Pussy Galore – Sounds: Sugarshit Sharp (PRESS, UK)

Pussy Galore Sugarshit Sharp (Product Inc LP only)

DIG THIS garage trash groove. Pussy Galore have been rummaging around the dustbins of all their idols: New York Dolls. Scientists, ‘Sister Ray’, and more musty unreleased basement tapes than I’d like to contemplate. The result is ‘Sugarshit Sharp’, an abominable conglomeration of gutter level references and second-hand scumball styling. This, I want you to know, is a Good Thing.

The first side of this gloriously corrupt mini-LP consists of Einsturzende Neubatens’s ‘Yu Gung’. Not the most obvious of covers to choose, but in the hands of the Pussies it becomes a stuttering, shuddering monster, as furious as a disturbed rattlesnake and as powerful as a charging buffalo.

In many respects the song represents the contemporary state of the New York underground; a mish-mash of familiar American references co-existing alongside avant-garde Euro experiments, with rap making serious in-roads into a once cost subterranean frat-house (Public Enemy’s ‘Don’t Believe The Hype’ is briefly sampled somewhere in the middle). In other words confusion reigns: but Pussy Galore have learnt their lesson well, and know that confusion is sex.

And so to the flip side. ‘Adolescent Wet Dream’, ‘Handshake’, ‘My Little Hi-Fi’ bang along with a twang that would make Duane Eddy very envious. Each is greased with the promise of queasy, cheesy pleasure, thinking impure thoughts and committing impure deeds.

I warn you against looking too close in case you find out exactly what they’ve got in mind, but from the safe distance of the right side of the speakers it sure sounds like fun. This is the sort of stuff your parents warned you against. Bliss! (8)

John Trague”