September 2010
80 posts
Christian Mistress – Agony and Opium LP (20 Buck...
Fuckin’ RIPPER from Olympia, WA, on the heels of a killer debut single. Six songs of technical NWOBHM, each one a showstopper as well as a heartstopper, with the raspily enunciated vocals of Christine Davis, who comes off as a punker version of Geddy Lee, lock down on blue-collar, rust-belt metal, like some unholy combination of Manilla Road, Priest, Scorps, and Mistreater. It’s a short record,...
Clockcleaner – Auf Wiedersehen 12” EP (Load)
Clockcleaner is gone. Many of you are happy about that. They left us a straight up death rock sendoff, recorded in 2008 when it had a prospect to be one-half of an album that was never completed. Sharkey played me these songs, and I stole them when he left the CD in my computer. I never passed them around but have been enjoying them in private for the past few years. Now they have names, and I...
Death Sentence: Panda! – Spectral Arms LP...
Part of a Bay Area scene of punk-meets-avant music that also includes Deerhoof, Experimental Dental School and all of George Chen’s projects, DS:P! uses non-traditional means – reeds, winds, chimes, samplers – with tried-and-true aggression to bring across a level of expression elevated beyond traditional song structures and instrumentation. By and large they succeed, and almost entirely on...
Le Drapeau Noir – s/t LP (Chironex)
Supersesh of improvised/heavy Earth spiritual vibe-mercantile players, incorporating the members of the Euro outfits Chora, The Hunter Gracchus, and Part Wild Horses Mane on Both Sides. “For Louise Michel” is a string-borne flight of restless, almost aggressive praise and energy, violins, guitars and drums pushing across the free jazz aisle and beyond meditative borders into the ayahuasca...
Ex-Humans – s/t LP (Rob’s House)
Hott NYC garage/punk trio fronted by ex-Carbonas/Beat Beat Beat guitarist Josh Martin. The slop that sometimes plagued the Carbonas is gone, and there’s more than a little big city spitshine on this full-length, maybe a little informed by the Dead Boys but having more in common with the ‘80s run of ’60s revivalism (the Cynics, New Race, Original Sins, even the punker side of the Replacements...
Jerry Granelli – 1313 LP (Div/orce)
Dubious Canuck indie/kids’ stuff label takes an abrupt left turn into the world of improvisation, and pulls in a big ol’ flounder in the form of legendary jazz drummer Jerry Granelli, who drops a solo percussion bomb of much weight on unsuspecting heads. Granelli isn’t playing like an all-over-the-kit sorta guy here until later in the sesh, instead choosing to ruminate on sections of his...
Kriegshög – s/t LP (H:G Fact/La Vida Es Un Mus)
Japanese war pigs who play at maximum volume and speed, spewing forth some of the most violent metallic hardcore since the Framtid album; however, where Under the Ashes boasts a trebly assault, Kriegshög goes straight for the midrange, filling every available space with putrid soundfilth. Clean drumming is blotted out by unbelievable, overcharged guitar and bass, and esophagus-vomiting vocals,...
LA Vampires Meets Zola Jesus – s/t 12” EP (Not Not...
You might think I’m a jerk, Not Not Fun, but I’m a pretty nice guy. A fair guy. I pride myself on the fact that these writers we have over here call ‘em like we see ‘em. And aside from congratulating you on 200 releases – the sheer volume in such a short time is pretty astounding; I remember when you were on like #17 – and your in-house team is making great records as opposed to confusing and...
Libyans – A Common Place LP (Sorry State)
Boston punk/HC outfit showing significant improvements over previous releases with this new full-length. They have moved beyond melodic punk into where all great bands who want to mine the genre have gone: straight for the gas pedal. It’s thrilling to listen to these folks (complete with raspy, Peppermint Patty style lady on vocals) figure out new dimensions in their sound simply by getting...
The Needy Visions – s/t LP (Motorcycle Face/Bodies...
Ten songs of shambling, built-to-annoy-the-punters pop from Boston, MA (part of the Whitehaus collective). The Needy Visions shuffle around country and bubblegum pop tropes like drunks staggering home after last call. There’s something here, though, something beneath these songs which compels you to listen to them again. The lowbrow dressings the band applies to the presentation can’t hide the...
Neon Blud – Whipps 7” EP (Fan Death)
This one’s a stunner with a minute or so of free-form guitar squeal a la that track on the Chicago Transit Authority debut (three decades of noise records? What are those?) before an intimidating sucker-punch of femme-vox’d garbage pop tramples without warning. Things don’t let up; maintaining more-or-less the same litmus test level of shit-n-static noise until side 2’s run-out takes the needle....
Marco Panella – Eastern Landscapes LP (Tequila...
Panella is a guitarist playing in the midst of rock, country, folk and jazz, and this new album of his is a worthy artifact of the creative mind untethered. He doesn’t wander outside of song-based forms, which is harder than you’d think for a lot of folks who play the guitar and want to stand out. Maybe the key here is understatement, which is not the same as underplaying; everything here sounds...
Clive Tanaka y Su Orquesta – Jet Set Siempre 1 CS...
Completely professional job on the packaging, style and sound … yet absolutely no information as to what or who the hell this is all about has one confused as to if this is a well-funded joke or a serious attempt at Tanaka’s vehicle to dance stardom. Clear cut “Miami Vice” vibe going on with the first side aptly titled “For Dance” – amazing mixes of freakdown drum beats blasting with Daft Punk...
Various Artists – Saigon Rock & Soul: Vietnamese...
Many have already made bones about the value of hearing the popular music of a nation with which we are at war. Therefore, the chance to hear the sounds of Vietnam as it tore our boys to shreds comes as much of a shock as anything to discover how indebted the artists selected on this latest Sublime Frequencies offering are to the Western world and the democracy behind the struggle. Very slight...
Various Artists – We No Fun: Atlanta and Athens...
Regional compilations should always be approached with caution. Scene solidarity is admirable on the surface, and reliably immune to criticism; scenes have pathetic politics that poison efforts designed for national/international consumption, namely the provincially-blind back-patting that confuses “local” with “good” more so than the who’s fucking who, who used to fuck who, or who fucked-over who...
A Faulty Chromosome - Craving to be Coddled So We...
Nearly an hour’s worth of troubled sounds and pages upon pages of illustrations comprise this sprawling work, a queasy shove into the general direction of the private press/“real people” style monstrosities of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Eric Dalke made all of this under the moniker A Faulty Chromosome, and while I’m sure there was some semblance of relief for him to put all of this out there, listening...
The Better Letters – “That’s Not All” b/w...
Does the first wave of post-punk still has anything left on the shelves to shoplift, or is something different and more disturbing taking place when a new band smacks listeners over the head with that era? Not that long ago, bands could get away with sounding like a Post-Punk 101 amalgam; an aurally-amorphous support structure of Gang of Four, Wire, Joy Division, Devo, P.I.L., circa-‘80 Clash,...
Paul Cary – Ghost of a Man LP (Stank House)
Solo basher from Paul Cary, former frontman of crazy-insane In the Red garage act the Horrors (the one from Iowa, not to be confused with the one from England that sucks). Now stationed in Chicago, I believe, he’s mining the lonesome howl of aluminum shed rockabilly slam, but steps far enough away from the clichés that genre can levy upon its participants. Mostly it sounds like a stripped-down,...
Pumice – s/t 10” EP (Doubtful Sounds)
Three more slices from the ever-expanding loaf that is Stefan Neville’s body of work. “Fool Fool Fool Moon” is the lengthy A-side, a trudge out of a single moaning chord into an overmodulated, rounded-off, expansive treatise on wordless love, worthy of the Xpressway stables were they not torn down 20 odd years ago. Of the two B-sides, “Head High Tackle” makes off with the nutzo award that seems...
Reds and Blue – Son of the State LP (Addenda)
Familiar-sounding spiel from a Chicago-area trio – light, jazzy, dub-inflected pop where keyboard and somewhat monotone female alto vocals (courtesy of bandleader Ellen Bunch, and backed by a pedigree of the type of older area musicians who play in four to five bands at any given time, none of which you could remember the sound of if they explained it to you from the other side of the coffeeshop...
Les Bellas – Belladelic LP (SDZ/Les Disques...
French garage that’s a little more traditional than most of what these two labels have had on offer up ‘til now, but stay with me here, because this is a good one. Les Bellas were active in the last decade, and were well on their way to releasing this LP in 2006 on “a famed West Coast garage label” (unless you’re that guy Chucky from “Sons of Anarchy” who’s got like two thumbs and that’s all,...
Chainsaw Eaters/Melting Walkmen – split LP...
12 inches of Danish for your morning wake up! Chainsaw Eaters are a minimal synth duo with a very precise, fast, machine-like drummer to make up for fairly standard synth tones and an overall lack of inventiveness in the riffbuilding department. The use of live drums does push this forward from the pack of, say, Death Domain, and they do pull off some quality dark rock moments towards the end,...
Cloudland Canyon – “Mothlight Part 2” b/w “In The...
Two long drones that could put the most avid methhead to sleep. This unnecessary single sounds like it was recorded directly into Garageband with the group playing on the other side of a cinderblock wall. Press release claims Krautrock, by which they mean repetition and empty noodling; it also claim shoegaze, by which they mean coming up with one half-assed riff, playing it though various...
Bill Dixon/Aaron Siegel/Ben Hall –...
This slab of pensive atmospheric jazz textures has the unfortunate distinction of being the last record iconoclastic trumpeter Bill Dixon released before his death earlier this year. As far as innovators in mood within the genre are concerned, no one – and I mean no one – ever rivaled Dixon, whose warm/cool tones, reliance on effects, and minimal, painterly style. Rhythm section of Siegel (bass)...
Various Artists – Hozac Hookub Klub Round One LP...
Almost wanna make a workflow diagram to describe this compilation, but that may have to wait, as my copy of Visio is at the office. It would probably include such decision points as “GarageBand filters?” and “Cocaine?” and “Generation Borrowed From?” and “Striped t-shirt?” and “Cool?” This is that late ‘00s party that you probably weren’t invited to, but are really uptight about if you were, a...
Bosom Divine – s/t LP (Les Disques Steak)
Following up a killer single from a year or two back, Parisian combo Bosom Divine lay bare their intentions across this full-length, a snarling, worshipful ode to California in the early-to-mid ‘80s. Black lights and Dexedrine streak across both sides, revealing a strain of Dream Syndicate/Gun Club/“Rodney on the ROQ” reverence that might not have been so evident on their previous record. They...
Hunters, Run! – “Life of Crime” b/w “Oh, My...
These two bit nimrods stink like expired deer repellent. On this criminally awful single, these lousy fuckheads swing for the fences with shamelessly commercial pop, the kind of disposable crummy shit that wouldn’t be out of place in the big montage scene of a movie about rebellious (but not that rebellious) high school students. These piece of shit human beings peddle the kind of...
Myty Konkeror – I Miss the Future LP (Twin Lakes)
Potential acid blisterers from around the tri-state area give the swirling, earnest ‘90s alt-rock thing – which really wouldn’t have been out of place on some Cell/St. Johnny/Grifters showcase at the New Music Seminar circa 1992 – the proverbial “go,” albeit through the Peter King lathe cut treatment. Songs all sound like growers, the product of some thoughts which are usually buried under the...
BJ Nilsen and Stilluppsteypa – Space Finale 2x12”...
A title couldn’t be more appropriate for the electronic “doop” and cosmic pulse infections from sound artist Nilsen and longtime Icelandic experimental outfit Stilluppsteypa, now reduced to a soloist. Impossible deep and unsettled calm mark these four sides, originally released on cassette, a rush of immense headspace and crushing atmosphere. Side C is positively terrifying and should not be...
Nate Wooley – Trumpet / Amplifier LP...
Greg Kelley and Axel Dörner have already issued albums entitled Trumpet, with the unwritten subtext being “Just in case you couldn’t tell, this is made by…” Now Nate Wooley has taken up the gauntlet of unaccompanied brass, and not only just as radical and alien as anything any other trumpeter has issued in the past decade, it attains a plane of aggressive badassedness that Kelley needed both...
Duane Pitre – Origin LP (Root Strata)
I can say this about very few records that come down this path: this time, I was there. Duane Pitre was my downstairs neighbor in Greenpoint, in a building we have both since vacated. Origin was the work he was composing in our shared time as brownstone-dwellers, and I heard the finely-intoned drones of “Sun AM” and “Sun PM” shaking my floorboards just about every day for a nine-month period....
The Rebel – The Incredible Hulk LP /...
Jumping over a couple of proper LPs and an epic (and great) singles/unreleased/rare double LP finds Wallers suffering from some serious creative cabin fever in the latter half of the latter half of the past decade. It was during the former year that bins were just starting to fill with LPs sporting a particular design layout we now know as the calling card of Sacred Bones Records. One of these...
Sewer Election – Bristning LP (Release the Bats)
I think the key to understanding and enjoying the works of solo Swedish noise/tape loop/weirdness merchants like Dan Johansson, d/b/a Sewer Election, is that you have to understand why someone wouldn’t want to hear it, ever. The majority opinion tells you that five to seven minutes of having someone drop a metal washtub on your head, then hit it with a chain is only less tolerable than hearing...
Super Wild Horses – Fifteen LP (Hozac)
Tomahawk guitar and target-practice drums get banged out and slammed down by two Australian women known as Super Wild Horses, who ascribe to the informal simplicity theories of Eddy Current Suppression Ring (with whom they shared a label, and whose Mikey Young, a busy man also involved in the UV Race and Total Control, gets the producer credit here). Ideas here are clearly not their own – the...
Various Artists – The Secret Museum of Mankind...
A milestone of musical preservation from the ‘90s finds its way back to the world. Musical dexterity and near-possessed ululations, captured from shellac 78s made in countries around the world that wanted to capture their folk traditions before their makers stepped into the void and these sounds were lost forever. The historical angle worked pretty good on the first generation of people who got...
Channels 3 and 4 – Christianity LP (Gilgongo)
What’s more confusing: the general Canuck fascination with Screamers-style synth abuse and racing Caucasian robot dance beats, or the fact that it’s still a going concern some 10-15 years after most of the world has stopped caring? Was Black Cat #13 really that much of a force? Channels 3 and 4 would argue as much, slicing up a treatise of relentless monotony, redeemable mainly by the velocity...
Cecil Taylor & Tony Oxley – Ailanthus/Altissima...
My personal decade-long retirement from being a spectator of jazz couldn’t last forever. If anything, it’s nice to return to artists who I followed with great interest back in the ‘90s (wasn’t that when most of us had our jazz phase anyway?) and see where they are now. I’m glad these guys are still active; Cecil Taylor is one of my favorite musicians of any genre, bar none, a guy who has...
Jørgen Teller and the Empty Stares – Live Arrogant...
Free rock-oriented guitar wandering with a rhythm section who showed up for jazz (Soren Gørm’s upright bass is a dead giveaway) but are made to play it straight. Kinda hard to tell where this one was going at first, but any doubts are dispelled in the first five minutes or so. There’s a good bit of interesting musicianship at play, and guitarist Teller and company certainly don’t shy from...
Tonstartssbandht – Midnight Cobras 7” EP (Psychic...
Looks like the contemporary underground (for lack of a less shudder-worthy term), has finally pulled its head from its ass. This month’s run of review releases, while larger than normal, has nonetheless yielded a much better percentage of disparate bands/entities with one common factor: They are either on-the-level, or less frequently, next-level. Unless this is some cruelly elaborate...
Various Artists – Stuffs LP (Compost Modern Art...
I’ll take this over the Hozac dumpers any day; this sort of panic is much more my speed – a new import collection of a “state of scene” for bands with a little more ambition to go with their violence. Side A collects the mostly West Coast-based American contributions (When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, Sneakers, Matt K. Shrugg, Ty Segall, Bipolar Bear, Agent Ribbons and Sic Alps), almost all of...
Double Negative – Daydreamnation LP (Sorry State)
-/- is a Carolina hardcore supergroup, staffed by Raleigh scene vets from Erectus Monotone, Snakenation, Shiny Beast, Patty Duke Syndrome, Polvo, and a handful of others. While their earlier LP clung too hard to convention, and the follow-up single swung away at abstract aggression almost to a fault, they have hit the proverbial sweet spot some years into a career that’s running exactly the way...
Gaze – Gaze 1 CS (Beach House)
Junked up, scrap heap electronics on this tape offering by SF based outsider noise label Beach House. Sounds a lot like the early Mudboy output, or a release that would have a quiet home on the DNT imprint, filled with circus-like synthesizers and distorted, echoey vocals that play like a pisstake on electronic music. Very well assembled; even though each track sounds extremely different from...
Grown-Ups – Not Friends 7” EP (self-released)
Burly, melodic punk from Calgary, a good place. Four simple, shouty songs with a good notion of how to craft a pop hook and beat its hide raw. What their singer lacks in subtlety, the trio makes up for in the sort of unison guitar/bass action you might have heard on parts of You’re Living All Over Me, or maybe that mythical Descendents/Minutemen combo that never materialized. The Miscendents....
The Joe Hebert Band – “I Don't Wanna Be A Preppy”...
Fans of the lighter side of KBD punk and raw power pop can’t really lose with the A-side of this reissued collector’s fave, of which original copies are so scarce that less than an armful have been accounted for. The great preppy scourge of the ‘80s was frustrating rockers everywhere, and this 1981 single is proof that Blaines and Buffys were causing a ruckus in Rhode Island. Our man...
No UFO’s – Soft Coast CS (Nice Up Intl.)
Super dosed out Krautrock vibe here, laid on thick – groove box drum machines laced up tight with every possible funk drone electronic beat you could possibly imagine. Every song comes off as some aspiring Cluster / Roedelius outtake, but then deforms into something completely its own. Little can be found about this creepy Canadian, other than a label page which only has this sole release and...
Br’er/The Chord and the Fawn – The Soft...
Having unloaded previous Br’er atrocities onto the erstwhile Killedbyjeff, I feel I can avoid this bullshit no longer, and must face this hideous music head-on. I got a really icky feeling from Benjamin Schurr’s previous efforts, intricately packaged as to intimate a deeper meaning that would never come. He’s fled Philadelphia to Asheville, NC (lucky you, residents of that town), stuffing all his...
Car Commercials – Prisoner of Type 7” EP (Soft...
To put it bluntly, the last Car Commercials record made me want to hurt myself. Particularly Eric’s Diary – seriously, they are blasting that shit at captured al-Qaeda operatives under a fucking prison somewhere as I write this, and one of those dudes is about to spill Bin Laden’s coordinates. It’s dark, really. Somehow it’s still comforting that Big Dan and his friend David are still hammering...
Fungi Girls – “Turquoise Hotel” b/w “Doldrums” 7”...
Hope you like monotony, as well as familiarity with all things going on down on the sticky movie theater floor that is the lo-fi/shitgaze poopdeck of 20xx. I’d been told Fungi Girls were a better band than what’s evidenced in between these two stylistically mix’d-n-match’d songs – a little surf, a little reverb, diminutive male vocals, a lot of repetition, and no personality to speak of. If you...
Joe Kile – Southern Beauty Queen LP (Eastern...
To all aspiring singer-songwriters out there, especially those who have gummed up their proverbial works with GarageBand’s additive processes, and the concepts of grandeur as big sound/big lineup/loads of instruments and geegaws: how do your songs stand up on their own? It certainly feels like there’s a lot of self-consciousness and hiding of the source amidst a lot of that kind of crap pap. Not...
Magic Lantern – “Showstopper” b/w “Cypress” 7”...
I didn’t cover the first two Magic Lantern LPs (another arm of Cameron Stallones from Sun Araw) here for some reason, but maybe I should have. Those were minor psych records with a big sound, a gale force gust of noise that often came at the expense of good ideas or well-structured songs. Yet, the records were extreme enough to make an impression. Since low wattage reviews have likely kept Still...
