Gary Numan with Six Fingers

Gary Numan was an early pioneer of dark electronic music, so his later descent into dark wave and industrial is of little surprise to me.  The style seems to fit him well though.  This two-disc set, called Hybrid,  is a mixture of the always interesting idea of re-recording past tunes (as recently described in my post about Gord's Gold Vol. II) and new Numan.  These re-recordings fair much better than Gordon Lightfoot's if for no other reason because at the very least they weren't recorded in the 80's.  We see new versions of past songs such as Cars (in a very interesting almost ambient rendition) and Down in the Park, here represented twice.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing since "Down in the Park" I feel is one of his better early songs.


Six Finger Satellite seems pulls as much from Fugazi and Gang of Four as from early Sonic Youth and Butthole Surfers.  They also seem to be constantly walking a thin line between what constitutes music versus noise.  They general do a good job of it, being very abrasive and amelodic while at the same time conjuring up truly interesting and listenable grooves.  By the last track though, they have completely fallen into the abyss of noise, creating a swirling ocean of feedback and drone.  Overall I would say it's a very fascinating listen, but I do prefer their later albums, which are no less compromising but a little easier to swallow than this cryptically titled The Pigeon Is The Most Popular Bird.