Ike Yard

Ike Yard

1982

Dark Entries

Dark Entries flashes back to the grimy streets of New York City circa 1982 to bring us an unreleased album from cult outfit Ike Yard. Comprised of Stuart Argabright, Michael Diekmann, Kenneth Compton, and Fred Szymanski, Ike Yard sits between the sinewy proto-body music of the Neue Deutsche Welle and the shattered grooves of their No Wave peers in New York. The band’s initial run was short but blinding. They released an EP for Les Disques du Crépuscule in 1981, which was followed by their legendary self-titled LP for Factory in 1982. They disbanded within a year, frustrated by the slow pace at which the industry was able to release their increasingly challenging music. 1982 features 10 tracks which likely would have become the band’s second LP—only four of these songs have previously seen release on 2006’s 1980-82 Collected via Acute Records. Following the release of Ike Yard, they continued down their tortured path of hybrid electro-acoustic music with an arsenal of now-classic analog instruments, including the Korg MS-20 and the Roland TR-808. Skittering rhythms teeter on the verge of collapse while seasick synth warbles threaten to push us overboard. Electronic washes devolve into waves of feedback. Sneering basslines threaten dancers to move, but how can the body obey? This is dangerous music, gliding along the brink. The album features a live photo of the band by Makoto Iida and includes an insert with liner notes from Stuart Argabright. 1982 is essential for fans of post-punk and caustic electronics from...

Ike Yard

Night After Night

Superior Viaduct

New York no-wavers Ike Yard are perhaps best known for being the first American band signed to Factory Records, and it isn’t difficult to hear why: the group’s music has much in common with the existential frigidness of Joy Division and early New Order as well as the mutant noise-funk of Section 25 and A Certain Ratio. That said, the sound of Night After Night, the band’s debut EP, is one that could only have emerged from the lawless dystopia of ’70s New York City. Vocalist/percussionist Stuart Argabright, guitarist Michael Diekmann, vocalist/bassist Kenny Compton and synth player Fred Szymanski traffic in a particularly foreboding rhythmic tension, creating in the process an unlikely amalgam of minimal wave, industrial and post-punk.  Recorded shortly after forming in 1980 and originally released on seminal Brussels imprint Les Disques Du Crépuscule, Night After Night suggests an alternate history in which Tobe Hooper and Jah Wobble provided the soundtrack to The Warriors. The atmosphere throughout is thick. Every cymbal is dubbed-out and spacey; every vocal utterance treated, alien and detached.  Fans of Chrome’s damaged ice machine-guitar or Suicide’s menacing, anything-can-happen m.o. will rejoice in the siren-sounds, metal clanging and metronomic death-pulse of “Sense of Male,” while “Infra-ton” evokes the cacophonous rattle of gates being pulled down over bodega storefronts and the screech of subway brakes. Side two kicks off with “Motiv’s” mechanical dread, and the squelchy din of “Cherish” recasts The Residents as streetwise, urban punks.  Night After Night remains primal evidence of the dank, uncompromising...

Ike Yard

S/t

Superior Viaduct

Ike Yard remain a legendary band of early '80s New York City – at once immensely influential, yet obscured by a far-too-brief initial phase. Their debut EP, the dark and absorbing Night After Night, sounds almost like a different group, so rapidly would Ike Yard evolve towards the calmly menacing electro throb of their self-titled LP. Originally released on Factory in 1982, the album put Ike Yard's indelible mark on the synth-driven experimental rock scene then emerging all over the planet. While historical analogues would be Cabaret Voltaire's Red Mecca or Front 242's Geography, opening track "M. Kurtz" makes starkly clear that Ike Yard is a far heavier proposition. With a thick porridge of bass, ringing guitar and strangled/stunted layers of voice, these six pieces are densely packed and perversely danceable. "Loss" sounds like a minimal techno track that could have been made last week, while "Kino" combines Soviet-era imagery with sparse soundscapes à la African Head Charge's Environmental Studies. Ike Yard somehow pull off the toughest trick in modern music: making repetition hypnotically compelling through subtle variation. The effect of Ike Yard's first LP can be heard in many genres – from industrial dance labels like Wax Trax to electro-punk bands and innumerable European groups (Lucrate Milk, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, etc.). The fact that the cover artwork does not include any photos of the band, but rather features the original catalogue number (FACT A SECOND) only further illustrates the release's importance and Ike Yard's timeless mystique.