An essential New York record.

The debut studio album by American experimental rock band Massacre has been reissued on vinyl via the Spittle label.

Originally released in 1981, Killing Time is the lone collaboration between guitarist Fred Frith of British avant-rock group Henry Cow and Material’s Bill Laswell and Fred Maher.

Following the demise of Henry Cow, Frith moved to NYC in 1979 where he became embedded in the city’s post-punk and free jazz scenes, performing with Laswell and Maher as Massacre. The trio experimented heavily with rhythm, time signatures and tone, nailing “a furiously addictive brand of semi-improvised, nitro-enhanced instrumental rock,” which groups like Ruins and Battles would pick up on decades later, as we said of the record in FACT’s 100 Best Albums of the 1980s.

As Frith put it: “The group was a direct response to New York. It was a very aggressive group, kind of my reaction to the whole New York rock club scene.”

Killing Time was the band’s only studio album before disbanding. The group eventually reformed in 1998 to record three more albums, with This Heat’s Charles Hayward replacing Maher on drums.

The 2016 reissue of Killing Time includes eight bonus tracks recorded live between ‘80 and ‘81 and is expected to ship on January 5, 2017. Listen to the title track below. [via The Vinyl Factory]

Read next: The 100 Best Albums of the 1980s

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