I’m a tremendous music snob. Some see this as a never-ending problem of mine, my need to endlessly criticize popular music. But that’s not all I do. Another one of my goals is to help others understand that simply because something is obscure or abstract does not necessarily mean it is good or a high-quality product.
Thus I come to the holy grail of music snobbery/avid drooling record collectors: The Nurse With Wound List. Packaged with Nurse with Wound’s first album “Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and Umbrella” and expanded on their second album, it served as a tribute to the artists who helped influence the Nurse with Wound project. Some of these artists are certainly worth hearing; I doubt you’ll hear much that sounds like AMM or Cromagnon. On the other hand, there’s also some serious filler or showing off at hand. Some of these artists’ inclusion seems like a precursor to James Murphy’s ode to the pissing contest “I’m losing my edge” with pointless name-dropping.
Both opinions are equally valid. Steve Stapleton suffers from ideas in both camps. On one hand, he does produce an excellent product on occasion. However, as is the case with so many industrial/avant-garde artists, he suffers from being a poor editor of his work. Instead of being obsessed with creating a great product, a great deal of his releases take advantage of the rabid fan base that he’s accumulated over the years with his releases. In other words, he shouldn’t release limited edition runs of pure garbage for the sake of raising money to live in Ireland.
What I hope to do as I go through this list is to point out the good, the bad, the indulgent, the repetitive, the unnecessary, and the sublime. Already I’ve done about two artists off this list (Red Krayola and Cromagnon). Hopefully this project of mine will produce some great fruits. I have no promise that this will be finished in a year or two. Rather, think of this as something going on in the background, as I try to sort through what’s worth searching out. Besides, I do try to give each recording I review multiple listens, to see if there’s something I might have missed the first time around. Any recording or artist from the list will be specifically tagged as “Nurse with Wound list” to allow you to better sort through the countless artists (well, 294 artists isn’t countless, but it is a lot).
People ought to enjoy music for its quality, not some perceived indie or street cred. One should be able to appreciate it on something besides its exclusivity or rarity. And some of the artists on this list are near impossible to find in print or even on the internet. Most are from an era of pure weird, when hippies roamed the Earth as actual hippies rather than whatever it is you’d call them now (sorry, the world isn’t as kind to idealism as it once was). So that means a great deal of creativity was unleashed, along with excessive amounts of indulgence.
Hopefully you’ll be able to better sort through this so-called “shopping list” with a better idea of what to purchase/get rather than simply standing with jaw agape.