Severed Heads - Come Visit the Big Bigot

Come Visit the Big Bigot Again

A retrospective peek at Severed Heads' Come Visit the Big Bigot LP

That Severed Heads still don’t receive the recognition they deserve is a mystery to me. Occasionally a respected technoid flavour of the month will offer a namecheck; Orbital and Ritchie Hawtin for example. However these people were still little more than whining adolescents when this LP was let loose in an unprepared world in 1985. Almost certainly the name Severed Heads puts people off. Coined in 1979, the name was originally conceived to put the wind up Throbbing Gristle fans. Since then the name has stuck and is still used to this day, although their association with the Nettwerk label has ironically reinforced the misconception that like Skinny Puppy, they are purveyors of smack addled electro doom.

So what does it sound like then? Imagine trying to cram a thousand reels of tape and assorted cheap lumps of hardware into a small spring loaded box with a rather odd Australian. The resultant struggle is exactly like trying to describe the music, and the inevitable explosion is as near as I can get that attempt. The Australian is Tom Ellard, the man responsible for kicking chaos well and truly up the arse and managing to get his cheap lumps of hardware to make a record well ahead of its time. The sheer depth of sound is such that you can lose yourself in the percussion only to snap out of it and wonder just what the Hell is going on with the vocals. The fact that all this was made not with MIDI sequencing, but with tape loops and equipment that was hardly cutting edge at the time makes it even more remarkable. You would never know. It still sounds fantastic now.

Hearing the opening track (also called Come Visit the Big Bigot) for the first time is an almost hallucinatory experience. Snippets of something mutate tortuously through the rhythm as a melodic slick of melody spreads out across the surface of the song. And then a voice begins singing, backwards. Or jumbled up, or both. It’s really hard to tell and leaves you overwhelmed by how pleasurably disturbing it sounds. It also serves as ample preparation for what follows. Whereas some bands, composers (whatever) are quite happy to build a song rather like a house (drums do this, bass does this, vocals go over there…) Severed Heads are more inclined too look at the house and say, "what if we stretch this room a bit…", "Who says the door goes in the wall?" and "Let’s fill this room up with tiny sandwiches." Obviously, Tom Ellard has never said anything of the sort to my knowledge. However the point I’m making is that here we have vocals that warp unexpectedly into part of the keyboard melody, and percussion that more often than not sounds like a fantastical machine rolling down a very steep hill. What’s more, it never becomes a contrived mishmash of boiling confusion. These are songs dammit, and each evokes a feeling of it’s own, some more unsettling than others, though pervading all is a playfulness that is all but missing from most electronic music.

Then, once you have settled into the music, there are the lyrics to contend with. It’s not that they’re deliberately bizarre, but they do lean towards obscure. ‘Harold and Cindy Hospital’ for example is something to do with someone catching bullets between his teeth and… something else… maybe. The fact that most of the songs are about things that most people just wouldn’t think of singing about tends to make for unusual lyrics and I guarantee that some of them will have you well and truly stumped. ‘Harold and Cindy Hospital’ is also one of the most genuinely beautiful tunes I have ever heard, full bloody stop.

So why is ‘Come Visit the Big Bigot’ such a little known record? Well, in the UK at least, nothing by Severed Heads has been available for years, and once bought their records rarely seem to turn up second hand for some reason. Also they were rather roundly ignored by the music press over here, which had already ‘done’ the Australian thing a while earlier. They’re not exactly household names elsewhere either, excepting maybe the Ellard household. I suppose that’s the cost of uncompromised music, which is still what Severed Heads produce even now. So if you think you now electronic music and you haven’t heard this LP, get scouring the ‘S’ section now.

Although Severed Heads' Come Visit the Big Bigot is not available, it can be found second hand in a variety of flavours:

The Big Bigot (1986), UK: Ink, INK 22

Come Visit the Big Bigot (1986), CAN: Nettwerk, NTL 30003

The Big Bigot (1986), AUS: Volition, VOLT 6

Come Visit the Big Bigot with Dead Eyes Opened (1986), CAN: Nettwerk, NTCD31; USA: Nettwerk/Important, 88561-50006-2

All of these versions are slightly different but you are most likely to find the latter, and most recommended release. This contains the Dead Eyes Opened 12" which is of course also totally fabulous.

For more information see the Severed Communications website, which contains a complete history of Severed Heads, mp3's of Mr Ellard's latest tunes and an online shop.

Also recommended is Kevin Busby's Severed Heads discography, which is where I got the info about different Big Bigot pressings from.

TL