Description
Pope Adrian 37th Psychristiatric is the third LP by RUDIMENTARY PENI. Recorded in 1992 but not released until 1995, it was the first music the band recorded after their already leftfield Cacophony album. It is an underrated and difficult masterpiece of truly outsider music. Full of harrowing and morbid songs based on repetition, repetition and repetition, pushing the listener into a trance like mood. Pope Adrian 37th Psychristiatric shows the most experimental side of RUDIMENTARY PENI testing the punk song concept, turning it into a mantra chant at times while sounding like only RUDIMENTARY PENI could. The album opens with lead track Pogo Pope, which sets the tone, with Blinko repeatedly singing Pogo Pope ad nauseam, and the whole of the album has a continual loop of the phrase ‘Popus Adrianus running through its entirety. At the time Nick Blinko was experiencing severe delusions and believed that he was Pope Adrian the 37th and was detained in a psychiatric hospital under Section 3 of the 1983 Mental Health Act. The album is unhinged and challenging but 100% pure and idiosyncratic.
This official reissue comes on a single sleeve with printed inner and 16 page booklet with Nick Blinko artwork and has been remastered from the original tapes by Arthur Rizk.
Our take: Sealed Records Rudimentary Peni reissue campaign arrives at Pope Adrian 37th Psychristiatric, the bands third album from 1995, regarded by many as the strangest and most difficult record in the bands catalog. Never having been able to locate a vinyl copy of Pope Adrian in my twenty-five years of Rudimentary Peni fandom, its the Rudi P record Ive spent the least time with, and consequently I was looking forward to this opportunity to appreciate the full artwork and packaging alongside a deeper dive into its music. The lore is that Pope Adrian was conceived during one of Nick Blinkos most severe bouts of delusion, when he believed he literally was the pontiff from the albums title. While Blinkos mental state clearly colors his music and artwork throughout his career, theres something unique about the way Pope Adrian engages with the landscape Rudimentary Penis music inhabits. Repetition is one of the key themes on the album, and the way Pope Adrian leans on repetitive motifs makes it a unique entry in the bands canon. Theres a looped chant of Popus Adrianus that runs through their entire album, not only between the songs but right through the mix, and while you can occasionally tune it out and focus on something else, its always there and impossible to ignore for more than a few seconds at a time. The songs themselves are also extremely repetitive, totally hostile to the musical development or resolution upon which all pop music (punk included) is based. Most songs are just one or two parts repeated over and over, with perhaps some slight improvisation on the theme, but never in any sort of clear direction. While the droning repetition might be difficult for some hardcore punk fans to acclimate to, Pope Adrians music is some of Rudimentary Penis most straightforward and catchiest. The lack of blistering tempos (the exception being Vaticant City Hearse, which might actually make you think youre listening to Death Church for a second) means the memorable riffs and melodies that made Rudimentary Penis early music so seminal shine even brighter here, with tracks like Pogo Pope and Regicide Chaz III being downright hum-able. But to appreciate those moments, you have to accept Rudimentary Penis embrace of repetition, letting go of the desire for the cathartic middle eight or breakdown that gives a song its sense of shape. In contrast, Pope Adrian is like a Dali landscape, stretching out to infinity, built on its own inscrutable logic. But despite all this talk about how strange the music is, I never find Pope Adrian difficult to listen to. Its not like Nick Blinko is abstruse hes not attempting to hide what hes saying or make it difficult for you; its just really fucking weird. Thats part of what you come to Rudimentary Peni for, and Pope Adrian delivers in spades. And even if the music is too out there for you to jam on the regular, the packaging on Sealeds reissue is phenomenal, with a full-size booklet packed with large, beautifully reproduced images of some of Blinkos most captivating illustrations.
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