9353 - Overdoses at Your Mother's House (rec 1983, reissued 1993)

Recently had a request for this title, which is pretty tricky to track down these days.  In fact I don't have a hard copy of it myself, so what little info I'm able to impart on Washington D.C.'s 9353 is entirely web based.  To label 9353 as avant garde is something of a woeful understatement.  A weird, but functional amalgam of DEVO, lite industrial rock and post-punk (frequently veering in the vicinity of Mission of Burma), 9353's bizarre factor usually began and ended with mouthpieces Vance Bocknis and Bruce Merkle.  Though it's impossible for yours truly to decipher one from the other, their voices are both highly animated, emanating spooky howls to patently cartoonish effects and everything in between, rarely plateauing at anything conventional.  They do hit a melodic stride occasionally, with "Babies" and "Color Anxiety" yielding relatively appealing results.  Overdoses... is actually the CD reissue of their premiere effort To Whom It May Consume originally released in 1983. 9353 went on to record more and expired in the mid-80s.  Vance went onto the slightly more renown The Obsessed and The Factory, but passed away on September 1st after being hospitalized.  Check out this article for details of his remembrance service, and if it's more info on 9353 you're after, this fairly exhaustive site should have you covered. 

01. Senior Citizen Disposal Plant
02. Rooftop
03. Babies
04. 10 Witches
05. King Boy Power Hell
06. Famous Last Words
07. Ghost
08. East of Sudan
09. Egnopssponge
10. With All Respect
11. Test Life
12. Color Anxiety
13. Industry
14. Morbid Premonition
15. Spirit of Murder
16. ~ World Parking Lot
17. Normal Para

Now on Bandcamp.