- Cold
- Colder Still
- Cold (Miss Ticker mix)
The sister album to Current 93s superlative 'Thunder perfect mind' Nurses version is musically very different to Current 93s apocalyptic folk. The first track 'Cold', is a percussive chuggy number, that uses a wide range of frequencies, tones, rhythms and sounds to create it’s almost suffocating atmosphere. I’m not sure if this track needed to be twenty five minutes long but, once you get into it’s relentless beat you can’t really get out. I can imagine toy soldiers popping around to this, rather strange vision I know, I think it’s the inclusion of tinkling tin pot sounds amongst the other percussive elements that give me the toy story like idea. The latter parts of the track contain some more ambient and unidentifiable elements, taking the track away from it’s rhythm if only for a few moments, before the beats jump back in. Any way, it’s fairly listenable however at times the repetitive drive grates a little.
The second track 'Colder still', is an electronic sounding mix of noise, which I believe were mostly culled from Current 93s version of the album. Mostly drones, synths, metallic sweeps and unidentifiable sounds. It’s quite pleasant and moves along on the beat of faint bass drum. Quite similar to some of the bass lines on 'Rock and roll station'. Around eight minutes some strange animal sounds and scratching appear. It’s sounds like a couple of pigs fighting. This is quickly punctuated by loud bassy synth cords which serve to cut up the tranquil environment, before the whole thing builds up again. At about sixteen minutes the familiar drum loop most often used on 'Who can I turn to stereo' pops up, before the atmosphere changes to a creepy manipulation of the 'Rosy star tears fall from heaven' track from current 93s thunder perfect mind. All the vocals are mutated into horrible trollish sounding tones. I think there may be some additional vocals from John Balance and others, but the lyrics are the same as the Current 93 track. After this rendition the atmosphere builds again with some dark female vocals and the omnipresent drum loop.
The bonus track on the CD edition is a crazy remix of 'cold', which included some crazy yelps and cries, an angry dog and other madness. Its only a few minutes long as opposed to the twenty five minutes original. I like this one a lot more than the original, probably because of it’s deranged pace and use of noise. It ends with a sample of a guy called Geoff (probably Geoff Cox) leaving a message on Steve Stapleton’s phone, saying he’s had a bad trip. Which is quite funny. A strange albums in many ways. Not one of their best. But a worthy addition to any Nurse fans collection.
