State Laughter

What has now come to be known as the Messthetics era (thanks to Chuck Warner's CD series of the same name vis Scritti Politti) is some of my favorite punk music. It culls from a pretty wide pool and yielded an extraordinary amount of records in a short period of time (on a relatively small island). O Level released 2 singles and were led by Edward Ball also of Television Personalities and Teenage Filmstars. Distilled pop essence, bedroom closet jangle, tape hiss falling out the "14th floor" while chatting 13th Floor Elevators on the tele. O Level were the germinating seed of what was to come for Ball: perfect UK DIY punk/pop. There would be no Suburban Homes without bands like this. Worth the import price.