DALE JENKINS - 'Undesirable Element' (GKL, 2021 - GKL009 / GKL009CD) ALL EDITIONS
[PRE-ORDER FOR STOCK ARRIVING IN 4-6 WEEKS]
SPANISH IMPORT LP & CD Editions of Dale Jenkins' Undesirable Element—choose STANDARD or BONUS Editions (which include a 3-pack of vintage-style, soft matte buttons on a custom backing board, and a custom sticker which peels around the outside of the television set). Limited to 33 Packs, which are priced slightly higher than in the past due to quality control/costs.
All orders shipped from IL. Shipping costs estimated, anything in excess of $2 beyond cost will be returned to customer.
DALE JENKINS
Undesirable Element
Catalogue no: GKL009 / GKL009CD
Label: GOT KINDA LOST
Format: Vinyl LP / CD
Release Date: February 2021
UPC: 4040824090203/ 4040824090210
Territory: Worldwide
Genre: File Under – J– Rock / Punk / Post-Punk
“…I found a 2010 post on the blog Mutant Sounds [some years back] about Undesirable Elements, the 1985 album by D.C. singer-songwriter Dale Jenkins. The music hasn't left my mind since. Jenkins' strange take on punk—demure, rangy, spiked with electronics, driven by drum machines—doesn't seem connected to the sonics of D.C.'s scene at the time, but it overlaps a little with its spirit…” – Leor Galil, Chicago Reader
Arriving to the world for the first time, really—beyond the ears of the deep-digging few—Dale Jenkins’ Undesirable Elements, issued privately in the Washington, D.C. area circa 1985, is a homespun effort deserving of the audience and attention it never received upon initial release. Undesirable Elements—here expanded as Undesirable Element with appended bonus tracks—is a desolate and deconstructed album which touches on the subtleties and extremes of the human condition, and the nuances in between, across gnarled bits of proto-punk via abrasive, fuzzed guitars, and refracted mutant strains of British post-punk through a distinctly American underbelly sensibility.
Drum machine-led and in-the-red, Undesirable Elements is a loose concept album of sorts, from the sympathetic pen of an innately skilled commentator. The album displays polemical disdain for the behavior of humans, insular views, and blindly moving forward on simple suggestion, while carrying a keen eye into the many textures of the mindscape of man. While you may hear occasional tears at aiming at the trends of the times, Jenkins’ direct, intensely personal and lyrically sophisticated material, combined with his charged attack, is in a realm all its own. Jenkins’ lyrics are nearly cinematic, like bite-sized scripts, or character vignettes, filled with wizened, introspective and radicalized perspective. The self-contained home-recording maverick was searching, sensitive, subversive, topical, yet several steps from the soapbox.
Got Kinda Lost Records is over the moon to allow this unique, outsider singer-songwriter/psych-punk album another turn at its time in the shine…
RIYL: Afflicted Man, Kenneth Higney, late ‘70s Iggy Pop, J.T. IV, Peter Laughner, Sound Ceremony, Ariel Pink, Gary War, et al.
Highlights:
• First time reissue of this under-the-radar slice of dark, underground singer-songwriter/psych-punk.
• Carries an out-of-time sound referencing proto-punk and earlier post-punk.
• LP includes three previously unreleased tracks.
• CD includes eight previously unreleased tracks.
• Insert features informative liner notes by Jeremy Cargill (Got Kinda Lost Records / NTS Radio), culled from interviewing long-time friend and bandmate Alan Benson.
LP Tracklist:
A01 Blind Faith (3:54)
A02 Article Two (The Handgun Song) (3:27)
A03 Depression (4:27)
A04 Love And War [Alternate Version] (4:16)
A05 War Was Raging On (2:01)
B01 Non-Surgical Lobotomy (3:33)
B02 Breathe In Deep (2:48)
B03 Paranoid Song (3:20)
B04 Destitute (3:26)
B05 Another Day (6:34)
CD Tracklist (w/ BONUSES)
Blind Faith - Article Two (The Handgun Song) - Depression - Love And War [Alternate Version] - War Was Raging On - Non-Surgical Lobotomy - Breathe In Deep - Paranoid Song - Destitute - Another Day - Stranger [Acoustic] - Don't Believe In - Love And War [LP Version] - Lovin' You - Houses Of Brick - Where Is The Fire - Lovin' You [Acoustic Version] - Sylvia - Raga
Listen to album clips: