March 2011
73 posts
Day Creeper – Problem At Hand 7” EP (Tic Tac...
Kinda like power pop, except it doesn’t make me want to snap the record over my knee then bury it and sow the ground with salt, and kinda like Tyvek or Home Blitz, without the former’s pop spark or the latter’s character & unfettered joy. The songs tempos shift in an organic way, the songs (sans smirk) take detours you weren’t expecting, with a real craft to them. Not bad....
Jaki Jakizawa – Can You Feel the Juices? LP...
Two unappealing names vie for position with the title of a confusing platter. Side A is called “Period Fart” and it is abominable, like 13 minutes of jackhammering drum machine and farty synth improvisation. This is like dying your dreadlocks green and wearing a purple hat sort of shit. This is looking like a member of the band Jellyfish level of YBN torture, and I wouldn’t be surprised if...
Rabid Rabbit – C Section one-sided 12” (Still a...
This Chicago quartet (bass, guitar, sax and drums) lays out a looooooooooooong, sustained, droning intro to this acrid-smelling slab, a teaser that leads into a two-chord purple kush ball crusher that’s heavier than a post-Kuma’s bowel movement, and about as firm. For as heavy as this thing lets on, the Guitar Center-quality guitar metal solo that wanders around in the 12 minute mark lets you see...
Soft Encounters – s/t one sided 10" EP (Monofonus...
Not an Austin thing at all, which is strange for an ATX label – almost all of them seem largely committed to documenting what’s going on in that town alone. Certainly there’s enough bands to go around and then some. Still, a nice find here from ex-Ex Models Luke Fasano and Zach Lehrhoff (maybe they moved there? Have not seen either in NYC for a while), in a crunching, tribal mode, a whole...
Virgin Forest – Joy Atrophy LP (Heart Break Beat)
Soft countrified rock, expertly played by most of the band Phosphorescent. Pleasant enough, but gives very little hope for a follow-up; this is the kind of contemporary blue-state adult music that is 12 for 10 cents (“maybe where you come from…”), anonymously sad and feeling of the variety of record that would get shopped to random indie labels like the one I used to run back in the ‘90s and...
Bronze – “The Rouge Became” b/w “Wits” 7” picture...
Half of me wants to say that this band swims in the same pool, or rather, tries their damnedest to catch the wake, as competent, somewhat catchy, harmless post-punk recyclers Interpol. The other half says these doofuses sound like a bunch of pandering simps with the generic dial turned up to 10 and strapped to a JATO booster, with a dose of electronic shimmy because that is what is big right now...
Ed Nasty and the Dopeds – “You Sucker” b/w “I'm...
It’s hard to imagine the circumstances under which this record was made. What would it have been like to have been a punk rocker in Jackson, Mississippi in 1978? Is this a product of the Sex Pistols touring the southern states? Until the upcoming Ed Nasty article is published in Ugly Things, I’ll just have to listen to this record and wonder. Last Laugh Records gives us a necessary...
Lawrence English – Incongruous Harmonies 7”...
Close to a year before the city of Brisbane and large swaths of the eastern Australian coast were devastated by flooding, an antiquated industrial structure known as The Gasometer in the Newstead district was the site of a performance by avant-circus group Circa accompanied by a sound installation by Lawrence English. It helps to have a picture of The Gasometer, and a trapeze artist precariously...
Licorice Roots – “Strangers in Marshmallow Boots”...
The sleeve and titles send up some dull red flags, but don’t be fooled, it’s not some ‘90s pabulum rehash. It’s a real band FROM the ‘90s! In fact, Delaware’s Licorice Roots are former Shimmy Disc recording artists, and recipient of Sassy Magazine’s “Cute Band Alert” in 1993 (seriously). They’ve kept a capital ‘L’ low profile, quietly releasing 4 albums over almost 20 years. “Strangers,” the...
Per Purpose – Heil Progress 7” EP (Bedroom Suck)
Brisbane’s Per Purpose have made a very worthy 7” EP of Minutemen and bIG fLAME influenced rock here. The pace is hectic, there are a ton of stops and starts in these short songs, the vocals have a Mark E. Smith-ish sneer, and every once in awhile someone lets lose with what sounds like a tin whistle. It’s really great stuff and if you enjoy the Dawson/Stretcheads/“Death to Trad...
The Prefab Messiahs – “Franz Kafka” b/w “Prefab...
The cover is a dirty liar: the teenage-lookin’ mopes with Brian Jones pouts, sandaled feet and Aquarian threads aren’t some Vietnam-era teeners that somehow ducked the net of genre compilation strip mining. Nope, The Prefab Messiahs are early’s ‘80s pre-AND-better-than-Paisley-Underground tunes that sound like the Twinkeyz without the hallucinogens. Great stuff. It’s not gonna crack open...
Primitive Calculators/Slug Guts – Pumping Ugly...
Primitive Calculators are one of the greatest bands to ever walk the Earth. In their 1977-1980 heyday, this Melbourne band created a very advanced racket out of WASP synths, slide guitar, primitive drum machine, and agitated thickly Aussie accented vocals. Some elements of their sound betray the influence of the No New York compilation LP, but other parts of their sound seem to come out of...
Primitive Motion – Certain Materials 7” EP (Soft...
Leighton Craig, who does time in the great twisted jazz trio the Deadnotes and is also a solo artist, and Sandra Selig, who I’m not familiar with, have created a very compelling improvised ambient murk on this 7”. The instrumentation is male and female vocals, flute, a primitive sounding drum machine,and lots and lots of reverb. It doesn’t sound like much on paper, but all the...
Providien – Followed by a Wraith LP (Amethyst...
Ominous, overloaded bass/noise/rhythm/processed vocal duo that understands the lingering effects of shock, and plays close to the naphtha in a beyond-industrial context. That Sword Heaven’s Mark Van Fleet is part of this project comes as little surprise, but the jaw-busting pound of that project’s dark undoings is traded off here for a close-talking, guttural, altogether ugly and miserable...
Psyclones – Different Thinking People LP...
From my college radio days I remember this lot, as well as their label Ladd-Frith, as residents of the cassette bin, these U.S. Mail crates filled with experimental and noise tapes we had wedged under the LP shelves. Psyclones recorded these tracks in the first half of the ‘80s, performing as a duo (Brian Ladd and Julie Frith, still in operation today in other capacities) in a space created...
German Measles – A German Joke Is No Laughing...
Word is born that German Measles are all the Cause Co-Motion guys except the singer, who refused to play songs like these. This band seems to annoy a lot of people I know, but I really can’t figure out why. They’re sloppy but far from inept, and nobody complains too hard about early Television Personalities, of which this bears a bit of resemblance. Silly songs, kind of in line with where the...
K-Holes – s/t LP (Hozac)
Dark, dirgey rock from a bunch of more NYC residents a bit newer than myself. They happily lift up the mantle of noisy sleaze like the Chrome Cranks with little disagreement from either end. Downtuned, bluesy throb and scrape, with crazed male vocals, stoic Goth female vocals (courtesy of Georgiana Starlington, I presume), and a saxophone. New York is said to be alright for fans of that...
Tortured Tongues – Let Me Down 7” EP (Hozac)
The problem with playing self loathing, drugged out and sloppy punk is that if you don’t actually want to die, your music sucks. That kinda happens here, but there’s always hope, or in Tortured Tongues’ case, no hope left. The title track is a tough one to get through, with the vocalist either drugged to the point of no longer making words, or he is just retarded. Either way,...
Brick Mower – Under the Sink LP (Stumparumper)
New Jersey pop-punk trio pushes the ‘90s revival into its next phase, namely the Superchunk/college rock spectrum that’s been heralded by a number of bands in what I’m presuming to be the Rutgers Zone – anywhere from Home Blitz to Screaming Females, a dynamism brought on by local province and most likely a proximity to WPRB-FM. Harmless, exuberant sounds here, reaching for the plate and somewhat...
Allen Karpinski – VDSQ – Solo Acoustic Volume Six...
Allen Karpinski offers up a solo affair, playing a tenor guitar with a single coil pickup, much the same way as Jason Molina did in Songs:Ohia. Having gotten his start alongside bands like theirs in Ohio postrock/Americana ensemble The Six Parts Seven, he’s now positioned in Seattle, and crafts a thoughtful sonic diorama through playing in a style that equates method with expression. This is...
Liquor Store – “Free Pizza” b/w “Trash Sandwich...
As of press-time New Jersey’s Liquor Store boasts six guitarists (at least five of whom definitely can not be heard on these two songs) and a front man who looks like he should be working at one of those chop shops outside of Shea Stadium in 1986. Stoopid with a capital “O,” the Store is a non-stop fire sale/boner party for those of us who felt “Surfin’ Bird” was a little too deep. I know...
Tin Horn Prayer – Get Busy Dying LP...
Ahem. “Ever wonder what it would sound like if the Lawrence Arms and Uncle Tupelo got into a bar fight?” What? No! (http://www.myspace.com/tinhornprayer) (Doug Mosurock)
White Whale – s/t 7” EP (no label)
Trashy melodic punk from Buffalo that would have bowled me over in “1995,” (second best song on here, right behind “We’re Dead”), but I’ll still give it a pass sixteen years later, because c’mon, you and I will always have a place in our hearts for shit like this. You can smell the piss n’ vinegar from Duff’s wings in these tracks. “We’re Dead” is the winner here, a thorny blast of catchy...
Art Lessing – Lectures 2xLP (KDVS Recordings)
A decade’s worth of selections from the career of hometaper/visual artist Dan Quillen. Based out of Sacramento, this release qualifies some 24 releases Quillen’s performed on in the past decade, and a symbiotic relationship having formed between him and local freeform college radio station KDVS. Certainly the world wasn’t getting access to Art Lessing’s dozen or so full-lengths and...
Blue Sabbath Black Cheer/Wicked King Wicker –...
I think Netflix could scare more people by playing this instead of some shitty horror/gore movie that gets dumped out to their VOD streams. Here, BSBC are pure terror and oppression, filling up every available space with an ominous rumble or a violent burst of noise, dark, fetid and unsettling, even as it quiets down in its second half. Wicked King Wicker sounds like a pointed, sadistic black...
Mi Ami – Dolphins 12” EP (Thrill Jockey)
The onslaught of rock-trio Mi Ami has now receded, with the departure of bassist Jacob Long, into a new sound. Vocalist (and Dusted staffer) Daniel Martin-McCormick has dropped the guitar in turn, and the group now freestyle-esque pop and house music played on synths, drums and a sample trigger, in the duo formation in which they began. Somehow the electronic version still sounds like the...
Matthew Mullane – VDSQ Solo Acoustic Volume Four...
Representing the village of Hiram, OH, a Northeastern hamlet between Cleveland and Youngstown, by way of Chicago (where he also performs on synth as Mego recording artist Fabric) Matthew Mullane presents two sides of elegant, fluid acoustic guitar instrumentals, a longform suite with gentle buildups that are distinguished without being overdone or meandering. When he finally does break into a...
The Singleman Affair – Silhouettes at Dawn LP...
Singer-songwriter affair is more like it (featuring Chicago notables like Joshua Abrams in the ensemble backing band), though if a band is actually marketing itself as a place where single men can congregate in their singleness, that’s kind of a great idea. I picture Schuba’s for some reason as the venue for this event. There’s sort of a URL dropcard silent chuckle/mild joke here, in that...
Anagram – “Butcher” b/w “Fish 7” (Telephone...
Sometimes if you pound the same riff loud enough and long enough, it can be a song. Anagram has managed to do this pretty effectively, despite the riff for each song on this record being nothing incredibly groundbreaking; rather it’s sloppy and loud, but direct and to the point would probably be a better summation of what’s happening here. “Butcher” seems to borrow a Wire riff from Chairs...
Dan Melchior – Assemblage Blues LP (Siltbreeze)
More like “Afflicted Dan” from the sound of these recordings, Melchior staring down a pile of tape, a loop pedal, and certainly the most disorienting tracks he’s yet to have on a record. Where Dan Melchior’s solo performance mode has been somewhat restricted to the solo acoustic zone, here he bends to break a subsistence to rock ‘n’ roll, instead layering unsettling distortion patterns, synth...
OBN IIIs – s/t 7” EP (Tic Tac Totally) / “That’s...
Austin’s OBN IIIs (named after singer Orville Bateman Neeley) get it right once on their pair of 7”s. The lesser: “That’s No Way to Rock n Roll” is boilerplate garage rock for sweaty, beer hurling Fonzarellis, with a nondescript “rock n roll ooh baby” quality and two shred sessions. The flip plods along chanting “it gets so hiiiiigh,” and because they are high on drugs, it’s a slower song before...
Soft Kill – An Open Door LP (Fast Weapons)
Strong effort here from the remnants of Blessure Grave, continuing in the path of a strengthened dark/Goth rock ideal (think Comsats or The Sound). Most people probably know Tobias Grave as Toby Chan, and a subsection of those people may or may not have been ripped off by record pre-order scams, and now, it seems, the sale of vintage guitars. Pick this up now so that he can get his legal defense...
Veins – s/t 7” EP (Youth Attack)
I would strongly suggest you read the next few lines of this review sitting down, because I’m about to drop some seriously world shattering information for you. Ready? Mark McCoy is in another band- and it’s another super group. Yes, I know. Sit down, on the couch. Put your feet up. Think about what has just happened. The hardcore equivalent to Hailey’s Comet has happened upon us....
Burning Sensations – s/t 12” EP (Vertex)
Excellent, self-hating hardcore from Perth (“the guitars that killed Perth”), with a touch of Reatard-style pop reflection and a slug at Agent Orange/Wipers style paranoia in between. This comes from guitarist David West, who also sent in the Rat Columns cassette and who plays guitar in Rank/Xerox, or whatever they’re gonna be called now that they’ve been stripped of their name. But to the matter...
Diarrhea Planet – Aloha 7” EP (Evil Weevil)
Goddammit. Web resolution sleeve, with an oversatured picture of a mid-‘90s convertible in front of a palm tree wall mural, by a band called DIARRHEA PLANET, on a label called Evil Weevil Records. Talk about a bad first impression, I’m predisposed to put this shit on blast, and yet to my humiliation, it’s infectiously charming, poppy garage from what I’ll assume are Fix My Brain fans,...
Pink Reason – Desperate Living 7” EP (Almost...
After the dust settles and the music historians of the future sit down to assess the indie music of the first decade of the 2000s, Pink Reason will most likely be remembered for three things: 1.) The majestic Cleaning the Mirror LP from 2007. Released by Siltbreeze, it sounds like a claustrophobic American-ized version of ‘80s New Zealand home taper bands like This Kind of Punishment and is one...
Rat Columns – s/t CS (Grave New World/ROS)
Mostly solo recordings from San Fran-via-Perth musician David West, late of the great band Rank/Xerox (who are undergoing a legally-mandated name change, but have otherwise been far too quiet) and Aussie HC outfit Burning Sensations (see above). This cross-continental enfant terrible fits in quite well in the cassette netherworlds, a clearinghouse of styles and noises too disparate to warrant...
The Zoltars – s/t 7” EP (Sundae)
Do you like simplistic, goofy punk played by a couple of weird dudes that sounds like The Urinals while pulling off the quiet-loud-quiet-loud that The Pixies managed to master? Of course you do. Do you like Daniel Johnston? Yes, you do. You now also like The Zoltars. This is 4 tracks of the type of punk that math majors make, songs about Batman, voodoo, killing people and not caring. Cool stuff....
Apache Dropout – s/t LP (Family Vineyard)
WOW. Indiana-based trio, claiming past actions in John Wilkes Booze and Lord Fyre, wastes no time in creating a monster of drug-fueled ‘60s psych and hambone R&B, a living tribute to the thousands of teenage ghosts and dead dreams which were born and quickly faded in the split level garages of suburban homes in the Vietnam era. Whatever these guys were working up to in previous endeavors,...
The Girls at Dawn – “Back To You” b/w “WCK” 7”...
The Girls at Dawn are a Brooklyn trio who are the absolute bottom of the barrel of bands doing the Vivian Girls derived ’60s girl group meets ’80s/C-86 jangly guitar sound. They have zero songwriting skills, can’t sing, can’t play, and their records sound like reverb soaked mush. They wouldn’t know a pop hook if it hit them in the head with a hammer. The only things I can remember...
Uku Kuut – “I Don’t Have to Cry” b/w “Visions of...
This single is just one example of the efforts of the PPU crew to make available some of the most whispered about, unheard, unreleased, demo-only rare funk, disco, boogie and R&B and bring a million DJ wet dreams to life. Seriously, if you don’t know, now you know, but lest that sound intimidating to funk civilians, you don’t have to be an obsessive to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Uku...
Wild Flag – “Glass Tambourine” b/w “Future Crimes”...
Given the bench depth of talent, the overall notion that a band like theirs brings to the fairly tired ideas at play in modern rock ‘n’ roll, and the promise within both of these, people were proclaiming their love for Wild Flag before hearing a single note. As they play their first 30 shows, they prove all of these people right, that we can find something lost in the past and bring it back to...
Various Artists – Casual Victim Pile II LP (12XU)
We get a lot of records in at Still Single but if asked to narrow it down by region, we get the most music from Australia, Olympia, WA, and Austin, TX – in fact I’d say Austin is tied with an entire continent in terms of how many bands and labels operating down there are more than happy to send in their products for a full and stringent evaluation. Maybe the small press theory is enough to...
Beaches – Eternal Sphere 12” EP (Mexican Summer
Thank the great decision-maker in the sky, for the last thing the world needs is what this band’s name might imply: Some art-college co-ed and whatever neo-hippie is in her drawers trying to glue My Bloody Valentine to Pablo Cruise or any of the other pathetically unoriginal peanut-butter-in-my-chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter car wrecks that Generation Photo-Collage has praised for 13 minutes...
The Black Ryder – Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride...
This one takes a few listens before I shook the “later Lush album with black dude peepin’ around the logo at me” feeling, or before it revealed itself to be something other than microwavable shoegaze leftovers from all fourteen of the revivals. Because it’s presented on two 12”s at 45 RPM, fidelity is not an issue, and that helps when the song wasn’t taking me all the way there. Most of these...
Blue Sabbath Black Fiji – Mistake of a Small Bird...
Please don’t confuse them with Blue Sabbath Black Cheer; BSBF indeed sounds like the musicians who sucked all the color out of the former, turning them into the deadless hulks of noise that they are now. No, this is something different entirely – heavily processed guitar and vocals over a drum machine beat and synths gunking up the corners, from dorm room funk to intense, prismatic noise-throb...
Bodysnatchers – “Frantic” b/w “Mystery (Solve...
Said to have been recorded and written in a few hours by members of the band Young Identities, this reissue of the Shake/Savage single by Bodysnatchers fits right in with your workaday noise garage/“weird punk” tenor that’s still somewhat in thrall amongst today’s young drug abusers. Big difference here is that this is from 1978, and it’s actually good, the sound of raw discovery and blind...
Danava/Earthless/Lecherous Gaze – three-way...
The physical label on this record parodies early Chrysalis Records (think green w/ orange butterfly), and according to what filled the air when I played this one-sided 3-way split, all parties involved have gone all Indian-med-student on their Atomic Rooster/Groundhogs/Sabs/1st Grand Funk LP homework. Danava is not the semi-gentle nudge of prog-noodle shred they were on that first LP, for they...
Dead Leaf Echo – “Half-Truth” b/w “Babyeyes” 7”...
A single that could have been released in 1992 without a bat of a heavily-mascara’d eyelash, Dead Leaf Echo have a real hard-on for the 4AD/ethereal template, particularly the flanged Rick and chord progressions of Lush. That there’s a guy singing instead of Miki Berenyi’s shattering high alto takes away some of the steam powering this dirigible, but what really knocks it out is the slavish...
FAWN/Brand Labs – split 7” (Brand Labs)
A refreshing headfuck, the likes of which I haven’t experienced post-Y2K, so let’s hope this is a sign that our fledgling decade is preparing to blanket the last ten years with a massive steaming coil of not-giving-a-fuck. The record’s packaging is really confusing, forcing the recipient to pay attention, and it’s pressed in an addition of 1000 (hand-numbered … something that seems hilarious in...
