April 2012
60 posts
The Enthusiasts – “Sinkin/Risin” b/w “Joanne” 7”...
RECOMMENDED
Young rockers from a short ride up the Metro-North come across with The Goods, straight up. This is an anonymous, even amateur looking record which arrived here held together with staples, and with a presentation like this I’d have expected the worst. NOT SO. Rarely are there surprises of this magnitude, a well-executed, smokin’ hot romp through the contested area between late ‘60s...
EZRAMO – Come Ho Imparato A Volare 12” EP (Corvo)
Improvs built around three of my least favorite musical concepts of all time (Roma folk music, aimless acoustic drone, synth/piano meanderings). Musically it’s as skillful as it needs to be, but conceptually it is like the trifecta of shit, like someone rubbing two big hunks of Styrofoam together, like one of those Las Vegas resort commercials with the old people fucking in it, and only a...
Foi Pour Pusillanime – s/t 7” EP (self-released)
RECOMMENDED
Putting this record on shut down the rest of the turning world, and dragged me by the ankles into a wheezing, festering sump of bilious quicksand. Creepy, icky experimental blips – six of ‘em, made by the French duo of Caroline Ehretique and Ogrob (he of Micro_Penis and a handful of other disturbing ensembles), given life by way of a number of instruments, tapes and tools, and...
Geffika/Skimask – split LP (Sophomore Lounge)
RECOMMENDED
Geffika side is the tits. Doom-noise via bass and drums and maybe a guitar that isn’t played like a guitar likes to be played. Heavy as hell and reminiscent of why noise-rock went from being a punch-line in my Y2K world to a savior in my current environment. Skimask is a little more challenging in the structural department but no less noisy and probably capable of future brilliance,...
Hey Colossus – Dominant Male LP (Clan Destine)
Like a combination of Black Elk and what you think all those quasi-darkwave/goth side projects on 4AD in the mid-80’s might sound like had you bothered to raise the curiosity level to “seek out and hear” mode. This record has been floating around in demo and maybe another form since 2009 but enjoyed proper vinyl treatment by Clandestine within the past year (I get the stuff that is already way...
Kam Kama – The Tiled House 12” EP (Sister...
Five-piece lite Goth from Indiana, where the flatness and cornfields and general air of loss fosters this kind of music now and again (see also state-mates TV Ghost, though those guys are from Lafayette and not Bloomington, which is harder somehow). There’s not a lot of consequence here, just six songs of yearning, college campus dark rock, with a singer who closely resembles Honor...
Koban – s/t 7” EP (The Broadway to Boundary)
Gothy post-punk duo with drum machine. Four skeletal tracks of guitar, bass, vocals and preset beats, a flatliner if there ever were. Not sure what they’re trying to accomplish here other than maybe have fun, and possibly guilt people into taking this record off their hands. There’s absolutely nothing new or original or exciting here, just a little noise and a little muffled sentiment that stays...
Lantern – “I Don’t Know” b/w “Out Of Our Heads” 7”...
Can-Am trade agreement band, currently whelming tens of people in Philly. What’s at stake here is … well, not much; the same old, tired Nuggets-style chestnuts, and the lack of audio fidelity hems in whatever peacocking their outta-site singer manages to peel off. “I Don’t Know” is a straight ahead frat rocker; “Out Of Our Heads” aims for the Stooges, and would get there if it didn’t sound so...
Master Cylinder – 301 N Everett Rd LP (Ramblin’)
Michigan rock ‘n’ roll outfit, clearly on the wavelengths of what Lester Bangs and Greg Shaw were pushing at the time (here, a vague mid-‘70s to early ‘80s run, which extended well after the notions of Flamin’ Groovies style rock – all periods – were proven to remain viable). If you’ve heard the bands that inspired them, then it’s clear that these guys took more than they gave back, claims of a...
Parton Kooper Planetarium – Glass & Bone LP...
Extra-creepy noise-drone-pop with spoken-sung vocals and an interest in UFOs (if their videos are to be taken at more than face value). From some folks who date back to Mohinder, if my sources are correct, and you’d be doing good to imagine the farthest place rock can go from that of Mohinder if allowed 15 – 20 years to do so. Interesting and worth assessing if you like the type of interesting...
Roommate – Guilty Rainbow LP (Antephonic)
Everyone loves this record. You can’t swing a bat (during a certain type of Google search) without hitting a glowing review of this obnoxious nonsense. That just proves that roving masses of online music “writers” (term is used in every sense but serious) are still trying to reach an out-of-court settlement with their ears and honest processing of modern sounds. The house band for an upcoming...
Ty Segall/The Feeling of Love – split 7”...
RECOMMENDED
It seems like only yesterday I was covering Traditional Fools records here and now that band’s Ty Segall has simply exploded, with more records (and more press) than almost any of his contemporaries in Bay Area garage/trad rock circles. Only Thee Oh Sees get more dap, and with Segall starting to run laps around them and most other bands in terms of prolific, overall quality output,...
Spectre Folk – The Blackest Medicine, Vol. II 12”...
RECOMMENDED
One of those “fell behind the shelf” deals here, and apologies for not getting to it sooner. Strident, well-composed rock ‘n’ psych jammers (JAMMERS) spearheaded by totally alright Magik Marker Pete Nolan. The tendencies that a couple of these tracks have for over-extension and indulgence doesn’t really steal focus away from Autobahn percussion (Steve Shelley guests on drums) and a...
State Champion – Deep Shit LP (Sophomore Lounge)
Aesthetic smartasses who allow themselves to be pictured with a banjo and ukulele. That’s a no-no, you know. Americana played with hardcore energy and umph is how the entire Internet would like this band to be known for, but there’s way too much slummer-soup being slurped for this to enter my comfort zone. Supposedly a fiasco live, but most assuredly a safe affair on record. Record looks like a...
Suuns – “Bambi” b/w “Red Song” 12” (Secretly...
RECOMMENDED
Don’t know anything about this band, nor am I gonna look anything up, but “Bambi” KILLS at 45 pitched down to -8. Anything else is too fast, and brings too much to bear on what’s going on in the track, which is well-produced, with remarkable percussion and drum programming – not-so-secretly Canadian outfit Suuns make it throb along like Clinic gone down the rails of Devo’s take on...
The Tee Pees – “You’re A Turd” b/w “Do the Smog”...
No, you are a turd for failing to intellectually or culturally advance beyond garage rock that Estrus Records wouldn’t take a piss on in 1994. Add all the non-necessity fidelity-lowering noise you want, I can still hear the gaping void underneath, and so will everyone else. This record sucked so bad that it peeled the paint from the walls and gave my cat some sort of infection that must be...
Zulus – “Surgery” b/w “Demons” 7” (Lemon Session)
Second single from NYC trio, featuring engineer du jour Jeremy Scott and ex-Battleship frontman Aleksander Prechtl. Noisy, more or less direct rock on both sides, with an interesting tug-of-war between shambolic and tribal/direct rhythmic approaches. Certainly sounds runic enough for a band such as this, with “Surgery” keeping things on the short and kinda manic side, and “Demons” breaking...
Archers By The Sea – They Were Floating Over The...
So if the Euro zone erodes further into fiscal woe, and there isn’t any grant money left to fund every last post-rock paean to Sigur Ros or late-period Talk Talk that pops up between small groups of disenfranchised post-collegiate citizens, does that mean that bands like Archers By The Sea are going to be making this sort of vague, atmospheric downer bullshit on their own volition? This could...
The Boston Strangler – Primitive LP (Fun With...
RECOMMENDED
Wow, where to begin? I mean obviously this is a great record, but for whatever reason it’s become so much more. So much more that some people are losing the ability to put together a coherent thought about it, when what “it” is, is just a perfectly-executed Boston hardcore record, made by guys who’ve been holding major strands of that city’s punk/HC/rock scenes together for the past...
Compound Eye – Origin of Silence 12” EP (The...
Boorish collabs between Coil’s Drew McDowall and Psychic Ills’ Tres Warren. Electronic/psych extensions that are about as diffuse as the design of this record (clear vinyl, clear screenprinted sleeve) would suggest. McDowall brings one of Coil’s most difficult to bear templates to play here (not the bowel-churning fear, or the beyond-fried acid house nonsense; more of the watery, lucid...
