Ireland In 50 Albums, No 31: Comforter by Compulsion (1994)
Dublin band Compulsion, in their early days.
In September 2005 Spin, the American music magazine, named their “Ten Best Two Album Bands”. Joining a list that included Joy Division, The Stone Roses, The Slits, New York Dolls and Slint were Compulsion.
It wasn’t the first time Compulsion were name-checked in such auspicious company. In a 1993 end-of-year review the NME named their “Top 20 Turn-Ons of ‘93”.
On that list the Dublin punk band joined Rage Against the Machine, Elastica and Tindersticks. “An object lesson in how to ROCK that marked Compulsion down as the indie AC/DC,” wrote the NME about the band.
Garret “Jacknife” Lee, who is now a Los Angeles-based producer famed for his work with U2, REM, Taylor Swift and others, is animated when talking about his old band.
“We were a gang, and our fight was against everybody else and I think the fight that we had in us was dangerous because we didn’t actually know how to not use it,” says Jacknife. “Our live shows became a show for people, which one of us is going to injure themselves?”
In Compulsion, Jacknife played guitar and was joined by Josephmary aka Joey Barry on vocals, Sid Rainey on bass and Jan Alkema on drums. His former bandmates remember the injuries.
“I accidentally smacked my bass on Joey’s jaw once, really hard but he stood strong, hardly missed a beat and kept going, and that was impressive,” says Rainey. “All Garret’s injuries were self-inflicted, he had some impressive accidents on and literally off the stage.”
Alkema recalls: “When we supported the Manic Street Preachers Garret did a somersault off a stage expecting the crowd to catch him. However, they parted like the Red Sea and he landed flat on his back from a height of about 7 foot.”
Barry remembers the incident, “He ended up in Cardiff Royal Infirmary that night, he nearly ruptured a kidney. We did hurt ourselves a few times. That’s the way it was, but there was nothing choreographed about it, we were young and full of vim and vigour.”
The “fight” within Compulsion was a reaction to the bad experience the members had when they were in Thee Amazing Colossal Men years earlier. Jacknife, met Barry and Rainey in Dublin in the early 1980s.
They played in local bands including Casablanca Moon and Above the Thunderclouds and by the late '80s all three were in Thee Amazing Colossal Men. They signed a record deal and released Totale, their debut album in 1990.
A second album, with their newly recruited Dutch drummer Alkema, was recorded in LA but things soured when Virgin Records rejected the record. They sued their label and won. Newly independent, they vowed to do things differently.
“To go from the dizzying heights of recording at Sunset Sound in LA to being essentially told “you’ll never work in this town again” was terrifying,” admits Alkema.
“But, we had grown towards one another so completely that it made no sense to go our separate ways. The vision for Compulsion was entirely down to Garret.”
“We felt very let down by the music business,” recalls Barry. “We met such lazy, self-indulgent, entitled people in those years that our plan with Compulsion was to do it ourselves, on our own terms and finance it all ourselves.
“We were frustrated and angry, but we were all very close as people and we still had the energy. Those were the great ingredients: anger and energy. It was a brilliantly liberating time.”
Compulsion self-released two highly-regarded EPs and signed a new deal with One Little Indian. The Indie label was flying high on the success of Björk and The Shamen and the UK music weeklies loved their new Irish signing. ‘Mall Monarchy’, Compulsion’s first single for the label was awarded ‘Single of the Week’ in both Melody Maker and NME.
‘Basketcase’, the next single, was a gnarly guitar-driven tune, Barry’s raspy vocal delivery floated on a bed of thunderous bass and ferocious drums. It became a staple of mid-90s Indie discos both here and in the UK. “It’s the story of Moses in the basket being put in the river, a theme of resilience and speculation and letting the river take its course,” says Barry.
“It was a metaphor for what we were doing with our music. We wanted to launch it into the river and see what happened on our own terms.”
Comforter was released in April 1994 and the band’s relentless touring schedule in Britain ensured that it landed at No. 3 in the UK Indie Chart. In 1995 Entertainment Weekly wrote that, “the criminally overlooked Comforter is lined with some of the most fiery, impassioned, crisp postpunk since the Pixies.”
Compulsion released one more album, 1996’s The Future is Medium – another criminally overlooked record. The album was all but ignored by a UK music press giddy on the jingoism of Britpop.
“We were very disappointed with the whole experience of the second album. The whole Britpop phenomenon, it was just horrible,” says Barry. “One minute we were darlings of the press and the next minute we couldn’t get arrested.” Compulsion broke up in late 1996 and the four members moved on with their lives.
“Once Compulsion finished, we stopped talking to each other. It was as if we’d all witnessed a crime and ran away from it, I hadn’t listened to Compulsion since then,” says Jacknife.
“Then last summer, somehow we got Joey’s number and we started a WhatsApp group. It was the first time we had all spoken to each other and it was so beautiful.
“One Little Independent who were One Little Indian approached us at the same time and said, do you want to put these records out again? I was walking around this morning listening and instead of the experience opening up emotional pain, I thought, damn these are good records.” Rainey couldn’t agree more: “I am so feckin’ happy. The record sounds great. We were a real band, and we were brilliant. I am seriously proud.
"All those songs are now starting to fall on fresh ears, they’re starting to do what great songs do; they’re beginning to talk to a whole new generation, and they have stood the test of time. Compulsion still owns a huge chunk of my heart. We went through a lot together.”
Alkema also hadn’t listened to his old band in years. “My two children started to listen to the band in their early teens and told me they couldn’t believe how good it was. So they kind of dragged me back into listening to our back catalogue. To my ears Comforter still sounds massive and epic, I think it has aged really well as a rock album. I miss the lads enormously, but thankfully we’re all still alive and I am eternally grateful for the time we had together.”
It’s proved a similar experience for Barry: “I was nine years older than Garret and Sid so when Compulsion ended I was in my late 30s. I was like a priest who lost his religion, it’s funny because my musical knowledge ends in 1997. I was pretty clued in until then.
“I had to stop listening to music as a result of my second disappointment in a band, to me it was all empty and horrible. When I listened back to Compulsion recently I smiled a lot, it sounds better than I thought it did and I’ve gotten my friends back.”
After Compulsion ended Joey Barry returned to Dublin and spent over 25 years working as a landscaper.
Sid Rainey created the children’s hit BBC animation series Underground Ernie. He is a photographer focusing on portraiture, landscapes and street photography.
Jan Alkema joined English punk-rock band China Drum and has worked as an audio actor providing Dutch voiceovers for British adverts.
Jacknife Lee has spent his time since Compulsion producing albums. His CV includes helming records for U2, Snow Patrol, The Killers and Taylor Swift. As Telefís he released two albums with the late Cathal Coughlan.
Comforter and The Future is Medium are being reissued on vinyl by One Little Independent Records in January.
- Paul McDermott’s podcast To Here Knows When – Great Irish Albums Revisited is available on all listening platforms. https://www.paulmcdermott.ie/podcast
