Michael Baxter | Disorder - Both the 7" singles - ORDER 1 & ORDER 2 - Disorder Records - 1981 @mickeypenguin | Uploaded February 2021 | Updated October 2024, 10 minutes ago.
Have you ever heard a record that shocked you so much that eventually you realised that it must have been something quite special to have done so?
My first reaction on putting on this record when getting back to my home from the Small Wonder Record shop in Walthamstow, was confusion and disappointment. I pretty much believed at the time that punk records were meant to be more mid-paced and melodic like the Clash, the Pistols, UK Subs, Crisis, the Ruts, Anti Pasti or Chron Gen. Like most of my punk record collection was back then!
Discharge were extreme enough, as were Crass, and those band's were played often in my bedroom, but this?
Disorder were something altogether different, their two 7" singles dripping with nihilism in every groove, and the inspiration to attempt to play a racket quite like this nuclear-ear-explosion could be seen as an art form in itself!
I felt Disorder were one of the handful of bands that were inspirational, kick-starting a UK squat-thrash-scene where the likes of Chaos UK and others would follow, eventually leading to nihilist bands like the Sons Of Bad Breath, Blower and Eat Shit.
Disorder recorded the material that they wanted to record, not caring whether anyone liked it. Personally I loved both the 7” records to bits - especially 'Must Be More Than Fights', the first track on the second 7" single (at 7m10s) A thrash classic of immense quality, a feedback drenched-bash on the drums-stop and start-scream your throat sore-thrash classic.
The band were formed early 1980 in the Bristol squats. I seem to remember, on the small number of articles that I read about the band, they were always being turned over in those squats. The poor sods had to keep stealing or borrowing equipment every other week, to replace what they had had stolen the previous week!
First EP track-list: Today's World / Violent Crime / Complete Disorder / Insane Youth
Second EP track-list: More Than Fights / Daily Life / You Gotta Be Someone
The text below courtesy of Nic Bullen Napalm Death / Scorn - Thank you Nic.
Two of my all-time favourite Hardcore Thrash singles!
I love the minimalism of the song structures, ugliness of the guitars, the Rotten-esque sneer to the voice, the nihilistic tone to the lyrics…
In fact, some GREAT lyrics:
“Riot, Aggro, Get stoned, Fucked up: Complete disorder! Complete disordarrghh! Hippies, Long hair, Pub bands: hate them! Complete disorder! Complete disordarrghh!”
or how about:
“They don’t like the punks – that’s what they fucking say, It’s just because we’re a threat to society. We all know we are – but who gives a fuck? I don’t fucking care, because they’re going to get blown up!”
“Today’s world is now – punk is here today! If you don’t like our way, well, fucking go away!”
The second EP was a corker too: total thrash of an intense and heavy kind…
I loved it from the minute I heard it when it came out, especially as I had not really engaged with the 3rd generation of ‘Crass-bands’ like Conflict, DIRT, and so on.
Disorder (along with Discharge and Chaos UK) opened a possibility that fused the directness of Punk with the noise of Throbbing Gristle, and also seemed to convey a little more anger and hate than the usual ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’ structures of the majority of punk bands. I loved their amateurish and inept approach as well…
I saw Disorder play a lot of times between 1980 and 1986 and with Napalm Death, played on the same bill several times.
They were very influential, particularly in the period between 1980 and 1982 after which people started hearing more Hardcore Thrash from around the world thanks to the ‘Tape Trading’ scene.
Disorder represented a manifestation of cathartic expression expressed through the kinetic – a rush towards (and embrace of) the maelstrom, and the uplifting effect of being enveloped in something that emanates waves of energy".
On a purely formal level, I think of their sound in correlative terms to the obsession with speed in art in the early 20th century: the stars our destination!
This music has more in common with the repetitive cyclical movements of Malian folk music, Delta Blues and primal R&B (1960’s style) than Heavy Metal. It seems to represent the first direct lineage with The Stooges (beyond the copyists of the mid-to-late 1970’s) in its embrace of noise, minimalism, repetition, overt confrontation, and the ugliest of chord patterns.
I was so excited when this kind of music came along and I didn’t have to listen to the fag end murmurings of Rock ‘n’ Roll that bands like 999 came out with (with all of their connotations of notions of ‘Music’, of ‘melody’, ‘harmony’ and ‘structural progression’).
The screaming on these EP's certainly means more to me than a thousand Clash’s or Stiff Little Fingers songs because those bands represent an expression of a musical culture I perceive as a control agent, whereas the inept amateur pure self-expression of Disorder speaks to me on a profound level as a human being.
Have you ever heard a record that shocked you so much that eventually you realised that it must have been something quite special to have done so?
My first reaction on putting on this record when getting back to my home from the Small Wonder Record shop in Walthamstow, was confusion and disappointment. I pretty much believed at the time that punk records were meant to be more mid-paced and melodic like the Clash, the Pistols, UK Subs, Crisis, the Ruts, Anti Pasti or Chron Gen. Like most of my punk record collection was back then!
Discharge were extreme enough, as were Crass, and those band's were played often in my bedroom, but this?
Disorder were something altogether different, their two 7" singles dripping with nihilism in every groove, and the inspiration to attempt to play a racket quite like this nuclear-ear-explosion could be seen as an art form in itself!
I felt Disorder were one of the handful of bands that were inspirational, kick-starting a UK squat-thrash-scene where the likes of Chaos UK and others would follow, eventually leading to nihilist bands like the Sons Of Bad Breath, Blower and Eat Shit.
Disorder recorded the material that they wanted to record, not caring whether anyone liked it. Personally I loved both the 7” records to bits - especially 'Must Be More Than Fights', the first track on the second 7" single (at 7m10s) A thrash classic of immense quality, a feedback drenched-bash on the drums-stop and start-scream your throat sore-thrash classic.
The band were formed early 1980 in the Bristol squats. I seem to remember, on the small number of articles that I read about the band, they were always being turned over in those squats. The poor sods had to keep stealing or borrowing equipment every other week, to replace what they had had stolen the previous week!
First EP track-list: Today's World / Violent Crime / Complete Disorder / Insane Youth
Second EP track-list: More Than Fights / Daily Life / You Gotta Be Someone
The text below courtesy of Nic Bullen Napalm Death / Scorn - Thank you Nic.
Two of my all-time favourite Hardcore Thrash singles!
I love the minimalism of the song structures, ugliness of the guitars, the Rotten-esque sneer to the voice, the nihilistic tone to the lyrics…
In fact, some GREAT lyrics:
“Riot, Aggro, Get stoned, Fucked up: Complete disorder! Complete disordarrghh! Hippies, Long hair, Pub bands: hate them! Complete disorder! Complete disordarrghh!”
or how about:
“They don’t like the punks – that’s what they fucking say, It’s just because we’re a threat to society. We all know we are – but who gives a fuck? I don’t fucking care, because they’re going to get blown up!”
“Today’s world is now – punk is here today! If you don’t like our way, well, fucking go away!”
The second EP was a corker too: total thrash of an intense and heavy kind…
I loved it from the minute I heard it when it came out, especially as I had not really engaged with the 3rd generation of ‘Crass-bands’ like Conflict, DIRT, and so on.
Disorder (along with Discharge and Chaos UK) opened a possibility that fused the directness of Punk with the noise of Throbbing Gristle, and also seemed to convey a little more anger and hate than the usual ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’ structures of the majority of punk bands. I loved their amateurish and inept approach as well…
I saw Disorder play a lot of times between 1980 and 1986 and with Napalm Death, played on the same bill several times.
They were very influential, particularly in the period between 1980 and 1982 after which people started hearing more Hardcore Thrash from around the world thanks to the ‘Tape Trading’ scene.
Disorder represented a manifestation of cathartic expression expressed through the kinetic – a rush towards (and embrace of) the maelstrom, and the uplifting effect of being enveloped in something that emanates waves of energy".
On a purely formal level, I think of their sound in correlative terms to the obsession with speed in art in the early 20th century: the stars our destination!
This music has more in common with the repetitive cyclical movements of Malian folk music, Delta Blues and primal R&B (1960’s style) than Heavy Metal. It seems to represent the first direct lineage with The Stooges (beyond the copyists of the mid-to-late 1970’s) in its embrace of noise, minimalism, repetition, overt confrontation, and the ugliest of chord patterns.
I was so excited when this kind of music came along and I didn’t have to listen to the fag end murmurings of Rock ‘n’ Roll that bands like 999 came out with (with all of their connotations of notions of ‘Music’, of ‘melody’, ‘harmony’ and ‘structural progression’).
The screaming on these EP's certainly means more to me than a thousand Clash’s or Stiff Little Fingers songs because those bands represent an expression of a musical culture I perceive as a control agent, whereas the inept amateur pure self-expression of Disorder speaks to me on a profound level as a human being.
