JOY OF DISEASE

  1/  Casual Murder                              (Plotkin)                     7.34
  2/  Hung on a Line                             (Plotkin)                     5.18
  3/  Red Plateau                                (Plotkin)                     8.26
  4/  Fuzzy                                      (Plotkin)                     7.47
  5/  Yes. Well, no.                             (Plotkin)                     6.21
  6/  Bloodslide                                 (Plotkin)                     2.41
  7/  Euphoria Passing                           (Plotkin)                     7.22
  8/  Polar Shift                                (Plotkin)                     8.03
  9/  Disease as a Child                         (Plotkin)                     7.50

          Created at the Black Box, Birmingham, June 1995
          Produced by James Plotkin and Mick Harris
          Executive Producer: John Zorn/ Disk Union
          Associate Producer: Kazunori Sugiyama

James Plotkin: guitar (synthesized, looped, bowed), bass, rhythm samples; Franz Treichler (2,8): ominous guitar, samples; Mick Harris (4,8): atmosphere, cymbals, drifting gate; Ruth Collins (1,2,7,9): words, voice.

          1996 - Avant (Japan), AVAN 028 (CD)

REVIEWS :

James Plotkin had already been moving toward ambient music a few years prior to The Joy of Disease, but this was the album that reunited his growing passions with the more famous hardcore art metal explorations of his Old Lady Drivers output. Typically, death metal and electronics resulted in an industrial sound. The Joy of Disease took things elsewhere, somewhere full of stabbing psychedelic guitar loops and a slow, steady swarm of almost goth-like dirge beats that was quieter than something of the Wax Trax! or Boredoms ilk, but also subtler and simpler, with an avant-garde touch of Bruce Gilbert-styled feedback minimal electronica. No real heart or consistency, but that never really seemed to be the point.

Dean Carlson (courtesy of All Music Guide website)