Entertaining Asylum

 

Screaming Trees - Asylum [12NTV 24 UK 1987 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC]

I last ripped this single over ten years ago for my old ESWA blog, I had forgotten just how entertaining it is, so here is a brand new rip for all those who might be expecting a Pacific Northwestern psyche/grunge band named Screaming Trees. This particular Screaming Trees were an industrial influenced indie rock band who moved into more electronic music, ripping up a few musical rule books as they went.

Asylum could well be one of the finest 12" singles ever to come out of Sheffield, England. Engineered & mixed by Hula's Alan Fish, recorded by Screaming Trees and their buddies Workforce at Vibrasound & produced by former ABC fringe Stephen Singleton.

This single was released a few months after The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu launched 1987 on an unsuspecting world, and the new craze for well placed subtle sampling of commercial artistic properties is duly used & abused to epic proportions on an indie-dance-funk single for the first time. Madonna meets William Burroughs and Grandmaster Flash, Janet Jackson does Cameo, The Beastie Boys take on The Jackson Five and all points between. 

Clearly Native Records never sought legal clearance on what Screaming Trees were doing. Thankfully, for the label's sake, the single never crossed over into the mainstream.

A1 (Beyond) Asylum

B1 Take Them To The Tree

B2 Laughter & Lamentation