Stump - Quirk Out

1986 UK mini-album. Never reissued as a standalone
 release and not available on vinyl since the '80s.
24-bit 96kHz FLAC

For those not in the know, Stump were an Anglo-Irish band who blazed gloriously, though fairly briefly, across the British indie scene during the second half of the 1980s. These John Peel favourites were musically more talented than most of their peers during an era when (in the long aftermath of punk) instrumental ability wasn't always regarded as the utmost musical priority. Their scratchy, endlessly inventive sound was often pigeonholed by lazy journalists as Beefheart-esque. “Trout Mask Replicants” was the strapline used by the UK weekly music paper Melody Maker when Stump made its front cover in February 1987; ramming home the perception of an influence that the band espoused with far less conviction themselves. They were in fact very much the product of their own origins and times: the post-punk scene in Cork (from whence half the lineup hailed) in the early 1980s and the London of the mid ’80s where Stump formed and started gigging. Their shows were full of energy and fun. In Mick Lynch - who passed away sadly in December 2015 - they had a genial lunatic of a front man. As much a theatre performer as a singer, his surreal but witty and keenly observed lyrics were influenced by his Irish literary heroes (notably Flann O’Brien).

Quirk Out was the band’s second release, and the one that perhaps best distills their joyous early sound. Later on their career took a wrong turn when they signed to a major label (Ensign/Chrysalis) that didn’t really understand them. Spending too long in the studio making their one full length album for the label, A Fierce Pancake, producers came and went and musical differences opened up within the group (some members were more enthusiastic than others about the use of sampling technology). A Fierce Pancake was not the hoped-for breakthrough success - although it’s a unique album and I would argue that it’s something of a lost classic - and Stump disbanded before the end of the decade. The travails surrounding the making of the album had robbed them of impetus, but they also found themselves out of step with a changing music scene in which rave culture and Madchester were the new big things.

Stump’s entire catalogue had been deleted by 1990. It wasn’t until 2007 that the three CD set Stump - The Complete Anthology appeared, largely through the efforts of the band’s bass player Kev Hopper. That collection is already difficult to find, but another CD compilation called Does The Fish Have Chips - Early And Late Works 1986-1989 (including much of their output except A Fierce Pancake) emerged in 2014. I believe some of their songs are also available on iTunes, although I wouldn’t really know about that sort of thing.

In May 2015 Stump got back together for a low-key gig in Cork and plans were being worked up for them to play at some festivals in 2016. With Mick Lynch’s passing, sadly the World has been robbed of what would’ve been an intriguing reunion.