''This Heat'' is the debut studio album by English

experimental rock Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments with the basic elements of the genre. Artists aim to liberate and innovate, with ...

band

This Heat This Heat were an English experimental rock band, formed in early 1976 in Camberwell, London by multi-instrumentalists Charles Bullen (guitar, clarinet, viola, vocals, tapes), Charles Hayward (drums, keyboards, vocals, tapes) and Gareth Willi ...

. Recorded between 1976 and 1978, it was released in September 1979 by record label Piano.

Reception

In a contemporary review for ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'', Andy Gill wrote: "For much of This Heat's album, it's difficult and at times impossible to decipher which instrument is playing what. This is some indication of their intentions, and the way This Heat set about realising those intentions."

Vivien Goldman Vivien Goldman (born 1952) is a British journalist, writer and musician. Early life and education Goldman was born in London in 1952, the child of two German-Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. She studied English and American literature at the ...

, writing in ''

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born ...

'', remarked that This Heat "takes you to ten movies in the space of a one-year-old album". ''NME'' listed it as the 35th best album of 1979.

Legacy

Retrospectively, Dean McFarlane of

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

wrote: "There are very few records that can be considered truly important, landmark works of art that produce blueprints for an entire genre. In the case of this album, it's clear that this seminal work was integral in shaping the genres of

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-roc ...

, avant rock and

post-rock Post-rock is a form of experimental rock characterized by a focus on exploring textures and timbre over traditional rock song structures, chords, or riffs. Post-rock artists are often instrumental, typically combining rock instrumentation with ...

, and like all great influential albums, it seemed it had to wait two decades before its contents could truly be fathomed." Peter Marsh of

BBC Music BBC Music is responsible for the music played across the BBC. The current director of music is Bob Shennan, who is also the controller of BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 6 Music, and the BBC Asian Network. Officially it is a part of the BBC's Radio o ...

called it "one of the strongest and strangest debut records of all time. Seemingly born out of the fervent experimentalism of the UK post-punk scene, ''This Heat''s beautifully skewed mix of improvisation, lo-fi tapework and stretched, ghostly songform actually had more in common with maverick longhairs like

Henry Cow Henry Cow were an English experimental rock group, founded at the University of Cambridge in 1968 by multi-instrumentalists Fred Frith and Tim Hodgkinson. Henry Cow's personnel fluctuated over their decade together, but drummer Chris Cutler, b ...

and

Faust Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads ...

. ..The music here seethes with an economy, invention and power that still shocks a quarter of a century on." Steven Grant of ''

Trouser Press ''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference to ...

'' wrote: "Though insolent and withdrawn, the music is adventurous and, in its own peculiar way, engrossing." ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...

'' included the song "24 Track Loop" on their list of the "Greatest 500 Songs from Punk to the Present".

Track listing

All tracks composed by This Heat # "Testcard" – 0:47 # "Horizontal Hold" – 6:56 # "Not Waving" – 7:26 # "Water" – 3:10 # "Twilight Furniture" – 5:06 # "24 Track Loop" – 5:57 # "Diet of Worms" – 3:09 # "Music Like Escaping Gas" – 3:40 # "Rainforest" – 2:55 # "The Fall of Saigon" – 5:10 # "Testcard" – 4:09

Personnel

;This Heat * Charles Bullen – vocals, guitar, clarinet, drums, tapes * Charles Hayward – vocals, drums, keyboards, guitar, bass guitar, tapes * Gareth Williams – vocals, bass guitar, keyboards, tapes ;Technical * This Heat – production, engineering * Chris Blake – engineering * Frank Bryan – engineering * David Cunningham – production, engineering * Kevin Harrison – engineering * Anthony Moore – production * Rik Walton – engineering

References

External links

* {{Authority control This Heat albums 1979 debut albums