BITS

prag VEC: Bits / Wolf / Existential / Cigarettes

Spec Records (1978)

'There is no future, 'cause you're in a fiction'

Accomplished and confident, occasionally strident, prag VEC released two singles, and recorded three sessions for John Peel. Their name is a conflation of Pragmatic and Vector,  too complex for Ingsoc but very Philip K. Dick.

Beneath their paint spattered punk facade, Bits and Wolf have a quirky Canterbury poly-rhythm going on, an almost progressive rock-ist interest in complex time signatures and interesting chords involving lots of fingers. These short, sweet, swervy blasts are agit-prop nursery rhymes played by supply teachers high on sexual politics, radical economics and arts centre poetry.  

Existential is the pick of the bunch, a sultry slow burner punctuated by angry, intellectual sounding French language narration and a series of wild, jagged guitar solos. It's tremendous, Stereolab plus steroids. 

Finally, there's Cigarettes, which marries a busy pub rock riff with a seemingly throwaway lyric about 'the fags we smoke' ('don't forget the menthol, though they're not so common now'). The crux, however, is that the fug of multiple exhalation obscures real issues. I mean, why even try to tackle world peace or famine or inequality when you can sit around with your mates like lotus eaters sucking on a B and H and talking rubbish? 

In any event, distraction devices or not, the band fully intend to 'smoke them until we die', a common attitude among dedicated addicts, and one that I used to fervently share. Now, like an ex who you cross the street to avoid, I wonder what I ever saw in them. Cigarettes, I mean, prag VEC are great.