August 2011
41 posts
Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys – “Nobody Else” b/w “Help” 7”...
They’re three handsome young guys from Sydney who play hopeless romantic rock music, seemingly, with all they’ve got. Vocals sound torn raw from the throat in that sort of craggy/smoker sorta way that Blake Schwarzenbach or Paul Westerberg, with both songs running on the truer side of power pop as it folds away from precious moments and into rock ‘n’ roll itself. Both tracks here are great, their...
Apache Dropout – “Shot Down” b/w “Sister Burnout”...
Apache Dropout’s full-length has been sitting near the top of the heap for me this year. I listen to it whenever possible, stunned that a garage band could move me the way that they have. New releases can’t come quickly enough, so there’s this single, recorded on their spring tour while in Austin, ready to fill the gap. “Shot Down” begins and ends like you’ve been miniaturized and placed inside...
Blank Realm – “Hey Little Child” one-sided 7”...
Disassociative rockers from down in Brisbane, Blank Realm are given the challenge by the Neg Guest List people to cover a song for a “jukebox” single; hence, this unsurprising read of Alex Chilton’s “Hey Little Child.” This is about as strait-laced a Blank Realm song as I’ve heard, holding on to Chilton’s original intent for most of the song before devolving into a mash-all-the-keys organ rave...
Che Chen – “Pulaski Wave (Violin Halo)” b/w...
Four years ago the True Primes put out a rather winning hunk of clatter-rock, but it’s taken until now to know what the story was with their name. Turns out Che Chen, who was in the True Primes and currently plays with Jozef Van Wissem and Robbie Lee in Heresy Of The Free Spirit, is a tuning nerd. These two tracks are all about the numbers; both pieces originated in tuning ratios, and both sides...
John Wesley Coleman III – Little Miss Keith...
As frontman of the Golden Boys, JWC the Third has shown real knowledge about making some ramshackle but endearing garage records in recent years. This solo outing might top them all in terms of looseness of concept and possible loss of sanity. Coleman is a howling nutjob for most of the record, pulling off a one-two punch at the outset (the rollicking, if taped-together riffage of “On a Bus” and...
Eagle Boys – Kambalda 7” EP (Negative Guest List)
Punk and requisite after-effects from a group of Australian ex-pats living in London. The band appears to be out of commission at this point, which is a shame as this is one of the better offerings I’ve come across in a while. They drive pretty hard, mimicking ’76 punk but coming out somewhere between the surf-borne tension of Agent Orange and the default aggression of a nth-gen competitor like...
The Estranged – The Subliminal Man LP (Dirtnap)
Portland punx with Goth/doom leanings class it up to a level not seen on any of their recordings thus far. I picked up The Subliminal Man on a lark, nervous about being burned by flat songs and an even flatter recording yet again, but the Estranged have just about hit their stride here, coming up with songs that wear the necessary affectations rather than allow them to be worn. Never has the...
Factory Floor – “~(Real Love)” 12” (Optimo Music)
Factory Floor, the Manchester electronic trio with such a stunning EP last year, has left us hanging. The only thing to surface from them in our current calendar year thus far is this single, fine in its own form but hardly an advancement from what they’ve shown us, though it is a move in a poppier, easier-to-digest direction. That’s not what I wanted out of them, though, and I’m sure many would...
Groundislava – “The Dig” b/w “Panorama (ft. Clive...
More West Coast hip-hop collective machine beats for your NES or Sega Master System. I read something while trying to figure out what the fuck this record was (the minimal artwork and no release info didn’t help) that likened Groundislava’s work to that of early Japanese RPG music a la the Final Fantasy series. I didn’t really ever get into that sort of thing, except when I did, and it made me...
Puerto Rico Flowers – 7 LP (Fan Death)
Another respectable outing by John Sharkey III, dipping deeper into the dark well of dramatic Goth/synth rock. 7 (named for the number of songs here; previous releases included 4 and 2) flogs one tempo and style for the majority of the runtime, so unless you didn’t show up for Dave Gahan impressions, well-intended as they might be, and plodding, doomy songcraft, you may need to sit this one out....
Rale – Some Kissed Charms That Would Not Protect...
First significant work in some time from Rale, a/k/a sound artist William Hutson. It’s a very foreboding, cavernous, dark piece spread across two sides, one staggering between silence and depression, the other clicking alive with static and disorder. Beneath it all lies one chord which could undo years of therapy, (iso)underscoring the hopelessness that the title bears. Beautiful electric blue...
Silver Ash – “Deathless” b/w “Lifeboat” 7”...
Silver Ash’s collective address book includes the numbers, or at least old office hours, of Matisyahu, Milford Graves, and Nate Wooley, but their orientation is eyes-rolled-back ecstatic rock, trance variant. The title of “Deathless: may be a comment upon itself, because it has the same single-minded commitment to the groove as Can circa Ege Bamyasi; some good ideas cannot die. Actually the...
Wiccans – Skullduggery LP (Katorga Works) / Silver...
These are getting reviewed together because both bands share three members (drummer “Prince” Gregory Rutherford, bassist “Bad Lt.” Harpal Assi, and guitarist “TV’s” Daniel Zeigler), and the split nature of the review really speaks to the schism between these two works. Really, they couldn’t be more different, and it’s worth paying attention to just why that is. Wiccans are a hardcore band,...
Woollen Kits – “Maths” b/w “Out of Town” 7”...
Even more garage rock from Melbourne, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing so much as an unsurprising one. Woollen Kits aren’t to blame for perpetrating any sort of pox on music, though (this ain’t HoZac!) and their two songs here bite down hard, with some bristling guitar work, psych rec room shroom giggles and punishing staredowns. They have a vocalist who sounds so much like Calvin Johnson,...
X Ray Eyeballs – Crystal 7” EP (Hozac)
Brooklyn via San Francisco ‘60s-worshipping garage rockers serve up a pulpy, soundtrack for juvenile delinquents with this 3-song EP. It’s the debut 7” by this Golden Triangle offshoot, preceded only by a couple of cassette releases and put out in advance of a full-length on Kanine. Side A’s “Crystal” is the catchiest tune of the bunch, and its slightly wavering pitch sounds like surf rock on...
July 2011
56 posts
Angels in America – Narrow Road to the Interior LP...
Baltimore’s spin on the witch house/cough syrup/monster magazine conversation going on in modern underground music plays off more like a diorama to one’s possessions, mostly the cast-offs of others, gathered in thrift stores and flea markets and eBay, and the composite effect these items have on building personality. There’s a behind-the-scenes horror movie motif going on to the elements of this...
Can Can Heads – Kusisessions Vol. 2 7” EP...
RIDICULOUS skronkin’ rock from this Finnish band, who’ve been at it for about two decades. They got to slug it out with all the Bad Vugum and Trash Can bands like Circle and Deep Turtle when those records were being imported into the States back in the ‘90s, so some listeners with good memories will remember the name. By “session” it means recorded in the studio of the Kissankusi label (Vol. 1...
Cookies – Summer Jam 10” EP (We Buy Gold)
First off, Cookies, you don’t get to name the summer jam, even if you try to jump the turnstiles by naming your single “Summer Jam.” The summer jam is chosen by the general population. And I don’t think they are going to go for your wack fuckin’ MGMT/Ratatat little buster-ass electroinnocuous photocopy pop. Not even the Gamble/Huff hook lifted for the chorus is saving this one, though it’s the...
Don Dietrich/Ben Hall – Spitfire LP (What The…)
Ah, this is more like it. Free jazz skronk duo of Dietrich, unmoored from the bell of Jim Sauter’s sax, and “Hell” Hall on drums. Violent blasts of circular, jagged, left-hand-path saxophone and reckless percussion on three long, improvised pieces guaranteed to remind you of where you stand with this sort of thing. To come clean, it has been a really long time since I’ve heard any jazz...
Rory Hinchey/The Collection of the Late Howell...
Three passes against the press release which accompanies this work have made virtually no sense whatsoever. Hinchey is an interviewer, maybe a musician, who knows Irene Moon (Auk Theatre, Nine Fingered Thug) and started collaborating with her. He’s on both sides of this LP, in a duo with Newfoundlander Alison Corbett for a few tracks and solo for the rest, then as a member of The Collection on...
Jerusalem – s/t LP (Rockadrome Vintage)
Near-exact reissue of the sole album by Jerusalem, a young British band from the early ‘70s who were an early indicator of the textures and theatrics of metal as it advanced through the ‘80s. They play through a bluesy chunk of night-hardened proto metal, the very mood of which, from Ian Gillan’s thin, angry production to the psychotic wail of singer Lynden Williams, traverses the brain-stem...
Momus – The Thunderclown 10” EP (Tona Serenad)
The fop is back, boring us all to near-death with songs about nothing other than his giant penis. Man, this guy is the worst. Why resurrect his musical career? Weren’t we all happier when he was inventing Kickstarter to pay down legal fees? 350 numbered copies. No critical analysis here; not warranted. Sorry. Not really. (http://tonaserenad.com) (Doug Mosurock)
PHTV – s/t 7” EP (Rescued From Life)
Pig Heart Transplant manipulates elements of a recording by Bay Area HC outfit Vacuum. So you still get the hardcore – and on one track, something resembling the band itself, blowing out the walls of a small studio. Elsewhere it’s just vocal tracks, manipulated to sound like concussion bombing, or the instruments jumbled up and pushed through a series of filters and effects until it’s...
Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments – “Burning...
Hey, it’s two TJSA songs you’ve probably never heard before, courtesy of some folks from Australia who appreciate the finer things America has to offer. Demo recording quality = monster scuzz; Ron House taunting you behind the Strip-o-gram of “Burning Trash” and downright nasty guitarist Bob Petric offering up more belligerence in “Price of My Words” which, with the going exchange rate, might be...
Zomby – “Natalia’s Song” one-sided 10” / “A Devil...
My introduction to the world of Zomby – you didn’t think I was gonna go tracking this down on my own, did you? – is this elaborate 10”, packaged in a sealed cardboard zip sleeve with inside and outside printing. Pull out the record and it’s all strobelike diagonal lines on the sleeve (what’s that font? Soulwax Condensed?). The record itself is a one-sided 10” with a screened image on the flip....
Ultrathin – “Glass City” b/w “Don’t Mess” 7”...
This one kinda slipped through the cracks but no way was that deserving. I’ve been burned by Montreal garage/punk/Fonzie doo-wop in the recent past, but this Stooged-out huffin’ sock of a single makes up for it, nothing but wiry, tangled electric guitar, thick bass, frantic screaming and really solid drumming. “Don’t Mess” is my pick, for those who have hair on their middle knuckles to embrace as...
Adalita Srsen & Robert Scott/The Puddle – split 7”...
Scott (The Clean! The Bats!) performs with vocalist Srsen (ex-Magic Dirt) for a charming, heartfelt acoustic lilt called “That’s What I Heard.” Nothing but sweet, full-sounding acoustic guitar, tambourine, and these two beautiful voices complementing one another. Amazing how one little song like this can erase all the bullshit music you’ve had to endure just to get to it. On the other side of this...
Anita Fix & Bam Bam – “Run for Joy” b/w “20 Second...
Anita Fix, along with The Working Poor, have been the noms de musique of Allen Lewandowski for some time (late of Dead at 24, whose Blast Off Motherfucker LP was released by Ride the Snake as well), and a rotating cast of Pittsburgh-Rickety incorporated musicians. These two tracks were recorded live in concert across a few years, in a small room in Pittsburgh and a basement in Erie, somewhat in...
Art Museums – “S.H.O.P.P.I.N.G.” b/w “Feel Like...
I guess ‘80s synth pop is back in style? San Francisco’s Art Museums wears the costume convincingly with these two short songs on this 7”. It’s a successful exercise in that genre down to the plinky keyboard tones, dinky drum machine beats, synthetic hand claps, and glib lyrics delivered, as expected, in a faux-British accent. The tracks’ diminutive lengths make them feel more like sneak...
Balkans – “Edita V” b/w “Cave” 7” (Double Phantom)
<a href=”http://clatl.com/atlanta/balkans-attempt-the-rock-n-roll-road-trip-to-end-all-road-trips/Content?oid=3163279”>Recipients of the Darwin Award for feature music journalism</a>, Atlanta “buzz band” Balkans shoot for musical expediency and a familiar focus. Both of these tracks could dead ring for Walkmen demos by the end, the band leaning heavily on reverberating, surf-laced...
Bone Sickness – “Exhume” b/w “Post-Mortem...
I had to go to Texas to get this record, and I didn’t even get to see Bone Sickness play. How do you like that? Debut single from an Olympia death-n-roll outfit, all storming, mechanized wehrmacht and skin-splitting atmosphere. “Exhume” locks down hard on hard-shell riffs and phlegm-coated death growl, but “Post-Mortem Perversion” showcases their thrash sensibilities to a far greater purpose...
Los Buddies – “Moon Bars” b/w “RKO” 7” (Buddy...
Los Buddies seems to be the kind of band that doesn’t make an immediate impression until you put the record on, and get a sense for how much ownership they extend over the starry-eyed fervor their music gives off. There are SO MANY bands angling for the power pop crown, but these guys deserve it – songs like these need spirit, which they have the most of, and such are instilled with the sort of...
Les Demoniaques – “Teenage Lust” 7” cardboard...
West Coast sirens Dee Dee Penny (Dum Dum Girls) and Tamaryn reveal a bond for ‘90s Jesus & Mary Chain with a cover of the second track from Honey’s Dead. Really, were you surprised? They remove most of the original’s drive, pulling away the pulsing rhythm, and leaving behind little more than a pulse – heavily reverbed guitar and bass, some beautiful vocals (as you might expect), and a...
The Incredible Kidda Band – “Radio Caroline” b/w...
Early recordings, here on vinyl for the first time, from this cult fave British power pop unit. The Kiddas followed the Jam’s recorded debut by about a year, though with the kind of songs they were putting together, sounds that were casing the Mod revival fashion in the high street for a smash-n-grab shopping spree later that night, they were easily contemporaries, albeit ones that didn’t find...
Lady Piss – Streaming 12” EP (Sympathizer)
Baltimore noise-rock combo with a strong female presence, both in lug-nut spittin’ bassist Rebecca Burchette and the ball-pinched vocals of Noel Conrad. Anyone in the grind for the past 5-6 years will no doubt recognize this band as being in the shadow of Clockcleaner, with their nihilistic scrape and lack of decorum, especially in the Rick Major’s barking guitar riffs and the acid-spitting...
Man Forever – “Learned Helplessness in Rats – Rock...
Live documentation of the Man Forever band, performing the compositional whims of Oneida percussionist Kid Millions. Performing the piece “Man Forever,” released last year on St. Ives, it’s every bit as dexterous as the recording itself, and you gotta wonder about the hidden strengths of those who can maintain extended blast sessions of constant, rolling percussion with no room to breathe. Kid...
Man the Hunter – “Less For You” b/w “Dance With...
When I hear something like the one-man powerpop exercise that is a single like Man the Hunter’s record here, I get uneasy and less assured about there being hope for music and my writing about it altogether. This record is a virtual perfect attendance award; dude showed up, played as other records had instructed him, stayed perfectly within the lines – even down to chord progressions – and...
Shinji Masuko – Woven Music 12” (Brah/Jagjaguwar)
Masuko plays guitar in DMBQ and has stepped into the circle of the Boredoms, designing Yamatsuka Eye’s seven-necked guitar for the BOADRUM performance and participating as one of their members on their elaborately-staged concerts in Brooklyn. These two tracks are said to come from one of those sessions, Masuko rearranging them for acoustic and electric guitar threnodies to the sidelong tracks we...
Microwaves – Beholder 7” EP (Thunderhaus LTD)
A “welcome back” single from this Pittsburgh outfit (disclaimer: they are a band for whom I released a CD, back when they were a trio and Zombi’s Steve Moore was on bass), and possibly the most fun Microwaves effort since their beginnings. Last I saw them, they had stripped down to a duo of guitarist Dave Kuzy and drummer John Roman, with a computer playing bass, Dale Nixon style. Their lineup...
Mind Over Mirrors – The Voice Rolling LP...
Some people pat themselves on the back for buying a tube amp and a collectible guitar; when it comes to persistence of analog vision, they could learn a few things from Jaime Fennelly. After shifting from Brooklyn, NY to Washington State’s San Juan Islands and taking a job in forestry, he put the energy usually reserved for his trio Pee Ess Eye (aka PSI, Peeesseye, etc) into black and white film...
The Puddle – Playboys in the Bush LP (Fishrider)
As interest in New Zealand’s musical heritage resurfaces within the minds of bored young people and collector circles, it would be inevitable that some of the artists who made it happen at the outset might jumpstart their careers. The Puddle might’ve been the least likely of that whole crew, the group having started in the early ’80s and disappeared after its excellent Flying Nun album...
Shit & Shine/Expensive Shit – split 7” (Monofonus...
The Shit & Shine breadcrumb trail loops back around to Texas, and gives into its rave impulses yet again – “Romantic and Macho at the Same Time” starts off with a bit of subdued, low-res EBM and some cooling narration, until the title is spoken. Their shift into enormous, agitated feedback loops that push all the air out of the room is not surprising, nor is it novel at this point, but...
Spider Fever – “Whatcha Gonna Do?” b/w “Party...
New rule of thumb: if your band features Mario Rubalcaba on drums (with a hidden codicil for Rocket from the Crypt), your band is probably worth checking out. Even OFF! is pretty good, in no small part to Rubalcaba’s presence, a monster on the kit who pushes the members of whatever band he’s in to play as hard as he does. That’s kind of what elevates these two simple pop-punk songs into...
Sun Araw – Houston Abstros 7” (Monofonus Press)
Sun Araw is very much the one-trick pony of contemporary neon dub chillwave, but for once it’s a trick worth repeating. He plays in a tropical rainforest bass repository with a spatial concern and trueness of nu-sound self that recalls when Adrian Sherwood did the same thing back in the ‘80s. But really, that’s OK – when there’s music you can feel rather than just listen to, more research needs...
Three Man Army – 3 LP (A.G./Wet World)
Unreleased, self-disclosed rock opera from this ‘70s hard rock combo, the follow-up outfit for the Gurvitz brothers (post-Gun and Parrish & Gurvitz, pre-Baker Gurvitz Army), and drummer Tony Newman, sitting in between May Blitz and his future tenure in David Bowie’s band. Some have claimed that this was to be the second in a double-LP set for their second Warner Bros. album Three Man Army...
TM Eye – “Exposure” b/w “Pollution” 10” (Machine...
Pittsburgh cuts in on the electro-pop conversation with the debut single by TM Eye (Phil Boyd from the Modey Lemon on vocals, and studio engineer Preslav Lefterov on synths). People there like to dance again, it seems, as that VIA Festival showed us last year. When I grew up there, the lines were drawn. Nice to see them blurred out a bit. Boyd;s vocals recall no one so much as Trent Reznor,...
Ben Vida/Keith Fullerton Whitman –...
Here lies a series of happy convergences. This is the third album in Amish’s Required Wreckers series of art edition LPs, and the third in Keith Fullerton Whitman’s series of split LPs farmed out to labels he does not control. It’s also a reunion, on vinyl if not in person, of Whitman and Ben Vida, who toured together a few years ago along with Greg Davis when they were all Kranky label-mates.
...
Zulus – s/t 7” EP (Wizard Mountain)
This four-song EP of hardcore thrash looks to be the debut release from the latest project of Aleks Prechtl and Daniel Martens, also of PRSMS, and former Bay Area punk staple, Battleship, before the pair moved east to Brooklyn. Both sides feature deep and roaring vocals rendered unintelligible under a pound of sludge, skuzzy, distorted guitar, and drums that add up to a big, roiling sound that...
Coitus Int. – Dead Excitement 7” EP (Bunkerpop)
Early punk reissue from a Utrecht band of college kids (at the time – 1980 when this was made) who sound really eager to drink and challenge the wits of the unarmed, and play some intellectual/better-than-you kind of jittery scrape that’s of a piece with most of the Dutch punk scene I’ve heard from that era. They remind at points of a less dance-oriented Gang of Four, eager to play a riff until...
Gun Outfit – High Places 12” EP (Make a Mess)
Recent four-song EP from this Olympia pop band, which keeps improving with each subsequent release. An earlier record of theirs was called Dim Light and that is a good metaphor for their music: lush, hopeful guitar pop with sleepy vocals (Carrie Keith in particular has a sort of creaking, self-taught inflection that reminds me of the 3D’s Denise Roughan, fitting nicely against Dylan Sharp’s...
