Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella
| Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Nurse With Wound | ||||
| Released | 1979 | |||
| Recorded | 1978 | |||
| Genre | Industrial, Experimental | |||
| Length |
48:50 (Original) 64:06 (2001 reissue) |
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| Label | United Dairies | |||
| Producer | Nurse With Wound, Nick Rogers | |||
| Nurse With Wound chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
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Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella was the debut album by Nurse With Wound, released on their own United Dairies label in 1979. The album enjoys a reputation as one of the most singular debuts of all time. It is described by AllMusic as "one of the more glowing examples of late-70s industrial noise"[2] and defunct UK music magazine Sounds summed up their response by abandoning their usual star rating system to award the album a full 5 question marks.
The album's title is a quote from the poetic novel Les Chants de Maldoror by Uruguayan-born French author Isidore-Lucien Ducasse, written under the pseudonym Comte de Lautréamont.
It includes the Nurse with Wound list.
FACT magazine ranked the album at #51 on their list of "The 100 best albums of the 1970s".
The album came about when Steven Stapleton was working as a signwriter in London in 1978. Completing a job at an independent recording studio, he engaged in conversation with the studio's engineer, Nick Rogers. Rogers, frustrated with the advertising and voice-over work the studio brought in, expressed a wish to work with more experimental bands. Stapleton informed Rogers that he was in such a band and a studio date was arranged. Stapleton, however, was lying and had to hurriedly put something together. He called his friends John Fothergill and Heman Pathak, telling them to get hold of an instrument of some sort. Thus, the first line-up of Nurse With Wound (whose name supposedly relates to a scene in the film Battleship Potemkin) was quickly assembled, Stapleton on percussion, Fothergill on guitar (with built-in ring modulator) and Pathak on organ. The trio didn't have a chance to rehearse before entering the studio, yet the album was completed within 6 hours, with Rogers adding what was called "commercial guitar" on the sleeve. The studio's piano and synthesizer were also used. The tale is so fortuitous as to appear unlikely but Stapleton and Fothergill agreed on the story when interviewed separately by David Keenan for his book England's Hidden Reverse.
The album contains 3 lengthy tracks and Stapleton has stated that these were edited from improvisations with some overdubbing. The album's title came from a famous quotation from Isidore Ducasse (writing as Comte de Lautréamont) in his novel Les Chants de Maldoror, later adopted by artists involved in Surrealism. Stapleton designed the sleeve using an old pornographic magazine. Some copies came in a brown paper bag as a handful of stores were not prepared to have the cover on display; however, both Rough Trade and Virgin took copies without censorship. The original hand-numbered 500 copy pressing was cleared within weeks. Amongst those who bought the album were Tim Gane, later of Stereolab, and William Bennett of Whitehouse, both of whom would later work with Stapleton.
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Wikipedia