Blessed are the Cheese Makers

What with the hyperbolic drug referencing, the groaningly bad puns ('Mrs. Skinupski' indeed!), and some rather puzzling, introspective, subversive satire, one wonders what Terminal Cheesecake were really all about.

Their sound on this album is quite different from the other recordings I've posted.
It's curious in that it's the earlier of releases but it's a lot tighter and far more 'organised'.
Their output just got messier and messier - better and better, I think - whereas most get tighter and tighter.

And speaking of bands who got tighter and tighter [until they became hardly worth listening to], it's this album that inspires the trope commonly associated with Terminal Cheesecake: to be compared with the Butthole Surfers.

The guitar is certainly more central to the sound on this album, and it is grindy in that Paul Leary kind of way; but the overall sound has far more of a drone than the Surfers ever mustered, and with the bass really being the engine, the driving force of each track - rather like Jah Wobble leading those early PIL tunes - the tracks are more contained, more claustrophobic; determined entirely by bass and rhythm; much like industrial music.

At times, Pearlesque King of the Jewmost sounds more Rev Co than Butthole Surfers, with similar use of loops and sampling: mainly spoken word clips; freaky and gratuitous news reports on ritualistic murder, paranormal activity, irresponsible medical procedures, etc.

As for the title....
I haven't got a clue.
And that takes me back to my original thought.
What were Terminal Cheesecake really all about?

And just what did they think of their audience...?

Terminal Cheesecake - Pearlesque King of the Jewmost (1992)

Coils
Satan is Real
Drug
Ish Tseren
Coils: Chapter II
Messiah
Obscured
Mrs. Skinupski Speaks
Neu Seeland

CD rip to mp3s, artwork included.
Spiritual cheese here

Oily Num Nums

Another side of dub music in the nineteen-nineties was an addition to the rather limited genre that could only have emerged from Britain.
A Special Brew; a heady mix; ever so, ever so crusty; full of the monotony of ritualistic mantra, while brimming with energy and aural satisfaction.

Skronk, someone coined it (sounds like a Nick Kent word, but I'm not sure of its derivation as it doesn't appear in the OED. Surprisingly); dub is what it is.
But filthy dub. Full of mud, blood and sweat dub.
The boom makes my windows vibrate and my fillings tingle; and if I shut my eyes I smell canvas and am hit with wafts of weed. Then some pissed dude stands on my foot and I spill my drink all down my trousers....

Less manic than their magnum opus King of all Spaceheads, but still very dark; and those strange interjections placed between the monster dub work outs are really quite disturbing - just why Dame Clara Butt turns up in the middle of things performing a turn is beyond me; maybe it's a Finnegans Wake type thing... Discuss....

Terminal Cheesecake - Gateau D'Espace (1993)

Please Be Seated
Oily Bud
Mexical
Herbal Alien Flavour
Extra Oily
Dame Clara Butt
Blatant Drug Reference

As my vinyl copy can only be considered a remix due to just too many clicks and pops I have upped the CD version.
For your delectation: CD rip to mp3s.
Grab a slice of space cake here

God's Turban and Tutu! It's Terminal!

'God's Turban and Tutu' is lifted from a Viv Stanshall album, and dropped into the Skronk Meisters' superb psychedelic dub mix that adopted the absurd utterance as its title; which is a great way of getting a handle on where it was Terminal Cheesecake were coming from.

Skronk (a compound made up from ska, rock and funk) is not really a good enough label to describe Terminal Cheesecake, as they go much further than that paradigm allows; their music bringing to mind such disparate references as early PIL, Tackhead, Hawkwind, Head of David, Aphex Twin, Augustus Pablo and NIN, as well as the Butthole Surfers: an outfit they were often compared with; sometimes referred to as being the British version; but they are quite different; and really it was the genre jumping, the experimentation and the dada leanings that made them in any way comparable.

Big beats, big noise, dirgy, minimal vocals, toasting through a bull-horn, spoken word samples, loops and reverb a plenty all made up Terminal Cheesecake’s sound; but in the main there was dub; or should I say DUB, as their sound was MASSIVE.

But Terminal Cheesecake weren’t just a bunch of bass happy honky stoners; no, there was more to them than that; their booming, throbbing, pulsating beats can uplift and enhance all manner of experiences, whether it be a full scale blues or just another night in.

Their drug referencing is extreme, to the point where it almost seems satirical;
either that or they just had one serious obsession.

(Er... am I missing something here?)

The final track was released on its very own disc and was produced as part of a limited edition. And despite being credited as 'Interview by M.C. Lucke' (a German DJ?), it is actually made up of three tracks segued together: 'Le Geezer', 'Coils' and 'Freaky Bong', mixed up with plenty of strange and startling ambience
These live tracks seem to reveal where the band were heading (apart form oblivion of course – this was their last album), and the sound is far more reflective of the then burgeoning dirge and psychedelic sludge styles; genres that were to become more honed and refined as the nineties progressed.

But there is something vibrant about these raw recordings; and that rawness maybe the key.
The almost lo-fi production creates a vital sound; and as with all bass driven music it benefits enormously from its live feel; maintaining the effect that it’s actually going on when you play it, rather than something that has been made. If you get me drift….

Terminal Cheesecake - King of all Spaceheads (1994)

King of all Spaceheads
Budmeister
God's Turban and Tutu
Ginge Le Geezer
'Lo 'Lo
Tibetan Lift Off
Steady Draw
Herbal Space Flight
Black Microdot 1
In the St. John's Ambulance Tent, Glastonbury 1989
Black Microdot 11
The Last Temptation of St. Leary
Interview by M.C. Lucke

Includes CD artwork

Grab a slice of some spiked cheesecake here