Severed Heads - Cuisine (With Piscatorial) Severed Heads

As originary Aussie industrial legends – although founder Tom Ellard would balk at being branded as such – Severed Heads shaped the continental subcultural sound with their kitchen electronics, chaotic tape loops, and infectious nursery-rhyme-esque melodies.

Cuisine (With Piscatorial) was the long-running project’s ninth album, and is a commentary on the state of music. Ellard explains: “The whole food joke is really about what music's about and how disposable it is; people have records like they have cups of coffee.”

The album also presents a turn away from the dancefloor formalism of the era, which Ellard dismissed as already sufficiently explored. Cuisine brings us punchy pop kernels of the prime Heads variety, all clocking in around three minutes. Cuts like Pilot in Hell and Ugly Twenties rank among the band’s best through their deadly skewering of synth pop tropes.

But the album also offers us a Piscatorial section, where Ellard felt free to “go fishing for ideas.” Here we get a taste of the project’s demented cut-up sensibilities, like on the Quest for Oom Pa Pa suite, where vintage jazz records are collaged into an angular nightmare.

This double-LP reissue is the first time that Cuisine (With Piscatorial) will appear on vinyl, with a previously unreleased early version of Seven of Oceans. Also included is a 6-page booklet with liner notes, lyrics, and press clippings.