Celebrate the re-release of 3TK4’s No Motive album, after 34 years!

The new pressing includes the underground hit “Hold Up,” mixed by Ivan Ivan; three previously unreleased bonus tracks; and a collectable booklet and insert with never-before-seen art by David Wojnarowicz. A video by Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong, of Advanced Television, completes the mix. Copies will be available for sale. The venerable Ted Reiderer will provide a vintage turntable to actually spirit us back to the pre-digital era.

3 Teens Kill 4 was born in the summer of 1980 in the East Village of New York City. They took their name from a New York Post headline. The group consisted of Doug Bressler, Brian Butterick, Julie Hair, Jesse Hultberg, and David Wojnarowicz. There was a conscious decision not to have a front person or lead singer. David made cassette tapes with voices and sounds that he held up close to a microphone, fast-forwarding and rewinding. Julie tried different rhythms on a Korg rhythm machine. Brian played a Casio drum machine, and Jesse was on bass. Doug joined the group in time to make the debut album. He was a music lover who understood how to avoid covering over the band’s non-musicality.

Brian says, “These songs are very deliberately an experiment in postmodernism. Sound bytes were stolen from the airwaves and recorded onto bargain cassette tapes. We were stripping the structure of the popular song to the bone—a sort of sonic Duchamp. And throughout it all runs a childlike sense of play: the judicious use of toys, the schoolyard chants…. All of this was happening during the dark and soul-numbing Age of Reagan, with the AIDS crisis looming on the horizon.”

Their debut 7-song mini-album No Motive was recorded during the fall of 1982, and self-released in 1983. Using rhythm boxes, tapes of news reports, odd percussion tools, and snatches of song, they chanted political narrative ideas about the modern mess at the time. The album is an amalgam of urban life: a twisted, anti-rhetorical approach to social issues. Songs weave together to create an intelligent, jarring sound. Razor-sharp guitar licks and hauntingly ominous bass lines create a tense, oblique abstraction of pain and chaos.

All songs have been remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. The jacket features a replica of the original front cover, with a black and white photo by Seiji Kakizaki, and updated back cover featuring a never-before-seen collage by David Wojnarowicz. Each copy includes a 12-page booklet with liner notes from each band member, photos, lyrics, and press clippings. We’ve also printed a special 12×24” fold out diptych painting by David Wojnarowicz, to whom this reissue is dedicated.