- Creakiness
* Hair, Fur and Twiggs Jameson
* Delilah's Lap
* Creakiness
* Admirals of the Blim
* Electric Fretum Attachment
- Swamp Rat
- Brained (Unconscious Mix)
- A Piece of the Sky is Missing
- Cooloorta Moon
- Nil By Mouth
- I Am the Poison
'Sugar fish drink' is a collection of tracks from previously hard to acquire releases including 'Soresucker', 'Alas the Madonna Does Not Function', 'Creakiness', 'Cooloorta Moon', and 'Drunk with the Old Man of the Mountains'. The only new track is a new mix of 'Brained by Falling masonry', this is the 'Unconscious mix' of that track. It’s a eclectic mix all under the banner of Cod Surrealism, which according to the sleeve notes is “A distinctly wet aberration on paranoid aesthetics occasionally co-ordinated by John Balance (Coil) and Steven Stapleton.
The first track 'Cooloorta moon' is a rather odd, even camp sounding track that is apparently a kind of faux lounge piece. It’s very amusing and has some wonderfully trippy sax work rolling along with it’s gonzoid rhythm. The second track is 'creakiness', one of Nurses most popular pieces. It is mostly made up of snippets and cutups from cartoons like Roadrunner and Donald duck. Lots of quacks and slapstick effects eventually broken up by a guitar wail. The second part (the creakiness section) is a composition of sounds like doors opening, floor boards creaking, along with some mechanical percussion (Pierre Henry influence?). It's very well done and never gets boring. The creaking is eventually joined by some mournful sounding violin and flute from Joolie Wood,
and some la la las from a female, also probably Joolie Wood. 'The Admirals of the Blim' and 'Electric Fretum Attachment' sections follow, continuing the surrealistic journey, with more odd percussive, clockwork, toy noises and some more tonal work in the background.
'I am the poison' includes vocal and bass from Tony Wakeford. It’s a strong piece, a little bit unnerving, it has a slightly psychotic feel to it, like slow motion madness. The bass loop is very nice and complements Wakeford warped poison vocals very well. Near the end of the track some disturbed sounding whines and metallic sounds join the mix ending the track in a disorientating swirling mass of confusion. 'Swamp Rat' begins with choral drones and clicking clockwork rhythms. Eerie chanting and slightly tribal sounding drumming make up the tracks backbone, with some improvised guitar tweaking included. Vocal samples of laughing and talking occasionally surface and a subtle choral background is ever present. Amusingly what sounds like a kazoo appears near the songs end, and it becomes ever more warped before leading very nicely into 'A piece of the sky is missing'. This begins with very soothing ethnic sounding wind instruments before more cacophonous drumming and mechanics enter. The middle of the track is characterised by some very sedate sounding drones and washes of dreamy ambience before the percussion starts up again.
'Nil by mouth' is a kind of remix of 'Swamp rat', using many of that tracks components by twisting them into a seriously deranged psychotic and more oppressive form. Much less rhythmic up until about about 7 minutes when all hell breaks loose and Wakeford bass is allowed to run free over Stapleton’s pounding percussion. Finally is the 'unconscious mix' of 'Brained...'. After a couple of minutes of drone intro the melody of the original slowly drifts in. It’s all kept very reverbed and softened, like listening to the original from the back of an oil tanker. The vocals are not as prominent to begin with, before the track is stopped and some curious effects and samples e.g. window breaking signal Jim Thirlwell to come to the fore with his deranged rock star vocals. The rest of the track is a mixture of warped cutups and swirled guitar, bass, noise effects making it very skittish as Thirlwells vocals will suddenly jump to the front as a gorgeous choral backdrop will accompany him before all the clatter drops back in again. Its quite exhilarating and much more off the wall than any other versions I have heard. In all a very percussive and deranged release.
