The Infinite 80s adds another room to the house with Sealed's reissuing of the two demos recorded by Yeovil's Bikini Mutants in 1982. Though tied to the surrounding anarcho scene of All the Madmen, the group are perhaps most notable for featuring a 20 year old Deb Googe on bass, which is undeniably great biography to be in possession of though certainly not the only compelling thing about the group. The associations with the Mob and the Review prove instant misnomers on first listen. Instead, this is a band with much closer aesthetic affiliation with the true melodicists of Girls At Our Best, Au Pairs and 12 Cubic Feet, Criss Cole's helium vocals imagining an indie pop future just about to come, while guitarist David Goldsworthy would later turn up in the Chesterfields as if to further prove the point. While the recordings are rudimentary, these are intuitively great players, Googe's bass an obvious highlight (and carrying a bit of a Birthday Party influence within it, i'd suggest), while the twin guitars chop and grind in ways that suggest the looming totemic shadows of Joy Division and The Cure. Very of its moment, then, but also charged with an energy and vision that establishes Let's Mutate as a valid document some 40+ years later, still the very sound of desire and possibility. No better period for such a thing.
FFO: Girls At Our Best, Au Pairs, 12 Cubic Feet
