The John Fekner City Squad - Idioblast: 1983-2004 (2024)

Released in 1984, Idioblast is a lost classic, a future shock narrative ahead of its time, and yet completely of its era, like few artifacts before or since. The cover tips you off from the jump—a crude but effective collage featuring classic Fekner slogans like Toxic Junkie, Growth Decay and Soft Brains Watch The Screen And Buy The Jeans. In an uncanny and tragic coincidence, the very first lyric on the album—“The place to be is on the space shuttle/if you’re brave enough to get on it”—seems to anticipate the Challenger disaster just two years later. But for the most part, the tracks on Idioblast directly reference the concepts that inspired Fekner’s visual art.

Musically, “Rapicasso” utilizes pneumatic pounding with an industrial edge as Fekner equates the great and controversial painter with risk-taking graffiti kids bombing trains and billboards across the city. Art is in a constant state of exploding—forms, paradigms, outdated ideas.
Splitting the difference between hip-hop and new wave, the Santaniello-sung “The Beat” is like Thomas Dolby meets Run-DMC and should’ve been a radio staple for at least one sticky summer. It could soundtrack either a couples roller skate or a drug-fueled evening out.

Channeling Fekner’s slogan-stencil aesthetic, “Travelogue The 80’s” is a tour de force reminiscent of Negativland’s experiments in audio culture jamming. As Fekner details, “I grabbed all of the sounds via a shortwave radio picking up transmissions from LaGuardia airport and the TV. I recorded and edited on a Sony Pro Walkman and an Aiwa dual cassette deck.”

- Erick Bradshaw

Tracklist:
1.01 - The John Fekner City Squad - Halley's Comet (4:22)
1.02 - The John Fekner City Squad - Rapicasso (1:46)
1.03 - The John Fekner City Squad - The Beat (3:33)
1.04 - The John Fekner City Squad - Travelogue The 80's (9:16)
1.05 - The John Fekner City Squad, Bear 167 - 2-4-5-7-9-11 (6:21)
1.06 - The John Fekner City Squad - I Get Paid To Clap (7:09)
1.07 - The John Fekner City Squad - The Sight Of The Child (2:11)
1.08 - The John Fekner City Squad, Dave Santaniello - Wheels Over Indian Trails (4:24)
1.09 - The John Fekner City Squad, Dave Santaniello - Rock Steady (3:33)
1.10 - The John Fekner City Squad - Another Four Years (3:43)
1.11 - The John Fekner City Squad - E Z Gee Jammin' (5:50)
1.12 - The John Fekner City Squad - Concrete People (4:22)
1.13 - The John Fekner City Squad, Sasha Sumner - BD Cycles (Previously Unissued) (1:41)
1.14 - The John Fekner City Squad - Rhapsody In Black (Previously Unissued) (2:48)
1.15 - The John Fekner City Squad - When The Future Collides With History (Previously Unissued) (4:00)
1.16 - The John Fekner City Squad - Concrete Concerto (4:54)
1.17 - The John Fekner City Squad - Concrete People (Dance Mix) (3:16)
1.18 - The John Fekner City Squad - Concrete Concerto (Oil Drum Mix) (4:30)
1.19 - The John Fekner City Squad - The Beat (89 Mix) (3:32)