The Nation Of Ulysses Plays Pretty For Baby Dischord, 1992 amazon

to you, the bold and foolish lambs
to you who are intoxicated with riddles, let's go
who take pleasure in twilight
whose souls are lured by noise to every treacherous abyss
for you do not feel for a rope like cowards
and where you can guess you hate to calculate
and where others would poison, you dismember

So begins "N-Sub Ulysses", the opener to the second and unfortunately last record by The Nation Of Ulysses, 1992's Plays Pretty For Baby. Their eclectic mix of jazz, spoken word, and outright fury would be cited as an influence for countless future records, but the band remain mostly unknown to all but über-indie circles. I've mentioned before that the trumpet is the most criminally underused instrument in all indie music, and for justification of that statement one need look no further than this record. From accenting "A Comment On Ritual" to dominating the moody introspective "N.O.U. Future Vision Hypothesis", the trumpet captures the sentiment of subterranean exile and longing that is central to underground music. I'm not even going to pretend i understand the political manifesto of the Nation of Ulysses, but i know enough that it sparks vehement outrage in songs like "Perpetual Motion Machine" (and that it was enough for the band to call their first album The Nation of Ulysses' 13 Point Plan To Destroy America). While frontman Ian Svenonius went on to address different musical ambitions with The Make Up, we can only hope that torchbearers like The Fuse! carry on the Nation's legacy of musical innovation and political activism.

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