Cruel, But Fair: The Complete Clowns Recordings

If diving in at the deep end is your modus operandi, then Cruel, But Fair: The Complete Clowns Recordings is where to start with the Australia’s Laughing Clowns – everything they ever released across three discs. It’s non-chronological, which helps the songs sit together, but at the expense of an ability to chart the great leaps they made between albums, from the Grand Guignol of their self-titled debut to the scabrous, pithy songs on 1982’s Mr. Uddich-Schmuddich Goes To Town, and then into their two most assured sets, Law Of Nature (1984) and Ghosts Of An Ideal Wife (1985). By the latter, a lot of the rough edges have been sanded away, which is both blessing and curse – Ed Kuepper’s songs pitch more directly at the listener, but some of the extemporising interplay between band members gets lost. Their classic, “Eternally Yours”, turns up twice, and it’s always a pleasure to hear, but the real benefit of a set like Cruel But Fair is illuminating the darker corners of a group’s catalogue – see gems like “Collapse Board” from the 3 EP, or the entirety of 1983’s Everything That Flies 12”. Few groups have made art rock, free jazz and post-punk feel such natural bedfellows, but then again, few have had songwriters as quixotic and sui generis as Kuepper.