Steven Stapleton
Look, I’ve been listening to experimental – let’s call it Industrial (of course, forgive me for this term) – music well, since its genesis (pun intended). We made our tapes. We were just kids…misfits among the misfits. Since this time I have had a deep appreciation for anything…and I mean anything…that Steven Stapleton has been associated with. Primarily, of course, this is the aural-astral travels of his project known as Nurse With Wound.
The biggest problem with talking about something like the work of Steven and NWW is that…well, you can’t really talk about it. Ultimately, you have to listen to it and, if you’re new to this sort of haunting and mesmerizing ear trip, you probably need to wash, rinse and repeat a few times before you find yourself immersed in the sounds of the cosmos. Here’s another major problem – literally everything that Steven – frequently in collaboration with other wonderfully talented alien beings – does is worth mentioning. So I would direct you to his body of work. Right now I am listening to Soliloquy for Lilith (1988-89). Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella (1979) was the first NWW recording and was made with John Fothergill, Heman Pathak and engineer Nick Rogers. How can a blog like this not mention his initial collaboration with Colin Potter on Thunder Perfect Mind (1992)? You can listen to literally anything that Steven has worked on and it will be an experience worth having.
As you may have guessed, this art is really a part of the surrealist art movement and if one would ask me, I would argue that surrealism (not to mention futurism and even dadaism) didn’t really hit its stride until guys like Stapleton had their take on it. Importantly, artists like Steven Stapleton can’t be put in a box, so labels like Industrial, Surreal and even Dada can never capture the avant garde of the truly innovative creative genius. Steven is a collaborating artist too and I suspect that collaboration brings the best out of him and his fellow artists such as David Tibet, John Balance, William Bennett, Colin Potter, Andrew Liles, Matt Waldron, and, of course, Diana Rogerson. There are many more that should be mentioned on this list, but this is a start. Hell, this sort of music craves collaboration even if the artists are (likely) a bunch of loners.
Here’s something else, Steven is an extraordinarily talented pictorial artist working under the name Babs Santini. He’s done most of his own album covers along with the far out décor of his houses in County Clare Ireland. Steven is one of the truly remarkable creative forces of our time and after almost 40 years, I suspect he has a pretty stout following of freaks like me. One thing freaks have got to realize – we’re not that freaky anymore!
So give Nurse With Wound a listen and you might find something new to wash upon your soul. There’s a total solar eclipse coming up, so that might be a good time to baptize yourself too. If you already love Stapleton and dig his sounds, drop me a line with your favorite(s) and we’ll all bask in the wonder of what Steven brings to this weird, wacky universe we call home.
This post originally appeared on the Reveille website August 15, 2017.