People – self-titled (1994)

This CD was 2008’s “most elusive” release – a vexing honor which Culture Of None holds in high regard.

The story is a simple one: There were two bands in the Relapse roster during the mid-’90s that really captivated me with their zany and gonzo take on the mostly grim grindcore genre –Monastat 7 and People.

Monastat 7 was easy to track down online. There’s a very informative and complete homepage featuring all their recorded work and some video. They’ve also apparently morphed into Monastat 2600 to continue their sonic mayhem.

People, however, were nearly impossible to track down. First of all, it should be quite obvious that the word “people” in a google or eBay search is basically of no use.

They do have an official bio on Relapse Records’ website. Yet when I emailed Relapse to check on availability of the CD, they told me there wasn’t a trace of the title to be found anywhere in their warehouse. Extensive googling yeilded only a couple mentions in metal forums and CD collection lists. I even put nigma.ru (my trusted Russian search engine) to the test, with little success.

Ultimately, the key to whole puzzle was “fleaphobia“. It turns out that the self-titled CD is essentially a re-packaging of their demo, titled ‘Fleaphobia’ when originally released in their native Israel.

And the grand discovery? People has an awesome myspace page with songs beyond the four tunes on this CD, which is a great reward at the end of my mission!