THE WORLD Managerial Material 7inch EP

     In my high school days I didn't ever really get bummed when someone referred to me as a New Waver. There was less contempt and punches in the face for such compared to the attitudes toward anyone who claimed they were a punk rocker. If the music was a bit enjoyably strange or  weird you could just call it new wave too instead of waiting for the rare cool zines to trickle in and telling what genre to consider it. It you could dance to it was a bonus.
     I know for sure that Oakland, California's The World get things like post-avant-punk-funk thrown at the but it this was 30 years ago, they would've been a new wave favorite of mine.
    Sounding like a tug of war between downtown skronk-meisters who show contempt of everything for the sake of art and suburban raised mutants who dream of hearing a song their wrote echoing off the walls of the local roller rink, the four songs here are sublimely odd. The record's lead off, "Managerial Material",  does a fidget wiggle out of the speakers and immediately entertains as well as confounds. The dual sax players, one that sounds like it has a penchant for fog horns and steam whistles and the other seemingly addled but still intent on making some "good time" music, a like a parade marching band wandering off it whatever direction they chose.
     What keeps those horns from wanted off a cliff is, is the tight and twisted band that engulfs the sound around them. F'instance, the blurts "It Takes 2" may sound like radioactive dosed goose calls but it's the A Certain Ratio type of exposed electrical wire zap groove from them that provides a thud-n-sway for the singer bark and coo and make the listener wonder whether Su Tissue and Ari Up haunt her dreams every night.
     That and you can dance to it!
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