Bene Gesserit - Fashion Is A Dirty Word

The infinite European cassette underground of the 80s continues to be, well, infinite. You think you've had enough of this stuff, and then you hear some more, and you realise there is no end and there is never enough. BeNe GeSSeRiT, a Belgian two piece with a(n) (un)healthy interest in Dune lore which speaks loudly for their obvious oddness, have as deserving place in this music's history as any other, what with half of them being one Alain Neffe, the founder of the pioneering and still mind altering Insane Music label. Fashion Is A Dirty Word was originally released on Dead Man's Curve in 1987, relatively late to be considered at the vanguard of DIY electronic music, but nonetheless sounds especially odd and disorientating, neither industrial nor minimal wave, though making many allusions to both. There's twenty songs here, some of which hardly make it past the first 30 seconds, some of which pulse and flex amidst Nadine Bal's helium vocals and vaguely arabesque rhythms, and about half of which have impossibly verbose titles that suggest perverse imaginations and wry personality. I'd posit that what BeNe GeSSeRiT were doing represented some kind of apotheosis of DIY self-determination, defiantly weird and discomforting, also quite funny and sexy, too. Weird, funny and sexy? That's the holy trinity right there.