Pylon debut reveals the new sound of the South

Pylon: Weather Radio

[Purchase]

In October of 1980 Pylon released its debut album, Gyrate. Named for the Faulkner novel this Athens, GA quartet is made up of Vanessa Ellison on vocals,  Randy Bewley on guitar, Michael Lachowski on bass and Curtis Crowe on drums. It’s dance music for late night basement parties with cheap beer, fogged up windows and music that’s loud enough to compete with the cicadas buzzing outside.

 The guitar riffs are playful like The B-52’s but the lyrics are dark, made up of economical phrases about anything other than love. Were they aware of the equally spare sounds of Gang of Four and Joy Division , or was there something in the air? 

 The record was released on Danny Beard’s DB label which took out ads in magazines like Trouser Press to get the word out. The ad quoted reviews of the prior Pylon single “Cool” b/w “Dub. “Pounding rhythms, sinister tunefulness” (Trouser Press); “Bears scant resemblance to anything” (NME); “Best American Independent single I’ve heard all year”(Robert Christgau). 

 Robert Christgau gave Gyrate a B+, writing: 

 I wish they'd come up with a few more riffs/melodies as deliberate and haunting as those of "Volume" and "Stop It" and the foolishly omitted "Cool." And while I admire their bare-boned lyrical concept, often the unpretentiousness seems mannered, like some comp-lit cross between Robbe-Grillet and Ted Berrigan. 

The band has recently released a box set. They’ve had liner notes written by both the B-52’s Fred Schneider and REM’s Michael Stipe. The surviving members recently talked to NPR. 

 “When it comes to who is influencing who and the legacy and all of that, to me, it just keeps folding onto itself, “ said Lachowski. “I mean, we were pretty cocky when we were doing our first two albums and broke up. Maybe that energy made music that lasts for people in a certain way, but I don't really know how to measure it and put it all into a narrative.” 

"We were just being ourselves and we weren't really beholden to anybody who was trying to mold us or shape us into anything, “said Ellison, now Hay. "Danny Beard didn't do that. He just let us be ourselves. And so I think some of that shines through; there's a lot of authenticity in that we were being ourselves."
 

As much as I admire Vanessa’s yowling, my favorite track is the instrumental “Weather Radio” which sounds like the best starting point of everything great that came out of the Athens scene in the 1980’s.