Pulsallama

A playful post-punk percussion collective, Pulsallama started out as a performance art project and became an underground pop sensation with an international following during their short, memorable career. Except for bass guitar, Pulsallama's music was constructed entirely from vocals and percussion instruments, generating a bed of homemade polyrhythms that meshed with the absurdist humor of their lyrics. The group's all-female membership comprised as few as seven members and as many as 13 at different points in their history, and though Pulsallama's only album remains unreleased, the two singles they issued in their lifetime and an EP preserving a 1983 radio performance show their music was vital, danceable, and full of fun.

Pulsallama formed in 1981 as part of a "Rites of Spring Bacchanal" evening at Club 57, a nightclub and performance space on New York's Lower East Side. Several regulars at the club had hatched the idea of an all-female percussion orchestra based on the punk credo that one didn't have to be a trained musician to make music. One of the participants, <a href="spotify:artist:5dcXREoVoEL6BbRl5oHSz2">Ann Magnuson</a> (who would become a successful actress and a member of the group <a href="spotify:artist:6JooToEGjbAab8XNmXqkF8">Bongwater</a>), coined their name by free-associating "Pulse-Matic" (a brand of blender she owned) and "Llama." The initial lineup featured Lori Montana on bass, <a href="spotify:artist:31Q5PeNkYecPRAHpWXARrs">Jean Caffeine</a> on trap drums and vocals, and Kim Davis, Stacey Elkin, Dany Johnson, Katy K, Diana Lillig, <a href="spotify:artist:5dcXREoVoEL6BbRl5oHSz2">Ann Magnuson</a>, April Palmieri, Charlotte Slivka, Min Thometz, Andé Whyland, and Wendy Wild on vocals and various percussion instruments ranging from Latin drums to empty beer bottles.

The participants initially didn't plan on making Pulsallama an ongoing project. However, the enthusiastic reception to their "Rites of Spring" performance led to an offer to play a gig at a rock club, and that second show earned a rave review in New York Rocker magazine and generated serious buzz about the group. They were soon making the rounds of downtown clubs, and when U.K. noise terrorists <a href="spotify:artist:3fBmq4xVcd346QvErp6fko">the Pop Group</a> played a New York concert, <a href="spotify:artist:31Q5PeNkYecPRAHpWXARrs">Jean Caffeine</a> met the group's manager, Dick O'Dell, who also ran a record label, <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Y+Records%22">Y Records</a>. <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Y%22">Y</a> offered to put out a record, and a 12" single, "Ungawa, Pt. II (Way Out Guiana)" b/w "The Devil Lives in My Husband's Body," came out in 1982. By this time, Pulsallama began to shrink; within a few months of their first show, Katy K, Diana Lillig, and Charlotte Slivka bowed out, and not long after the first single arrived, <a href="spotify:artist:5dcXREoVoEL6BbRl5oHSz2">Ann Magnuson</a>, Dany Johnson, and Andé Whyland drifted away from the group. When Judy Streng took over from Lori Montana on bass, the final edition of Pulsallama was complete.

The first single garnered positive reviews and enough underground airplay that they were brought over to the U.K. for a tour. While in England, the band cut a Yuletide single with <a href="spotify:artist:2Ay1hHYVBSJU6Dhhs6mGnR">Pigbag</a>, played a show with <a href="spotify:artist:70MMkLXtue3Edj3RJhJkYp">Public Image Limited</a>, and made a fan of <a href="spotify:artist:6QFIIkwi4R2erQsIp0TDSb">Mick Jones</a> of <a href="spotify:artist:3RGLhK1IP9jnYFH4BRFJBS">the Clash</a>, who arranged for them to open a few shows on the American leg of their Combat Rock tour. A second single, "Oui-Oui (A Canadian in Paris)" b/w "Pulsallama on the Rag," was issued in 1983, and the group was headlining clubs at home and abroad. Though Pulsallama completed the recording of a full-length album, <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Y+Records%22">Y Records</a> ran into severe financial problems, and the group were unable to raise the money to settle the unpaid studio bill and reclaim the tapes. The band grew disenchanted with their management and booking agencies, and what had started as spontaneous fun began to feel more like a chore. Pulsallama decided to break up rather than continue, and played a farewell show in July of 1983. The album remains unreleased to this day, but in 2020, <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Modern+Harmonic%22">Modern Harmonic</a> released Pulsallama, a seven-song EP drawn from a 1983 live-in-the-studio session they recorded in New York for broadcast on French radio. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi