitars, synths, piano, metal pipes, voice; with Mark Bradford, voice

Tracklist:
1. I Do Not Live - 5:04
2. Possessed - 8:19
3. How to Clean Squid - 5:02
4. a light is on and name the world - 1:32
5. The Taste that Lingers On - 2:12
6. Four Men in the Ran - 2:33
7. Thorns of Blue and Red / the War - 15:28

total time 40:10

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Bob Eichler:
Thinking Plague has been causing quite a bit of controversy in the prog world lately. Their ProgDay '99 and NEARFest '00 appearances had RIO and avant-prog fans cheering, while the neoprog and symphonic prog fans ran from the room complaining about the horrible, random sounding, out of tune noise.
Possibly because of the publicity from these show, the band has raised enough interest to re-release their first two albums on a single CD. This review only covers the half of that disc that contains the band's first album.
Those who disliked their live set are not likely to enjoy this album. Possibly the band's most inaccessible work, it wastes no time - the first track, "I Do Not Live", immediately hits the listener with the band's trademark angular melodies, unconventional vocals and abruptly shifting moods. This is followed up by "Possessed", which sounds a little more accessible to me, but that may just be because I'm already familiar with the song (it was used as a bonus track on the "In This Life" CD).
The album's third song was the real surprise - a bizarre, high energy new wave song. Titled "How to Clean Squid", the lyrics come straight out of a gourmet cooking magazine article. Hearing the operatic vocals singing about removing "thin clear cartilage" is a surreal blast. Meanwhile the band is ripping along behind the vocals, creating a killer (and surprisingly catchy) musical background that's all too easy to miss by concentrating on the lyrics. In that respect, it reminds me of Zappa's "Valley Girl". One last comment about "Squid" - listen to that technoish beat going on in the background (it really stands out around the three minute mark) - how'd they get that sound back in 1984?
The next few tracks are where the album gets really weird. "a light is on..." is a minute and a half long mix of driving beat, scratchy guitars, and computerized nonsense vocals. Very odd. "The Taste that Lingers On" is what Genesis' "Who Dunnit" would have sounded like if it didn't suck. A two minute repetition of a single melody over and over, with lyrics about a strange taste that...well, lingers on. Eventually the title phrase is matched up with the repeating melody and sung through to the end of the song. "Four Men in the Rain" sounds like a string quartet gone bad, violins sawing away somewhat harshly. Near the end it goes through one of those odd tonal shifts that makes you wonder if your stereo just broke.
The disc ends with the fifteen minute "Thorns of Blue and Red / the War". Musically the song is all over the map, in a way defining the path that the band's subsequent albums followed. Everything from complex composed parts to sparse improvs. According to the liner notes, the lyrics come from two poems found in a handmade book in a dumpster behind a hospice. The poet's name was on the book, but nothing else is known about her. Considering the contemplation of death in the lyrics, chances are that the poetry book was thrown out by a hospice worker after its owner died. Which makes listening to this song even more chilling.
Looking back over this review, I realized that it's hard to tell whether it's supposed to be a positive or negative review. Let me clear that up - I really like this album. The more I hear from Thinking Plague, the more I come to believe that this band can do no wrong.
Other resources:
Bob Drake's new Thinking Plague website.
An old Thinking Plague home page, run by (I think) Bob Drake.
A little bit at the GEPR.
Cuneiform Records' website probably has some info.









review added 7-11-00
Thinking Plague: In This Life
Thinking Plague
In This Life
Recommended Records (tpCD1)
USA 1989

Mike Johnson, guitar; Bob Drake, drums, bass, violin; Susanne Lewis, voice, guitar; Shane Hotle, keyboards; Maria Moran, bass, guitar; Mark Harris, woodwinds; Lawrence, Haugseth, clarinet, with Fred Frith, guitar

Tracklist:
1. Lycanthrope - 7:17
2. Run Amok - 3:11
3. Malaise - 4:40
4. Organism (version II) - 11:46
5. Love - 7:14
6. The Guardian - 5:30
7. Fountain of All Tears - 7:39
8. Moonsongs - 15:10
9. Possessed - 8:14

total time 70:41

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Bob Eichler:
The band kicks off their unique brand of "accessible RIO" right from the first track, "Lycanthrope". This track sounds a tiny bit like what 70s Yes might have sounded like if they had had a lot more bite to them. The brief "Run Amok" is perfectly titled - a flurry of harried notes running around the band's trademark angular vocals. "Malaise" shows a dark, moody side that the band would explore further on In Extremis with tracks like "Kingdom Come". The album's centerpiece is the percussion laden, complex, avant "Organism", which would be reworked on the next album in "Les Etudes D'Organism".
I could go on trying to describe the album track by track, but there's not much point to that. This is music that you just have to hear - no written description can really give you an idea what it sounds like. That sounds like a cop out, and to some degree it is, but there's not much else I could say that Sean hasn't already covered in his review (below).
Sean McFee:
While so much RIO-type music is aggressively avant-garde, on this album Thinking Plague manages to write music that is challenging, but melancholy and even beautiful. Dissonant intervals, jarring arrangements and unconventional vocal stylings from Suzanne Lewis still put this firmly into the American avant/RIO camp, but at the same time the tension built by such sections is almost soothing. This isn't to say that the band isn't at times alarming, but songs like "Lycanthrope" and "Fountain of All Tears" get downright pretty at times.
In fact, out of all the "rock in opposition" style bands, Thinking Plague probably does the best job of maintaining a rock element present while keeping intact the exploratory nature of the compositions.
As a bonus, the CD comes with two tracks reclaimed from earlier albums. There is an alternate mix of the title track from Moonsongs, notable mainly for the different arrangements (i.e. certain parts being played by different instruments, etc.). There is also a remastered version of "Possessed" from ...A Thinking Plague, although the subsequent reissue of this album renders this track redundant.
There are many related bands to compare Thinking Plague too. Along the US avant axis, there are 5uu's, Motor Totemist Guild and U Totem. And of course, much of this sound hearkens back to Henry Cow, and later rock-oriented ensembles such as Art Bears and News From Babel. If you are a fan of any of these bands, Thinking Plague is a must. If you have never heard any of them, this would be a good place to start, but be prepared for something that sometimes sounds amelodic, if anything, to those mainly accustomed to more conventional fare.

Brandon Wu:
Really, it's difficult to go wrong with Thinking Plague. This was the last album of their four (so far) releases that I became familiar with, and like the others it's mostly composed of top-notch, challenging avant-rock. While In This Life is less heavy and less overtly "rock" than its predecessor, Moonsongs, with its restraint comes an enhanced sense of wonder.
As Sean says, all these pieces have a very nice sense of beauty - a strange, alien, lost sort of beauty, but a sort of beauty nonetheless. Susanne Lewis' high, plaintive vocals float over seemingly meandering, but always focused, instrumental soundscapes. In pieces like "Lycanthrope", said instrumental soundscape is rock-oriented and guitar-driven, whereas in "Organism" it's more of a percussion exhibition with guitar noodlings in the distance. Indeed, the music here is fairly diverse, though always maintaining that blend of rock and avant forms that is a trademark of this band.
Honestly, my only complaint is with "Organism", the only piece in which I feel the band stretches on a bit too long with the instrumental work. The lengthy percussion background seems to kind of simmer in place, but never build to anything consequential. The reworking of it, and combination with "Etude for Combo" from Moonsongs, as "Les Etudes d'Organism" on In Extremis, works much better for me.
It's very difficult for me to recommend any particular Thinking Plague over any other (though I do think the debut is weaker than the rest). That said, though, In This Life is about as good as they get, with no duff tracks and solid composition and playing throughout.

Other resources:
Bob Drake's new Thinking Plague website.
An old Thinking Plague home page, run by (I think) Bob Drake.
A little bit at the GEPR.
Cuneiform Records has a very small page on Thinking Plague.







Moonsongs
Artist Thinking Plague
Album Title Moonsongs
Date of Release 1987
AMG Rating
Genre Rock
Styles Avant-Prog
Library View Click here to see this album in MARC format

AMG EXPERT REVIEW: Moonsongs was first released as a cassette on Thinking Plague's own label, Endemic. It was re-released on LP the next year by Dead Man's Curve with a new mix of the title track and finally issued on CD by Cuneiform as part of the album Early Plague Years. Between the band's first album, ...A Thinking Plague, and this one, the lineup changed considerably, introducing singer Suzanne Lewis, keyboardist Eric Moon, and drummer Mark McCoin to the nucleus formed by Bob Drake and Mike Johnson. Moonsongs showcases the band's ability to carve complex and twisted songs where percussion is at the center of everything. Rhythm is the key, always uneven, angular, disjointed. Guitar and synths add riffs and textures, but percussion supports everything. It gives breathtaking results on "Warheads" and "Etude for Combo," but fails on the overlong "Moonsongs." It seems Johnson tried to write ritualistic new music, but it just doesn't work: Sections don't fit well together, and the percussion bridge is simply too long. "Inside Out" is a contrastingly quiet piece with washes of keyboards and Lewis' voice coming from the fog. "Collarless Fog That One Day Soon" is a free improvisation. Moonsongs shows the way to the band's next album, In This Life, its masterpiece. - Franзois Couture



A Thinking Plague
Artist Thinking Plague
Album Title Thinking Plague
Date of Release 1984
AMG Rating
Genre Rock
Styles Avant-Prog
Library View Click here to see this album in MARC format

AMG EXPERT REVIEW: ...A Thinking Plague was recorded with a very low budget and first released as a cheaply pressed LP in 1984, then issued as a cassette in 1986 on the band's own label, Endemic. Cuneiform gave it a decent CD release in 2000 as part of the album Early Plague Years. Even though these are early experiments by masterminds Bob Drake and Mike Johnson, ...A Thinking Plague is generally better than its follow-up, Moonsongs. The music relies less on percussion, melodies are stronger, but, most of all, the album is more cohesive. The band evolved from rock-in-opposition influences such as Henry Cow and Etron Fou Leloublan and was more versed into rock than the Motor Totemist Guild. Vocalist Sharon Bradford is not as impressive as Suzanne Lewis, who would replace her for the next album, but she does her job well. Songs are complex and arrangements can be disconcerting at times (the last section of "Thorns of Blue and Red/The War" could have been stronger). This album has a sense of direction Moonsongs lacks, but the band's sound is also less distinctive, its identity still burgeoning. It should be considered as a very impressive debut. - Franзois Couture




Early Plague Years
Artist Thinking Plague
Album Title Early Plague Years
Date of Release Sep 19, 2000
AMG Rating
Genre Rock
Styles Avant-Prog
Type compilation
Library View Click here to see this album in MARC format
Product Purchase Click here to buy this album

AMG EXPERT REVIEW: Early Plague Years combines Thinking Plague's first two albums on one CD. Moonsongs was a 1986 cassette released the next year on LP by Dead Man's Curve. ...A Thinking Plague was first released on LP in 1984, then on cassette in 1986. Both were long out of print and impossible to find. The remastering is fabulous, giving these albums a sound far superior to what they ever had. Due to time limitations, a few edits had to be done. "Warheads" misses four bars toward the end, the improv "Collarless Fog That One Day Soon" fades out two minutes earlier, and the percussion section on "Moonsongs" has been shortened a bit. Nothing dramatic and all seamless, but one can't help but wonder why Cuneiform put the second album first on the CD. Fans of Thinking Plague and of American avant-prog bands like the Motor Totemist Guild, U Totem, and 5uu's will be delighted, but newcomers to this style should begin with In This Life or In Extremis. - Franзois Couture

1. Warheads (Johnson/Johnson) - 8:17
2. Etude for Combo (Johnson) - 7:01
3. Collarless Fog That One Day Soon - 3:25
4. Inside Out (Drake/Lewis) - 4:13
5. Moonsongs (Johnson) - 15:32
6. I Do Not Live (Johnson) - 5:04
7. Possessed (Johnson) - 8:19
8. How to Clean Squid (Bradford/Johnson) - 5:02
9. A Light Is on and Name the World (Drake) - 1:32
10. The Taste That Lingers On (Bradford) - 2:12
11. Four Men in the Rain (Drake) - 2:33
12. Thorns of Blue and Red/The War (Floyd) - 15:28



Curlew: Live in Berlin
John Cale: Slow Dazzle
Be-Bop Deluxe: Sunburst Finish
Crack the Sky: Animal Notes/Safety in Numbers
Badger: One Live Badger
Can: Future Days
Bill Bruford: Bruford Tapes
Ginger Baker: Middle Passage
Brand X: X-Trax
Audience: House on the Hill

Mark Derryberry - Engineer
Bob Drake - Organ, Synthesizer, Percussion, Balalaika, Drums, Guitar (Bass), Voices, Noise, Producer, Engineer
Mark Fuller - Drums, Timbales, Simmons Drums
Fred Hess - Sax (Alto)
Susanne Lewis - Voices, Cover Painting
Mark McCoin - Percussion, Drums, Voices, Sampling
Bill Ellsworth - Design, Layout Concept
Glenn Nitta - Sax (Soprano)

2000 CD Cuneiform 141




Early Plague Years CD - 2000 - Cuneiform.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contains the first two rare LPs: ...a Thinking Plague and Moonsongs, (see below) both long out of print and remastered for this re-release by original band member/engineer Bob Drake.

In Extremis CD - 1998 - Cuneiform.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Johnson: guitars
Mark Harris: woodwinds
David Willey: bass, accordian
David Kerman: drums
Shane Hotle: keyboards
Deborah Perry: vocals
also appearing:
Bob Drake: bass, voice
Sanjay Kumar: keyboards
Mark Fuller: drums

In This Life CD - 1989 - ReR.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Johnson: guitars
Bob Drake: drums, bass, violin
Mark Harris: woodwinds
Susanne Lewis: vocals, guitar
Shane Hotle: keyboards
Maria Moran: bass, guitar
Lawrance Haugseth: clarinet
also appearing:
Eric Moon: keyboards
Mark Fuller: drums

Moonsongs LP - 1986 - Dead Man's Curve Out of print. Re-released on CD "Early Plague Years", 2000.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Johnson: guitars
Bob Drake: bass, drums
Susanne Lewis: vocals
Eric Moon: keyboards
Mark Fuller: drums
Also appearing:
Mark McCoin: drums, cheap sampler.

...a Thinking Plague LP - 1984 - Endemic
Out of print. Re-released on CD "Early Plague Years", 2000.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Johnson: guitars, keyboards, voice
Bob Drake: bass, drums, keyboards, guitar, etc.. voice
Sharon Bradford: vocals
also appearing:
Mark Fuller: drums and percussion
Harry Fleishman: organ, piano
Mark Bradford: voice

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Thinking Plague

Discography
...a Thinking Plague (1984)
Moonsongs (1986)
In This Life (1989)
In Extremis (1998)

Early Plague Years (2000; re-release of the first two albums)


County Of Origin: USA
Established: c. 1983
Styles: Avant Garde, RIO


Biography

Mention the term "RIO" around a prog fan, and Thinking Plague is probably the first band that comes to mind. This is not because they're archetypical of the genre; in fact, composer and guitarist Mike Johnson hates the term. As a matter of fact, Thinking Plague is fairly eclectic, drawing from Henry Cow and Art Bears but also from a variety of styles ranging from symphonic prog (evident mainly on In Extremis) to post-punk (on the debut) to Peter Gabriel's solo work (on the title track of Moonsongs). However, the band gets a good deal of visibility in the prog scene, partially due to the symphonic overtones of In Extremis and partially due to the fact that they're one of the more accessible RIO-influenced bands around, and thus get recommended fairly often. Well, that and the fact that they frickin' rule. :)

Anyway. Thinking Plague evolved in the early 80s from the work of Mike Johnson and multi-instrumentalist Bob Drake, who apparently met when Drake put up an ad seeking a guitar player "into Henry Cow, Yes, etc." (there's that eclecticism again). In 1983, they and a few co-conspirators recorded their first album, ...a Thinking Plague, in a meat-packing studio, surrounded by bloody entrails -- or at least, that's how Bob Drake tells it. The music fit the location, drawing from RIO, punk, 20th-century classical music, new wave and progressive rock in varying amounts. It was released in a limited edition on the band's own label, Dead Man's Curve, each cover hand-painted by Drake. Instruments included bowed balalaika, casio mini-synth, metal pipes and cat, as well as the more standard vocals, guitars, bass and drums.

By the time of their second album, Moonsongs, things had improved a bit. They now were recording in a warehouse called The Yogurt Factory (later shortened to "The Yog Factory"), and they had a new vocalist named Susanne Lewis. In This Life was even released on CD by ReR, which gave it a good deal more exposure than the first two. These albums were generally more focussed and serious than the debut, which probably helped as well.

Then things fell apart. Susanne Lewis moved to New York to further her career as an indie/punk songwriter, and Bob Drake moved to LA to be a recording engineer, and then joined 5uu's. It wasn't until the mid-to-late 90s that Thinking Plague reformed with new vocalist Deborah Perry, drummer Dave Kerman (from 5uu's), and a variety of others. 1998's In Extremis combined four new songs with a couple of older tracks recorded in the early 90s by a transitional incarnation of the band. The album was surprisingly cohesive, given the way it was pieced together from new and old material, and is certainly their most popular album in the progressive rock community.

2000 brought Early Plague Years, a two-on-one CD rerelease that allowed many people to hear the first two albums for the first time. A new Plague album is due out in 2003. - Alex Temple [October 2001]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...a Thinking Plague (1984)

Thinking Plague's almost-self-titled debut may come as a surprise to listeners familiar with their more recent work. Although the band's trademark angular melodies and dissonant chords are a constant throughout their career, the symphonic textures and seriousness of purpose of (most of) 1998's In Extremis are all but absent here. The music has a stripped-down, almost punk feeling to it, as well as a mood of playful experimentation that would make it hard to take the music seriously if it weren't so damn good. The album even gets downright silly at times.

For example, there's "I Do Not Live," in which the super-distorted voices of Bob Drake and Mike Johnson alternate with exaggeratedly tortured vocals from Sharon Bradford. This is combined with bizarre lyrics like "I am also using you using me / We're just like two laboratory rats," convulsive atonal guitar work, weird synth noises, and the violently abrupt mood shifts that result from recording more-than-four-track music on a four-track recorder. Oh, and there's a funeral dirge in the middle, for no real reason other than "because they can."

Or how about "How To Clean Squid"? This is the band's setting of instructions from a gourmet cooking magazine on... well, how to clean squid. There's a mixture of sardonic chanting and creepily angelic singing, with occasional high sustained notes on words like "cartilage," suspended over a blistering punkish setting accompanied by what sound like new-wave drum machines. The rhythms are typically disjointed, leading to prosody like "still at-TATCHED! un-der COLD! run-ning WA! terrr..." Somehow, the song comes off as being not only bizarre but really scary, especially when phrases like "above eyes" are echoed with more highly-distorted vocals from the group's co-founders.

You think that's weird? You ain't heard nothin' yet. "The Taste That Lingers On" is a repetitive little piece by Bradford, with lyrics about a "very sweet taste like over-sugared fruit" and "a gray mass that sticks to the teeth," set to music that's almost equally nauseating, especially at the end when the tape speed seems to waver, causing a gradual rise and fall of pitch. This is surrounded on either side by two short compositions by Drake, one of which features a Speak-N-Spell recorded over a telephone, and the other of which seems to be played entirely on several bowed balalaikas.

As if to remind the listener that these are, in fact, serious musicians, there are also two longer and less silly songs, "Possessed" and "Thorns of Blue and Red / the War." Strangely, these strike me as the two weaker songs on the album. "Possessed," as those of you who own In This Life know, is a very good song featuring plaintive vocals and some fierce atonal rocking-out -- until about five minutes into it, when some insanely cheesy synth arpeggios suddenly appear and ruin everything. "Thorns of Blue and Red / the War" is a setting of two poems found in a trash can outside a mental hospital, and while it contains some excellent music (including vocals from Bradford's husband Mark, who has both a wonderful classical baritone and a powerful falsetto), it's just too long. The improvised middle section by "Great Banana" (Drake, Johnson and the Bradfords on instruments including "noises, glasses, [and] cat") gets very close to inaudibility, and brings the song to a dead halt. It would take another couple of years before Thinking Plague really gained the ability to do a great 15-minute song -- the astounding "Moonsongs" from the album of the same name. Still, this is generally an excellent and underrated album, quite worthy of the Thinking Plague name and perhaps a good way to get fans of quirky post-punk like Kukl into the avant-prog/RIO scene. - Alex Temple [October 2001]
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Moonsongs (1986)

From the very beginning of the album, you can tell that this band is pissed off. "Warheads" is probably Thinking Plague's hardest-rocking tune, opening with an angry chromatic guitar and bass riff before joining them with loud synth drums (reminiscent of XTC's The Big Express) and the voice of TP's second vocalist, Susanne Lewis. The lyrics are much more direct than on the band's other albums, as seen in the opening lines: "People killing time, hiding in their minds murder / They're looking for a goat, gonna cut his throat." There's also a heavy dose of bitter irony: Lewis is quickly joined by a male voice apathetically reciting prayers: "Jesus loves me, this I know, 'cause the Bible tells me so." As it continues, "Warheads" turns out to be practically a microcosm of the band's entire oeuvre, echoing the punk aggression of ...a Thinking Plague and predicting In Extremis's the skittery guitar lines and spacey drones. Susanne Lewis, new at the time of Moonsongs' release, gets a chance to show her amazing versatility, from the aforementioned shrieks to her usual indie-rock disaffectedness to a surprising bit about three minutes in that sounds a little bit like Dagmar Krause.

"Warheads" is followed by "Etude for Combo," a brittle, percussive and somewhat minimalistic instrumental whose main motif later appeared in "Organism" and "Les Etudes d'Organism." Here it's played live by Bob Drake, Mark Fuller, Eric Moon and Mike Johnson for a small audience of friends, and the tension is palpable when, halfway in, the band asks the onlookers to scream along with them: "ONE! TWO! ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR!" At that moment, the music seems to be momentary thrown off balance, as Thinking Plague's characteristic rhythmic disjointedness allows them to throw in a quick solo for something that sounds like a bicycle bell before starting on an amazing section that combines rock instrumentation and propulsiveness with 20th-century classical harmonic and melodic materials and the swung rhythms of jazz. With its syncopated keyboard parts, this passage is surprisingly funky -- a quality that isn't usually associated with the RIO movement and its derivatives.

The next two tracks are quieter, and serve as a moment of respite before the title track. "Collarless Fog that one day soon" is another instrumental track, improvised during the "Etude for Combo" sessions, and it consists mainly of quietly unsettling quasi-tonal guitar figures over a backdrop that sounds like Henry Cow gone ambient. "Inside Out" is even more pulseless, featuring Susanne Lewis's disembodied voice floating over blurry keyboard drones from Bob Drake. Lewis also wrote the lyrics, and they have a mysterious quality that's very different from Mike Johnson's political intellectualism; here we get phrases like "do we kill what we love the most?" and "how I am in your moving hand, loving you inside out." It's an enormously beautiful, almost wistful song, almost never talked about and reminiscent of some of the more abstract vocal tracks on Biota's Object Holder.

But then again, it's easy to understand how "Inside Out" could be overshadowed by the final track of the album. "Moonsongs" is an orgy of tribal percussion, furious bass playing, "vocal parts" played on sampling keyboards, gritty atonal guitar solos and apocalyptically environmentalist lyrics. At one point Susanne Lewis takes on the persona of a pagan priestess, creating a call-and-response chant in which her vaguely religious-sounding declarations ("I am a lure from paradise") are answered by similar exaltations by Drake and Johnson ("She is a flood across a plain"). The aforementioned sampling keyboard section is a truly wonderful moment that will make any TP neophyte's jaw drop in confusion as you giggle mischievously, in which growling synths, guitar and slap bass battle with "oo"s and "ta"s manipulated into squelchy dissonant counterpoint. The climax of the piece finds Lewis playing the part of Nature as an innocent little girl, singing lines like "They kill and rape my children / Preach falsehoods, which they say God gave them" in a flat, childlike voice. Quiet piano figures and ominous synths lie in wait for about half a minute before the the opening tune reappears over the 80s-sounding drums of "Warheads," no longer calmly floating but filled with biterness and disgust. Lewis angrily denounces industrial pollution with all the heavy-handedness of Thinking Plague's early idols the Art Bears, combined with pseudo-Lovecraftian rhetoric like "Very soon you will know again the darkness of my timeless womb." A series of absolutely killer guitar solos bring the song to a conclusion before it fades into the distance with a minute or so of quiet synth and guitar work.

Weirdly, when I look back at my description of "Moonsongs" here, it sounds terrible. Vocal posturing, pretentious lyrics, "world music" influences -- aren't these things I usually complain about? Well, yes they are, but Thinking Plague manages to pull it off admirably, due partially to their impeccable sense of timing, partially to Susanne Lewis's strong anti-symphonic tastes (not to mention the fact that she's simply a brilliant vocalist), and partially to the sheer strength and consistency of Mike Johnson's compositional vision. "Moonsongs" is one of the best songs the band has released yet, and Moonsongs, the album, is nothing short of amazing. If there's anything bad I can say about this album, it's that it's not long enough. - Alex Temple [October 2001]
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In This Life (1989)

One of the first phrases that comes up when Thinking Plague is mentioned on rec.music.progressive is "accessible RIO." Composer and guitarist Mike Johnson's distaste for the term "RIO" notwithstanding, the description is fairly accurate, and nowhere is it more so than on this album. While all the usual elements of Thinking Plague's sound -- constantly changing meters, dissonant harmonies, non-tonal pitch language -- are present on In This Life, the album is definitely warmer and friendlier than the rest of the band's output. Rhythms are more fluid than in their earlier work -- sure, a song like "Lycanthrope" still switches between 5/4 and 4/4 every other measure, but the effect is strangely natural rather than aggressively jumpy. The texture is also simpler: for the most part, the bombastic symphonics of In Extremis and the jerky heaviness of the first two albums are replaced by a more chambery texture, heavy on woodwinds and featuring a lot of acoustic and undistorted electric guitar playing. The arrangements are very deliberate; Johnson makes extensive use of the technique of punctuating a downbeat by removing rather than adding an instrument. "Run Amok," for instance, opens as a bouncy, vaguely klezmer-ish tune for clarinet, piano and voice, but every other measure is underscored by a thud of heavy electric guitar, drums and baritone sax. Elsewhere, synthesizers are used to emphasize certain sections: much of "Lycanthrope" is fleshed out by barely audible synth lines in the background, and the sudden, unexpected entrace of a huge pile of dissonant synth chords (think Gentle Giant's "Proclamation") two and a half minutes into "Love" is one of the most powerful moments on the album.

What really makes the album so listener-friendly, though, is Susanne Lewis. Her background was not avant-prog but indie rock, and she has the warm, unaffected simplicity that would later become popular among bands like the Essex Green and Freezepop. (In fact, she only does one note with vibrato on the entire album -- but I'll let you find that. It's a killer.) She's also a very good indie songwriter, as evidenced by her later band Hail; In This Life is a more collaborative effort than a lot of Plague, and here Lewis writes a good number of the vocal melodies. While they certainly don't sound like indie (except for "Fountain of All Tears" and the slightly sardonic spoken-word sections of "Love"), they're also catchier and more conventionally "melodic" than most of Johnson's melodies. Rather than being convoluted and angular like In Extremis, many of the tunes here are at their core octatonic, modal, or even tonal -- although pure tonality is always thrown off by out-notes in some other instrument.

That's the "accessible" part. As for the "RIO" part... yes, it's true that the term technically only refers to the eight bands that participated in the RIO festivals in the late 70s, but the influence of those bands is probably stronger here than only any other Plague release. "Malaise" has some of the heavy starkness of the Art Bears, although Lewis's voice is nothing like Dagmar Krause's. Parts of the album suggest late Henry Cow in their harmonic motion, and "Love" ends with a bit of circus music -- an homage to Samla? But the centerpiece of the album is the astounding "Organism," which reminds me more than anythiing else of Aksak Maboul -- it's got hints of Middle Eastern music, repetetive percussion grooves, and even Fred Frith! The song is another "percussive epic" like the title track of Moonsongs, but constructed differently -- more minimalist than maximalist. It opens with a gradual but very intense polyrhythmic buildup, in which a chromatic 7/8 groove and 4/4 drumming are overlaid with increasingly noisy improvisation from Frith's guitar and Lawrence Haugseth's piano. The middle section of the piece contains a beautiful passage that would later get ruined in In Extremis's "Les Etudes d'Organism," in which Susanne Lewis sings strangely evocative lyrics ("Droplet / Held between glass for platelet high or low") to an octatonic melody so compressed that when it leaps a fourth it feels like an octave. Later, Drake's rather unorthodox violin playing and ethnic percussion give the song an Arabic flavor. Halfway in, a brief passage with Drake, Johnson and Haugseth singing over heavy guitars gives way to a "breakdown" cadence played on junk. The track ends with five and a half minutes of gradual buildup and release, the basic rhythm alternating measures of 4/4 and 5/4 as different types of percussion provide variations in timbre and intensity -- a bit like the ending of the Art Bears' "Moeris Dancing."

These RIO comparisons are, of course, not meant to suggest that In This Life is in any way derivative or lacking in creativity. Indeed, its surreal, calm but tense beauty is unlike any other piece of music I know. The RIO influence is strong, but it's tempered by the aforementioned Susanne Lewis DIY vibe, subtle hints of symphonic prog (particularly Gentle Giant and 70's Crimson) and the distinctive and instantly recognizable harmonic language of Mike Johnson. The album is an astounding piece of work, and it would be an excellent choice either as an introduction to avant-prog (it was mine) or as a worthy companion for the RIO fan's Henry Cow and 5uu's albums.

Oh, right. Bonus tracks. At the time this CD was released, it made sense to include tracks from the first two albums, which were out of print. Now that Early Plague Years has been released, they're pretty superfluous, especially since this mix of "Moonsongs" is less energetic and thus less powerful than the original. The contemplative lyricism of "Fountain of All Tears" makes a better ending anyway. - Alex Temple [January 2002]
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In Extremis (1998)

The first time I heard Thinking Plague was at NEARfest 2000, when I found them interesting in a novelty kind of way. Being my first experience with the RIO sub-genre, I was pleasantly surprised by their somehow soothing and melodically inventive style. I found myself closing my eyes and just feeling the music.. as well as dozing off a couple times during the set. My first experience with this album didn't last too long. I turned if off midway, and listened to the rest later. The music was just a little to strange for me to get into. However, I recently pulled it out again and have been listening incessantly, and each time I find myself getting more and more involved in it's wonderful collage of displaced melodies, churning rhythms and completely creative instrumentation. The overarching feel is immense and dissonant, yet not as oppressive or difficult to listen to as I'd expected from a RIO group. After sitting down with the album, the brilliant complexity and care of the arrangements really shines through.

"Dead Silence" is a magnificent opener, kicking off with a chugging guitar line and Deborah Perry's distinctive vocals. Her voice is initially off-putting, as it has a tendency to jump from note to note in a seemingly illogical and atonal fashion, though it's remarkable how natural and pretty it actually sounds after getting used to it. Another major treat is the cool "Les Etudes D'Organism", which actually features some semi-conventional "prog" melodies amongst it's chaotic carinval-from-hell like feel. This is just a magnificently composed work, and I really wish I could see them live again after hearing this album. Don't be scared off by the RIO label, this is simply truly progressive music that pushes boundaries. Definitely on the cutting edge of the current progressive rock scene. - Greg Northrup [February 2001]