During avant-pop group Steaming Coils’ brief but fruitful existence in LA's underground-music scene in the latter half of the '80s, they released three very peculiar albums. Among them, 1988's Breaded, which Seattle's Medical Records is reissuing on September 2 on colored vinyl, along with a bonus 7-inch that includes six tracks from an unreleased fourth LP*.

Led by Brad Laner (Medicine, Savage Republic) and David Chrisman (3 Day Stubble), Steaming Coils were largely overlooked in their day and are still unjustly obscure. On Breaded, these sonic misfits create a bizarre, alternative-reality form of pop where all of the chord progressions are unexpected yet still beguiling.

Steaming Coils were like Beatles fanatics trying to master the Captain Beefheart songbook, or a circus-music-loving prog-rock ensemble striving to crack the Top 40, but without ever having had the advantage of listening to the radio. The song “A Story Donut—Breaded” could serve as an exemplary case. It starts as a somewhat conventional acoustic-guitar-led ballad, but halfway through, it's as if someone fed the band DMT, and a haywire hullabaloo ensues akin to that mad interlude in Pere Ubu's "30 Seconds Over Tokyo." It may take four or five listens, but the 13 tracks on Breaded will snake their way in and trigger weird vibrations in your pleasure centers.

I interviewed Steaming Coils' main composer Brad Laner by email about their unconventional background and methods—and why the world may still not be ready for one of rock's oddest oddballs.

The Stranger: Breaded was recorded while you were 21, if I’m doing the math correctly. This is not by any stretch of the imagination typical music made by young people. How in the hell did you arrive at this very convoluted take on pop/rock? How did these bizarre yet sometimes insanely catchy and improbably beautiful songs come into being?
Brad Laner: I was indeed age 20 and 21 in 1987 and ’88 when Breaded was recorded. At the time I was obsessed with Smile-era Beach Boys, Beefheart, Henry Cow and all of their then active offshoots: Nurse With Wound, Hafler Trio, and all of that ilk and all sorts of early-'70s prog and kraut rock, which seemed a million years old in the bright and shiny world of '80s pop music. Pair all of those influences with my having acquired a 4-track tape recorder and harbored ambitions to produce records along with, to be charitable, a “developing" skill set on the instruments of the rock combo. But mostly having David Chrisman, whose lyrics and vocals were unique, baffling, funny, and even moving, to finish my tracks equaled whatever weird magic that we conjured together.

After Steaming Coils, you went on to play in Savage Republic, Medicine, Electric Company, Amnesia, Lusk, and many other units. None of these projects really sounds like Steaming Coils, from what I can gather (I admit I haven’t heard all of your music). Was this material just too idiosyncratic and difficult to follow up on? Was it always meant to be a one-off anomaly?
Steaming Coils was my main songwriting focus for most of the mid-'80s while simultaneously doing my other group, Debt of Nature, which had become purely improvisational. I actually think there’s a big dose of Steaming Coils in the albums released under my own name within the last 10 years and even some in the recent Medicine reunion LPs, if you’re listening out for such things. But so much of it comes down to David’s vocals as the unifying Steaming Coils sound. Once he decided he’d had enough music-making, he got his physics degree and went to Geneva to work on the large collider, and that was the end of that sound for the most part.

Did Steaming Coils play out much? What sort of reactions did you provoke?
Only a couple of times and it was not usually the best expression of the band. We thrived in a cozy, insulated home-recording environment. Reactions were virtually nil. It’s amazing we managed to get records out at all. We must have been cute and/or charming.

Do you think the world is finally ready for Steaming Coils—I mean, beyond a coterie of weirdos? I can almost imagine people into early Pixies, XTC, and Mercury Rev getting into it.
No, it’s a coterie of weirdos for us now and forever. Without a doubt. We had our fun and there are records. Nothing more is needed or desired.

You can purchase Steaming Coils' Breaded through Medical Records. There's also a limited-edition cassette containing unreleased demos and outtakes available by ordering through Medical.