Ari Up, RIP

If you've never heard of Arianna Forster, you'll be forgiven. Hell, if you've never heard of Ari Up I'll even let you slide. Ari was the front woman of the early British punk band The Slits. To call The Slits seminal would be missing the mark; the band was hugely individualistic, a big part of the early punk scene, but they were largely overlooked.

The Slits formed in 1976; toured with The Clash, The Jam and the Buzzcocks in 1977; but didn't release their first album until 1979. By that time, their sound had morphed from its early chaotic, spasmodic punk drive into something more unusual, a sort of poly-rhythmic mesh of punk, reggae and funk. Though they'll always be connected with the core Brit-punk explosion of 1977, I'll always most closely associate their music with the next step, what I'll call the agit-pop phase from '79 to '81 (when they broke up). And I'll always think of their music in the same way I think of Gang of Four and, particularly, The Pop Group, with whom The Slits shared a split-single (Rough Trade 039A) in 1980.

Ari Up was only 14 when she joined The Slits in 1976. She died on Wednesday, October 20, 2010, the result of a serious but unspecified illness. A more detailed obituary was published in The Guardian earlier this week.

For those that would like to get a sense of her music (or to enjoy the memories), I've included three videos below. The first is from the early years, an excerpt from Don Lett's 1977 film "The Punk Rock Movie;" you'll need to wade through about a minute worth of punk-film action before making it to their performance. Next up is The Slits only "hit," "Typical Girls" (1979), not their greatest song but a classic, old school video. And last is an audio-only clip of "In The Beginning There Was Rhythm," their track on that 1980 split-single with The Pop Group; it for me is the most indicative of The Slits sound. Enjoy. And RIP, Ari.