Reviews

Bona Rays Poser / Getaway Blues 7″

The backstory to this record is amazing: a teenager named Chas was singing to herself while tearing down a poster in a UK tube station in 1978 when a passerby spotted her and suggested that she try out as the vocalist for his friend Tony’s new project. That band quickly became BONA RAYS, who went into a studio to record a single after just a few weeks of rehearsals, but when they weren’t able to find a label to put it out, the acetate wound up sitting in a box in Chas’s house for the next four decades. During a move in 2018, Chas takes a box of records to sell to Flashback Records in London, who discover the abandoned acetate inside, start playing it in the store, and ask her about the mystery recording, a serendipitous connection that ultimately leads to the shop’s in-house label giving the single its first proper vinyl release. The A-side “Poser” is a jumpy delight, adding buzzing new wave synth to some classically hyper-charged three-chord punk, while the lyrics deliver a pointed scene critique (not entirely unlike the TELEVISION PERSONALITIES’ “Part Time Punks”) directed toward a privileged art school girl performatively wearing “Rock Against Racism on her lapel”—Chas was a woman of West Indian descent fronting a band in a predominately white ’70s UK punk scene, and the rescue of these lost recordings is playing a significant role in finally giving her some much-overdue recognition for her role as an early Black punk heroine. The glossy synth-wave by way of punky reggae number “Getaway Blues” on the B-side doesn’t quite live up to the firecracker impact of “Poser,” but that still leaves one solid belter that would fit in perfectly between BLONDIE and X-RAY SPEX at your next ’77-’82-themed DJ night.