February 2011
57 posts
The BiPolar Express – “Mineola Turnaround” b/w...
So the “Bad Band Name = Bad Music” equation returns from serving 3 to 5 for irony abuse and gets back to work … big time. There is nothing bipolar about that which is directly related to, or even circumnavigating The BiPolar Express – this is one shade of awful and one shade only: Tepid blues boogie (with its origins in bad garage, I’m imagining), painfully cliché theme/lyrics, all in the name of...
Gestapo Khazi – “Escalators” b/w “The Atomic Kind”...
The intersection pile-up of The Feelies, Minutemen, and ‘90s spazz-pop makes “The Atomic Kind” a terminal keeper with golden staying power, but the same can’t be said for “Escalators” (though it’s not a “bad” track in any sense of the word). The b-side is more than enough to make me curious about the rest of Gestapo Khazi’s output (unheard as of this writing), and curious in a...
Lion Sized/Accordion Crimes – split 7” (Cash Cow)
I can safely say that this is the second time I’ve processed a post-Y2K band that clearly loves them some Tar … as in, AmRep-to-Touch-and-Go-to-callin’-it-a-day Tar as opposed to a stupid drug reference that I would never make to begin with. And to note: The first band I heard rocking an overt Tar influence was Black Helicopter – way ahead of the game on that one, but before I start lavishing...
Thomas Patrick Maguire – “Divorce Man” b/w...
Get it? They make records. This gentleman does acoustic pop with some hinting-at-roots interest without going all out with that bullshit. “Divorce Man” takes sonic and aesthetic parts (aforementioned) that I am predestined to dislike and comes off with one of the maybe 30 to 40 lifelong examples of such that truly moves me. For clarification, said song features absolutely no Americana/No...
Martiens Go Home – MGH Plays Ulver 10” EP (Kalinka...
You probably don’t have the backstory down, either: Martiens Go Home operates as a radio program on a college radio station in Brussels. The group apparently does a weekly program, but it remains to be seen whether they use all of that archival performance material – primarily field recordings and treatments, ambient drift that falls off far ends of the FM dial – for their releases, as these folks...
Movie Star Junkies – In a Night Like This 10” EP...
Junkyard rockers from the Boot go half on a Birthday Party-esque wild electric stalker vibe, the other half on Roma-induced static caravan ripoff/roof patching scam/throwing-mustard-on-you-then-cleaning-it-up-while-lifting-your-wallet style dishonesty. Unsurprisingly, both approaches work for the desired effect: garage eeriness and swingin’ sledge from some Euro dudes who try to recreate others’...
Nude Beach – s/t LP (Mandible)
Heart-on-sleeve power pop meets a near pop-punk jump around sensibility, courtesy of a Brooklyn band that’s got a heart in the right place, and music to match. I get a real Jersey/Springsteen feel to these songs, sort of where that Titus Andronicus band has headed, only without the spam program “ipsum lorum” style word dump of a vocalist or any sort of concepts more complex than “I want you,...
Sex Church – “209” b/w “Paralyze” 7” (Hozac)
I can’t decide if the Hookup Klub is really the proper place for Sex Church. On one finger, and against the good of the band, I don’t want the whole world getting into Sex Church. On another digit, Sex Church should be heard by as many people (the dears AND the dipshits) as possible. And on the third (middle) finger, not everyone will “get” where this band is coming from. So what to do? Beats...
Spiders – s/t 10” EP (Crusher)
From the quickly evaporating pool of Euro-stoner rock bands with vaguely unrealistic career ambitions comes Spiders, with a guitarist from Witchcraft (and his wife) and a drummer from Graveyard working in a tuff/flash late ‘60s hard rock vein, complete with a female vocalist/sexpot in Ann-Sofie Hoyles – compared by her record label to ultra-specific examples like the Shocking Blue’s Mariska...
Wrnlrd – Death Drive 10” EP (FSS)
It may not be fair to call Wrnlrd black metal, because at that point where does the line stop? Not that it has to. All I keep thinking about is the narrow field of play, and how a group like Arlington, VA’s Wrnlrd – who, like fellow thinkalikes Locrian, push (though not always forward) the tailored definition of blackened misery with lots of non-traditional instruments and intentional weirdness...
Jason Ajemian & the Highlife – “TV/Animals” b/w...
These pompous assholes go for some jazzy skronk with a hint of no wave, but they sound more like the combo that backed Mike Myers in So I Married An Axe Murderer than James Chance. The first side sucks more than you can possibly imagine - even one hair on the ponytail of the sax player in the SNL band has more dignity. I’ve heard better music coming spilling out of the Line 6 amp section...
Belle & Sebastian – “Last Trip” b/w “Suicide Girl”...
Perhaps my least-favorite personality type is “The Talker” – those center-of-attention blowhards who speak a lot, but speak not of what they know. That’s the type of folk who dismiss and disparage this band based on their lack of hetero/masculine wiles, and that’s the type of folk who is suddenly talking to my back in mid-conversation. Belle & Sebastian can out-write M.O.T.O. and most of...
Chauchat – Songs for Scaffolding LP (Unread)
Got something from this band long ago, just had to check back in on that. I mentioned “food court sensibilities,” haha. End of 2007, what the heck was going on in my head. Anyway, Chauchat appears to be some sort of project from some Eastern PA guys who’ve tried their luck in Philly and now NYC, but who came back home to record this album in a big, unoccupied factory. The sound of the room they...
Chubby Behemoth – Global Dicks 7” EP (Infinite...
Too-busy jazz raveups by people that were too busy getting good at their instruments to realize that combining bad jazz with show-offy proficiency is a lousy idea. Imagine the theme from Benny Hill faster and with occasional distorted guitar, along that feeling you get when you’re punched in the stomach or read about a horrible atrocity and you’re in the neighborhood. Think the most...
Dead Ghosts – s/t LP (Florida’s Dying)
Reverbed-out, energetic sockhop garage noise pop from Vancouver, with cover art from a Vivian Girl, which in this case outlines what you might expect here – a noisome, lo-fi, exuberant but kinda haunted (given their name) slow dances and hard stompers. The band certainly has it together and none of their motives can be called into question for that reason alone. Nobody here is trying to outweird...
D‘Incise – Rivages Sur L’Antipode. LP (ini.itu)
Laptop IDM/step reconstructions of sound sources recorded in Indonesia (gamelan and otherwise) for some occasionally gripping, deep results. A lot of the record is crazy quiet and sort of defeats the purpose of having one’s label loft comparisons to Burial or Akufen, but there are enough moments of blissful jitter on the B-side to carry the entire work. Nice sounds from someone who’s paid quite...
No UFOs – Mind Control CS (Dub Ditch Picnic)
One side of this sounds like a three or four second snippet of every piece of music this artist has attempted in the past year (and probably a lot that were borrowed), played in sequence. If there’s a good idea in there, it’s almost instantly discarded in favor of the next one, and so on and so forth. Might be good for an art gallery but I couldn’t wait for it to end. The other side is your...
Sailors – “Guilty Pleasure Blues” b/w “Let’s Go...
Another Australian garage/pop band, this one with two distinct sides that are well captured on record. “Guilty Pleasure Blues” traverses a ‘60s psych-into-‘70s soft rock sort of breeziness at heart, but mostly sounds like the well-tanned, healthy spirit of rock ‘n’ roll bands from that country. The way those songs play out, like “77 Sunset Strip” by the Riptides, is this mutation of the Beach...
Ramon Speed – Effulgence And Alacrity 7” EP...
Wimpy mushmouthed snorewads that perused a dictionary before they named their EP and fancied themselves literate enough to include a lyric sheet with their 7”. Guy sings like he has a dirty sock in his yap (which if he doesn’t, he deserves) and the band takes one four five and runs with it like they are being chased by the Wolf Man. They try to switch it up sometimes and go for a more...
Topaz Rags – “Crown Center” b/w “You Go On” 7”...
This rec barely has a cover, just genero lo-rez photocopy and halfassed scrawl, the vinyl is bright pink w. black label and no obvious way to discern the different songs. The mystery adds to it, two droney numbers with echoed whatnots ping ponging around a catchy bassline. The hypnotic vibe might work better with an LP, giving your prefrontal cortex a little time to take its shoes off and relax...
The Cairo Gang – Holy Clover 7” EP (Tin...
I am terminally averse to unicorn imagery. Same goes for zombies, pirates, ninjas, Chuck Norris, future-kitsch, synthesizers, beach-bum nu-gaze soft-rock appropriations, and the photo-collage movement. This EP sports a crude watercolor of a bearded centaur – with arms (they don’t have arms, my dawgs) – holding the freshly-severed head of a Viking or a minotaur … can’t tell. Unicorns are...
Ami Dang – Hukam LP (Ehse)
Sitarist and vocalist Ami Dang harnesses the power of Wham City with actual musical ability and thoughts on proper presentation, with a Loopstation or some such gear and a heightened awareness of how to write and play off oneself. The basis of these tracks is predominantly Indian in origin, but Ms. Dang strings these sounds together into the flux of the present, swirling around and building off...
K-Holes – “Swamp Fire” b/w “Werewolf with a Tan”...
For the home-schooled or those recently emerging from 25+ years in a coma, a “K-Hole” is what one experiences when recreational ingestion of the veterinary tranquilizer Ketamine causes a sort of holding pattern in the brain, or at least I think it does. Though there was no “K-Hole” during the 30 – 45 minute stretch that constitutes my only Ketamine high, it remains a sole experience in my...
Jinx Lennon – National Cancer Strategy LP (Septic...
Ireland’s answer to MC 900 Ft. Jesus. Electro-rappin’ from a self-described “observer of people around me and [writer] about the dark underbelly I live in mostly.” The Suicide and Burroughs reference he lays out there make sense, building up to become one pf the most head-scratching, no budget spoken word/serious vibes sorta creeper that’s come through in a while. Production is pretty out there,...
The Super Vacations – Thicker Milk LP (Shdwply)
21 short songs, completely crammed from one end to the other with hooks, riffs, and teenage wonder. The Super Vacations mine the entirety of the early-to-mid ‘80s disaffected high schooler sounds (Psych Furs, Cramps, U2, Joy Division, a multitude of VHS-era original soundtrack LPs) in a similar sound and structure across. This is a very psych-flavored endeavor, obviously recorded at home with...
Transmontane – Lo Speechio Circolare LP (Sick...
Nothing but rhythm guitar and vocals by Sick Room label runner Ryan Duncan, and it makes for one of the most affecting releases in a catalog made up primarily of post-rock and mathy elements. Slow, aching untreated songs that will make you sad because they’re supposed to and you need to feel that way sometimes, so might as well do it with this instead of letting life take its course and surprise...
Wet Hair/Naked on the Vague – split LP...
Four songs apiece from two outfits that have developed and/or fully changed from release to release as a matter of course. Wet Hair have been looked upon less than favorably here, but not anymore – their side of this clear, split LP is the most cohesive and coherent sounding music this ex-Racc-oo-oon duo have released yet. The mode, while leaning towards psychedelic weedfeelings drift, is very...
White Cop – Smack Based CS (Negative Guest List)
More shit from Australia. This one’s good. Four songs, and boy, do zey play zese guitars like jackhammas. A good half or more of the band’s sound is dedicated to this mechanically intense wall of guitars, which is the reason to tune in. This is where it’s at, an imposing presence in the driver’s side that most bands couldn’t muster. The other half – frantic primal garage boppin’ in time with the...
YOU. – Demonstration 12” EP (Blind Prophet)
Seven songs from a forlorn-sounding duo, nothing but mournful vocals against crisp, direct beats and moody synth. Has that whole black leather and chrome sorta ambiance, definitely Wierd if you know what I mean (and why wouldn’t you). It’s not like Zwei Dunkel Jugend or anything but you’ll get it. Minimal, hard, and sensitive all at once … holding back the joke therein on that one, gang....
Young Identities – s/t EP 7” (540)
This fine label, run by Timmy Hefner of Chaos in Tejas fame, is reissuing the entire Shake/Savage catalog of singles from Australia’s punk era, with this one and the related Bodysnatchers the first out of the gate. “Positive Thinking (Negative Reaction)” punched its way out of late ‘70s Brisbane, dripping with mud and scum – somehow singer Clay figures out the Darby Crash-meets-Wimpy style of...
Things that are happening.
I’m playing some records this Thursday, February 17th at Union Hall. The band Rope is performing, along with Antietam, PG Six and the Black Swans. It’s at 8pm and costs $8. Privileged to be participating in this night, hope you enjoy it.
Bats in the Bell House is Friday March 4th. Goth, industrial, new wave, postpunk, maybe this No Joy record. Performing in the live room is the most...
Clockcleaner – Nevermind LP (Fan Death)
For reference I’ll point you to this review, as my opinion on Nevermind hasn’t really changed. Some have said that the main reason Clockcleaner broke up was that they were tired of their fans, the people who were inspired by this competent, interesting record of theirs and had to come out to see them play, in their new pair of O.G. WildMans, the guys who spilled your drink and needed to be...
Electric Crush – Dropouts in a Drug Haze 12” EP...
Weird release here from a sub-label of the garage/punk based Slovenly imprint. This was a one-man band around in Vegas circa 1999-2000. One of his demo tapes is reissued here (first side only, guess side 2 was S.O.L. huh) and we find a guy who’s got some weird breakbeat/Black Keys of Smut vibe going on the first and last songs, with only “Clock Stands Still” coming close to the spaced-out, acid...
Fergus & Geronimo – “Never Satisfied” b/w “Turning...
So two cool breezes named Andrew Savage and Jason Kelly (“Fergus” and “Geronimo” respectively) come home from the thrift shop one day with the 1982 children’s record known as The Amazing Adventures of Pac-Man. They brief their roommates (not to mention everyone that came over later that night for an impromptu party) on the boundless hilarity of this $0.25 find, eventually finding the song...
French Quarter – It’s Not Just Kissing LP...
The first French Quarter LP has been my favorite release on the wild-pitch Gilgongo label since it began. I think I get where the guy is coming from, though, and it’s always good to see the work of a guy who’s doing exactly what he wants and thinks is right. This one is all over the place, with lots more treatment and embellishment than his stark debut, but focusing on the capture of the right...
Heaven’s Jail/The Living – split 7” (Heart Break...
Heaven’s Jail is named after a song by the Italian institution known as Bulldozer, or at least the single from Bulldozer’s 1987 album is called “Heaven’s Jail” and there’s a great video for it. But the music on this record, and this goes for both bands, has nothing to do with metal of any type. (Now d/b/a The Heaven’s Jail Band. -Ed.) No, this exists clear on the other end of both the sonic...
The Normals – “Almost Ready” b/w “Hard Core” 7”...
Standing directly atop the fracture between punk, power pop and metal, the Normals convened in late ‘70s New Orleans to play between the cracks, and somehow come out sounding better than like any comparable record of the time. Seriously cool songs here that are as well-written as they are out of control. The Ramones would play a pretty significant part in the Normals’ sound, but these guys play...
Rhonda is a Dead Bitch – Laos 12” EP (Troposphere)
Aimless sound from a too-big, too-baked band with a really dumb name and button-pushing agenda. I doubt my friend Rhonda would like this much. But why bother alienating people with your band’s name when the music alone would do just fine? They’re not doing Des Moines any favors for its boasts as a rock mecca – these are way tired ideas that would have been cut off a Butthole Surfers record...
We Repel Each Other – s/t 2xCS (no label)
Here we go, one of the least inspired pieces of music I’ve ever heard. Chicago-based rock trio, rudimentally sound, without a single idea to back it up. Sounds like three guys on gtr/bs/drums meandering about to a steady beat, one simple part each (except for the song that has two), played over and over until they arbitrarily come to a stop. Imagine the canned goods and products in “Repo...
White Orange – “…And This Is Why I Speak To You In...
And that is why no one will remain in your presence. Pardon, couldn’t resist. It means very little that “Middle of the Middle” is in fact a five minute edit of the 13-minute “…And This Is Why…” because the piece of work in question is a fucking piece of work, if you will. There’s a chance that the mindset behind all of this is one similar to that of the untouchable Wildildlife (if there were...
36 – Memories in Widescreen 2xLP picture disk...
Pretty cool tense/rainy/techno-melancholic ambient drone record from a guy in the UK. Kinda like that Bieber time-extended thing occasionally cross-pollinated with vocal house … kidding, this is a fine effort of tasteful, beautiful sunrise meditations for your chemical comedown, definitely with a more than large nod to club electronic music as it existed in the ‘90s and early ‘00s. Melodies...
Bassholes – I Feel Like Sleeping 12” EP (Columbus...
You gotta respect the Bassholes no matter what. Two fine covers (Mickey Jupp’s “I Feel Like Sleeping” being the nicest thing here original or otherwise, some of the edge taken off and the appropriate amount of studio help, like backing vocals, make it work), and two stompin’ originals on the flip. Raw rock ‘n’ roll from Don Howland and company. Part of the CDR singles club so I don’t know how...
Cheveu – 1000 LP (Kill Shaman/Born Bad)
The new Cheveu revue, comin’ right at you, shows the French trio kicking at all sides of the box they had previously occupied. I saw them play once and was really taken aback by their overtly physical performance (I think we crowdsurfed the singer a few times, and there weren’t all that many people there – in this place Todd P was booking which was basically a concrete slab covered by a tarp,...
Föllakzoid – s/t 12” EP (Sacred Bones)
Do you like “Mother Sky” by Can? SO DO THESE GUYS AMIRITE?! Part of a Chilean import program by Sacred Bones, who provide me with not so many of their releases anymore, or maybe just the wrong ones … I’m just not so sure what people saw in this one to warrant licensing it for American release. One side is a straight paean to Can, the other side starts off like the music from “The Doors” movie...
The Holydrug Couple – Ancient Land 12” EP (Sacred...
Some people involved with the BYM studio/label universe (and that band Föllakzoid) reconvene as a duo to form The Holydrug Couple. They’re quick studies of the Venusian blues, and play a lush, languorous jangle trance, picking up halfway through from the airy blues of a Come or Codeine record to the kind of endless two-chord bliss out that Sonic Youth might’ve pulled in the mid ‘90s. Pretty...
Dave Phillips/Cornelia Hesse-Honegger – Mutations...
HEAVY field recording/manipulation of Thai and Vietnamese sound sources by Fear of God’s Dave Phillips, augmented by scientific illustrations of mutated insects by artist Cornelia Hesse-Honegger. Her work graces the cover art, labels, and full-color plate within, and gives a striking but a bit too obvious of a meaning behind Phillips’ sound collage, which is why you probably stepped up in the...
Various Artists – A Fundamental Experiment LP (no...
Benefit compilation assembled, anonymously, by a San Francisco community that’s rallied around one of their own (a guy reffered to as J.M.W.), who is recovering from a really bad accident and is snowed under with medical debt. The result is a collection of Neil Young covers by some of “Da ‘Zonez” greatest – Julian Lynch, Sun Araw, Ducktails’ Matt Mondanile, Metal Rouge and more. Since they’re...
Beastianity – Root LP (Dais)
Already scarce reissue of some brawny neo-folk/noise from Australian madmen Beastianity. Originally released in 1999, the group’s Root album draws its lines with a scalpel, a mean, parched, and maniacal demeanor to hasten the apocalypse, by way of chanting slow torturous phrases across all manners of static and interference, finding beauty in the many dirges that cut through their material and...
Dangerous Boys Club – Vril LP (Fast Weapons)
Check the lineup here: Mac Mann (Antioch Arrow, Get Hustle), Aaron Montaigne (Antioch Arrow, Tarot Bolero), Mark Burden (Silentist, Miracles Club), Sam Ott (Year Future, Fucking Angels) and Kaetlin Kennedy (cymbal hitter, also someone who took a “Which Twin Peaks Character Are You?” quiz on Facebook). Four out of five oughta tell you where we’re going, and the Anger-inspired artwork should hint...
Harold Honey – s/t LP (self-released)
Hard luck Nick Cave/Tom Waits acolyte who at least has the good sense to aim towards loud rock, even if it is done through completely over-dramatic sensibilities. Harold Honey seems like one among many in Los Angeles, and is a far better guitarist than a vocalist – at least his band can get its fur up on most of this record, slamming it out in tried/true bar-rock/three-chord fashion. That alone...
