Crass — Yes Sir, I Will
With-out a doubt this is the most experimental, difficult and least approachable of all of Crass’s back catalogue. The original album featured a mainly free-flowing improv punk track in two parts. The track found lead male singer Steve Ignorant, and female singers Joy De Vivre & Eve Libertine shouting/ speaking drummer Peni Rimbaud’s long form anti Falkland war poem. The backing was a mixture of shredding, smashing, chugging and bashing freeform anarcho punk. It's far from an easy listening experience, but it does really focuses the bands intelligent yet angered & nihilistic take on the punk into a searing,hopless and unforgiving form
From time to time the sliding 'n' shifting sonic chaos does break for a few more musical moments. The first of these more comes about five minutes into the albums runtime as the band drop into an almost 70 tinged singer-songwriter moment with poppy piano chops, synthetic string work, male spoken word elements & layered male harmonies….this hangs around for three or so minutes then we’re back into the chaos once more. And the other main more musical moment comes around the 11 minute mark when the band home in on a more focused & memorable Anarcho punk stomp ‘n’ pogo structure . Both ‘musical’ moments make a nice break from the intensity of both Rimbaud’s words and the crude, jerking & free-form musical punk attack. All told “Yes Sir, I Will” is a very challenging track, and you can see why a lot of long time fans deserted the band, but for me it’s a interestingly suffocating & jarring slice of experimental punk based music, & it’s a pity the band did'nt try going further down this path.
The Second disc in the set is taken up by the 2002 remix of the album which is fittingly subtitled “Why Don’t You Fuck Off?”. As well as been a little more noise bound yet slightly more controlled, this remix also adds in the following sonic textures: tenor & Alto Sax( by Ingrid Laubrock whose worked with the likes of Sol6,Tom Rainey Trio, and Crass off shoot Crass Agenda),Upright bass & bass clarinet( by Julian Siegel whose only really worked on his own stuff & Crass Agenda stuff). The remix, and the added sonic textures give the more instense and free-form punk elements of the track more focus, detail and depth. Also some of the spoken word elements seem to have been made a little more clear and powerful than the original albums mix too. On the whole I think it’s a very worthy, and enjoyable re-take/ remix on the original album, and it gives the whole piece quite a different edge/ feel.
All told this is another great reissue that clearly had a lot of time & love poured into it. Certainly this is not the album to start with if your new to Crass, but if you’ve already picked up the other great releases in this reissue series and you like the bands more noisy & free form moments you get a lot out of this.