We Buy a Hammer for Daddy is an album by British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 experimental rock

Experimental rock

Experimental rock or avant-garde rock is a type of music based on rock which experiments with the basic elements of the genre, or which pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique....

 group Lemon Kittens, consisting then of musicians Karl Blake

Karl Blake

Karl Blake is a vocalist, bassist, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. Most of his own music can be described as progressive-experimental and sometimes psychedelic.-Musical career:...

 and Danielle Dax

Danielle Dax

Danielle Dax is an experimental musician and producer most active from the late-1970s to the mid-1990s. She was born in Southend-on-Sea, Essex.- Biography :...

. It was engineered by David Mellor and released in 1980 on Steven Stapleton's

Steven Stapleton

Steven Peter Stapleton is a British musician and the only constant member of experimental improv outfit Nurse with Wound...

and John Fothergill's United Dairies record label. It was re-released on CD on Dax' own label Biter of Thorpe in 1993. The cover featured a drawing by Danielle Dax, differing slightly on the LP and the CD release.

Reception

"[...] bizarre mix of chalkboard saxophones, spacy flutes, chunky guitars, and claustrophobic close-miked keyboards, topped off with vocals by Karl Blake (mildly hysterical) and Danielle Dax (curiously detached). The tracks, with one exception all under four minutes duration, are all highly original and have little precedent either in or beyond the annals of British pop/rock [...] We Buy a Hammer for Daddy belongs with Alternative TV's Vibing Up the Senile Man and the first This Heat LP as one of the milestones of experimental rock music." - allmusic.com

"Each track is a gem [...] Lemon Kittens were a hidden treasure of the British Isles and there was nobody like them before or since. For anyone who is into 'outsider creations', the more minimal moments of Beefheart, anything by The Residents etc., then you should be taken in by this short-lived and utterly enchanted lost duo." - headheritage.co.uk

Track listing

1. Pain Topics (4:24)
2. Reversal 2 (2:34)
3. These Men Of Old England (2:25)
4. Wrist Job / Once Green And Pleasant Land (2:45)
5. Lycanthrothene (3:06)
6. Motet (3:10)
7. Throat Violence (2:28)
8. False Alarm (Malicious) (1:58)
9. P.V.S (1:55)
10. Small Mercies (2:03)
11. Coasters (3:48)
12. Up In Arms (2:34)
13. The American Cousin (1:50)
14. Evidence (2:25)
15. Rome Burning (1:31)
16. (Afraid Of Being) Bled By Leeches (2:14)