NURSE WITH WOUND

DRUNK WITH THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS LP 

United Dairies 025 

Limited Edition: 100 copies

in handmade photographic sleeve w/signed photographic insert, orange insert 

Insanely rare release from Nww limited to a mere 100 copies released back in 1987. Handmade unique cover artwork (each cover different) and unique photographic insert signed from Steven Stapleton.

Some info on the release:  Impossible to find release from the legendary Nurse with wound released back in 1987 and limited to a mere 100 copies, each one with a unique handmade cover, plus signed photographic insert and an orange insert. Considered between collectors as the Holy Grail of any Nurse with wound collection. Nearly never shows up for sale...don't miss this chance to add it to your collection and "close" your Nww collection. 

Drunk with the Old Man of the Mountains was compiled around the same time as Stapleton's other b-side clearinghouse, Automating Vol. 1, though Drunk is a decidedly more consistent affair. The pieces presented here showcase Stapleton's natural narrative inclinations and exhibit a skewed musical sense not hindered as much by some of his more "gothic" inclinations. Especially strong in this regard is the opening "Mourning Smile" piece, exceptional in its playfulness and perverse cheerfulness. It plays with a sinister church organ redolent of old vampire horror movies, but quickly dismantles the listener's expectations with ragtime motifs.

The following piece, "Swamp Rat" places a slightly goofy rhythmic vamp in the foreground, building on it with jagged guitar skronk, panned giggles, and a manipulated choir that, not for the first time, submerged in a din of reverb, lends Stapleton his general ambience. Kazoos crop up, the piece breaks up, giggles become more prominent. The whole compilation generally gravitates towards the slaphappy and offbeat, decidedly less disturbed and morose than some of Stapleton's other recordings, and perhaps more creatively liberating to Stapleton because of it.

"Sheela-Na-Gig" is a little bit more ghoulish. A pitch-shifted wailing lingers for about five minutes. It serves as a nice segue into the second half of the album, which, while still very much in the playful vein, takes a slightly more lethargic tone. "Astral Dustbin Dirge" from the Homotopy for Marie album fits nicely with the overall piercing drunkenness of the album, and in fact, for a split-second seems to quote "Swamp Rat".. Beginning with vague pitched snores that abruptly lapse into a dream state of orgasms and car accidents, this is one of Stapleton's strongest, most visually evocative pieces, showing not only his mastery of culturally-loaded sound sources, but his honed cinematic attention to narrative editing. It's frenzied, uses the general motion and jump-cuts that are stock-in-trade, yet this piece especially emphasizes Stapleton's knack for developing an economy of sounds that never stoops to disingenuous irony or cheap parlor tricks.

"Shattering Man Falling" is a live-in-concept performance by Stapleton and it's slightly more static and organic than the other pieces included as a result. It concludes with an arrhythmic heartbeat, conceptually unifying it with the staggering rhythms of "Swamp Rat" and "Mourning Smile." Despite the albums slap-dash composition of smaller periods over a several year range of time, Stapleton's acute ear has assembled a very coherent album in Drunk with the Old Man of the Mountains, it's effective both as a great introduction to Nurse With Wound and as a one-sitting listen. While longtime fans might balk at the lack of album-length focused cogency, it would be a great overlook to miss the individual pieces on this album.

Nurse with Wound (or shortened as NWW) is the main recording name for British musician Steven Stapleton. Nurse with Wound was originally a band, formed in 1978 by Stapleton, John Fothergill and Heman Pathak(Udder Milk Decay, Hastings of Malawi). The band ranges in many genres such as avant-garde, industrial, noise, dark ambient, and drone. Their early recordings, all made quickly, were heavily influenced by free improvisation and Krautrock and were generally considered industrial music, despite the objections of the group.

By 1981, only Stapleton was left from the original trio and he now regards 1982's Homotopy to Marie, as being the first proper Nurse with Wound release. There are now over 40 full length NWW titles. Stapleton's fondness for dada, surrealism and absurdist humor are demonstrated in much of NWW's output, which, though it draws directly on nearly every musical genre imaginable (from cabaret music to nursery rhymes to John Cage to The Beach Boys to krautrock to pop music to ambient music) retains a distinctive and recognizable aura. Musique concrete may be the most prominent touchstone, due to Stapleton's frequent, and often humorous, use of creative tape loops and editing. This aesthetic is fully represented in the artwork on the album covers, virtually all of which is created by Stapleton, mostly under the pseudonym "Babs Santini".

Although Stapleton has sole curatorship of NWW, the group has a long and illustrious list of collaborators including Diana Rogerson (Stapleton's wife), James Thirlwell of Foetus, Tony Wakeford and David Jackman of Organum, Andrew McKenzie of The Hafler Trio, Stereolab and Jim O'Rourke, Christoph Heemann, William Bennett of Whitehouse and Robert Haigh of Sema, Rose McDowall (Strawberry Switchblade), Annie Anxiety and Jhonn Balance of Coil, Matt Waldron of Irr. App (Ext) and most regularly David Tibet of Current 93. At time of writing, NWW is a core duo of Stapleton and Colin Potter, the latter having first worked with NWW on 1992's "Thunder Perfect Mind" when it was recorded at Potter's ICR studio. Potter has appeared on almost every NWW release since.

Condition: Both vinyl and cover lie in excellent condition. To be more precise vinyl looks unplayed, with no spindle marks, crystal clear and shiny, while cover lies in excellent condition with minimal storage wear. Both inserts are mint. Just impossible to find such a copy today.

Tracklist

SHIPPING & PAYMENT

Shipping: Shipping for this LP is 10$ airmail in Europe / 12$ for the rest of the world
Registered mail: +6$
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Packaging: I am a collector too and i know