This remains potent music. Totemic and austere, the tunes of Martin Rev and the late Alan Vega exist in an atmosphere all their own. Proto-punk, base New Wave, and deconstructed pop, the selections on the new Surrender compilation on Mute retain a shamanic power that's the equal of that of peers The Stooges, The Ramones, and early Talking Heads.
"Rocket USA", from the debut Suicide in 1977, still stuns. A sort of heir to Silver Apples and V.U., the blunt unearthiness here transfixes. While peers Throbbing Gristle were investigating similar territory at times overseas, Rev and Vega remained determined to conjure up flashes of pop even as they dissected it as if they were alien scientists. "Cheree", a percursor to nearly everything The Telescopes, Spiritualized, and Loop did later, is a marvel of simplicity, while "Dream Baby Dream" is actually a bit pretty, despite its rough primitive execution.
Elsewhere, "Touch Me" and "Mr. Ray" from 1980's Suicide: Alan Vega / Martin Rev see the pair edge closer to the kind of minimalism that would fuel Soft Cell in the U.K., and Laurie Anderson here. Rev and Vega manage to keep this stuff largely simple enough as to be almost brilliant, much like Joey Ramone did his classics, even as the conceptual effort here remains amazing nearly five decades on. Like Byrne early on, Rev and Vega seemed to be stripping things back, and jettisoning the anger and rage of punk. This is punk of another sort, from outer space, yearning and disturbing but rarely loud.
"Wrong Decisions", from 2002's comeback American Supreme, pulses with a bit more force, the nearly subliminal urges of the early recordings given free reign. By 2002, the music of Suicide had inspired a thousand clones, and lacked the ability to surprise anymore. But this carefully-curated set focused largely on earlier releases, and with an epic unreleased version of "Frankie Teardrop" as its closing peak, hits in just the right way. The liners by Henry Rollins give this context and meaning, but put Supreme on late at night, when you're alone, and it will sound like the last record that ever need be made, the sound of everything ending and winding down, while a voice and a keyboard soundtrack the final beats of the universe.
Surrender is out now via Mute.
More details on Suicide via the official site.
[Photo: Mute]