beginnings...
Out of the throes of punk rock and landing into an energised DIY post-punk explosion of the late 1970s came Mex, releasing the debut album Alternative Pop Music in 1980. The recording preserves the anarchic free spirit that surfaced from punk, but with art sound-scapes and experimental textures akin to Krautrock, mixed with an alternative funk dub.
For all these years the album has remained a firm favourite on the underground scene to the disaffected in the know-how.
1981 saw the follow-up Intense Living with its collage cut-up cold graveyard cover, set against a New York skyline and songs innocently depicting mankind’s dark future. The experimental textures remain, but with a hefty wash of melody over the top. This was to be the last album Mex would release until the 21st century.
In the same year of ‘81, two immortal cuts Evil Creature and Functioning Fripp Girls appeared on the infamous Thing from the Crypt compilation album, re-released in February 2013 by Dark Entries Records.
Other isolated tracks also featured on various DIY compilations around that time and it was during this period Mex created the musical atmospheres for the surreal independent stage play, Dark of the Moon.
1983 saw Lost Moment Records release a Mex vinyl 7” containing a satirical 60s style infused song entitled Happy Life, coupled with the sinister acoustic b-side, Veins.
The malicious Don’t Go Looking for Love made its presence on the 1984 compilation album, Colours of the Bastard Art, also issued by Lost Moment Records.
To date and after two decades, Mex has been locked away with life’s disillusions and immersed in almost anonymous studio experimentation antics, only surfacing of late, whereby the new 21st century album Dr Jekyll & Mrs Hyde, finally arrived.
Everything goes full circle... perhaps?