Hit and Run

Existing for only a few years in which they played an alleged total of five gigs and released no music, New York City proto-punkers Jack Ruby were frontrunners of the No Wave movement and easily one of the more perfectly obscure bands of their day. Described at points as "the Velvet Underground in a car crash," Jack Ruby found the same nexus of painful noise and dumbstruck rock & roll that made White Light/White Heat an unlistenable masterpiece, but shared the nihilistic spirit of early Cleveland punk gnarlers like the Electric Eels and Rocket from the Tombs. Career retrospective Hit & Run gathers most if not all of Jack Ruby's known studio recordings, demos, and experiments, splayed across a massive two-volume set. The first installment focuses on the band's punky, pre-No Wave scuzz rock, including a 2013 remix of their noxious tune "Bad Teeth" by alt rock studio wizard Don Flemming. The second volume is more experimental, including lengthy, noisy synth workouts by keyboardist Randy Cohen; one of the first musicians to explore the wild parameters of the Serge modular synthesizer.