Description
Pailhead – “Trait” LP
The complete recordings from the short-lived side project of Ministry’s Al Jourgensen and Dischord’s Ian MacKaye. The story goes, back in the late 1980s, while hanging-out and passing round the bong, Mackaye quipped “please don’t ask me. I will refuse”, to which Jourgensen sat-up, and said, “hey, great line! I’m going to use it in a Ministry song”. To which Mackaye responded “fuck it, why don’t we form our own band that combines Ministry and DC hardcore, and then we can use that line ourselves”… so they did, and it worked well, so much so that they released it as a 7”. Next-up, overcome by a shared enthusiasm for Killing Joke, the unlikely collaborators reunited for a further two 7″ releases, and all six songs are compiled here on this long-overdue reissue, but with the added bonus of a dub mix of “Stand In Line” as well as a brand new remix of “Man Should Surrender” – an extended version of the 12″ of Trait that was released in 1988 by Wax Trax.
I may have made-up the first part of this record’s description. But the rest is true – a highly improbable project, like some kind of fantasy band, combining Ministry’s industrial white noise, with Mackaye’s pre-Fugazi notions of post-hardcore; orchestrated as a homage to classic era Killing Joke… that almost surpasses classic era Killing Joke – for it is that good.
