Malefactor, Ade

Malefactor, Ade
Studio album by The Red Crayola
Released	1989
Recorded	1986
Studio
Label	Glass
/

Track listing

Side one

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Extremism"	2:20
2.	"Baby Jesus Frog"	2:19
3.	"Blue Jeans"	1:08
4.	"Steve McQueen's Garden"	2:12
5.	"Colour Theory, No. 4"	2:24
6.	"Franz Von Assisi"	3:19
7.	"Sex Machine"	1:23
8.	"The Coaster"	2:39
9.	"Break a Leg"	2:23
10.	"T.B. - Tissues"	2:37
11.	"Dope"	1:11

Side two

No.	Title	Length
1.	"The Alma Fanfare"	2:36
2.	"Colour Theory, No. 3"	4:22

Background

• 
  From the center: Albert Oehlen, Mayo Thompson, Werner Büttner, mid 1980s (1987?)

Disco Doubt

The material on Malefactor, Ade was written and recorded in 1986 for an unreleased LP titled Disco Doubt (or Scheibenzweifel). The lyrics for the 33 songs were published in the book Gorki & Co. / 33 Songs.

Some of Werner Büttner's exhibition catalogs list Disco Doubt as a Mayo Thompson album: "Werner Büttner und Albert Oehlen, Mayo Thompson, Disco Doubt, LP, 1986."

In 1987, a song "Disco Death" was included on the soundtrack for the film The Last of England.

• 
  Cover of Gorki & Co. / 33 Songs (1986)
• 
  A potential cover for Disco Doubt (1986)

The car image was also used in The Quiet Album (1990)

Release

Malefactor, Ade was released on vinyl by Glass Records in late 1989.

Reissued on CD by Drag City in 2000.

In 2020, engineer Matthias Schuster posted an unreleased song from the session: Jimmy Silk. The song had been reworked into "Jimmy Silk/Supper Be Ready Medley".

Retrospectives

Mayo Thompson, 2015

I met Markus Oehlen, whom I first knew as the drummer in Mittagspause, the best of the German punk bands, at least as I saw it then. One night Markus said to me the same thing that Frederick Barthelme’s brother Steven had said to me back in the day: “You should meet my older brother.” Eventually I did meet Albert, with whom I went on to make Malefactor, Ade and another bunch of records.

Mayo Thompson, 2006

The material from which it came, the Disco Doubt tapes, were recorded in a day. Malefactor is a cull, and not too tampered with after the fact. That’s how we sounded. It was fun. Albert Oehlen, Werner Büttner and I had written thirty-three lyrics one night, the next we rented a drum machine, borrowed a guitar or two and some other stuff – we had a harmonica. We booked Matthias Schuester’s studio in Hamburg and bashed it down, hard. The fun in such cases comes from solving problems on the fly, improvising solutions, sorting each track in terms of its particular character, and, not least, bouncing ideas at one another. Their being Germans and my being Texan contributed to the exquisite sense of culture clash. In relation to English language driven popular music expression it offers a slightly tweaked view. It has an edgy, live feel, however deeply etherized the patients ultimately were.

Mayo Thompson, 1996

[... I] left England, moved to Germany [...] and starting working there a bit. But I wasn't making much music until I met Albert Oehlen. [... We] made an album for Glass--I think 1000 of them exist in the world, not even that, maybe 700, 800, like Corky's. A rarity. But I was just kind of out of it, I wasn't really thinking so much about it. I wasn't not thinking about it, I did it when it came up. When there was something to do, I did it. When there was nothing to do, I didn't think about it.

Reviews

Spex

July 1989

Clara Drechsler

Wer hat sich so um den Sound verdient gemacht wie Mayo Thompson? Vielleicht gerade noch der Erfinder des Tarzanschreis, als er das Brüllen des Löwen, des Krokodils und des Pfefferschnabels zum besagten Schrei verwob. So zeitlos, aber gleichzeitig doch staubdeckt sind Red Crayola hier auch, auf dem sonderbaren Boden der Musik, die ich in ihren verschiedenen Ausprägungen so besonders gerne mag: altmodische AvantgardeExperimente mit altmodischen Geräten, die altmodische Effekte erzielen. Red Crayola existiert in der ein oder anderen Besetzung nun seit 23 Jahren, damit kann man schon Fußballspielen und hat noch einen Schiedsrichter. Neben dem einzigen verbliebenen Urmitglied, dem streitbaren Texaner Mayo Thompson, gehören zur Besetzung heute die Künstler Albert Oehlen und Werner Büttner und der Filmstudent und Opernkomponist Andreas Dorau. Widerstreitende Informationen erreichen uns im Vorfeld der Plattenrezesion. Von Mayo Thompson dunkle Andeutungen über geradezu unbegehbare Sound- und Samplegefilde ... von anderer Seite Gerüchte über gefährlich geniale selbstgebaute Geräte ... dann: das Geheimnis ist viel unzulängliche Handarbeit und ein altes Diktiergerät, das man rückwärts laufen lassen kann. Schwer zu sagen — vieles klingt wie chinesischer Wind in einem aufgestellten Gartenrechen, durchsichtig-gläsern. Der Beat verschwindet in diesem Land, zerfließt zu einem charakteristischen Schlurfen und Schleifen, das neben den Songs pulsiert. (Ach ja — zwei Fortsetzungen von "Farbenlehre" von Jörg Schlicks Megabody sind zu finden.) Dann wieder hört man, wie ein Song von Enten zu Tode gebissen wird ... dann Produkte des reinen Übermuts, die von nachträglichen Dubs unterjocht werden. Und weiter — Staubsauger essen Musik auf. .. Staub und Nadel essen Musik auf ... Zuerst erblüht ein bunter, schmerzlicher Strauß von melancholischen Novelty-Scherzen, Taten von Geräuschemachern, angereichert mit geheimnisvollen, vielsagenden Texten. Daß es sich nicht in reinem Knirschen verliert, sondern doch noch Musik wird, liegt besonders an Mayos Gesang, der neben ein paar Gitarrenerwähnungen fast das einzige gleich erfaßbare Melodiengerüst liefert. Mayo fügt das seltsan naiv und teilnahmslos hinzu, die Worte kommen aus weiter Entfernung kurz in seinen Kopf und zum Mund heraus. "...Was ist Farbe/Tinte, Tusche, Hackebeil/Weiß wird behaupteVSei keine Farbe... klingt logisch": hier ohne die zu vermutende AtaTakZickenästhetik, sondern mit einem romantischen, unirdischen Musical-Flair versehen "Transparent Radiation", ein Song der jungen Engländer wie Spacemen 3 das Leben retten könnte, ist hier nicht drauf, dafür einige schöne und seltsame Exemplare der Spezies Diktiergerät-SwampBlues, die sich eigentlich erst in der Erinnerung oder als Nachgeschmack, zusammensetzen, "l'm gonna buy myself a sexmachine/ l'm gonna tell it where the jungle is..." — so eben, verrückt und verrottet.

Zap

1995

Martin Büsser

[...] Nach einer weiteren Pause meldete sich Mayo Thompson 1989 mit „Malefactor, ade“ in neuer, germanophiler Besetzung zurück, nahm eine LP mit Markus Oehlen, Rüdiger Carl, Werner Büttner und Andreas Dorau auf (auf dem unsagbar schätzenswerten Glass-Label erschienen). Obwohl alles darauf Thompson-Stil war, klang sie doch wieder ganz anders, nämlich nach minimalistischem Home recording, das auf der A-Seite richtig songorientiert war. Die Stücke pendelten zwischen dem Nerd-Folk von Bands wie den TALL DWARFS und DANIEL JOHNSTON und verinnerlichten Solopfaden, wie sie David Garland und David Thomas pflegten ... die Fusion aus Kunstlied und Hometaping war da eingeläutet. Wie viel resistenter gegen Selbstmitleid und Einsamkeits-Attitude war das doch im Vergleich zur Home Recording-Szene von heute (z.B. PALACE BROTHERS, SMOG), obwohl doch kaum einer so viele Gründe wie Mayo Thompson hätte, den gekränkt Unverstandenen zu spielen.

Testcard

1998

Thomas Groetz

Malefactor, ade war durch seinen starken Bezug zu den Vorlieben und Obsessionen der bildenden Künstler keine große Popularität beschieden. Ein begrenzter Bezugsrahmen spricht auch aus der folgenden RED KRAYOLA-Platte, eine Single, die auf dem Cover Mayo Thompson ähnlich wie auf Malefactor, ade in der beengten Sphäre eines Zimmers abbildet: in der Woh-nung, der soziokulturellen Keimzelle und dem primären Zielort der Kunst, dort wo die Bilder an den Wänden hängen und die Schallplatten zu Gehör kom-men. Die auf Albert Oehlens Privat-Label „Leiter-wagen"-Records erschienene 7" vom Anfang der 90er Jahre, die wiederum Texte aus der Sammlung in Gorky & Co. vertont, ist das letzte klangliche Dokument von Mayo Thompsons Aufenthalt in der Bundesrepublik.

Pitchfork

2000

Michael Sandlin

I'd venture to say that sunburn-brained Houstonian Mayo Thompson's last essential contribution to modern music was his lead guitar work on a few early '80s Pere Ubu albums, and maybe his 1994 collaboration with disciples Jim O'Rourke and David Grubbs on a surprisingly stunning guitar album. Unfortunately, on this reissue of 1989's Malefactor, Ade, Thompson comes off like a senile, Depends-sporting old coot goofing off in his nursing home suite. Red Krayola circa 1967? Nah, not really. Drop the "K," add a "C," and what do you get? Thompson farting around under the ostensible guise of that influential Dadaist underground institution he helped found, like, 170 years ago.

Naturally, this incarnation of Red Crayola features a backing band that consists of severe Deiter-like German types. These goofy Kraut noise-makers assist Thompson in bringing forth his garbled musical vision: there's plenty of ridiculously off-beat drumming, maybe a few programmed beats here and there, and someone's bass burps occasionally. Certainly, this is apt nonsensical backing music for Thompson's nonsensical lyric-writing and palsied guitar strumming. Every once in awhile, classical-sounding backward tape loops flutter about like so much discarded newspaper caught in a breeze. And with songs covering such insightful topics as frogs that resemble baby Jesus, auto- mechanical sex, dead actors' gardens, coasters, and blue jeans, what's to love?

The anti-campfire singalong, "Bluejeans," is an annoying pseudo-post-modern exercise in stupidity-as-art: "BLOO-jeans," Thompson insists. "BLOO-jeans!! Ahaaha!" "Colour Theory No.4" features more incoherent acid-trip lyrics over an off-center drumbeat and tinkling jack-in-the-box music. "TB—Tissues" is, more or less, 2½ minutes of repeated sounds that resemble a power drill boring a hole into a piece of scrap metal. Again, I'm at a loss as to what the expected reaction to this should be. Laughter? Paralysis? A sudden urge to part with $15 to further the Red Crayola cause?

In Thompson's case, when true creativity fails, you abuse your instruments in song and play up the fact that you're an incoherent freak. Lo and behold, you'll get away with musical murder, since most indie rock aesthetes won't be able to differentiate between Ornette Coleman's abstract expressionist genius and the mindless clutter that wastes digital space on Malefactor, Ade.

Though, remarkably, on "Franz Von Assisi," we do get an honest-to-goodness chord progression-- undercut, of course, by the sound of mechanical ducks quacking in the background. And towards the end of this disordered sound- universe, we're offered a few more tracks with no particular musical value: we get ejaculations of backward-looped Hitchcock-ian soundtrack music, and a song that features a single note bassline underpinning the occasional fractured tape segment, with atonal piano plinking and bleep noises comparable to a confused R2-D2.

Still, Thompson has proved he has the talent and ability to far surpass this pedestrian experimental junk. Blame Malefactor, Ade on the lack of a voice of reason amongst the many jabbering in his head. But hey, he's an established rock deity in certain circles, so it's no sweat getting the arbiters of Chicagoan cool at Drag City to re-release an album that anyone's Alzheimer-ridden grandparents could make if they were given a budget and proper recording facilities. Again, though, someone somewhere will find a use for this non-music. If you have a nasty bug problem in your apartment, try keeping Malefactor, Ade on medium volume at all times. Cockroaches, no matter how hungry, won't even think about venturing out into the open.

For the hell of it, why not bring this, Old Time Relijun's Uterus and Fire and Sonic Youth's NYC Ghosts and Flowers to the next neighborhood hipster party you're forced to attend. Bully your way to the disc changer, drop these choice selections in, and hit "shuffle." Though everyone in attendance will suffer extraordinary auditory discomfort, no one will dare protest your selections. In fact, you may end up becoming the most popular, yet secretly-hated enigma on your block.