June 2010
49 posts
Freestone – “Bummer Bitch” b/w “Church” 7” (Last...
Last Laugh is a new label run by Almost Ready’s Harry H., focusing on the legit reissue of KBD singles. It’s an idea that’s time has come; it gives people the chance to own pristine, nearly-exact copies of records that may as well not exist, and it acknowledges the efforts of forgotten musicians whose fame stems primarily from being insane enough to capture their spew onto vinyl in the ‘70s and...
Group Icky Rats – Free Rock LP (Coat-Tail)
I find it annoying when a band writes something on its record sleeve like “FILE UNDER ROCK.” Even more so when it’s on the front. “Hey guys, you’re in for a treat: ROCK MUSIC. You know that filing system you have where you go by GENRE? Put this in your ROCK section. Seriously.” The bigger problem is that it obscures the content, while pigeonholing it at the same time. Anyone who deigns to address...
Puerto Rico Flowers – 2 7” (Fan Death)
More dark hours from Puerto Rico Flowers, plying a somber Goth trade on one original and one Neil Young cover. Once the final Clockcleaner recordings come out later this year, something like what John Sharkey’s been doing under this name will make a bit more sense as a transition from that band’s sarcastic racket. Bass, preset synth, drums and vocals (a deadpan Martin Gore impression, even)...
The Sloppy Heads – First Gasp! 7” EP (Chocco Salo)
Pretty close to Sleepyhead and/or the Mommyheads in name and task, NYC’s the Sloppy Heads continue in a tradition of area pop bands given to brainy, possibly over-educated, ebullient modes of creative expression. Curiously, they start their approach with a ballad, and it’s a classic in the making: “Noland (2 Souls in Confusion)” trades off a simple, last-call reverb guitar melody, as male and...
Wankys/Lotus Fucker – split 7” EP (Katorga...
UK’s Wankys (ex-Varukers and Extreme Noise Terror participants) play simple, cider-soaked D-beat punk, using harsh white/pink noise as a treatment of their sound. Run a guitar through enough pedals and you’ll achieve that Confuse/Exclaim-like sound of a sonic vacuum, to listen to which is likened to being beaten by fresh ginger roots the size and strength of 2x4s. The vocals, bass and drums...
Weyes Bluhd – “Liquor Castle” b/w “Shattered...
Lonely ladymoans from a West Philadelphia psych ward, art school style. “Liquor Castle” keeps rank with the tape culture petri dish, growing moldy gray lifeforms out of droning nightmare sound scenarios. Out-of-body vocal recitations burrow under creaking doors, reverb-gated guitar detunings, and a complete absence of melody. “Shattered Mirror” fares better, with some minor chord dirge inside...
Various Artists – Bloodstains Across Alberta 7” EP...
Regionalism is GO. Local scenes are GO. The best shit in the world: small towns with nothing to do but cut loose to avoid life as much as one can. I came from one (Pittsburgh), lived relatively close to others (Kent, Columbus, Cleveland), and get to enjoy learning about new ones through this organ. In light of globalism and technology’s crush, valid regional activity has started to sprout up...
Have you ever tried writing reviews in sweltering...
Because I did, and that shit don’t work. Regardless, I’m working through the 220 records in the pile, so bear with me.
Also keep an eye out for a much-belated recap of Chaos in Tejas.
Have a popsicle, chill out.
City Center – Spring St. one-sided 12” EP (Quite...
Playing perfectly nice acoustic guitar-based pastoral pop from with occasional electronic flourishes, Fred Thomas’ City Center project makes some nice music that wouldn’t be out-of-place alongside similar artists such as Greg Davis, Mountains, and, hell, perhaps even Fennesz. Pretty decent, though not outstandingly great. Limited to 500, one-sided, screen-printed copies on clear vinyl....
Dust Congress – Regurgitate Sunshine State...
This one-sided mini-LP (on baby-blue wax and housed in hand-screened artwork that looks like a hesher’s social studies notebook from 1989) reeks of rural idiot savantism and wafts in and out like a smacked-out Neutral Milk Hotel replete with banjo, trumpet, various rusty shit and probably some old mason jars filled with some kind of liquid your grandfather put in there back in the year...
Fontana – s/t LP (X! Records)
Sloppy, spastic, or confused hardcore LPs are always welcome, so long as they’re good driving (meaning, good for the car) records. By the looks of the cover, twee-tedium was expected, but that’s what expectations are for: a good dashing! Everything that makes this sort of record great: frustration, members are sick of everyone’s shit, everyday is a bad day, feel like a broke-dick dog by Monday...
Steve Gunn – Boerum Palace LP (Three Lobed...
There’s been a lot of guitar players down the pike since the New Weird America became the same old shit, but Steve Gunn’s no joke. Former member of GHQ with Marcia Bassett (Hototogisu, Zaimph, Double Leopards, etc.), and occasional guest guitar grumbler with Magik Markers, Gunn doesn’t necessarily seem like the kinda guy to willfully approach the American Songwriter Tradition (with or without...
Hey Colossus and the Van Halen Time Capsule –...
The six-member UK-based outfit Hey Colossus brings a whole mess of noisy rub n’ tugging on Eurogrumble Vol. 1. While the opening number “The Question” plows through the same post-Flipper fields that a number of their American cousins do, Hey Colossus manages, on their fifth full-length, to throw in a couple of substantial riffs, with some strange atmospherics, totally indecipherable vocals on...
Giuseppe Ielasi – (Another) Stunt LP...
Part of the fun (for me, not necessarily for you, the reader) of reviewing records for Still Single is receiving new releases about which I have no earthly idea. Such is the case with (Another) Stunt, the new LP by Giuseppe Ielasi, who apparently is some sort of Euro turntable guy. And by turntable guy, I don’t mean just another hip-hop “turntablist” out to wow the crowd with his behind-the-back...
King Rhythm – Hardships & Headtrips LP (Catalyst...
I could be wrong but this sounds kinda like conscious hip-hop with some cool production techniques. I’m not 14 and I don’t think the Disposible Heroes of Hiphoprisy are cool anymore, but maybe these guys do. That’s kinda what it reminds me of – mechanized sounds clang back and forth, looped feedback, and a dude who reminds me of Pete Nice rapping about “the cancer of the...
Magik Markers/Sic Alps – split 12” EP (Yik Yak)
For most people, Magik Markers are an either/or proposition: you either love ‘em or you hate ‘em. I’ve never been anything but an unabashed fan, even through their more recent “melodic” period while recording for Drag City. However, it definitely took me a while to warm up to Sic Alps, despite their music being theoretically the sorta thing all thirty-something record nerds would go for. By the...
Night Owls – Fun and Games 7” EP (Barbarossa/Hex)
This debut 7” by Syracuse’s Night Owls is essentially very muscular pop-punk with just a pinch of grit on the vocals and the type of professionally-thick, dual-guitar riffs that causes an automatic mental association with Y2K, when we were seeing two things come to fruition: the popularity highpoint/creativity low-point of Turbonegro/Hellacopters & Pals and the first widespread instance of...
No Balls – Come Clean LP (Permanent)
Contemporary hardcore’s chattering class has split the Internet in half discussing bands who have taken certain musical cues, lyrical steeze and sleeve art hints from the recently-rediscovered Brainbombs. As much as the sheer aural hideousness of those Swedish loons has rocked me to sleep at night for years, I can certainly understand why anyone who actually takes their hyper misogynistic...
Petroleum By-Product – Superficial Artificial LP...
If Petroleum By-Product existed in the early 2000s they would have been a hit at the nascent “punk dance party” scene of Start, Making Time, and their ilk. Shame the band’s members were 10 years old at the time. Their youthfulness works in their favor though, disarming my first impression of the cover depicting the band as Human League in the “Don’t You Want Me” video. Young Vancouver...
Gil San Marcos – Domes LP (Bombay Cove)
Domes is touted as “the definitive recordings from Gil San Marcos, who spent a few years performing, touring, and cultivating the sound” heard within, which ranges from spare glitch, to sweet drones, to noisy assaults. As if to prove that no sound present was made with an actual instrument, the sleeve lists the devices used for each track – it’s almost as long as the thank-you list! Stand-outs...
Ty Segall & Mikal Cronin – Reverse Shark Attack LP...
Reverb can the Bondo of noise-pop, soft-garage, and medium-noise riff-repeat rock (this). It can elevate sub-par flimsiness up a grade, but the trained ear can figuratively finger-thump the exterior, hearing and feeling the hollowness where there should be inspiration. On other occasions, reverb is like the third or fourth child conceived behind a marriage-saving motive. Or like the act of...
Sharp Ends – “Northern Front” b/w “Ghost of...
Remember when everyone was comparing Interpol to Joy Division musically, yet it was clear that the comparison was rooted in the band’s cutout-bin Peter Murphy-meets-Carlos D’s Flying Burrito Bros. Go To West Berlin! agenda? No? Good…let sleeping dogs lie. Or die. Interpol did the vocals of Starfish-era Church and the guitars of 90’s indie-rock, and nothing more complex than that. HoZac could...
Spencey Dude and the Doodles – s/t 7” EP (Rob’s...
This 7” is about the girlfriend or spouse cattin’ around behind our Mr. Spencer’s back. Maybe some of our readers have “the fear” and need to give the rambunctious little lady some hints. Before ripping out the big guns (this 7”), I recommend Type O Negative’s debut album Slow, Deep, and Hard, specifically the opening track, “Unsuccessfully Coping with the Natural Beauty of Infidelity” – a...
The Snakes – HiyaHoya 7” EP (Slow Gold Zebra)
Are we too late for the Indian trend? I think the bulk of the Snakes’ conceptual energy for this single was spent on the cover, depicting a jacked, cyborg Cherokee tearing a pilgrim in half before a Cthulhu-esque tribesman and rocket ship. Y B Normal? “HiyaHoya” is modern slacker “Kaw-Liga,” opening with a war whoop and some Native American chanting. Musically it churns through the song’s...
Tyler Jon Tyler – “New England Street” b/w “Faster...
This lil’ guy is brimming with an amateur enthusiasm that would fit in comfortably with the Yoyo-a-Gogo crowd circa ‘94. You can almost feel the frays from their badly cut jean shorts and taste the sweat from their over-sized tank tops, all while their large, wire-framed specs slide down their runny noses. A-side “New England Street” is spiky home-brewed female-fronted...
Unnatural Helpers – Sunshine/Pretty Girls 7” EP...
Sub Pop MegaMart employee Dean Whitmore and his lovable gang of cronies hammer out four more Kwik Kuts of beach-ready sourmash bash ‘n pop in record time. The two songs on each side fall comfortably within the “grunge-lite” spectrum, with “Sunshine/Pretty Girls” being the classically-trained Jekyll to “Waiting Such a Long Time“‘s ugly-ass Mr. Hyde....
Various Artists – Does Your Cat Know My Dog? LP...
On this compilation, curated by the staff at a restaurant/venue somewhere in Switzerland that apparently hosts music fests, there’s a pretty wide range of styles, and names both familiar and unknown. Bonnie “Prince” Billy starts off the proceedings with a live version of “Love Comes to Me” which starts things off on a somber, sober note. The rest of the side features a bunch of similar sounding...
Armedalite Rifles/The Reaction – split 7" EP (FDH)
This split 7”, like so many other anonymous splits before it, could easily be deemed crappy and unessential, yet it eventually semi-charmed this critical recipient’s life with its minor-market, “real people” textures and had some visitors to the living room tapping their clogs in approval. It helps that each band gets three songs per side. Armedalite Rifles are from a tad bit upstate NY but they...
Greg Ginn and the Taylor Texas Corrugators –...
SST owner, Black Flag founder and cat enthusiast Greg Ginn has allowed himself back into the public eye with a couple of bands that have been touring the same ceaseless, bleary path as early Flag, but with maybe a fly turd’s worth of the same inspiration. Look, it’s no big deal anymore that Ginn went off the handle soon after Damaged and began to play music that was just as heavy, but also aimed...
The Mojomatics – Tears Fall Down 7” (Hell, Yes!)
Well-dressed Italo garage rockers who are pretty active on the contempo fonzie festival circuit. These studio tracks sound slick and clean-cut compared to depraved American distorto-trackers of the JSBX/HoZac/Reatard/Dwyer milieu, though these ‘Matics had a single on pop friendly Douchemaster Recs which kind of connects them to the U.S. garage underbelly. Definitely poppy and a little bluesy, in...
Nu Sensae – TV, Death, and the Devil LP (Nominal)
Vancouver, punk Mecca, strikes again with the debut album from Nu Sensae, a bass/drums duo that balances the theatricality and raw, impulsive bent of Lydia Lunch and Jim Foetus with the lumbering, grungy bellow of Babes in Toyland and L7. After a jarring, feverish one-sided 12” and a more polished, more aggressive single, the first full-length rips into it hard, the recording allowing Andrea...
Wet Illustrated – “Born Stoked” b/w “Flying” 7”...
Pulling the covers off yet another mystery release, Wet Illustrated is a project for one of the guys from the band Photobooth, who sent in one single so good I had to track down another myself. They might be playing as a duo – members are currently squatting on the monikers Garbage Dog and Bobby Milkshake, even though (and likely because) they likely pay taxes every year and are required to be...
Tre Orsi – Devices + Emblems LP (Works Progress)
http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/5775
Thought some of you might want to read this. It was meant for this column but upgraded to full review status. Vinyl is available from Works Progress, and both vinyl and digital copies can be obtained from Comedy Minus One.
Charles Albright – I’m Happy, I’m a Genius 7” EP...
What I’ve gathered about Albright is that he is a Sacramento savant, capable of formidable guitar/loner-rock destruction. The seven songs on this single (following a super-limited offering on S-S) recall an early Andrew W.K., with the jackhammer party beats and mindlessness replaced with heavy sporto rock riffage, Ginn/Hazelmyer-style phrasing, and blown-out live drumming. The sentiments are...
Armedalite Rifles – Shambolic? Indeed! 2xLP...
The booklet inside this set proclaims “THE NEW WAVE OF HOME MADE” but it’s more like three bands jammed into one band. Over this double album, upstaters Armedalite Rifles try out the following: 1. Catchy, nervous, ugly guitar pop a la Home Blitz or Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments; 2. Endless mid-80s SST impersonations (instrumentally expedient but sloppy Minutemen “Jams for Peace/Jams Against...
Gangwish – Space Case Vol. 1 7” (Mind Cure/Dear...
Gangwish is Sam Pace, drummer of Centipede E’est and formerly of the Dirty Faces, two of the more righteously idea-driven bands in Pittsburgh’s recent past. Here, Sam plays drums and marimba, and triggers that send signals out to synths, digital effects units, and a bass rig. The end result is a rhythmo-musical skull of dubby noise, concrete tones, and drumline rhythms. “Run Mr. Vapor” sustains...
Andrew Graham & Swarming Branch – Andrew Graham’s...
Andrew Graham was last seen out as a member of RTFO Bandwagon, with one LP and single on Dull Knife that showed a lot of promise for a young singer-songwriter steeped in the ‘70s stackfiller of used record stores. A budding Randy Newman in training, Graham returns here with a retooled band, a thinner sound, but a more consistent one, even through the rock ‘n’ roll adventures they take us...
The Hollows – “Bobby Blueheart” b/w “Walkaway” 7”...
A boilerplate girl group sound informed by the Fastbacks or the Muffs as much as Phil Spector, the Hollows are steeped in tradition and have a bit of a franticness about them that might translate into better records down the line. Both songs here are very well executed, but will be too cloying/annoying for some listeners. “Bobby Blueheart” sounds like it wants to be on the Sunset Strip circa...
Honest To Goodness – Live LP (Fedora Corpse)
Solo guitar and effects pedal drone captured live at a gallery in Rochester, Michigan, courtesy of one Chad Stocker (also guitarist in long-running NYC garage band the High Strung). It’s quiet, sparse and “meditative” in tone so Fripp & Eno’s LPs are major touchstones here, as opposed to a Matthew Bower related blowout or some dense Earth-style metalgazing. If you know what Eveningstar...
Jailhouse Fuck – s/t 10” EP (Clan Destine/Lazy...
Six songs of well-primped but sonically jagged post-punk spew from this mechanized Swedish spazz quartet. Barked, bent female vocals punctuate blistering, speed-competitive rhythms and blasts of guitar, recalling the Scissor Girls as informed by ’98-’02 screamo/electronic rock bands (start with the Locust and end with Lost Sounds for a more accurate frame of ref) and even disco and electroclash....
The Liminanas – “Je Ne Suis Pas Tres Drogue...
Trouble in Mind is a new-ish Chicago label, releasing hand-numbered pop singles in stock sleeves (printed in China, hail our new overlords). The music inside is each of the three singles I’ve heard is as generic as the artwork, boilerplate examples of niche garage/pop with little to recommend. That said, the Liminanas’ single could have been far worse. Much like a handful of vocal groups in and...
Locrian – Territories LP (At War with False...
Chicago-based bad vibe outfit Locrian has been kicking around the primordial, sidelong growing-evil threat thing for a while now, and are starting to unify their stance across separate genres of metal and dark electronics. There’s a few songs in here (like the opener “Inverted Ruins”) that ought to be where these guys decide to head out to, finally – it’s slow, tortured, brutal evidence of...
Joe Morris/Chris Riggs/Ben Hall – Glass Key LP...
Joe Morris! Haven’t heard from him since the ‘90s, and it’s purely my fault (haven’t been totally paying attention to jazz and improv), but this Detroit session, pairing him with electric guitarist Chris Riggs and drummer Ben Hall, is a welcome return. Morris is known for clean tone, and for pulling noise and nuance out of technique rather than effects. On side A, he plays a melodic foil to...
Opsvik & Jennings – A Dream I Used to Remember LP...
Post-Gastr del Sol instrumental rock is certainly not a genre on the tip of most peoples’ tongues in 2010, but the NYC duo of Eivind Opsvik & Aaron Jennings are still drawing within that framework and producing solid results. A Dream I Used to Remember is their third album, following up records on Rune Grammafon and NCM East. While the music is generally based around standard...
Psychic Ills – Astral Occurrence LP (The Spring...
Psychic Ills have been floating around the perimeter of spectral NYC psychedelia for some time, making grand statements at the wrong time, then completely obscuring themselves with a second album Mirror Eye that successfully confused critics and met with little favor. If these four live practice space jams must be seen as a corrective, it is unfortunate, because bands should take risks and do...
Shit & Shine – “Bass Puppy” b/w “Fuck You Folk...
$&$ mines deeper into electro territory than ever before with these two new tracks. Of course the groove is there, but the charge of guitars and cock-rock riffage are gone, here replaced with slow, cone-shredding bass loops for half of “Bass Puppy” and all of “Fuck You Folk Singers.” Both tracks create a very heavy, phased out pulse, sounding like the Miami version of the Butthole Surfers...
Society Nurse – Junk Existence 7” EP (Iron Lung)
Kinda new from the Iron Lung/Walls camp, here’s Society Nurse, four piece hardcore that borrows from Flag, the Fix, and maybe Die Kreuzen, but updates the sound with a good ear towards pop songwriting – despite the fury of the tempo and the agitation of the music, the riffs are never forgotten. “Junk Existence” is a slower, heavier, somewhat more tricked-out approach, the super-aggro conjoined...
Tropa Macaca – "Fazer Chuva" b/w "Fazer Sol" 7"...
Here’s a tour-only single limited to 200 copies from the Portuguese duo of André Abel and Joana da Conceição. “Fazer Chuva” (Google Translation is giving me “Make Rain”) is a bit on the slight side, feeling like a dub version of a song that doesn’t exist. It’s based around a synth repetition that’s occasionally tinkered with by adding clicking...
Various Artists – My Estrogeneration LP (Not Not...
The title is a groaner, but with My Estrogeneration the minds behind the Not Not Fun label have come up with a sampling of female noise artists and turned it into a quality compilation. The track order is a little fuzzy based on the packaging (hint: the tracklisting on the insert goes clockwise) but the opening track is unmistakably Zola Jesus (lo-fi 2009 version). “Heaven Sold You Back to...
