In Praise Of... This Heat

Morning one and all! Time we all laid down our worries and took a moment to appreciate a classic band that seemed to get somewhat lost in the annals of time. A band that sound incredibly unique, mainly because they were far too ahead of ther time back in the late 70's. A brilliant, bizarre whirlwind, bringing in raucous elements from punk, post-punk, dub, electro sounds reminiscent of Aphex Twin via Pink Floyd.

Pure experimental genius from Camberwell, This Heat.

Their self-titled debut, released in 1979, was revelatory for me when I first heard it. Few music nowadays sounds truly original, though we have entered a phase of brilliant genre-bending music; far more common nowadays than two or three decades ago, to my ears at least. But formula's have always existed - 1979 was no different. Upon hearing This Heat's twisted, tape-looped debut, sounding like it was recorded in a dripping, freezing basement-cum-cave, I hear the makings of something extraordinairy, and something new.


24 track loop

When I first heard '24 track loop' I was astounded. Its start simply, if eerily enough. But as a thrashing beat emerges, morphing around hand-claps and twitching computer bleeps, you find yourself listening to something utterly different, strange and compelling. It would not sound out of place on a modern day underground dance comp, yet this was recorded in 1978, at the peak of the British Punk explosion. Unfortunately for Charles Hayward, Charles Bullen and Gareth Williams, this was precisely their commercial downfall. John Peel gave them their first airplay, and was a long time champion of the band (they released a Peel Sessions record in 1988) but other than some high critical praise, the music going public seemed to take no notice.

I like to think that in this day and age, us mad musical consumers, lovers, experiencers, would have found some big room in our hearts for the lads from Camberwell. But perhaps this is precisely the point; I feel that without This Heat, and some of their contemporaries, the bridge they presented between the early beginnings of electronic music, your Kraftwerk, Faust, and the raucous, angry punks finding themselves adrift in a Britain they felt meant nothing to them, and that they had no place, might not have existed, and if it had, it certainly wouldn't have been as quite an interesting bridge to cross as it became.


makeshift swahili

The bands follow up, Deceit, released in 1981 is one of my favourite albums of all time. The punk sound that they were moving beyond made its biggest influence on this record; roaring guitars have a menacing interplay with the almost messianic chanting nature of the vocals, and the violently reverberating tape looped sounds. The fear and fascination with the disturbing, ever-changing nature of the future features heavily on the record.


a new kind of water

A new kind of water is the bands masterpiece - a futurist post-rock extravaganza with a thumping drum beat, hypnotic guitars and lyrics that convey the paranoia and anxiety brought by the looming shadow nuclear war and folly of trying to fix the world's problems without understanding the consequences.

This Heat are a band that are screaming out to be rediscovered. The band recently reissued their entire back catalog in the outstanding Out of Cold Storage box, remastered and aching to be experienced. You can find it at their website. If you're a fan of Joy Division, Kraftwerk, Zappa, Big Black, Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Faust, PJ Harvey, Aphex Twin, you will find something to love from this criminally neglected band.