May 2013
12 posts
CCR Headcleaner – s/t 7” EP (Caesar Cuts)
RECOMMENDED
From the shake of the band Long Legged Woman, whose sole album Nobody Knows This Is Nowhere holds up as a fine document of a band pushing their way out of a box, comes CCR Headcleaner, in which they’ve soaked the cardboard walls of that box with bongwater and lamp oil, and smoked their way out in a haze of toxins and sweat. True mutants fortify themselves with a three-guitar attack...
Curriculum Mortis – Sentencia De Muerte LP (Ultra...
RECOMMENDED
Teenage kids living in the oppressive uncertainty of late ‘80s Peru created this masterpiece of shit-fi metal. It sounds like two warring armies of noisy, chitinous insects discovered early black metal (Hellhammer, Bathory, Mayhem) and U.S. thrash/crossover, respectively, and swarmed one another in a battle to the death. Curriculum Mortis was not alone in the hardcore/metal scene...
Decoy with Joe McPhee – Spontaneous Combustion LP...
RECOMMENDED
Somewhere in the ‘90s, Joe McPhee decided to cut to the chase, and since then total improvisation is his main mode of performance. But he hasn’t forgotten all the jazz lore he absorbed through study and practice in the preceding half century, and that knowledge stands him in good stead in his encounters with the English trio Decoy. The instrumentation favored by Alexander Hawkins,...
Dissipated Face With Daniel Carter – Live At CBGB...
Free sax deity Daniel Carter must’ve been stooping pretty low in 1986 to end up backing this calculated-sounding anti-whatever trio, helmed by Ultra Vivid Scene guitarist Kurt Ralske. There are very few moments in which their no-oriented, third stringer SST combo, sounding like late period Flag with nerd vocals and the occasional jokey HC thrash sesh, click with the reedsman. CBs sounds pretty...
Dope Body – Saturday 7” (Drag City)
If this came out on Skin Graft 17 years ago and I happened to play the store’s copy on a brutally-boring Sunday afternoon manning the counter alone, it’s possible that “I might pay $4 for a used copy of a full length by this band if one positioned itself in the crosshairs on a really good day of consumptive confidence” would have gone through my noodle, but the same could be said for “I pray...
Factory Floor – Two Different Ways Remixes 12” EP...
As we all wait and wait (and wait) for that Factory Floor album to ever materialize, the singles keep piling up. The excellent “Two Different Ways” received the remix treatment last year via works by Perc and Richard H. Kirk. There goes Rhymin’ Simon. As for the record, Perc muscles up the A-side, adding ballast and more bounce to the original while removing some of the angles. It’s...
Ensemble Pearl – s/t 2xLP (Drag City)
I shortsightedly entered into this engagement with too much Boris on the mind, due entirely to one of them being involved in this seven or eight-person super-group. When Boris have friends over for an album, I believe that the trio could turn even the most torturous of tedium into gold (they have yet the opportunity, but I have 100% faith in this claim), but when the sitch is flip-flopped, one...
Hoax – s/t (Singles Comp) LP (Adagio 830)
RECOMMENDED
German pressing of Hoax’s three 7”s and their track from the split tour flexi with Sewn Leather. This is an easy way to spend the proper time with these releases, and realize the bleeding conviction of this band for what it is, just about the best hardcore band in the country. You read these lyrics and hear how they’re delivered and there is immediately the sense that singer Jesse...
Roy Montgomery/Bruce Russell – split LP...
Readers of a certain age probably remember the Columbia and RCA Record Clubs, whose six for a penny deals surely helped set the stage for a world that thinks it shouldn’t pay for its records. The Grapefruit Record Club seeks to reverse that trend by offering exclusive limited edition, vinyl-only releases that’ll cost you, but sure look swell on your shelf or on the turntable. And how do they...
The Trash Company – Earle Hotel Tapes 1979-1993 LP...
RECOMMENDED
The premiere “Real People” discovery of 2013 comes from the Richmond, VA store-run label Steady Sounds, and it’s one that sets the pace for future discoveries in terms of its depth, vision, and backstory. Max Monroe is an African-American songwriter and musician who for nearly 15 years occupied Room 111 at the Earle, a downtown Richmond hotel that was caught in a tailspin of decay...
Violence – s/t 12” EP (Visage Musique)
Time capsule laced-up synth master control pop, like a decade too late for Berliniamsburg. Glassy, cool/warm sounds from this French-Canadian outfit, which puts forth the ultimate façade of perfection and very nearly get away with it. Imagine a velvet rope with you on the wrong side: you’ve just nailed Violence’s brand of totalitarian, steamroller ambiance. The music is good and evocative but...
Matt Weston – For Teri Morris 7” (7272 Music)
Teri Morris drummed in Crystalized Movements, and after that Tizzy. That latter band is where she and multi-instrumentalist Matt Weston played for a time. In 2011 Morris died from breast cancer, and this is Weston’s tribute to her. You won’t hear much of the Movements’ psychedelic excess of Tizzy’s crisp power pop here, though. Weston’s a restless, plugged into the improv as well as rock...
April 2013
13 posts
aTelecine – Entkopplung OST LP (Dais)
RECOMMENDED
The musical trajectory of actress/entrepreneur/adult film star/noise fan Sasha Grey has been a divisive one at best, and a sizable void within her burgeoning, non-sex-work-oriented creative output at worst. Entkopplung changes all that, a soundtrack for a yet-to-be-released science fiction film for which few details could be obtained. Here, at last, aTelecine finds a voice,...
Bad Indians – Are On The Other Side LP (C.Q.)
From somewhere in Michigan comes this unfortunately-named outfit (I fully agree with Talya Cooper’s earlier assessment of their handle from the Still Single review of their seven inch). This debut album is pretty long on ‘60s “Teenage Shutdown” styled garage psych affectation, and not as long on good ideas – the best songs here, like the twee-minded “She Is Gone,” the throbbing “Hate” and the...
John Butcher – Winter Gardens LP (Kukuruku)
RECOMMENDED
John Butcher’s music isn’t an obvious match to the vinyl medium. His saxophone playing can leap from quiet whispers to harsh barks in a second, and there’s enough silence and room sound in his playing to show up the flaws in any pressing. But Kukuruku, a London-based label with Greek roots, has done the job quite nicely; flawless black vinyl, three-dimensional sound with an...
Caged Animal – s/t 7” EP (Warthog Speak)
RECOMMENDED
What’s shorter than Tony Molina’s record? How about this Tony Molina-fronted EP? Caged Animal is self-proclaimed ignorant hardcore from the Bay Area, completely ridiculous and over the top lunkheaded East Coast style aggression. It’s been made here by dudes who are not exactly hard the way that Freddy Madball is hard (Jackson from Yi, Gladys from Violent Change, Mike from Catholic...
Philip Corner – Gong/Ear: Dance-ing, 1 & 2 LP...
RECOMMENDED
It’s 1989 in NYC. Public Enemy is winding them up for “Fight the Power” and Philip Corner is elsewhere, with dancers. He bangs a gong and they get it on. Two long, meditative tracks of nothing but gong and the stray om chant, but what a sound this makes – these are ostensibly cassette recordings but they explore the resonant frequencies of Corner’s favored Paiste tam-tam within the...
Endless Boogie – Long Island 2xLP (No Quarter)
There is something very “it was written…” about this band. Maybe it’s that its members are the fingers to the hidden hand controlling all y’alls taste in music. Or maybe it’s the tenacity – fully exhibited no matter where you happen to check in: song, album, career. The gist of ‘em is in each of the parts, like a Homeric epic. Then again, how is Endless Boogie not like Ancient Greek song...
Exhaustion – Future Eaters LP (Aarght!)
RECOMMENDED
The best of the recent spate of super-limited, expensive Australian imports I’ve had to track down on my own, Exhaustion ties together the fortunes of three Melbourne guys (Jensen Tjhung of Lower Plenty and Deaf Wish on bass, Per Byström of the Ooga Boogas on drums, and Duncan Blachford from the Witch Hats on guitar/vox detail) into a space you’d know was more familiar to many...
Tony Molina – Dissed and Dismissed LP (Melters)
RECOMMENDED
Part of the slew of really great guitar-based pop music coming out of the punk/”indie orthodox” community this year. Imagine these dudes kickin’ it in a place of worship for like five hours on a Sunday morning. Yeah I can’t either. But I can hype you on THE KID Tony Molina, late of regarded but unrewarded Bay Area band Ovens for many years, and now striking out on his own...
Permanent Ruin – Hell is Real 7” EP (Adelante...
RECOMMENDED
HOLY FUCKING SHIT
That’s out of the way, so let’s talk about the debut Permanent Ruin EP. This is INSANE – breakneck thrash with huge divebombs and red-eyed intensity. The first scream singer Mariam lets off on opener “Legacy” sounds like it’s going to jump off of the record and wrap itself around your throat. Six tracks and it never lets up for a moment, Perm Cru ratcheting up...
The Sleepers – Painless Nights LP (Superior...
RECOMMENDED
Ricky Williams’ hypnotic, lush turn-of-the-‘80s rock outfit the Sleepers get the reissue treatment via the dependable Superior Viaduct imprint, starting with their sole full-length, originally released on Adolescent in 1981. They first came to my attention in the late ‘90s at a show I had booked for The In Out, whose drummer Nick Blakey furiously explained them to me via some crazy...
Sweet Talk – Pickup Lines LP (12XU)
Decent enough power-pop rocker from an Austin-based crew that counts one of the Mind Spiders among its membership. Any band of this caliber is only as good as the first song on their record, and Sweet Talk has got a doozy in “Take You Right Back,” one that kinda makes you wonder where they’re going, with a slow and somewhat stumbling drunken bar crawl. But boy does it ever snap to – when they...
Tercer Mundo – s/t 7” EP (Cintas Pepe)
RECOMMENDED
When this single showed up in the mail, for the first time in a very long while, I got nervous handling it at my Post Office, worried about it falling out of the mailer at my office on the way home, anxious about having it someplace where others could see it. The artwork is as gruesome as the subject matter, and as serious as the people who made it and the intentions behind it. If...
New Reviews from Doug M on Dusted
These ran this week.
Connections (album of the year?)
Iceage (you’re something)
March 2013
40 posts
Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys – Ready For Boredom LP...
Over two seven-inches and now this full-length, Sydney’s Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys have traversed punk’s spare-change economy and strained away the dynamics, leaving the raw, wounded sentiment behind on tape. They share a quality with what must be one of their primary influences, The Replacements, in that they bring out in their music the intangible pull of ragged teenage human toil. They drape it...
Forward – “The Devil’s Cradle” b/w “What’s The...
I’ve been known to follow the blindfolded taste-test/invisible jukebox approach when the pending review pile gets out of hand. It’s a good way to wake up the creative juices and have some fun while weathering the occupational hazard of having to endure epically-shitty music. What I’m getting at is that I only knew a couple of things about Forward when I was just getting to know the record: They...
The Hecks – “Trust And Order” b/w “The Time I...
When is two too much? When they do some things so well that the iffy parts really stand out. That’s how it is with The Hecks, a two-piece from Chicago. Musically, they’re onto something. Guitarist Zach Hebert has a trebly attack and an instinct for making a little seem like a lot, and drummer Andrew Mosiman makes up in confidence and precisions what he mercifully lacks in flash. If “Trust and...
Lower – “Someone’s Got It In For Me” b/w “But...
RECOMMENDED
Let me just start off on the wrong foot here with all my unapologetic cards on the table: In the recent and not-so-recent past, I have donated valuable time to giving Iceage a leg up re: what they seem to do for every other person on this planet, but the band has failed to meet the objective, time and time again. I cannot help it that a lot of the music that changed my life circa...
Ryley Walker – “Clear The Sky” b/w “Joni’s Tune”...
RECOMMENDED
Originality only gets you so far; a record as derivative as this one might still take you someplace you want to go. Ryley Walker is a young guy who lives in Chicago, but to hear this single, you’d think he lived in London 45 years ago. Not so much swinging London, but whichever parts of London Bert Jansch and Davey Graham were squatting and playing in. If he were alive back then, I...
Manateees – “Cat Food” b/w “Treehouse” 7” (Goner)
RECOMMENDED
Holy Shiite Militias! “Cat Food” is a rager for the ages, and in the context of music that has come out of Memphis, TN since Blood Visions, it is THE rager for the ages. If you are not one of the three or four people who have read more than a handful of things I’ve written over the last fourteen years, it bears mentioning that I would never carelessly toss around such a...
Marineville – “Face” b/w “Eat Toast” 7” (Epic...
RECOMMENDED
Short, delirious bursts of enjoyment in the post-punk/NZ pop dynasty vein, from folks who’ve been in that scene longer than most (Denise Roughan from the 3Ds, Greg Cairns from Sferic Experiment/The Renderers/Constant Pain, Jeremy Coubrough from Tlaotlon, Mark Williams from Bad Statistics and Real Life Tragedies), and who take this opportunity to go apeshit in fine style. “Face”...
Slow Ghost – People Climb Out Of Time LP (Eastern...
Underwater-sounding (presumably) one-man kitchen-sink fare that alternates between shoegaze, piano balladry, beats, general weirdness and you get the picture. I can’t outright dismiss this record because my one-man’s-mediacrity-is-another-man’s-genius-is-another-man’s-proof-of-future-potential…..mental alarm is getting tripped by this one. Still, I really wish I had more to say about People...
Soviet Valves – Death Trumps Romance 12” EP...
RECOMMENDED
We haven’t heard from Perth’s Soviet Valves since their great 7” on SmartGuy way back in 2005. And there’s a reason for that: they broke up just before the record was released. Funny then that their single effectively foreshadowed the ascent of Australian rock/punk bands to the forefront of the world’s most starved audience for exactly what they put forward. These posthumous...
Stalwart Sons – Stay Cold LP (Revolution...
If someone told me, at any point prior to January of 2013, that a new record (by a “new band”) carrying an obvious Springsteen element would be recommendable, I believe the outcome to be termed as “laughed out of the room” … in the parlance of, say, Mo Ostin. But aside from that invisible ingredient that made the “rock” part of “indie-rock” something to live for about 20 years ago, the other...
Connections – Private Airplane LP (Anyway)
RECOMMENDED
Among folks who comprise this Columbus, OH band are Adam Elliot of Times New Viking, Andy Hampel and Kevin Elliott (definite relation) of 84 Nash, and Dave Capaldi of El Jesus De Magico. There’s a fifth guy, Philip Kim, who is described as a “peach district laureate” in the band’s one-sheet, but seeing as how I’m on the outside looking in with such regional nods, I can’t say I know...
XYX – Teatro Negro LP (Monofonus Press)
RECOMMENDED
The first XYX single was one of the nicer surprises of Still Single’s early days, an athletic and primal coed bass/drums combo out of Monterrey, Mexico who worked from the hyper-punctuated template punched out earlier by Melt-Banana or Naked City at their most violent, but with eyes and ears finding ways to break out of the constrictions such a lineup could offer. They did a second...
STILL SINGLE: Negro Spirituals – “Black Garden”... →
thebigkidstablecancut:
still-single:
Here is the first release from A Wicked Company, a new label started by my colleague Tony, who was one of the people responsible for Vertical Records back in the late ‘80s, and as such had a heavy hand in getting the debut EPs by Royal Trux, Cop Shoot Cop and Sebadoh out into the world. That’s…
This coming from the guy who named his musical(ish) project...
Dharma Dogs – Drown 7” EP (Kitschy Manitou)
If you thought you’d heard enough 4th tier grunge back in the ‘90s, wait’ll you hear the modern equivalent. Right down to their name, Wisconsin’s Dharma Dogs lower all expectations across three songs of slamhounded slop, with mid-sized, unresolved riffs and a messy demeanor that wins no favors outside of the terminally besotted. Very poor, but hey, they have the right to exist too....
drcarlsonalbion and the Hackney Lass – Modern...
RECOMMENDED
Dylan Carlson, of Earth (the music group, and ostensibly, the planet) provides the stern and beauteous guitar melodies beneath the spoken word of Rosie Knight, ostensibly the Hackney Lass and “a young spoken word poet and activist” (so sayeth the liner notes). Her voice intermingles with Carlson’s guitar in appealing and very real ways, as the two stories she reads – tales of petty...
Double Negative – Hardcore Confusion Volume 3 & 4...
RECOMMENDED
Potentially sensing financial ruin in issuing two more two-song 7”s with runtimes of under five minutes, to say nothing of the lineup changes that’ve rocked -/- in the last year or so, Sorry State decides to issue the final two installments of the band’s Hardcore Confusion series as one single, in a dual-pocket gatefold sleeve, so as to preserve the artist’s intent of laying out...
English Singles – Disaster 7” EP (Squirmy)
RECOMMENDED
The “bummer band” of Scott Miller, Sacramento pop ingénue (Bananas, Nar, Bright Ideas, Bagpipe Operation). These three songs are killer, as would be expected from Miller – no filler, all diller. These three songs sound like the jagged line between the dour, isolated themes behind many of the best Television Personalities songs and the poppy punk/punky pop you’d expect from one of...
Evil Army – I, Commander 7” EP (Hell’s...
RECOMMENDED
I love a good second act, and that’s exactly what this little three-song burner hints at. There are two great things about this 7”: one, pretty much what was just stated, though it is augmented by the simple tossing of it out there, sans a lot of chit-chat about where the band has been or what they’ve been through, which will undoubtedly be mired in bullshit that has nothing to do...
Ghastly Spats – We’re Breaking Through The Hymen!...
RECOMMENDED
The cover art, the EP title and the label name conspired to chase me off of this one for a while, but these Australians have a brilliant, repellent sound that challenges a lot of notions one might have against such an introduction. I had to laugh when I took the single out of its sleeve and looked at the label art – winged buttocks with the center hole positioned just where you’d...
Last Year’s Men – “Clawless Paw” b/w “What I Can...
Garage rock band hung up on refinements, in this case a vocalist who’s going after the lung-busting emote of the Walkmen’s Hamilton Leithauser. You get the sense that the members of this band had been trying other, less direct forms of music and decided to give this loud, modern sound a go. It’s fine and all, but the seams are showing, and there isn’t much of a reason for something like this to...
Lazy – Party City 7” EP (Moniker)
RECOMMENDED
I can’t separate my feelings towards Kansas City from what I experienced when I first “partied” there – essentially I got used as a punching bag and dragged across a floor by police academy cadets, who then sprayed everyone chased out to the sidewalk with pepper spray. Later on I got to witness some people who had just graduated art school smash up their loft in some barren...
Negro Spirituals – “Black Garden” b/w “Ancient...
Here is the first release from A Wicked Company, a new label started by my colleague Tony, who was one of the people responsible for Vertical Records back in the late ‘80s, and as such had a heavy hand in getting the debut EPs by Royal Trux, Cop Shoot Cop and Sebadoh out into the world. That’s a hell of a list for any era and would push Vertical into the history books, were more people under...
Perspex Flesh – Ona 7” EP (Video Disease)
From England comes this band of mid-tempo hardcore thrashers, pushing forth an agenda of warped, defeated, miserable rage. Since they’re not American, you don’t get the maniacal claustrophobia of Sex/Vid or the smashing self-implosion of Hoax’s best material, though you can hear elements of both within, particularly how chords meander about and fall against the drumming and harsh vocals. Still,...
Pissed Jeans – Demo 7” EP (Sub Pop)
This is Pissed Jeans’ first demo, from 2004 or whenever, pressed up on vinyl for the first time thanks to Sub Pop, who’ve included it as a value-added bonus for those who preordered their newest album Honeys. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard any of these songs, and I have fonder memories of those which were found on official releases (their first 7”, covered in the very first edition of...
Prince Rupert’s Drops – Run Slow LP (Beyond Beyond...
RECOMMENDED
True story: I was working at Kim’s Video in 2002 in an assistant managerial capacity. My boss went on tour with Andrew W.K., leaving me to run the second floor for a month on my own. One day in, and I was told to fire two of my employees on the grounds that they were stealing from shop inventory. They weren’t the most pleasant people to work with, and I will never forget the...
