An imposition is something which you bestow upon someone else and in that sense, isn't all music really an imposition? No matter how much you love an artist now, at one point it was a matter of "Hey, will you listen to my demos?" But I feel like we need to make music seem like less of an imposition, less of an intrusion and more of a way of life. I, for one, actually use music as a means of being anti-social. When I go out, you can bet I have my earbuds in to avoid talking with other humans. For me, music has become less of an imposition and more of a second nature in that way, and yet I still get countless emails asking me to check out this new single via Spotify or iTunes or whatever Deezer is and, no, for the record, I will not do that.
As an artist, I can see why this would be called IMPOSITION MAN however because the music is rather in your face. Underneath layers of other sounds, at its core, this cassette is punk rock and that in and of itself is an imposition in many ways (It's a lot of "You're going to listen to us whether you want to or not") While at first there are sounds of post punk, this has that vibe like it's The Cure only faster. There have likely been a lot of other artists in this genre who could be dreampop or dreamgaze but the difference between them and IMPOSITION MAN is that these songs are modern but have more of a classic feel to them. If you told me that this was recorded back in the 80's or 90's and was just now uncovered I would believe you.
Aside from having that feeling of belonging in an era which it seems to be representing, he also sings the name of the band at one point. That coupled with the drum machines gives this a rather PiL feel, which I of course enjoy. I always thought it was odd how we went from Sex Pistols to PiL with seemingly no inbetween, but IMPOSITION MAN in a lot of ways could be that band which isn't quite punk enough to be the Sex Pistols but is perhaps too punk to be PiL. As Side A comes to a close, there is an instrumental song filled with synth lasers. It's just one of those things not every can handle as well as IMPOSITION MAN, but it fits here. It really does.
Through Side B the pace grows faster. The songs begin to become more punk than post punk. You could go through the normal list of bands, but what's the point? I can simply sum this up without name-dropping by saying that if it was still relevant now as it once was, IMPOSITION MAN is the type of band I could imagine would do well at CBGB's. Hints of Illegal Wiretaps give it some of its only modern feel, but really you have to think of this as being some band from the 80's or 90's, who you would have originally found on cassette by the way, a Flock of Seagulls type if you will, but it's slightly heavier and faster as well. So what do you get when you take those fun sounds and add that bit of punk to them? Well, IMPOSITION MAN is showing you.
Often times, I consider myself to be a man of simple tastes. If this music was to simply be in tribute to the type of synth based rock I listened to growing up on cassette, you know, the type of thing you'd see as a featured selection from Columbia House, then I would be into it. I'm not going to lie about that. I think it would be quite good. The fact that there is this energy in this music, which pushes the boundaries between punk rock and post punk, well, it's challenging. Sounding like Duran Duran would be cool and I'd like it, but this sounds like something different, something I've not really heard before and that's the difference between being good and being great. That's the difference between being comfortable and being ripped out of that comfort zone and taking the chance that so many other musicians would not have risked taking.
€7 //
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