Rudimentary Peni are a British anarcho-punk band formed in 1980, emerging from the London anarcho-punk scene. Lead singer/guitarist Nick Blinko is notorious for his witty, macabre lyrics and dark pen-and-ink artwork, prominently featured on all of Rudimentary Peni's albums. Bassist Grant Matthews has also written several songs for the band, though his lyrics primarily focus on sociopolitical themes.

History

Rudimentary Peni were formed in June 1980 in Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire, by Blinko (vocals, guitar), Greville (drums) and Matthews (bass).

Blinko and Greville had met years prior in Langleybury Comprehensive secondary school. Greville had been playing drums since he was young, beginning lessons at the age of 10, and slowly became interested in punk rock around the time Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols by the Sex Pistols was released In his 2006 book The Day the Country Died: A History of Anarcho Punk 1980–1984, punk historian Ian Glasper referred to the sound of the Magits' EP as a "meandering collection of keyboard torture".

Early on, Rudimentary Peni had connections with fellow anarcho-punks Crass, and their second 7-inch EP, Farce, was issued by Crass Records. Up through the band's first studio album, Death Church (1983), their records were packaged in fold-out paper sleeves full of artwork, lyrics and poster graphics characteristic of Crass and many other bands in the anarcho-punk scene.

In 1987, the band's first two EPs were collected by Corpus Christi Records as The EPs of RP.

Rudimentary Peni stopped performing in the mid-1980s after bassist Matthews was diagnosed with cancer. After a four-year hiatus, they recorded Cacophony (1988), a sonic tribute to seminal New England horror author H. P. Lovecraft. Mark Ferelli, a fellow musician, introduced Blinko to Lovecraft; the pair also pushed each other's pen-and-ink artwork forward via friendly competition.

The band continued to record and release material into the 21st century, including the album Pope Adrian 37th Psychristiatric (1995) and the EPs Echoes of Anguish (1998), The Underclass (2000), Archaic (2004) and No More Pain (2008), and have maintained a diverse cult following in the United States punk scene. Most reissues of their 1980s albums are now out of print.

Blinko authored a semi-autobiographical novel called The Primal Screamer, published in 1995 by Spare Change Books (his bandmates and Ferelli appear under false names), as well as the more recent The Haunted Head (2009, Coptic Cat) and Visions of Pope Adrian 37th (2011, Coptic Cat). Blinko has also become increasingly popular in the outsider art scene.

Musical style and influence

In an interview with The Guardian in 2016, the band was citied along with a number of other British anarcho-punk bands of the early 80s as being an influence to the American avant-garde metal group Neurosis.

A 2018 article in the US magazine Revolver stated that the band merges "eighties anarcho-punk into seething death rock via the nightmarish poetry of certifiably schizoid frontman Nick Blinko".

Members

  • Nick Blinko – guitar, vocals, artwork, lyrics
  • Grant Matthews – bass, lyrics
  • Jon Greville – drums

Discography

<small>Chart placings shown are from the UK Indie Chart.</small>

Studio albums

  • Death Church LP (Corpus Christi Records, 1983) <small>(No. 3)</small>
  • Cacophony LP (Outer Himalayan, 1988) <small>(No. 7)</small>
  • Pope Adrian 37th Psychristiatric CD (Outer Himalayan, 1995)
  • The Great War (2021, Sealed Records)

EPs

  • Rudimentary Peni 7-inch EP (1981, Outer Himalayan)
  • Farce 7-inch EP (1982, Crass Records) (#7)
  • Echoes of Anguish 12-inch EP/CD EP (1998, Outer Himalayan)
  • The Underclass 7-inch EP/CD EP (2000, Outer Himalayan)
  • Archaic 10-inch EP/CD EP (2004, Outer Himalayan)
  • No More Pain 12-inch EP/CD EP (2008, Southern Records)

Singles

  • Wilfred Owen the Chance CD (2009, Coptic Cat/Outer Himalayan)

Live albums

  • Derby 1993 (2015, Sheffield Tape Archive)

Compilation albums

  • The EPs of RP LP (1987, Corpus Christi Records)

References

  • Rudimentary Peni on Facebook
  • Rudimentary Peni on Discogs
  • Rudimentary Peni 1988 interview on Troubled Times Radio