Nurse With Wound
BIOGRAPHY
Nurse With Wound is a loose experimental project formed in 1978 and has explored abstract music influenced by Krautrock, freewheeling jazz improvisation, Throbbing Gristle and Captain Beefheart. A heavy debt goes out to surrealists Dali, and Lautramont also. NWW has worked with an ever-changing list of collaborators. David Tibet (founder of Current 93 has been the only frequent recording companion during the 1980s and ’90s. NWW’s first three albums (Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella, To The Quiet Man From A Tiny Girl, and Merzbild Schwet) reflect a naked, minimalist slant with long periods of quiet suddenly interrupted by guitar chords, inspired by the avant-garde wing of psychedelia/jazz-rock, chains, music boxes, and found-sound recordings etc etc.
By the early ’80s, it had begun to incorporate noisy, abrasive rhythms. Though it continued to keep the surrealist slant, it often moved back to more empty recordings. These works, beginning with Soliloquy for Lilith in 1988, came to light in the context of the growing ambient/electronic movement, which put NWW squarely in line with music trends for the first time. NWW recorded two split-singles with Stereolab during 1995, and continued the hectic, uncompromised release schedule from the farm. In 2005 the double CD compilation, Livin’ Fear Of James Last: Best Of Nurse With Wound, offered an overview of selected tracks, released on Sanctuary Records.
In 2006 Nurse With Wound performed live for the first time in 20 years at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, they also appeared at the UK’s All Tomorrow’s Parties festival, this particular one curated by Thurston Moore. Stapleton recently reported to a Dutch radio station that he is working on a collaboration with British sound artist Andrew Liles and is halfway through his long-promised “hip-hop” album, with around 5-6 female rap artists guesting.
Watch this space…