Thanks to their extensive re-issues of the likes of the JOSEF K, SEBADOH and TRIFFIDS' back catalogues, the ever-vigilant Domino have been spoiling us rotten over the past couple of years. So I guess it should come as no surprise that they should do the honours in style when it comes to a long-overdue retrospective of smart urban NYC funksters LIQUID LIQUID.
Although your reviewer recalls them being potentially very big news on the cusp of the '80s, because they never released a full album, LL's reputation remained stringently underground. Their vibrations lived on, however, and in more recent times took a minor upsurge when happening Glaswegian club Optimo took their name from one of LL's best tunes: a track which – courtesy of its' India rubber drumming, Sal Principato's short-circuiting alien-echo vocals and the asphyxiating bassline – is so mesmeric it still can't fail to cause instant dancefloor gratification.
Interspersed with a generous array of bonus tracks and live cuts, 'Slip In & Out Of The Phenomenon' now presents us with the band's three official EPS and their slinky, lithe and urban sound remains as futuristic and fascinatingly difficult to pin down as it was back in the day. Another of their key tracks, 'Groupmegroup' leads us off here, which you may recall from the essential 'Rough Trade Post-Punk 01' collection and its' melody-hugging bassline, determinedly rhythmic drums, off-kilter percussion (lots of congas, roto toms etc) are informed by both the space of Dub and also the urban darkness of the band's New York netherworld at the turn of the 1980s, when the hip-hop revolution was looming expectantly around the corner.
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In fairness, Liquid Liquid's lithe, loose-limbed funk had its' UK counterparts. Stylistically, the likes of early 23 Skidoo and A Certain Ratio hunkered down to similarly hardline rhythmic approaches while The Pop Group's monstrous, nightmare funk also flirted dangerously with the kind of Avant Garde out-thereness LL would explore on their more impenetrable moments like 'Lub Dupe' and the twitchy dislocation of 'Spearbox'. Even PG vocalist Mark Stewart, though, would struggle to compete with the weird, disembodied vocal outpourings Salvatore Principato would conjure from the ether. Indeed, most of the time he's a ghostly, cut-up presence stalking through the band's world like a malevolent poltergeist and the only realistic human comparison this writer can make is with Pere Ubu's David Thomas at his squawkiest.
Nonetheless, Principato would egg his team-mates into some marvellous flights of funky fancy along the way and – as the likes of 'Optimo', the sticky'n'phonky 'Where's Al?' and the stone classic 'Cavern' prove – Liquid Liquid were the funkiest phenomenon on eight legs as and when the spirit moved them. With the modern crop of NYC groovebound scenesters such as DFA hungrily referencing them again, 'Slip In & Out Of The Phenomenon' is both a timely and far-reaching collection and a fine re-appraisal of this elusive and enigmatic band.
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