Here comes the CREATURES

Siouxsie and Budgie, husband and wife, started a side project called the CREATURES besides siouxsie and the banshee. Budgie is a great purcussionist, and you could hear it from songs in the later Banshees albums when he joined. the music, since then, sound milder, and much more 'composed', than the PUNK and NOISE period of the Banshees.

getting into the 80s, where minimalist music started to emerge with Philip Glass and Steve Reich, the CREATURES to me seemed to get into the vibe of primal sound and rhythms that creates deep impact to the audience. Budgie uses his creative and painstaking drumming and constantly varying rhythm to form the basis of the sound for the CREATURES, siouxsie, with her distinct throat delivered voice siren throw the music and giving life to each song, glues on really well together. The lyrics is sometimes hilarious and referenced. like this video, 'Miss the girl', took inspiration from the book Crash, by J. R. Ballad, and the video set was made by themselves. The video was banned for unknown reason (probably the pseudo spousal violence)




their lyrics, more notably ones from the Banshees, are vivid and fun.
'Slanted eyes meet a new sunrise
a race of bodies small in size
Chicken Chow Mein and Chop Suey
Hong Kong Garden takeaway' - HONG KONG GARDEN

'And don't forget
when your elders forget
to say their prayers
take them by the legs
and throw them down the stairs' - SPELLBOUND (i always laugh in this song)

'My so-called friends say you're not alive
I'll bake their bones for telling lies
Then pull the pastry from the pie
And pour the gravy in their eye' - SCARECROW

and some from the CREATURES, Gecko in particular, struck me

'Panoramic banana
A passion fruit samba
Pale skin is itching
A tropical fever' - wtf?! just can't stop laughing!

Steve Reich in 'drumming' and 'music for 16 musicians' brings on the questions of minimalist music in the 80s that studies the constant change of timbre and musical qualities through repetition. the music inevitably puts you in a state of trance, hypnotic quality. through the subtle changing of rhythms, depth and slight and continuous alternation and interplay of musical instruments and timber, overlaying rhythmic motives, minimalist music becomes an extensive and far-reaching area of musical history. Like impressionist music, Steve Reich and Philip Glass seemed to go too far and find no company. But the Creatures took this on, and even literally pulled in from Primal Hawaii, and Oriental drum sound from Japan, and turning them into music with a greater audience.

Sounds like the minimalist music would always be a cult.

the sweetest thing about THE CREATURES the ingredients they used are from places they did their recordings. they randomly put a pin onto the world map, and would do their album in that place. it sound like an extravagant dream to most, but they managed to pull out albums that come with spanish heat, Hawaii festivals, Japanese Godzilla, but always with this distinctive CREATURES sound. the content are always fresh, but the strategy and representation familiar. this is never easy for musicians.

i think i have come to the end of my research on this branch. This year have been outragiously fruitful. Merry Christmas.






PS some of the images i took from the following website
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