Half Japanese, Horrible (12" EP)

Half Japanese's sprawling debut triple-LP box, 1980's 1/2 Gentlemen / Not Beasts, is often remembered as a canonical blast declaring the breadth of their vision and launching their careers.  The band's late-80s albums received glowing reviews on their release — they captured a more consistently song-like vision, with slightly better recording fidelity.  The records from in between, including 1982's humorously-titled Horrible, sometimes get lost in the shuffle, but they still sound great on repeated listen.  This era unsurprisingly documents the transition from a more diverse and chaotic band into one playing a more even set of rock-oriented songs.  The qualities that make Half Japanese magical remain.  Horrible features five very short songs with overt vocal melodies, which generally have a slight blues influence and a pronounced chaotic element.  They're followed by a longer and less-structured vamp, "Walk Through Walls".  The recording of the instruments is very lo-fi and primitive, but an effort was definitely made to bring Jad Fair's vocals to the foreground with clarity.  The Jad Fair painting looks great on the cover, but I'm not sure who chose the incongruous font or what they could have been thinking.