Well this was certainly a nice surprise to discover in my Twitter feed on a Father’s Day morning. Wrong Revolution released a Peter Hope/Richard H. Kirk collaboration titled “Black & White Medicine” as a name-your-price release on Bandcamp. A few of the tracks previously saw the light of day closer to when they were created in 1988, and couple more had the production touched up a bit during the more recent millennium for this release.
The seven tracks here are sure to grab fans of mid-80’s period Cabaret Voltaire because the music…well, duh, it involves Richard H. Kirk; often funky and danceable, processing elements of what was happening in music culture at the time and stamping it with his unique sounds and feel. The vocals, however, add another very interesting dimension. On first listen what came to mind most strongly was that this sounded like Captain Beefheart fronting CV. That thought made sense later when I read in Peter Hope’s liner notes that said “For me, whether it’s Chuck D or Son House it’s still the blues, and that’s what I sing.” This is true in both style and lyric content. And while the aforementioned Beefheart vibe is present on several of the tracks, the singing style varies including “Hot Words” where it almost sounds like Hope is trying to get his Barry White on, and closer “Men & Women” with its more heavily processed vocals.
Peter writes: “I’m dropping this as a FREE DOWNLOAD just to get it out there, get it heard and maybe jolt some visionary record label into putting both this and HOODOO TALK out physically, preferably on vinyl.” Here’s hoping, but in the meantime enjoy and spread the word.
Here’s where you can download the release.
And here’s where you can check out more Wrong Revolution releases, including lots of other Peter Hope material.