Lowlife LP by DECADENT FEW

Decadent Few formed in E.London, 1984, from the ashes of anarcho punks Youth In Asia. Playing a more direct punk style than YIA, their lyrics concentrated on personal experience rather than the general anarcho themes of the day, with an emphasis on feminism and gender violence. Fronted by the unique, soulful and soaring vocals of Kaya Byatta (more Alison Moyet than Poly Styrene), musically DF often veered into darker, postpunk/Goth/tribal territory. Though they went into hibernation in 1995, the band occasionally reappears for the odd gig and are therefore neither defunct nor “reformed”.

This LP combines the 7 tracks recorded in 1988 for an unreleased MLP on Real World Records, plus 4 tracks from 1994 that only appeared on a long-deleted US compilation CD. All remastered from the original tapes. Colour cover and 4 page full-size insert, artwork by Max Furst

From Negative Insight zine/penetration82.blogspot.com

“Another band that was around between 1988 and 1992 and had deep connections with the early anarcho punk movement was Decadent Few, from London. Not unlike Blyth Power, they formed at the tail end of the original anarcho punk wave, in 1984.... Although Decadent Few were not as overly political as YIA – and indeed the band never really claimed to be "anarcho punk" – the songs they wrote still tackled political subjects like feminism ("Misogyny") or the events in Northern Ireland ("They Shoot Children"), along with more personal matters. Their first vinyl appearance was on a Mortarhate Records compilation in 1984, very early in the band's existence in fact, just after the demise of Youth In Asia, and one had to wait seven years (!) for another Decadent Few record.

On the face of these pieces of information, Decadent Few could be seen as a rather anecdotal band that could have achieved more....but then, there is Kay's voice. She has quite possibly the most powerful and intense voice in UK punk history. Hers is deep, warm, raucous at times, almost high pitched, but still always tuneful, it can convey the whole spectrum of human emotion and take simple, efficient punk songs to the next level. If you could blend the energy of X-Ray Spex, the catchiness of A-Heads, the moodiness of Siouxsie and spice it all up with the voice of the bear-eating bastard child of Poly Styrene and Patti Smith, then you would be pretty close to the Decadent Few experience.”

Note: In regards to the 1986-7 Demos LP released by another label in 2017, it seems the tapes provided were not mastered and the album suffers from an appalling sound. At some point we will be mastering the original tapes ourselves so as to reissue the LP in the form it was intended

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