Rockbites: Arab On Radar release rarities compilation

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Arab On Radar release rarities compilation
30 April 2003

Providence, Rhode Island’s favorite extreme no-wave/avant-garde act, Arab On Radar, last month posthumously released a career-spanning compilation/rarities disc which they titled The Stolen Singles. It’s posthumous because, following a very public cancellation of a CMJ Festival performance last fall after what became their farewell tour, the band revealed that they had indeed broken up due to “irreconcilable differences” that “have compromised the creative process,” as they said on their Website.
    Out on San Diego, California indie label Three One G, the new LP includes 1995 tracks Inventor, Aisle 5, and O. Henry—previously available only on cassette; the 1998 Load Records 7" Swimming With A Hard On b/w Samurai Fight Song; and the 2002 track Running For Asthma which appeared on a split 7" they shared with Kid Commando on Ideal Recordings. In between are loads of other rarities, most of which appeared only on vinyl singles and are now out of print.
    The band’s approach to music was relentlessly noisy and angular, as anti-pop as the early experimentations of Pere Ubu, Tuxedomoon, The Residents, and The Butthole Surfers. Most of those bands eventually got old and mellow, of course, but AOR never deigned to follow those let’s-see-how-we-can-fit-in-to-the-music-industry footsteps. On the most-recent tracks on this set, including 2000’s Piggin’ In The Pumpkin Patch and 3 Meals Away From A Crack Whore and 2002’s Running For Asthma, the band were still taking their sonic explorations as far afield as they could manage while still retaining some semblance of structure.
    If you listen to indie pop all day, The Stolen Singles might sound a bit like a dental office nightmare as some sweaty, jacked-up construction crew has at your bicuspids with implements never intended to fit into a human mouth. Yeah, but that’s just because you need some perspective. Open up and say Ahhhhh.
    AOR consisted of Eric 'Post-Traumatic Stress' Paul, guitarists Steve 'Type A' Mattos and Jeff 'Clinical Depression' Schneider, and drummer Craig 'Obsessive Compulsive' Kurek. They toured almost nonstop for five years from 1995 through 2000, and, burning out rather than fading away, are now gone. Their final release, due later in the year, will be a double-CD reissue of the out-of-print Queen Hygiene II (1998, their debut album) and Rough Day At The Orifice (1999). | Arab On Radar | | Three One G records | | AOR on Skingraft records | | CD from Amazon.com | | top of page |

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