ST (EP) (picture sleeve with castle on grey background)

This is where it all began. With the rockabilly revival in full swing by 1981 and the Montreal scene finally awakening from its late seventies sleepwalk, friends Gerald Van Herk and Tony Dewald teamed up to form their enigmatic two-piece Deja Voodoo, channelling the Cramps' raucous punkabilly into a gumbo of previously unheard sounds. That slurry of distortion coming from Van Herk's four-string and Dewald's minimal drum kit would set the standard for much of the nineties sludgeabilly scene, and this debut seven-inch hardly disappoints. The quieter a-side underwhelms somewhat, especially when set against their excellent 1984 set Cemetery, surely the industry standard for this sort of thing. But when you consider that the White Stripes' first rumblings were still fifteen years away, the sheer awesomeness of Deja Voodoo's work really starts to sink in. (A second issue of this EP appeared on the band's own Og Music label with a slightly less austere sleeve (pictured), but with little of the Og catalogue available on CD, either version will be tough to track down in any condition.) -Michael Panontin. visit Michael's site here: http://www.canuckistanmusic.com/index.php?maid=235 Here is the first edition version of Deja Voodoo's first release. This rare record came with a fold-out sleeve (shown below).