Sin-Gles! by Limbo District

“Limbo District were to Athens what the B52s were to the New York punk scene – they just turned it on its head. New York had never seen or heard anything like the B52s before – they rewrote the idea of where punk rock could go after the first wave was done. And Limbo District welcomed a new age of what Athens music could be.”
– Michael Stipe
It’s no surprise if you’ve never heard, or even heard of, Limbo District. Acclaimed by many who were there as one of the most important, most thrilling, most combustible bands of Athens, Georgia’s percolating early-80s postpunk scene, their footprint and afterlife have been minimal, not least because they released no records during the twenty five months they existed. But now, thanks to the efforts of 21st century music archaeologists – and guitarist, Kelly Crow, who has guarded the remaining relics of Limbo District since the group’s untimely demise – those of us who weren’t at those legendary house parties back in the day can finally experience a group like no other.
SIN-GLES! is the third in a series of archival longform releases of Limbo District music, following 2024’s Live Limbo and the Carnival EP (collecting music recorded with Mitch Easter for Jim Herbert’s unforgettable short film of the same name). This compilation collects tracks released in 2023 as limited lathe-cut seven-inches by Chunklet Industries. ‘Rhythm Forward,’ ‘Knock Knock Lobo’ and ‘Encased’ were taped at a 1981 rehearsal when founding guitarist Margarita Bilbão was still with the group. It’s remarkable how fully formed they arrived on this earliest recording, a bubbling riot of herky-jerky rhythms, Bilbão’s life-affirmingly untutored attack, Dominique Amet’s needling Farfisa, Jerry Ayers’ lopsided, predatory rhythms, Davey Stevenson’s sinewy undertow and frontman Craig Woodall’s vocals, always at a right-angle to everything around him.
The music grew out of long jam sessions and feels like the missing link between ‘In The Beginning There Was Rhythm’-era Slits and Swiss punks Kleenex/Liliput, an avant garde, vaudevillian riot, performance art that revels in both the performance and the art. “I felt like I was hearing folk music from some otherworldly place,” says Keith Strickland of B52s, a fan and friend. “They were unlike any of the other bands in Athens at the time. It was very rhythmic and free. Their performances were sexy and surreal, playful and imaginative.”
Bilbão exited and been replaced by Tim Lacy by the time they recorded ‘Two Of Screams,’ ‘Fetish This’ and the eerily beautiful, Velvets-esque ‘Daydreaming’ at Bombay Studios in nearby Smyrna, Georgia in early 1982. The sessions showcase a growing sophistication in their primal pummel, but their ferocity remains intact: check Lacy’s spiralling guitar lines, Woodall’s guttural howls and sharp-angled holler, and the wild voodoo within their punked-out funk. Lacy himself was gone by the time the group cut these versions of ‘Have You Seen Margo?,’ ‘Funhouse,’ ‘New Ground’ and ‘Circle of Monkeys’ during a rehearsal later that year, replaced by Atlantan native Kelly Crow.
By now, Limbo District were a seasoned touring band who’d travelled up and down the East Coast several times. They weren’t finding many takers for their unique, artful postpunk, however, even despite the support of more accessible peers like R.E.M. and Pylon. “People either loved us or hated us, there really was nobody on the fence,” remembers Crow. “They would either go, 'I've never heard this before and I like it,’ or 'it hurts my ears.’” The take of ‘5 Til 12’ here, captured at the I & I Club in November 1982, gives us a taste of a live attack that Crow says some disparaged as “a cathartic event”; it sounds like fine, thrilling art to these ears, its only crime perhaps being far ahead of its time.
But even if they sounded like the future, Limbo District were a band without one. The group imploded in 1983, shortly after the premiere of Jim Herbert’s Carnival, as relationships within Limbo District foundered, and the five members scattered to new projects and challenges, a story expounded upon in SIN-GLES! sleeve-notes by famed British scribe Stevie Chick who holds the distinction of being the first to write about the band in 40 years . . . in the Guardian, no less.
Gone, they would never be forgotten, not by those whose retinas were lucky enough to be scarred by their theatrical, intense live shows, whose hearts still pulse to their offbeat and utterly inspired rhythms. And now we all get to experience this darkly erotic, fearlessly libertine magic. Don’t take the opportunity for granted.

We're All In This Together. Except you. You're a dick. LOCAL PICK UPS WELCOME!

chunklet.com
Instagram