[This review was originally published in Badaboom Gramaphone #3 and appears here with permission.]
Coalescing at the tail end of the cute-rock revolt egged on by K Records and perhaps the Pastels, Guv’ner, a co-ed duo of Pumpkin Wentzel and Charles Gansa, emerged in 1994 with a mass of brilliant pop hooks but a startling inability to actually perform them. Instant hipster fodder for the Lower East Side indie world thanks to Wentzel’s friendship with former Pussy Galore guitarist Julia Cafritz (who had a hand in recording Guv’ner’s first three major releases), the couple (with two guest drummers) debuted on Thurston Moore’s label Ecstatic Peace with the dissonant data poem Hard for Measy for You. The pair’s inherent chemistry and incessant charm cut through the treble-kicked scree to make rock anthems out of songs like “Little Bitch on the Phone” and “Wild Couple.”
Produced by Cafritz, the four-song Knight Moves transmogrifies the inept potential of the first record into a bona fide indie-rock machine, with tag-team vocals coughing up such singalong gems as “Baby’s Way Cruel” and “I Wanna,” not to mention the manifesto “Clear the Room,” wherein our heroes declare, “Out of tune / It’s no ideal / Cannot croon / But I can squeal!” A track called “Coitus City” for the film Screwed followed and remains one of the group’s most memorable tunes, a paean to porn imbued with language like “finger-banging” and “Lesbo scene / So serene.”
The Hunt is Guv’ner’s coup de grâce, a brilliant, shockingly mature and competent avant-pop trainwreck. As the duo emerges from the lo-fi tent, Gansa’s formidable talent for pulling hooks out of the air comes to fruition. “Ghost of Your Controllership,” “Feet on Wood,” “Motorcycle Man” and “Break a Promise” litter The Hunt with mesmerizingly simple swipes at your soft side; at once clumsy and irretrievably poignant.
Percussionist Danny Tunick made Guv’ner an official trio on the self-produced Spectral Worship, which includes a gender-flipped cover of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy.”