Two years in the making and hotly anticipated, this double-CD tribute to David E. Williams, the Philadelphia-based singer-songwriter, brings together many members of the post-industrial scene’s elite ot pay homage to this “troubled and troubling troubadour”. 38 tracks are spread over two disks designated ‘Pop and Folk’ and ‘Contra Pop and Folk’, terms which can very loosely be translated as ‘neo-folk’ and ‘industrial’. David E. Williams himself has commented, ‘Some versions are so superior to the originals that they simultaneously fill me with pride as a songwriter and humility as a performer.’ And, consolidating his reputation for eccentricity, he even appears on his own tribute album, performing ‘Bad Day Anyway’, in a version billed as “Choral Quartet in Diabolus Musicae, with Round”!

There are a couple of recurring presences on The Appeal Of Discarded Orthodoxy. The first is Lloyd James, who makes four appearances – with his core project Naevus, who perform a medley of ‘Restraining Order’ and ‘Fishheads And Olives’ with vocal assistance from Rose McDowall; as a solo musician, doing ‘Little Sap And Varicose’; as part of Lark Blames, who do ‘Listen Somewhat Awkward’ with vocals by guest singer Rodolfo Protti; and finally as part of the Naevus punk-rock side project Womb, playing ‘The Girl From The D’n D’. David E. Williams has of course contributed keyboards to Naevus recordings in the past, and Naevus covered his song ‘Less Than Queer’ on their Document Three split release with KnifeLadder, so this connection comes as no surprise. The other repeat offender on the album is the indefatigable John Murphy, who puts in three appearances, with Naevus, with his solo project Shining Vril, who do a seriously deconstructed bad-trip version of ‘Sandra Lindsey’,  and finally with Foresta di Ferro, playing ‘I’m In Love With The Ambulance Driver’. What, no KnifeLadder?!

Other notable names to grace the album credits include Ernte, Changes, The Lindbergh Baby, Spiritual Front and Division S on disc one, and Aesthetic Meat Front, Artefactum with Horologium, Dead Man’s Hill and Bleiburg on disc two. Andrew King appears with Second Amendment (billed as ‘Andreas König’), singing ‘Wotan Rains On A Plutocrat Parade’, and there’s a pseudonymous appearance by ‘Love Axis’ (I have a suspicion as to who this might involve, but I’m not going to spoil the fun by telling!). Changes’ song, ‘Got So Many Women’, opens with the delicious couplet

Got so many women, sometimes I get confused,

Which ones are vegetarians, whose cats are whose…

All too often, tribute albums are a disappointing waste of time, with bands contributing witless, uncritical identikit cover versions of their hero’s work, on the grounds that the original song sounded cool, and they don’t want to mess about with it. Somehow though, The Appeal of Discarded Orthodoxy manages to escape falling into this trap. Whether this is due to the heterodox and individualistic nature of David E. Williams’ admirers, or due to the eclectic variety of Williams’ work in and of itself, I don’t know, but for example, take the two different versions of ‘Sandra Lindsey’ presented here, by Thomas Nöla et Son Orchestre and Shining Vril. Not only do they sound nothing like each other, neither of them sounds much like the original either – and this is just as it should be. This album is well worth a listen, whether you’re already a fan of Williams’ idiosyncratic, sickly humorous work or not.

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