Steve Beresford / David Toop / John Zorn / Tonie Marshall – Dumb Boxer / Lady Whirlwind / Shadow Boxer
From Steve Beresford / David Toop / John Zorn / Tonie Marshall – Deadly Weapons
Released on Nato, 1986, France

Time for some statistics : this post is our second Steve Beresford-related post, and our third Nato-related post. Not sure if this means that Nato is our favorite label, but we can’t deny that it provided us with some amazing pieces of music this year, waiting for us in cheap bins !

On Deadly Weapons, Steve Beresford teams up with his pal David Toop from the amazing band, General Strike, to record some great leftfield electro tracks and ethereal tunes. The two of them are joined by the wizard John Zorn and Tonie Marshall who blesses us with her suave voice for some great surrealist spoken-word moments.

Dumb Boxer / Lady Whirlwind / Shadow Boxer is one long mixed track, beginning with a super heavy electro beat (featuring the glorious TR-808’s cowbell), that could have been featured on a Kool Keith joint, before slowly turning itself into a sublime minimal poetry lecture, read by French film-maker Tonie Marshall.

The whole song is as delightfully weird and moving as Nato’s records can be, numbed in a inch of melancholy. Another far-out Experience in Pop from the French label !