Health and Efficiency

'Health and Efficiency' was originally released in 1981 as a 12" EP, it foreshadowed the more rock-oriented sound of Deceit (1981), the band's second and final album. Taking its name from the long running UK naturist publication this is an off kilter rocker which matches Faust's classic 'It's a Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl' as a piece of avant bootboy stomp. The opening 2 line refrain gives way to a lumbering section driven by proto industrial rhythms, the coda being a deconstruction of the original riff which features Henry Cow's Piano played through a fuzzbox. Essential stuff, the essence of This Heat distilled into eight and a half minutes of joyous noise. The flip 'Graphic / Varispeed' was a total contrast, an oddly unsettling electronic drone that (as the title implied) could be played at any speed. This piece could be the birth of illbient; although slow and apparently tranquil, it's an oddly unsettling noise that mutates abruptly from time to time. This is a side of this heat that was rarely in evidence during their lifetime, but which can be sampled further on the excellent album Repeat.