Free Noise #2

The Ex / Alerta sleeve and label

Artist: The Ex / Alerta
Album: The Red Dance Package
Source: Vinyl 12″ EP
Running time (h:m:s): 00:14:14
Bitrate: FLAC
Size (mb): 96.6
Label: CNT Productions (defunct)
Year: 1983

The Ex:
1. Crap-Rap
2. Long Live The Aged

Alerta:
1. Park Avenue
2. Violet Days

It’s hard to believe that The Ex are still going strong, nearly 30 years on from their first appearance on the Dutch punk scene at the tail end of the 70’s. Not just going strong, but aging like a very fine wine. These days they can be found collaborating with Ethiopian musicians or composing pieces for theatre companies, as well as still touring with their own unique brand of leftist agitprop. This lot are still defiantly pushing the boundaries of politics and punk with their eclectic avant-garde approach to it all. Hurrah!

This is one of their earlier offerings and is a fine example of the potential to come. Jarring guitars, punchy bass, staccato vocals, abstract piano and the familiar military drumming style favoured by many of the early anarcho bands (albeit with a lot of added polish), sit together in an almost free-form jazz-punk mash-up that grabs you by the ears and won’t let go until the last beat. Reminds me to some degree of the Poison Girls. Classy stuff indeed.

Crap-Rap lyrics from insert

I don’t know that much about Alerta other than they produced one side of this record and an album. What I can say is that here they create a sound that resembles a slightly more discordant Astronauts getting jiggy with Flowers In The Dustbin. Violins sit well alongside the more traditional punk instruments and it’s always good to hear people using less familiar noises. There’s a really good write-up of the band (in English) on Niels’ blog Eet U Smakelijk.

OP’s opinion: Four

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6 comments

  • Hey durutti

    Found this via eet U smakelijk comments… good to see you still in the blogosphere and great to see you post some music that I have been after for ages too… cheers!

    Still in Tasmania, family life good, state of world shite, bank balance ditto…

    From another (slightly younger) old punk who isn’t dead, yet…

    p.s. if you want a musical contributor let me know! 😉

  • Hey there!

    A welcome blast from the past indeed. Glad to hear that life in the Antipodes is suiting you and yours, nice one.

    Cheers for the kind words, I’ll keep trying to tickle your musical taste buds!

    I’ll email you re: contributions – I’m sure we can come to some mutually beneficial agreement 😀

  • Any chance of a bigger artwork scan? Thanks for the rip.

  • Hi blots

    Thanks for the comment, glad you like it. I’ll add the artwork in the next day or two (other commitments / hangovers permitting).

  • Hi there!

    Is it possible to upload “The Red Dance Package” again? It would be very nice from you. “Violet days” is one of my all-time favourites. Thanks to you for your very good work/blog. Thanks a lot. With friendly regards from Vienna, Austria

    Yours

    djSÃœNDENFALL

  • The record has now been re-ripped to FLAC and re-uploaded 🙂

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