Uzi – Sleep Asylum (1986) – LITTLE LOST CLASSICS

A little over two years ago I posted here on PCP the sensational Eleven:Eleventhe debut album by the Bostonians Come, and there were many friends who remembered the long musical road of its vocalist, the queen-of-fucking-all Thalia Zedec.

The woman is a veritable entity of American alt-rock, moving around since leaving Washington for Boston in the late ’70s, invariably lending her unique voice to a host of bands and projects. Today I skip its first two groups (or at least the two I know of), White Women and Dangerous Birds, and go straight to the third that – I believe – revealed its name to the world. Or at least to the underworld, before taking on vocals for the also seminal Live Skull.

The band Uzi has just one EP in its short trajectory, but at just over 23 minutes it has left its mark on universal underground music; Sleep asylum It came out in 1986 and is one of the rocks on which the most crooked towers of Yankee post-punk were built.

Dark, loud, full of experimentation with tapes (the loops sometimes look like samples) and driven by Thalia’s junkie/aggressive voice, the little disc is the ‘Massachusetts version’ of the New York no wave of the grandmasters Sonic Youth and in several moments – especially when it sounds more direct and upright, as in “Garbrielle and “Underneath” – is clearly one of the great influences of another queen, the muse of PCP Polly Jean Harvey.

In short, Sleep asylum it is one of those treasures to be discovered or rediscovered. One way or another, listen on the stalk!

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