Odyshape

iTunes Editors’ Notes

The second album by England’s Raincoats was a more dissonant, abstract affair than their charming and abrasive debut. There's more clatter, more loose-jointedness and atonal singing, more envelope-pushing. Original drummer Palmolive had left the band and new percussionist Ingrid Weiss came on board; guests like Robert Wyatt and This Heat's Charles Hayward also contributed their own unique brands of drumming. In addition to the guitar and violin sounds of their debut, the core members (Ana da Silva, Gina Birch, and Vicky Aspinall) now added cello, bowed bass, African balophone, clavinet, and other exotic flavors to their female-powered, folk-punk style, giving it a distinctly experimental and skewed orchestral texture. The record also palpitates with a rich emotional center. Originally issued in 1981, Odyshape has enjoyed several rebirths. It’s the kind of record that will always have a place in the punk pantheon as an important, influential collection of music that was out of step with its original time; now it has a legacy that only continues to grow.