Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Fire in the Kitchen - some singles (1990-93)

This is a long overdue follow-up to an entry I penned all the way back in 2008 for Fire in the Kitchen's outstanding Theory of Everything album.  Can't believe it's been that long, but anyway...  Bearing an occasionally downer modus operandi, this New York quartet's pensive strain of post-punk thankfully fell well short of the "despondent" threshold.  With slight melodies, warm playing and assured delivery, I'm almost at a loss for words when it comes to describing the visceral charge so many of Fire in the Kitchen's songs arouse.  Almost like a more subtle variation on what Mission of Burma were emanating a decade earlier, but still, that doesn't quite distill FITK's engaging formula, one that lends an almost timeless persuasion to the riff-savvy "Simple English," the decidedly more contemplative "The Middle Fears," and last but not least, "The Fog," a bittersweet but surefire charmer that slots somewhere in between those first two.  I thoroughly love what these guys were going for.  Source info for the songs are as follows:


Simple English 7" (1991, Ajax)
01. Simple English
02. Cold, Rain and Snow

The Fog 7" (1992, Matador)
03. The Fog
04. Inspector Marais

Glow 2x7" ep (1993, Walt)
05. Trees and Lawns
06. The Middle Fears
07. Backseat Connoisseur
08. Pass Us By

Hear

9 comments:

slovenlyeric said...

Thank you so much for this post. I commented on a recent post of yours about how much I had liked this band and your mentioning them recently caused me to listen to the LP again. Yeah, I had these singles, but having them as a mp3s is great. This stuff is why I will get that turntable convertion unit.

spacebore said...

huge thanks!

any chance that you have thrillsville cd?

spavid said...

No. I want a copy of Thrillsville too.

spacebore said...

if you're still looking... here's thrillsville in 320kbps: http://www.mediafire.com/?vdrvh1qhnq1r7oe
feel free to share it in your blog! cheers!

Unknown said...

awesome! i loved "The Fog". haven't dug out these singles in forever.

Unknown said...

awesome! i loved "The Fog". haven't dug out these singles in forever.

Ian said...

Great entry! I came across "Glow" in my 7" collection and was scouring the internet for more info on the band (there is hardly any, and I thought it fitting that the only other write-up I could find was on a blog called Wilfully Obscure).

Anonymous said...

Any chance that this, as well as Theory of Everything, could be re-uploaded?

spavid said...

Link has been updated.