Sadly, I wasn’t old enough to see Rema-Rema in the flesh — it was only as a result of being an avid 4AD label nut that I spied this curio in the mail-order catalogue back in the early 1990s, an EP that almost instantly became one of my treasured finds. A squealing black heart of a surprise that I can now some forty years later finally sample what a live show they would have delivered, lovingly salvaged from the band’s rich archive of reel-to-reel and cassette recordings.
Fond Reflections starts with the familiar. That bass, singular and sinful, cushioning the payload in barbed promise, behind that tribal patter, an electronic singe, then the vocals hit in funnels of feedback (it’s called “The Feedback Song” after all) to explode in your mind with caterwauling guitar. Yeah, bloody brilliant, and what follows just takes things further in a primitive tangle of post-punk primals, nose-bagging into a gaudy excess and blunt repeats of “Rema Rema Ha Ha Ha” from the Al Pacino hyeanas.
From here on in, hungry basslines and prowling melodics take over, carve up the canvas in meaty intent. Think a rough-cut Chairs Missing Wire full of spiralling worms and the blue sparks lyrically loused with angsty post-punkery and you’ll be sort of there – stuffed to the rafters with those old-time 4AD perspectives, before everything Mortal-Coiled, lustred the ethereal. The thistled threat and dog-end stubbiness of “International Scale” (that one got me zig-zagging the kitchen with some crazy body shapes), the glam psych of “Lost My Way”. Yeah, lots of great hooks. The sound is fresh and glowing — they’ve done a great job of resurrecting that essential mono-clast of the live arena whilst still pulling out a satisfying depth and sharpness to the effect-saturated zither and the arterial spray of those guitars on “Why Ask Why” leaping to attention like a ball of squabbling cats.The live version of “Fond Affections” presented here is delightfully devoid of any euphemism, suitably akin to its lyrical content, all torn-poster delivery comically flat to whirring minimals and glinting lacquer. The hollow-hilled corpse of “Instrumental” is carried out on razoring effects and a slapped (dis)satisfaction; the blasphemous “Entry” alligatoring a keylined allure in homage to the concrete, grinning sky.
And there ends the double LP, but if you snag the CD version you are rewarded with a bonus disc that updates the wow of the original EP with a studio version of “Entry” and two previously unheard live gems recorded at the same Albany Empire show as the EP’s B-side. A trio that eats into your attention as much as the quintet of tracks that Ivo Watts-Russell consigned to wax all those years ago.For me, this is a must-have (as was In Camera’s Era, released back in 2015), a missing link to everything that would evolve from its inception and still continues to mutate today. Not bad for a group that disbanded before their record even hit the streets.
-Michael Rodham-Heaps-
