ESG: Come Away With ESG [FIRE]

Why you'll love it

This Fire Records edition brings the 1983 99 Records album back to vinyl. Pitchfork named it the 84th greatest album of the 1980s, and it shaped dance-punk and hip-hop.

This edition

• Fire Records edition
• Stereo mix
• Download card included

About the album

Ed Bahlman found ESG while judging a talent show, which must be the best result any talent show judge has ever had. Tony Wilson of Factory Records caught them at Hurrah soon after, and within days the sisters were recording with Martin Hannett.

Their sound is funk with everything extra taken out: no horns, no synths, just voices, bass and percussion. "Moody" became a Paradise Garage favourite and a foundation stone for house music, and here it sits next to "Dance" and "The Beat" from their second EP, plus "Come Away," "You Make No Sense" and "Parking Lot Blues." They finished the album at Radio City Music Hall, and around half of it is instrumental.

Kathleen Hanna has said it shaped her work in Le Tigre, and NPR called the songs "prescient." Four decades later it still sounds like the coolest band on the block, and the block is all of New York.

Also at Kops: more ESG on vinyl · browse 70s Soul On Up

Tracklist

Listen

On Fire Records (cat# FIRELP140), a reissue of the 1983 album.