Bleep

John Bender’s 1983 full-length Pop Surgery gets the reissue treatment courtesy of Superior Viaduct (Phill Niblock, Faust). Pop Surgery is the work of a singular mind. While Bender’s combination of minimal synth grooves, bedroom production and intelligentsia-punk lyrical musings bears hallmarks of everyone from Suicide to Kraftwerk to Throbbing Gristle, it also remains a beat apart from all contemporaries. This is strange anti-music that remains intriguing even when it’s at its most obtuse. When heard in the context of the current resurgence of both bedroom taping and cassette culture Bender’s influence on both is clear. This edition comes with liner notes by the man himself.