Skeleton Crew

Skeleton Crew: Learn to Talk / The Country of Blinds

by Matt Cibula
February 26, 2006

Caution: this is extremely challenging listening. Fred Frith and Tom Cora's twisted pop/jazz/Americana/punk band Skeleton Crew managed all of two albums in the mid-1980s, and no wonder why--they flip back and forth wildly between dark anarchic anti-songs and weirdo hooky new-wavey stuff, sometimes even within the same song.

Learn to Talk dates from 1984, and sounds like it, too. There's more than a hint of the Eno/Byrne axis here, especially in Cora's high, agonized, ironic voice, and a whole lot ...