Unsane is a New York City noise rock trio, formed in 1988. According to Matador Records (Unsane's former label), the band was supposed to have their debut album recorded by Circuit Records, under the name of Improvised Munitions, but Ernie Triccaro, the owner of Circuit Records, never put the album out and still owes the band some money. The band's first album to reach stores, titled Unsane for Tennis, was released three years later but quickly recalled due to the extreme cover art. It was re-released as a self-titled album shortly thereafter.
Unsane recorded their first Peel Session on May 21, 1991.
(Tracks: Organ Donor, Bath, Street Sweeper, Jungle Music, Exeter)
Unsane recorded their second Peel Session on November 26, 1991.
(Tracks: Broke, Body Bomb, Hll, Black Book (Vol II))
Their second album, Total Destruction, was released in January 1994. Unsane then recorded their third Peel Session on June 7, 1994.
(Tracks: Trench, S O S, Blew, Radio 1, Speak English)
This session remains unreleased.
Unsane is probably best known for the 1995 music video of their single "Scrape", their only video to be played on MTV, which was made for 200 dollars and depicts skateboarding wipeouts.
The band signed to Relapse Records in 1998. Later in the same year Chris Spencer was attacked by four people after playing a show in Vienna, Austria. He ended up in hospital suffering internal bleeding and was subsequently cut open from the sternum to the pelvic bone in order to fix the damage to his internal organs. As a result of this and their heavy touring schedule (touring over ten months of the year) the band decided to take a break in 2000.
Chris Spencer moved to California where he formed a new band with Dave Curran called The Cutthroats 9, releasing one album on Man's Ruin Records. Dave Curran also started a band called The J.J. Paradise Players Club and Vinnie Signorelli opened a tattoo shop in Brooklyn. Unsane reformed in 2003 upon Spencer's return to New York, and released a greatest hits record, Lambhouse, followed by Blood Run two years later. The title of Blood Run refers to how the band assembles their cover art (where they go and buy the blood and do the photo shoot the same night.)
