April 2011
63 posts
The Neil Michael Hagerty Project
In June 2000 (or maybe it was July, I don’t rightly recall) I held a ticket for a Royal Trux concert at the Knitting Factory in New York City. Due to a particularly hard day at work, I decided to skip the concert entirely. I ended up seeing Oneida play in a loft in Williamsburg that night, but that’s another story altogether.
By the time the weekend was up, I had learned that Royal...
( ) – “False Xmas” b/w “What Shall You Say...
David Vassalotti, of haze-machines Merchandise, offers up whatever’s in the parentheses as the name for his solo project, plying away the more British aspect from that other project’s body into something a bit more deliberate. Vocal treatments sound as if they were mic’d underwater, backwards guitar leads rip through shimmery glam pop that takes big cues from classy groups like Pulp, fidelity is...
Deathly Fighter – Completely Dusted LP / “14 Year...
Deathly Fighter provides some much-needed relief to the whole “VHS soundtrack” identity picked up by more than a few acts right now. Like them, they work from the same ozone-smelling array of synths and bass guitar and drum loops, but instead of trying to mimic something they heard somewhere else, they mostly go out on some truly blazed, late-late night trip, aiming somewhere between a shroomin’...
McDonalds – “Good Parts” b/w “By Halves” 7” (Oh...
Part of a growing “don’t give a fuck” pop renaissance going on in NYC right now, bands that will happily slop it up in pursuit of a good time. Liam from Cause Co-Motion and Dan from Oxford Collapse team up with a guy named Chuk, and the three of them, all deciding to play instruments they weren’t proficient at for this band, put their spin on the sort of off-the-rails-yet-matter-of-fact swirling...
Metabolismus – Mauser O.K. 7” EP (Amish)
German project Metabolismus has quietly released a string of mind-melters on and off since the ‘90s, both here and abroad, but if you weren’t looking for them actively, they would have easily slipped by. The product of large ensemble improvisation and playing, they were one of the first outfits to recognize and recontextualize the new age/new wave pioneers in German music, and attempt to force...
Sightings – Michigan Haters LP (S.S.)
For most of 2002 I worked retail in New York City with the guitarist of Sightings, Mark Morgan, as my manager. Michigan Haters came out that year on CD, courtesy of Igor, another co-worker of ours. It’s an accurate representation of what the typical work day felt like for me after 9/11; unreasonable demands, suffocating atmosphere, no sympathy, cheap highs, toxic fumes, high volume, low pay,...
Andy Human – “Toy Man” b/w “Center of Gravity” 7”...
A pretty authentic take on mid-‘80s New Romantic Brit shit by way of Oakland, CA. Andy Jordan’s got decent pipes somewhere between Kevin Rowland and the guy from Simple Minds; he and the rest of the band nail the minutiae of the genre on A-side, “Toy Man,” which has a great guitar line and killer bridge and would fit in nicely on a mixtape next to the Psychedelic Furs circa ‘87. The flip,...
Astrobrite – Crush LP (BLVD)
First release on a new label run by some folks out of the ever-dependable Laurie’s Planet of Sound record shop in Chicago. Astrobrite was the name donned by Cortez/Loveliescrushing guy Scott Cortez to showcase his shoegaze material back from the first and second waves of that movement. Crush was initially released in 2001, though its material was for the most part from five years earlier, when...
Trent Fox & the Tenants – Mess Around 7” EP (Kind...
Trent Fox brings some of the range flavor home with an individually burnt 7” that both smells bad and will get your hands dirty. Hailing from the cowboy paradise of Milwaukee, the quartet offers up some twangy, Western themed pop for garage bros with some mighty hooks and a little bit of grime. “Outta My Mind” and “Sounds Fine to Me” come straight out of the Strange Boys playbook, but with a bit...
Jungle Fever – Cryin’ Blood 7” EP (Windian)
A female take on Jay Reatard perhaps? This mysterious little record housed in a generic white sleeve and adorned with ballpoint pen scribblings was apparently pressed in a very limited run of three copies … oh excuse me, those three are “for promotional use only.” Who got the other two? Blender and Under the Volcano? The two cuts on side A, “Cryin’ Blood” and “Under the Bus” rush by and...
New Lows – Harvest of the Carcass LP (Deathwish...
Stroke-inducing metallic hardcore from the Boston area. This thing is heavier than getting ghosted by a upper-story jumper from an office building. The architecture of their sound is one of the sturdiest I’ve ever heard, insanely tough mid-tempo hardcore with blitzkrieg-style double-kick drumming, truly disgusted angry vo-kills, and dense guitar atmosphere that couches their sound between the...
Pop. 1280 – The Grid 12” EP (Sacred Bones)
The Pop. 1280 singles portrayed urban decay with a sense of wonderment, as dirty as the band might have intended it to sound; lyrically they approach the horrors of neglect and NYC from the outside, rather than not taking a stance at all or trying to fake it. The nightmares that they cast (baser ape humans masturbating on a bridge, Internet porn, the titular “Trash Cop” – “made of newspapers...
Protect-U – World Music 12” EP (Future Times)
Second 12” from this DC outfit, part of the Future Times cartel who are doing BIG things for electronic dance music on the East Coast, reaching back to an artistically fertile moment using analog gear and light, colorblind choices in sound and arrangement, the mind-body circuit played out large for explorers in the night club and the after hours. “World Music” starts out with the big 808...
Religious Knives – Smokescreen LP (Sacred Bones)
With each passing full-length, and the reconstructed evidence of tapes, CD-Rs, and live recordings that’ve filled in the gaps, Brooklyn’s Religious Knives have been on a slow, dank beeline to an idyllic sound, informed heavily by the blues. Their minimalist compositions carry maximalist aesthetics and a thousand-yard stare intensity, making their music somewhat of a latter-day response to the...
Sun Stabbed – Des Lumières, Des Ombres, Des...
French duo of downer guitar improvisers follow up a dreary single from a few years back with an equally dreary full-length. Stretched out beyond the limits of patience for almost any listener I could ID, the group takes the non-traditional approach of the Dead C., from which they also took their name, but without any of the character either. Sounds like two guys who don’t play guitar, playing...
Superdestroyers – “Slave to the Urge” b/w “You’re...
Not gonna lie. This is a stinker of a garage rock single, a real stale ale and bad BBQ burp. The band’s ‘tude suggests they could care less. Know why? They’re “Living For The Urge” and taking no guff. They employ snotty vocal stylings. I would probably appreciate them more if I could throw beer at them, in a good-natured way of course. (http://windianrecords.com) (Andy Tefft)
Umut Adan – “Gülerler Bize” b/w “Beni Seçtiğin Bu...
You like old thyme Turkey? Ersen, Erkin Koray, Mogollar, Toe Blake? No? Well get on that. And if you’re wondering if this is a reissue or if these are old school RAGING FUZZ GUITAR GODS doing a comeback project … nope. Umut Adan is a 20-maybe-30-something Turkish musician based out of Italy, and this single is not quite as crisp and hashed out as those classic grooves, but hey what is and we’re...
Brazilian Money – Doing What I Want 7” EP (Totally...
Apt title, for these clattering Canadian wild-men’s first four track recordings. A pair of drummers, and spindly guitars guitars drive this tumbling garage themed racket into rhythm heavy jumble that coalesces into a melody for a few seconds. The results are are engaging, as the well conceived “songs” remain hectic, but never cacophonously noisy. Everything finds a place, a ukulele makes...
Brain F≠ – “So Dim” / “Symptom Set” 7” (Grave...
Guitar/drums girl/boy (respectively) duo of indeterminate garage aspirations … other than a pretty harsh recording technique, and the telling situation created when a recording technique is all I can remember about this record after playing it ten times before stopping to write this review. There’s a bad joke waiting in the wings if we think, not hard, but with ease about the name of this label....
Broken Neck – s/t 7” EP (Art Fraud)
Like the bands that play the Austin venue of the same name, Pittsburgh’s Broken Neck traffic in gnarly DIY hardcore. This six song EP is built on a chassis of Disfear-styled “rockin’ crust” but with enough discordant, dark riffs, and singer Holly’s thoroughly ripped vocals to provide plenty of balance, keeping it out of the cheesy Active Rock zone and closer to a minor classic like the...
Cloudland Canyon/Citay – split 7” (Intercoastal...
Galaxie 500 covers from what seems like a logical pairing of bands, both for the covers and a split, though I’ve heard just a little from either group. Citay take on “Tugboat” with great respect for the Galaxie vibe, a pretty straight tribute, and there’s a towering guitar solo that seals the deal. Cloudland Canyon get appropriately blissed out with their version of “Temperature’s Rising,” more...
Face the Rail – s/t 7” EP (Headcount)
This and the third Young 7” make for a totally disparate twofer that excites the living piss out of me. I guess you’d call this hardcore, as a starting point, then add that it the guitars carry so many different hooks in each song that these three songs seem like an entire album. There’s a clear debt owed to Mr. Reatard on the first track (“Fractures”), but unlike a lot of other upstarts in the...
Gentlemen Jesse and His Men – “You’ve Got the...
I thought this was going to to be an easy home run, but this one isn’t working for me. With something as pre-defined as Gentleman Jesse’s brand of power pop it either hits the pleasure center immediately or it doesn’t. “You’ve Got the Wrong Man” lacks the guts of the first single and even the LP, which in the grand tradition of the finest powerpop, falls off, and fast. Despite everything being...
Iceage – New Brigade LP (Dais)
New Brigade is the best type of shock – familiar antecedents put together in a way that makes you scramble to figure out where you heard it before, only to realize nope, you were wrong. Yeah, yeah, Joy Division, especially the Warsaw years, given the name and a certain distant, rough hewn quality to their singer Elias’s voice, and an overall Euro feel, and half heard lyrics about “these days”...
ListenListen – Dog LP (Mia Kat Empire/Thy Old...
All those guys who work at, like, Walter Foods, with their suspenders and slicked hair and waxed mustaches? LiastenListen sounds like those guys started a band, and they wear their work clothes to practice too. But these guys aren’t based in Brooklyn, they’re from Houston, which means that no one has to pay them to dress that way. All these miserable mergings of alt-rock/fringe-rock from the past...
Lotus Eaters – Wurmwulw promotional CS (Taiga)
James Plotkin, Stephen O’Malley and Aaron Turner try to out-bore potential paying customers with longform drone, already issued once on CD but recalled here with alternate takes (yeah, like you could tell … also, this sort of thing needs to be done more than once?) Respect for all three participants aside – hey there is at least one really good Isis record, Plotkin is a standard bearer and Sunn...
Martial Canterel – “You Today” b/w “Champion” 7” /...
This pretentious clown’s two singles are real turds. Derivative, half baked ‘80s pop synth, without hooks or anything that makes it notable or memorable, with vocals that sound like a Robert E. Smith wedding impersonator, all captured in poor fidelity with a lousy recording. It’s supposedly “cold wave” but there is nothing there; this about as ominous and cold sounding as a puppy wagging its...
Nervous Assistant – “Bastard Blues” b/w “No God in...
At this point it’s hard to imagine that, 35 years ago, there was a New York City where Bob Dylan and Townes Van Zandt used to play the Bottom Line, working out old labor songs along side contemporary folk. It’s rare to see an unironic mining of earlier cultural eras, never mind a vibrant music scene in Manhattan these days (? – Ed.). So it’s kind of hard to get a read on Brooklyn’s Nervous...
Sonny & the Sandwitches – Throw My Ashes Off the...
40 seconds in and I’m bored, bored, BORED. Sonny & the Sandwiches is emblematic of my major beef with most of the current streams of indie rock. Historically, people compensated for a lack of conventional mechanical ability with an exceptional charm, wit, or inspired outside technique, often surpassing the genre conventions they were working within. Take the Oblivians: Jack & Greg’s...
Staccato Du Mal – “Desespero” b/w “Conducir” 7”...
In case the artist name and label didn’t tip you off already— yes, this is some dark synth-heavy action for the nocturnally inclined. This single accompanies an LP also released by Wierd, and the figure behind Staccato Du Mal, Miami’s Ramiro Jeancarlo, has appeared elsewhere on the label and in the duo Opus Finis. This is, I believe, a strictly analog affair, and even as someone who dared to...
The Twilight Singers – Dynamite Steps 2xLP (Sub...
There’s good cheese and bad cheese. Afghan Whigs had at least a moment or two on their final album. And I am a super-fan of both Congregation and Gentleman … the former was peerless at the time, and the latter just felt right, as there just wasn’t enough music in my little world that addressed fucking and the problems caused by fucking. I’ve been waiting for a Twilight Singers album that didn’t...
Baunoise - Ambien I CS (Tanaka Heavy Industries)
Very vaguely-labeled one here – cover art is some abstract line drawings in squares, replicated on the tape label along with some Braille printing (translation is the artist and title above, the only indication of any sort of name on this release), and there’s a list of nine numbered song titles on the short side of the J-card. This came from Tanaka Heavy Industries, the same place that...
Games – “Don't Look for Her” b/w “Funny Girl” 7”...
A very high quality and refreshing guitar pop single from a band with Busy Signals and Gentlemen Jesse connections. Just when it looked like the entire garage rock world was lost to forgettable lo-fi banging and bland reverb pop, a record like this comes along to remind everyone that making good rock records actually requires songwriting skill and a knack for hooks. It’s kind of hard to...
The Mark Sparkles – “Uppers and Downers” b/w...
I know the ’90s revival is in full swing, but some scenes don’t need revisiting. The Mark Sparkles could have been Punk Uprisings compilation also-rans for the green haired, big pantsed, Ritalin popping mall punk set of yesteryear. The first 20 seconds of “Uppers and Downers” seem promising in power pop way but the syncopated ska-punk riff and walking bassline snap me back to Sugar Smacks...
Meercaz – s/t 12” EP (Tic Tac Totally)
Space rock jammers recorded through the living room floor. Why so muffled? Odd mixing makes this definitely sound like a home studio job, with the guitars and vocals coming out a lot cleaner than the grubby rhythm section. Hollers pretty loud, but doesn’t necessarily endear itself to any modern trends, which maybe is why it works. Don’t get me wrong; this sounds pretty bad, but Meercaz has been...
Various Artists – Tartare de Subconscient Infini...
No less than 18 projects from France and possibly elsewhere are crammed into a C60, with discovery and awareness for you, the listener, in mind. This is about as various as Various Artists gets, though acceptable Francophone punk/undergrowth parameters are adhered to, so you’ll find noise and tape/splice manip jobs up against parping new wave/synth romps, lots of garage, weird punk, tensed-up...
Broken Water – Peripheral Star 12” EP (Perennial)
Olympia’s Broken Water has been on a tear for the past year, with a curiously strong debut full-length and a single that consummated their relationship with turbulent noise. They lead off in 2011 with five new songs and a big step up across the board for production and presentation. Deathreat’s Stan Wright gives Peripheral Star a boost in depth and clarity of the band’s sound that might not have...
Chung Antique – Go Poetry CS (no label)
Pleasant/stressful instrumental mathy dichotomies from the six square blocks of Olympia, WA. Chung Antique is a three-piece rock trio and they are starting to develop their own sound, crazy rhythms – aesthetically and realistically – jumpstarted with a Turbo Rat pedal; far enough removed from the Midwestern dude-centric hotbeds where this music was raised, if not necessarily born, to be able to...
Criminal Code – s/t CS (no label)
Criminal Code is a new trio at the demo stage, and already operating at a level well beyond a good portion of the records that get thrown my way. The group plays sturdy-legged, mid-to-fast-paced punk with a dark undercurrent, screaming vocal terror, and a good idea of how to write an engaging and memorable song in such a tired, worn out concept. The rhythm section is strong and strident, never...
Dads – Hat Creek 7” EP (Katorga Works)
Tampa genre-abusers from the Cult Ritual/Merchandise/Slavescene/Nazi Dust/Neon Blud family go four for four, if their standards involve writing songs like they are four (well, two and a half) completely different bands. Title track is simple-strum indie gunk as found on side B of one of those KRS comps. “Sex Theft” is 54 seconds of noise rock yelling and a seasick riff and untuned (or poorly...
HPP – s/t 7” EP (Perennial)
The Hipster Piss Party enters Round 3 with six new songs. Still punk, still raw, a bit more thought in the writing this time (REALLY into “Sludge Love” and “Crescent Moon” … actually really into all of them), a bit more obfuscation of influences, from British snot punk to Black Flag, and the seams aren’t showing as much anymore. For some reason, this is countered by really clean, obviously...
The Love Dimension – “The Dark Night of Your Soul”...
The thing that kills, and has always killed retro-minded reproductions like The Love Dimension is the unfortunate touches of the present, that Dickensian ghost lingering in the room. I was talking with my friend Ronnie during our DJ set the other night about this while he was playing a cut by Thee Four Given, an ‘80s garage revival band that absolutely nailed sound and production values to the...
Milk Music/Carrie Keith – split 7” flexi w/ NUTS!...
NUTS! is a periodical from Olympia, WA, profiling the bands and artists in town in a personal way. The front page of issue number six checks in with nearly every band in the area on how they’re doing, then goes on to interview Broken Water about their politics and list hundreds of things that HPP might stand for (I’m still going with the one I read first, Hipster Piss Party). It’s a great read for...
M.O.T.O. – Kissing All the Wrong Asses 7” EP...
Masters of the Obvious have been around forever (since the ‘80s) slugging it out in the garage rock trenches.. Started this off on the B-side to hear a song called “Here Comes Our Rock.” Very amusing, being about rocking and all. Next B-sider is “From The Seat Of Our Pants To You” and while also rocking (does John Reis owe them some credit or vice versa?) it does sound a little too Kenny &...
Soldiers of Fortune – Ball Strenth LP (Mexican...
This is a super-group consisting of 2/5ths of Oneida plus Matt Sweeney and the guys I had to visit the Mexican Summer site in order to ID … no disrespect. First song = best song, no doubt, and the rest of the album is a must for Oneida fans, as their signature sound (such a hard fucking thing to have at this stage in the game, you know?) overwhelms the still-noticeable Robin Trowerisms fighting...
Weird TV – “Sufrir” b/w “Sex” 7” (Perennial)
Punk fuckin’ rock from America’s #1 location for punk fuckin’ rock. Weird TV digs up the toughness from those early Bikini Kill records (they’re in the groundwater) and transposes them into gang fight territory, tuff riffs sung in Spanish by two awesome women in charge and two guys holding down the back. “Sufrir” wishes some dude dead, while “Sex” is a catalog of all the places to do it (bed,...
Charlie and the Skunks – Take an Ice Cream Scoop...
Bands like this are penance for reviewing records; bland garage, the original sin of underground music. Totally unremarkable, hook free garage bullshit, non-valiantly retreading for the umpteenth time the utterly stomped-into-dust bubblegum & ice cream ‘60s vibe. Bland, flat recording, both wimpy and annoying with no specific characteristics, except maybe for the squeaky toy keyboard’s faux...
The Dead Shall Not Have Died in Vain/Dysthymia –...
Says the all-knowing Wikipedia: “In mathematics, a Diophantine equation is an intermediate polynomial equation that allows the variables to be integers only.” Sexy. Very sexy. As for band #1, I suppose I’ll never learn that expectations are for other people. That band name attached to these sounds … look for it in the index whenever I finish writing My Secret History of Letdowns. There resided...
Georgiana Starlington/Wild Choir – split 7” (Rob's...
As far as split releases go, these bands complement each other pretty well. Both seem to be drawing from the same reverbed out, Pre-Nuggets car rock of the 50’s and 60’s. Georgiana Starlington wins this battle however with the more interesting and stronger song, almost touching upon The Oh Sees for a minute with really roomy sounding vocals and just enough twang without it getting...
G. Green – I Will Not Withdraw This Statement 7”...
A person of indeterminate sex howls up front for this three-piece from Sacramento, CA which leaves the verses of “I Will Not Withdraw This Statement” with little to be desired, yet the chorus is a slam bang home run. Two chords + squiggly lil’ solo + some mentally-challenged “whoa ohs” + repeat 3x = the aural equivalent of your first kiss. The remaining tracks, unfortunately, are a little more...
