Virgin Prunes – A New Form Of Beauty

The Virgin Prunes’ highly ambitious “A New Form of Beauty” project saw them tackle the tricky concept of the beauty that can be found in being different (in this case both physically and musically), an idea that had informed the initial formation of The Lypton Village. The first part of this project “A New Form of Beauty 1”(1981), took the form of a 7-inch single and featured “Sandpaper Lullaby” a song that was both mysterious and seductive and did little to prepare the listener for the noisy and dark emissions of their next 10-inch single “A New Form of Beauty 2 “(1981) which featured “Come To Daddy” a frightening tale of incest. Attempting to explore all record formats, the 12-inch “A New Form of Beauty 3”(1981) followed conjuring visions of fear in “Beast (Seven Bastard Suck)”.

The final instalment, “A New Form of Beauty 4”(1982) took the form of a cassette release which consisted of “Din Glorious”, extracts from the group’s performance at their “A New Form of Beauty 5” exhibition at the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College Dublin, on 8 November 1981. The track mixed early songs from the three previous ‘Forms” with a variety of taped sounds to extremely unsettling effect. The cassette release was the last musical format in the series, as mentioned earlier “A New Form of Beauty 5” was an exhibition where as “A New Form of Beauty 6” became an unpublished book and “A New Form of Beauty 7” an unreleased film.

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.