The Sound the Speed the Light is the fourth studio LP by Mission of Burma.

Artist/Band Information

Mission of Burma is an American post-punk band formed in Boston, Massachusetts in 1979. The band was formed by Roger Miller (guitar), Clint Conley (bass), Peter Prescott (drums) and Martin Swope (tape manipulator/sound engineer). Miller, Conley and Prescott share singing and songwriting duties. Like many of their post-punk contemporaries, Mission of Burma's efforts are largely concerned with extending punk's original vocabulary without losing its essential rebellious spirit. Using rapid shifts in dynamics, unconventional time signatures and chord progressions along with tape effects, Mission of Burma challenges the prevailing idioms of punk while attempting to retain its power and immediacy.

In early years the band's audience was limited to the Boston area, with all their recordings released on the small Boston-based record label Ace of Hearts. Despite initial success, Mission of Burma disbanded in 1983 due to Miller's development of tinnitus caused by the volume of the band's live performances. The band released only one album in its original lineup, Vs.. Mission of Burma reformed in 2002, with Bob Weston replacing Swope, and has since recorded three more albums, ONoffON, The Obliterati, and The Sound The Speed The Light.

History

Formation and early history

Mission of Burma's history began with a short-lived Boston rock group called Moving Parts. The band included Roger Miller, who had moved to Boston from Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Clint Conley, who came from Darien, Connecticut.Azerrad, 2001. p. 96 While the members were all friendly, Conley and Miller wanted a more hard-rocking sound than keyboardist Erik Lindgren wanted to pursue. When Moving Parts broke up amicably in December 1978, Miller and Conley began practicing. The pair auditioned drummers by playing "out" music, such as Sun Ra and James Brown, until the applicant left. They eventually recruited ex-Molls drummer Peter Prescott, who had admired the music of Moving Parts.Azerrad, 2001. p. 97

They took their name from a "Mission of Burma" plaque Conley saw on a New York City diplomatic building; he thought the phrase had a "sort of murky and disturbing" quality. Mission of Burma made their debut in April 1, 1979 as a trio, performing at The Modern Theater. Later that month Miller wrote a song, "Nu Disco", that he felt would be improved by a tape loop.Azerrad, 2001. p. 98 Miller then contacted Martin Swope, with whom he had earlier written some John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen-inspired pieces for piano and tape. Swope was immediately enlisted as the group's live audio engineer and occasional tape-effects artist. His latter role grew gradually, until by 1981 he was adding tape work to most of the group's songs, and was regarded as an integral part of the group, appearing in group photographs and receiving equal credit on recordings.

From the start, Mission of Burma received support from local music magazine Boston Rock, which printed a lengthy interview with the band before they released their first record, and Boston college radio station WMBR. The station played Conley's "Peking Spring" repeatedly, and it became the station's most-played song of 1979. Mission of Burma wanted to release the song as a single, but by the time they had found a label, they felt the song had run its course.Azerrad, 2001. p. 99

Signals and Vs.

By 1981, the band signed a record deal with the Boston-based record label Ace of Hearts. Their debut recording was a single of Conley's "Academy Fight Song" backed with Miller's "Max Ernst" (titled after the dada artist). Rick Harte's layered production was far more refined than the band's ragged live performances, and the band initially objected to the single. However, the first pressing of the single sold out quickly, and the band thereafter trusted Harte's judgement.

Their debut release, the EP Signals, Calls, and Marches, was released in 1981. By the end of that year, the EP had sold out its initial pressing of 10,000

copies.

In 1982, Mission of Burma released their only full-length studio record Vs.. The album has since seen wide praise; one review notes "very few American bands from the 1980s released an album as ambitious or as powerful as Vs., and it still sounds like a classic." "New Nails" seems to set the stage for Sonic Youth, with jagged guitar and shouted lyrics like "The Roman Empire never died / Just changed it to the Catholic Church;" Roger Miller has stated that line "derives" from Philip K. Dick's VALIS.