Butthole Surfers: Locust Abortion Technician [MATADOR]

Why you'll love it

This reissue is newly remastered. It's the home-recorded record that took the Texas band's mix of punk, metal and psychedelia to a new level, and it was soon tied to the emerging grunge and sludge metal sounds.

This edition

• Remastered

About the album

Locust Abortion Technician, the first Butthole Surfers album not recorded in a professional studio, pushed the band to a new level of (underground) superstardom. Weary of life on the road, the band moved to Winterville in 1986, renting a small two-bedroom house, and used their limited funds to buy an old Ampex 8-track tape machine and two microphones, setting up a makeshift home studio for their third full-length LP. Guitarist Paul Leary believes the simpler gear forced the band to be more inventive, and the new setup took away worries about recording costs, allowing greater freedom to experiment.

Many tracks went through extensive in-studio development, a practice that had become a Butthole Surfers tradition; later albums would see the band entering the studio with more fully formed songs. Bassist Jeff Pinkus, making his debut here, has said those looser sessions fed the spontaneous creativity of their early work. "Sweat Loaf" warps a famous Black Sabbath riff, and Gibby Haynes runs a Thai recording through his homemade Gibbytronix effects system elsewhere on the record.

Teresa Nervosa also came back on second drum kit, so the band had two drummers again. The neighbours in Winterville were, we assume, extremely understanding people.

Also at Kops: more Butthole Surfers on vinyl · browse Punk

Tracklist

Listen

On Touch and Go / Matador (cat# OLE2058LP), a reissue of the 1987 album.