7 i n c h e s

Sokea Piste on Peterwalkee Records

2012-01-27T10:56:00.000-05:00

Peterwalkee Records sent over this hardcore wax from Sokea Piste, a Finnish 4 piece making full use of a dual layered guitar attack that continue to explore what happens after rock went punk.
A-Sides, "Kollektiivinen Paniikki" (I appreciate the english translation of the lyrics on the insert) has these guys shaking out brief power chords that are the furthest thing from pop punk, they favor a dirtier sound, the melody is anything but a chance to party. I know that they're pissed off without even looking at the translation insert.
Although you don't even need to know necessarily what they're railing against, but it helps when they eloquently make as much sense as this. It's protest music, plain and simple, they have a lot of beef and anywhere in the world it ends up as some form of this. Hard and fast, loud and heavy.
The nice thing is that this feeling is even happening in somewhere as far away as Finland, there's this marginalized part of society everywhere that ends up working it out like this, (wasn't there that doc about middle east heavy metal...)it's completely crazy it exists and makes perfect sense at the same time. Sokea is Piste and yell this one out, stopping with that precise drop of the hat.
Next up on this side, "Ala Ajattele Kuolemaa", goes on about death, again, in really smart ways. I'm into the lyric, especially after revisiting Refused, thanks to their reunion tour...and this also sounds more and more related to this straight ahead post-punk sound...a little bit of Fugazi's penchant for experimental guitar directions while driving the track dead ahead. The Mission of Burma big guitar sound with minor keys and mono-melodies.
B-Side's "Imbesilli Jattilainen" is about a giant, maybe literal...but is the worst parts of society. Lots of feedback distortion dissonance over a steady great bassline, the whole thing slowly building up, all kinds of guitar as noise, weirdo layers, off key and bent, a little Blonde Redhead. I need more of that guitar experimental stuff in my life...not in melody or the way the instrument is played, but when you examine that brutal raw distorted chord and deal solely with it's delivery....those tiny elements that change this into post-whatever...like this last bit of clone pedal effect melody that's taking the whole thing out.

I've seen these giants in Skyrim and they are not to be messed with...trust me, don't make that mistake.

Peterwalkee recs says:

SOKEA PISTE from Finland (members of KYKLOOPPIEN SUKUPUUTTO, MANIFESTO JUKEBOX)create chaotic, driving, and noisy punk rock with odd time signatures and freaked out guitars! Somewhere bewteen Mission of Burma, No Hope for the Kids, and Steel Pole Bath Tub, SOKEA PISTE is a murderous crush of perversity, paranoia, twisted visions of blind rage, solitary insanity and silent thoughtful violence. 500 copies pressed, 100 on yellow vinyl (mail order only). Silk screened covers, sticker, and digital download with bonus track from upcoming LP!.

Heavy cardstock screened sleeve, on black vinyl with color lyric insert.

Thee Spivs on Almost Ready Records

2012-01-26T10:39:00.000-05:00

Here we go kids gather around it's time for another release from Almost Ready Records, this one from Thee Spivs sounds like it should be on their Last Laugh reissue imprint, but noooooo, these guys just got together like 5 years ago...in the UK, you dummy, and I'm hooked on their stripped down garage-y pop ways. I think I got a little too comfortable not looking farther than Nashville for the pop punk, and this is reminding me of the rest of the freaking world...like what happened to the french punk stuff that was happening not too long ago on Les Disques Steak? These guys are holding it down overseas and reminding me about that punk history.

A-Side's, "It's True" has the most raw energy, somehow it stays stripped down and raw as hell but with a big, really full sound. The crashes are still just peaking out, but there's lots of low end....I think it's just a weird sound to have the best of both worlds like this, the separated lows but still dabbling in the low-fi gunkyness that is just classic punk...building on those roots, not reinventing anything, but unpretentiously looking back at that era again, borrow and build. This three piece delivers on what I'm hearing about their live energy, getting it down on this record. When they count it off, it explodes, every verse from Ben Edge is matched by the rest of the band, back and forth, the classic call and response, paying homage to everything I've ever heard coming from this part of the world in the late '70s.
When a single can capture a performance like this, and elude to a tiny sample of what they must be like live, it's going to make you want to catch them live or immediately after the show you go find the merch table...that's the point of the 7" format. Making even more sense when looking back at what this sound is paying homage to.

"Taped Up" is another study in being able to straddle this solid, put together/spontaneous, raw sound. Keeping it short, they power chord away the punk, getting poppier this time.
I wanna go home / but it's taped up.
I get the feeling these guys had some experience with the police tape, the fact they would write about that says something. There's a surfy 'oh yea' chorus stuff that's really glamming up this track, make a party out of the beach ghetto sound. I can't help but hear the Clash or The Adverts here either. They're really working in the footsteps of all those classics, and headed there themselves.

Get this one from Almost Ready records.

U.S. Girls on Calico Corp. Records

2012-01-25T11:18:00.000-05:00

Got a couple of records in from a new label, Calico, from our neighbors to the north... Toronto, Canada to be exact. Founded by Meghan from U.S. Girls and Slim Twig, comes Calico Corp. Records...and the first two releases are singles from the co-founders. This isn't the first time they've been in close musical proximity, they recently shared a split 12" on Palmist Records...I've been a fan of U.S. Girls for a while now so I picked this one first to throw on the turntable.

I know it's going to be lazy to compare her to Zola Jesus again, but I really mean it as a compliment, after all they have a lot in common...a real dark aesthetic, melted electronics, using experimental rhythms and sounds. Both pull it off in a professional way, singing their damn heads off, obviously classically trained and turning that incredible vocal towards the more avant garde, pushing themselves musically...sure there's subtle differences, but they have to be listening to each other, and there's always room for more talent like this.

"The Island Song" from side A, has that overwhelming dread feel, dark repeated chords, her major classic vibrato ringing through here, and damn if it isn't almost so catchy and melodic I start to suspect it's got to be part of that glitch dance craze.... But it's impossible to mistake this for a dance party, there's just too many layers of darkness. Maybe it's that plodding drum machine, maybe the layers of tracks, the peaking out of her uncontainable vocal, but when she gets into that chorus...it doesn't matter, those things all go away. With nothing to support her but these imperfect electronics, and a warbly organ, she delivers an unsettling performance.
It's what I want every time I go back to listen to Siouxsie...she has her moments, but this is exactly the kind of update I've been looking for. Meghan is extending that line of goth, minimal history in a contemporary way that ends up better on the other side.
The vocal is effortless, just when you think she's trying, turns out that was just getting warmed up. This combination is perfect for 7" gold, bordering on too messed up to listen to all the time, a little scary even, and the unnatural sounds shouldn't add up to be this compelling of a tune...and that's when they really got you.
On the B-Side's, "High School Poetry" Meghan is pulling a melody out of these layers of DJ Shadow type collage loops with a theremin sounding whine. All these echo'd phrases sound like they're pulled off synth dance 12" remixes of all kinds, a channeled piano from the other side. Occasional vinyl scratching could remind you of those Portishead combinations. This one is a lumbering, punchy track, mixing up her operatic delivery with an almost staccato hip hop speed. It isn't full of hooks like the first side, just building a solid, equally as unsettling, nightmare.

Proof she's going to be able to create interesting results with literally anything.

Xerox collage black and white sleeve on blue cardstock with download card.
Suck up that shipping and get it straight from the source, Calico Corp. Records...along with the Slim Twig single...

The Cassettes on Flannel Gurl / Chapeau Records

2012-01-24T17:05:00.000-05:00

Got another single today in my shipment from Flannel Gurl Records, this one from The Cassettes. FG has taken it upon themselves to record and release Southwest Virgina's artists. The rest of the state can suck it! This one couldn't be further stylistically from their last release, Buck Gooter, but if this is what the region is fostering, then so be it.
This is a seven inch from a band called the Cassettes, with turn of the century graphics on the sleeve. Did this tiny, handwriten style of the old days have anything to do with the painstaking effort it took to typeset everything? They had to pack the info all on one sheet? The Cassettes are also packing the instrumentation into 3 era bending tracks. Folky carnival ensemble epics.

A-Side's "I've Been gone" sets the epic orchestral tone with chimes, acoustic guitars, cello's, and a twangy wet reverb electric guitar, among others....the liner notes list an impressive mass of musicians that are all arranging their own two cents in...including something called a Contra bass? Had to look that one up. Very Decembrists sounding feel here, a clever narrative, enacted with spectacles, those cut out puppet stop motion animations from Monty Python...or Albert Nobbs!
All kinds of ancient references to bygone days, huge themes of love... the seasons, more old stuff, the seas...this is going to be all about traveling. Precious mandolin, finger picking as fast as possible. Pleasant carnival music for Amelie...seems nice.

A break between tracks of the sea and a locomotive steam whistle for "Far Too Long" to break in with a theremin solo. Lots of big echo on these vocals and a slide guitar finds it's way front and center.
They seem to be working with every possible genre and time period at once, borrowing bits and pieces from all of them. All the band members sing along with their own echo and harmonies before it gets cowboy again, acousticly dusty...this is what steampunk is right? That weird future past mix of really nice looking design... that isn't practical at all.
Makes sense then that this was recorded everywhere from a monastic hillock in sweden to a cabin in VA.
The B-Side, "Watchers", has a false start of banjo, accidentally hitting the strings, getting ready on the stool, motioning to the orchestra assembled in the barn. This is that kind of folk music and slow rock combination, balanced between the traditional and the pop. I worry about them touring in multiple vehicles and with these massive piles of instruments. Shelby is sounding like Mark Lannegan or Nick Cave. There's fireflies and chinese lanterns, gather round, there's huge stories here about the inception of the band, all of their travels, the huge mess of instruments... it's nice they found each other.
It turns into an acoustic slow jam, with twinkling moog and crickets.
A locked groove of crickets to go on forever. I'm going to go fall asleep now.
Best use of a locked groove 2012. They had to scratch a message in the gutter between the locked groove that hits the center label...most impressive Bontai mastering nyc.

On black vinyl, with lot's of other color variations and collector packages at Flannel Gurl Records, a postcard for keeping in touch, all kinds of Chris Ware-ish fine print exactly the opposite of what fne print usually says. "A sound recording from our hearts to your soul" TM. (Secret messages in the gutter.)

Moscow Moscow Moscow on Eradicator Records

2012-01-24T11:41:00.000-05:00

Two things came to mind with this single, first I wonder if Eradicator records has anything to do with the Kids in the Hall and the ski mask character running around racketball courts, and then the band name being Moscow Moscow Moscow, all I hear is an annoying girl from the Brady Bunch. I'm lame.

Eradicator looks to be distro-ing everything from Almost Ready's entire catalog to The Hussy to The Spits, so this single is starting out in good company, but at the same time I wasn't expecting a 4 song EP of no-wave surf instrumentals from this duo of escaped prisoners* (see above sleeve).

A-Side's "Surfin' USSR" has a direct sounding scuzzy, one note at a time melody with all the rough slide sound of fingers on heavy guage strings and appropriately spazz wipeout style drums. Let's play melodies, since we're from the former soviet union we don't know English, don't expect vocals.
"Feeling Squamish (A Love Song)" is more of this bizarre rigid surf sound, but this drummer is on speed or something, he just seems to be playing twice as fast as any of this calls for, in a great way. The guitar is getting into layered chords this time, fancy picking and an acoustic is back there somewhere. My favorite track, hearing those messed up harmonies, letting the melody get twisted around into each other.
"North of Vomit" starts to sound like Half Japanese, they're a little bit more damaged here, the unassuming melodic pieces fitting together like a puzzle, but maybe its just the ways it's played that comes off like some kind of experimental jam. This one is pretty rough, the near misses keep this feeling pretty raw and spontaneous, not like Stalin's lockstep marching.
"Hammer, Sickles and Girls" Vocals! Repeat the title! They are taking this russian thing seriously, what was up with that Born in the USSR song? I want these guys to cover it all. A Link Wray Prinzhorn Dance School style, or an art brut science project. I bet these guys met in art school, this has thesis project written all over it. The conceptual look, down to the titles, hell they're a living museum to fascist style. We. Are. Rocking. out. Yeah! Down with the US. Makes the whole thing seem kind of ridiculous, was there ever really a cold war? We weren't really going to shoot nukes at the russians right? I mean that would have destroyed the whole planet!!! Dummies.

On red vinyl handnumbered in half cut sleeve, Eradicator says:

Dennis the Red menace and Red Sonja did it again. Hopefully this record want cause as many death threats as their first record. Red Sonja is truly the most talented guitar player kicking up dust as she stomps around on her Tetris cubes while Dennis follows Reds beautiful guitar lines with some of the most primitive drumming around.
They say that when it's cold in Russia you should throw another Moscow record on the turn table to warm things up. Here's four more songs to get you through those mid season blues. Three original instruMental stompers and one fucking blazer of a shouter.
Limited to 100 PHOTO COVERS ON RED VINYL
Limited to 100 SHAPES COVERS ON RED VINYL

Tyvek 'Mary Ellen Claims' on X! Records

2012-01-23T11:17:00.000-05:00

Here's another one in from X! Records, this one from waaaay back in their catalog from the guys in Tyvek, looks like X! repressed their first effort, and I'm glad to see you can still pick this up, it's a touchstone from the beginnings of this whole Useless Eaters, Cheap Time, Ty, Jay era of trashy garage-rock. The kind of thing that pays homage to the Sonics or Kinks while trading it all in for a no apologies, anti engineered sound that says, we don't want or need to clean this mess up. Take it or leave it.

So thinking back to 2006, this is exactly what I remember liking about the Tyvek tracks on the "Summer Burns" double 7" from What's Your Rupture. It's impossible to objectively take a listen to this, hindsight being what it is, but maybe it's an even more important document now at what I think was the beginning of a whole lot of this sound.

"Mary Ellen Claims" has a scratchy guitar, the treble turned all the way up, recorded with everything just peaking out. There's no depth in the drum track, just a thin smack of the snare slapping away. It's really related to that garage '50s or '60s(?) stripped down rock. A brief track, but what wouldn't be with those elements, you've got to get in there, slap the hooks together, can you hear the guitars? Great. Barely enough time to find working mics. What are you trying to undermine the whole thing? There's a great melody here, Kev sounding like an old AM radio held up to the mic, the guitars starting to feedback into themselves, the waves colliding briefly almost synth-like and fading out. This was six years ago? Totally classic touchstone, as fun and loose as the day it was recorded.

"Honda" on the B-Side, has to be one of the best Tyvek tracks, imagine their high peaking garage sound with Kev frantically asking:

Can you drive a Honda, like I can drive a honda?
Can you drive an escort? A fucking escort?
Can you drive a Geo all the way to Rio?

Totally inspired, and I hope someone who didn't know anything about these guys could hear the value in this reinvention of another splinter of post-punk.
So many questions about cars, and there's some kind of weird connection to the Sidewalk single - they really have some thoughts about modes of transportation. The big time bassline, and variety of textures on these guitars, from the shittiest, thin scrawl to a surf slight reverb. Kev is really losing his mind, the only lower end coming off that punk bass riff. This big, surf strum, and crackling vocals...it belongs in that wing of the West coast garage resurgence section, in the glass case next to "I Don't Wanna Smoke Marijuana" You should be as ashamed as I was I somehow missed picking this one up. Get over to X!! (and get that Johnny ILL Band single, I'm still playing that one).

The "For Booking" phone number on the inner label brings a tear to my eye.

Printed right onto the white paper sleeve, with that Tyvek random typewriter narrative running down the streets of this crazy cityscape.

The reverse says this was recorded in Brooklyn...and they list their myspace page! What a missed opportunity for that company, they had people using their crap product from the beginning to the bitter end. Good riddance...what a black eye to see that terrible reminder of the worst music ghetto ever.

Primary Structures - Self Titled on Gold Robot Records

2012-01-22T11:30:00.001-05:00

Hunter over at Gold Robot has again gotten more into the full length arena, making that huge leap onto the bigger 12” vinyl and sent this one in from Primary Structures.

The four piece has evolved out of a couple of San Francisco/Oakland bands; Lady Genius and Volunteer Pioneer, after having met in art school of course, named after an exhibition in 1966 of minimal artists like Donald Judd and Sol Lewitt. I wonder how many spring out of performance art pieces and kill two birds with one stone.
Kyle Williams then, put down the paintbrush and for Primary Structures is on vocals and synth. I have a hard time figuring out how these bouncy indie pop tracks were composed with nothing but his background underpinnings of subtle melody, but then again it mostly comes from his strong vocal direction, which sound like a more balanced Alec Ounsworth from Clap your Hands or a classically trained Jens Lekman...in other words, a real class act. He’s got a slight vibratto to everything, reaching high falsetto notes without the straining work.
The first track on the A-Side, “Jet Set” sets a synth heavy tone that gives way to shiny guitar pop, with an inspired bassline from Brian Caraway that carries this one solidly beyond just being clever and into a real inspired groove. As nervous and claustrophobic sounding the vocals might be when getting into David Byrne paranoia, he stays far more loose and melodic. The kind of pop album that isn’t coming off as too serious, it doesn’t sound like they have an agenda or master plan, it’s just based around poppy sounds at the heart of those summer days in San Francisco.
“The Farm” shows off more of the complex back and forth between Brian and Jason Byers on guitar. Off kilter rhythms working together, but staying completely separate. Brian really knows exactly where to inject bass, it’s never timid and they thankfully let him go nuts with this two note break that steals the track. Matt Stromberg on drums has been playing particularly polyrhythmic patterns and on “Balsa Tree” things get to sounding like the Dodo’s... that nontraditional rock beat of a rim shot stick pattern opposite a complex kick. It doesn’t wear out it’s welcome though, eventually going epic and Kyle takes this one into a sad place which is out of step for this record which most of the time sounds like some kind of celebration.
The last one on this side, “Cannibals”, has Kyle back into that jittery place, going straight for the super pop, only the catchy moments...the way that Dog Day or Ski Lodge aren’t saddled with a massive wave of hype but more concerned with melodies that are going to keep delivering long after this side is over. Clever transcriptions of this melody take it higher up the scale, which Kyle manages to keep up with in his high power vocal. It could almost become one of those old Smiths records to pull out on a Friday night and sing along to.
The more I hear this, the more it starts to slowly sound like Entertainment!’s simple, disarming melodies, with Kyle really selling his vocal instead of the post-modern can’t-be-bothered. I can respect someone who takes their entertaining seriously.

The B-Side with “Land of Terror” is literally bringing a Morrissey vocal to mind. Where does someone get the idea to deliver a vocal like this...to be so emotionally invested, it’s a little bit more naked than something like Johnny Ill Band’s jokes. There’s no tongue in cheek, meta joke here, just solid, straightforward songwriting.
“Bad Krevznacht” is the standout track on this side, a little more rowdy and unpredictable. Kyle’s vocal works differently when paired with this angular rock, he’s got to work a little harder to be heard.
Just like that lens flare on the cover, Primary Structures have managed to capture that right moment, straddling that line of serious, attention to detail, pop while managing to sound like they’re having a good time doing it.

Get this one from Gold Robot Records, a great release...after that whole thing posted by Mike over at Captured Tracks...I know Gold Robot is coming from the same place. It's gone beyond just the format being enough to be outside the taint of commercialism. You need to dig deep into the core philosophy of a label.

Johnny ILL Band on X! Records

2012-01-20T10:03:00.000-05:00

3 dudes from Detroit decided Johnny Ill needed a band for his no-wave punk 4-track recordings and ended up with this third single on X! Records.

A-Side's "In the wintertime" couldn't have come across my desk at a more perfect time. It has to be dumb luck that this was pressed in time for the freezing going on today. They're reading everyone's mind here with a Detroit slant, the lackadaisical sound usually associated with the West Coast and groups like Nodzzz or the Fresh and Onlys took a scuzzy garage turn when talking about the pure damn cold, and how all everyone does is talk about the cold. The track starts with a reverse tape rewind, the reels flying backwards for a second. Johnny's vocals are up front with a little distortion, close, and unfiltered in your face about the many shitty things about the winter, and I can't disagree with a single one. There's even a classic break where the vocals are out there all by themselves at the beginning of a verse and then the whole thing explodes, like Wounded Lion, the band is filling out this sound in the drunken party style that was almost handcrafted for these guys.

I Don't Wanna Smoke Marijuana = In the Wintertime. All people want to do is drink some tea.

Here's the idea, a couple obvious straightforward observations, a shit stomping jangly electric, kick drum 4/4 beat. A tiny xylophone beats away in the background keeping the whole thing light. The layered backup vocal is that great kind of unprofessional. It's earnestly trying to match a clunky harmony. Sloppy organ, I like your attitude boys. You won me over pretty much right away.

The sloppy pen notebook drawings on the front of the sleeve, the weird caricatures on the reverse, dripping with sincerity, goofy as hell, they'd probably buy you a drink after their show. They have a kidnap van that says "Mylie Syrus concert shuttle" scrawled on the side it. It's effortless punk, except punk sounds like too much work, I'd just be worried at X! that these guys are going to get high all day and smoke the records.

Every 7" single could benefit from having a portrait of the recording engineer on the inner label by the way.

The B-Side, "Matt Larson" is in the band, this is just such balls, so over the top ridiculous that if I was ever out, I'm in again. Matt sounds smart, he went to college. There's a bunch of other stuff about him. I appreciate their Dead Milkmen style of storytelling. These mundane details over a stuttered devo kind of spazz lockstep rhythm. Putzy solo, a few notes repeated, stiff armed, with a tongue hanging out. Great great great.

"Dan Braun" is another dude, not in the band, but I get that he hates everything, especially these guys, and they hate the shit out of him. HE sounds like the worst. I actually cracked up about the way he smokes a pack a day. It's so funny, I forget about the music. I want my friend to hear the lyrics. Did you catch that?
Fade out 4-track demo acoustic line, which is also gold. Consider this a perfect release.

Extra points for having a really nice website with virtually nothing on it. They got that about that far and then went to someone's house to jam and got drunk again. Also I hope the 'tabs' section is going to be ascii tabs of these tracks so I can play along.
Definitely looking up this full length, like Natural Child, minus the southern sleeze.

A reason why we need labels like X!, who have their shit together, or Almost Ready because you know Liquor Store can't even be bothered to DIY, that's what makes them great, don't mellow out their buzz with pressing details and color separation and sales and shit.

Get it from X!, who know a good thing when they hear it. Thankfully there's more from this label coming up which I have high hopes for, and for that matter, a full length from Johnny Ill.

The Diving Bell - 'China my china' on FIN Records

2012-01-19T12:33:00.005-05:00

Fin Records out on the other coast in Seattle has scoured every last stationary supplier for these crazy colored paper sleeves for their singles. I've never seen anyone use this turquiose before. I wonder if they're all handcrafted at the FIN headquarters, along with the embossing of every mylar sleeve...going the distance in production for their late, a second single from The Diving Bell.

A-Side's "China, my China" kicks off with a staccato indie guitar riff, when suddenly underpinnings of acoustic and bass take over in their big, expansive sound that was at work on their last one. Andy's baritone vocal is back too, sounding like an optimistic Peter Murphy, filling the track, front and center. There's a nice breakdown part with a thin church organ tempo to slow things down for a second to punch it back up again.
Can't decide if this track is about this character, China... or the country. Or if they're deliberately confusing the two. From geography to a mood and back again. Lots of call and response in Andy's vocal, a thin, compressed version of himself singing back during that chorus. Upbeat, with a real groovy double time bass rhythm driving this way into sparkling, handcrafted, small batch pop.
B-Side's "Cross Dressing friends" then takes things into slow spin disco ball territory with that title vocal, the first line. Vocally getting a little more depressed and bluesy, the lights are going down. The guitar working on those big strumming riffs with a bigger tremolo. Huge drawn out solo over a rhodes organ is the name of the game here...getting real classic.
This narrator is basically trying to get the friend to relax...I like how specific he is on this one:
tomorrow go back to delivering babies
tomorrow go back to running this country

I won't ruin the end, but they won't be playing cuba anytime soon.

Clear vinyl, handnumbered, heavy green sleeve from FIN Records, ancient science textbook illustrations...apparently this is the second part of a tryptich. Collect them all.

No BS Brass on Electric Cowbell Records

2012-01-18T10:26:00.000-05:00

The thing I love about Electric Cowbell is that they're wholeheartedly behind a band that names themselves the No BS Brass band and who puts, "Take on Me" on the A-Side. That's right, the Ah-ha cover.

Even then their version doesn't immediately give away where it's headed, there's a damn lot of horns blasting away, which makes sense right? But it's hard to wrap your head around the work and physical instruments in this recording space, I would guess there's at least 8 guys blasting away, mostly in a lower key and then taking over that recognizable lyric with a low burping of tuba? I can't imagine the nightmare of trying to mic all these instruments at once. The range of multiple horns taking on bassline parts, harmonizing the verse, overlapping 'take me on / take on me', building that chorus and synth with marching band precision. It's all done in a real loose, live style, beyond just the joke of reinventing this song, you can hear as much as they care about the arrangement. The breakdown piece of the original ends in the band stepping up to their mics and singing the ba da ba bop bop finish....it's a fun, nostalgic song to reference and twist it in a nearly classical way....why not commit this to vinyl?

The B-Side then , "Dr. Willy" (written by Reggie Pace) utilizes those beefy low end bleats of the trombone and tuba section, creating an almost weird kind of experimental shuffle, nearly jazz, but always focused on the cyclic rhythm. A slow, rim shot and muted high hat, makes this feel like a spy theme. Slowly a dead, bottom register note from a single tuba rumbles this low end, it's out of nowhere and and rivals any low rider brown note. An alien note, so awesomely out of place it needs to be played back to really take it in and dial up the lower EQ to test those speakers. It makes me smile every time. I think a lot more kids would take up the tuba if they realized this kind of sound was possible. It would have made band a lot better.
The trumpet/trombone section gets a chance to break out of this structured bassline and groove out, working through all kinds of manic scales. I'm still waiting for that mammoth chasm of a note to come on back through.
Both sides are just serious lung power with a sense of humor, which ought to get No BS Brass some attention in the right ways.

Get this one from Electric Cowbell, still exploding turntable needles after all these years:

No BS! Brass Band is a powerful brass band that embraces the spirit of New Orleans into its original East Coast modern funk. Their danceable arrangements are outstandingly well thought-out and organized, drawing inspiration from funk, jazz, klezmer, calypso, and Led Zeppelin. On Side-A the boys take on a cover of the classic 80′s hit by A-Ha “Take on Me” and the results are a rousing a second line without a parading permit. “Dr. Wily” on on the flip side is an original penned by lead trombonist Reggie Pace-currently on tour with Bon Iver. With a flight-of-the-bumblebee urgency this tune simply shreds and hits you in the face like a brass knuckle brass band sandwich. Comes with cover art and heavy gauge crystal-clear vinyl sleeve.

Ariel Pink + R. Stevie Moore on PIAPTK Records

2012-01-17T10:12:00.000-05:00

Just got word from Mike over at People in a Position to Know Records that I can finally talk about this amazing handmade single that he just put out. If you have to have everything from R. Stevie or Ariel Pink (because of the amazing B-sides, let’s face it) then you’re going to want to just immediately stop reading and head over there to pick this up. Limited, handmade lathe cut, acrylic MIRROR and freaking amazing. I know in theory, you should be able to cut playable grooves into any kind of plastic, but to see it in practice like this on a mirror backed clear surface is really unique. There won't ever be a another single like this...and that's before you even drop the needle.

Even more amazing than the track itself is the fact that PIAPTK has managed to put both of these artists together. Whether this is a tape or email exchange between Stevie and Ariel, or they actually were sitting next to each other in an isolation booth, it’s a pretty amazing document of a collaboration between generations of underground innovators.
Fashion has finally caught up with appreciating both Ariel and Stevie and I’m just happy they got together for a moment....like William Burroughs and Kurt Cobain, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, that’s almost enough on it's own. I almost don’t even need to hear it, and it can't be judged the same way as their solo releases...it's enough that they each did their unique thing together. They had a few words, played a few chords and history was made for an afternoon.

This crazy medium of this record itself is almost like being able to listen to the original cassette tapes, wound on a misshapen reel, and somehow you're even closer to the source material. The curtains are pulled back on the whole mysterious process just a little more than usual. Stevie begins the single sided track, “SteviePink Javascript” with a few low words after you get used to the amazing amount of hiss coming off this acrylic mirror, which for these two is an essential element. It’s another instrument, a layer to free them up for this improv back and forth jam. A distinctively warbled rhythm for Ariel comes up out of this pre-intro, as if all the tracks on his latest cassette scratch tape just run right into each other, there’s no beginning or end, just an abrupt change in tempo and the sound of the tape head turning on record.
Stevie’s whispering gives way to a synthy bassline, an odd rhythm with some vocal beatboxing and those synthy keys, from the Scared Famous era. Stevie’s almost autotuned or just buried under a variable reverb. This isn't your typical duet, they're stepping all over each other, Ariel busting into a high falsetto chorus over Stevie telling Ariel he’s thinking about running for Senate and if he’ll be his running mate. It’s informal, a chance to collaborate and appreciate each other for a minute... they’re fans and here get to literally play off each other lyrics, responding to the last line, a warped call and response.
Ariel starts:

you tell your friends about me and I'll tell mine about you
nice to meetcha
now... what do you call this music Stevie?
Ariel dreams
SteviePink / You do great shit
You’re better than I am
put a snare here right?
no, you're out of your mind

Ariel and Stevie half rap at points and Ariel breaks into his soul layered falsetto vocals, sometimes creating the guitar sound vocally and other times...well I'm not sure. This has to be well over 5 minutes, winding between their styles in a plodding broken AM see-saw rhythm. Stevie references the Prince line about partying like it’s 1999 and Ariel replies

Too much R&B it's all your fault
have your layer call my lawyer

Beyond the incredible track that was cut into this thing, every single piece of this single is recycled or repurposed. The 'vinyl' itself from mirrored acrylic plastic, each one handcut on Mike's 1940's lathe, each cover handscreened on this a crazy grip tape type of hologram material, even the insert describing the whole process is paper from a garage sale.

This is where I get to the bad news part, this is such an incredible document, I am legitimately sad that only 87 other people are going to be able to hear this. I know that's the point of something this homemade both musically and so intimately handmade, but it's so important, it's got to be shared int he future.

If you're reading this late and PIAPTK is out, go pick up R. Stevie's Phonography, as completely mindblowing and an early blueprint of Ariel. I respect both of these guys so much, Ariel for introducing me to Stevie and Stevie for making this kind of handmade folk pop before I was even born. So inspiring... and with a back catalog like this thankfully it's going to be a million years to make my way through everything.

We can also hope this is the beginning of an entire album collaboration, it sounds too damn fun and completely a part of both of their processes. It's a perfect match. There's no doubt this is going to be gone. I'm happy Mike gave me the chance to hear it and let you guys know about it first, now go pick up this incredible artifact...and hey in the future apocalypse you could even use it to shave or something...it's a win win!

(Even joking about that, I get a little upset.)

Baby Erection - self released

2012-01-16T12:31:00.000-05:00

Here's how to start out the week right, look through the stack of singles that are up next and pick the one with the best name. A self released single from the Brooklyn based band, Baby Erection.
What possessed me to try to google image search their name for a pic of the sleeve, I don't know. Terrible idea, I mean....really disturbing results, and now I'm on some kind of government watch list. Thanks guys!

The A-Side's "Lon Chaney Blues" is built out the thinnest, jankey sounding wrecked electric guitar. It's the kind of raw, broken amp sound that would make Ty segall jealous. Nick is on lead vocals, straining to be heard above the crazy rec room racket pouring onto the mic hanging from a duct taped 'x' in the middle of the ceiling. He's distorted as hell, yelling all kinds of abstract things about the silent film star who was known for his crazy monster makeup effects, so it seems like perfect garage fodder for a misunderstood misfit point of view...by the way who told these guys about Lon Chaney? These are his blues alright...originally recorded on a 4-track cassette it's got all the character of the Siltbreeze Yips records..all stripped down as raw as they day they were recorded. A dirty, crying mess. Like the Liquor Store / Natural Child split...going for it in the rehearsal space, the cymbals peaking all over the place, and played together live, so when you stumble a little bit, it's just the way it goes...give it some character as we like to say int he biz. Pure and simple. Big time feedbacking mess by the end, and a little growling...the Lon Chaney monster is not happy, it's definitely Cramps or a Nodzzz punk kind of feel...or that single from Mess Folk on Hozac, completely damaged, sincere punk.

The B-Side then is the big band standard, "Baby erection Boogie" really sounding like the opening from California Uber Alles, the smooth jazz bassline, don't forget to tip the waitress, clinking glasses and forks. The guitar really kicks in and goes completely instrumnetal, picking up with a classic "wooooooo". They just rock the tempo completely out, throw a spazz solo on here as it falls all apart. Something creepy and classic about this one.
Hell, if they can get this down on cassette in someone's shared rehearsal space over here in Brooklyn then I should think they'd be up for opening for Big Shots or Liquor Store one of these days.

Scuzzy, home recorded garage junk crap, self released by the band, which to me says more than anything else...having a complete hand in this beginning to end, the most accurate representation of the sound.

On Black big hole, jukebox vinyl with handnumbered insert card, check out their bandcamp page, or like them and email babyerection(at)gmail.com to get a copy and on that watch list.

Fire Eyes on Random Acts of Vinyl

2012-01-13T11:10:00.000-05:00

This one was flown in direct over the Atlantic from Random Acts of Vinyl, which I found out was formed by Palm Springs, a UK band with a major DIY attitude. This single is one of their latest releases from the band Fire Eyes a duo with Sally Megee and Paul Beat, who are both dishing out the back and forth vocals over this basic, lonesome western package.
The A-Side's "Cherry Black" is definitely evoking a Suicide cowboy sound, or a country-alt Dirty Beaches without the sonic medium textures, a really clear version of that spirit of sadness. Sally begins this conversation when she asks "What're you doing with that gun in your hand?" and Paul answers her back in his deep JAMC style vocal. They even introduce a massive glitchy synth solo in the middle of this slow bluesy stomper. I'm even thinking about a country fried Prinzhorn Dance School...a similar absence of crazy layers, just a heavy tom rhythm and tambourine, long distance reverb dusty guitar, and a couple of chords. This abstractly seems to be about a Bonnie and Clyde story, setting the scene, like the Neil Young Deadman soundtrack....one of my favorites...if I could only find that on vinyl...
The B-Side, "Out of Dust" is heading even further into the desert with a simple mic'd acoustic guitar, steel strings and all...and Sally is massively reverb'd into another dimension, like a mescaline dream, in the bottom of the grand canyon, a surfy sustained guitar wavering in out of the dust. A violin creeps into the background and those tumbleweeds really start to blow. It's a subtle vision with Fire Eyes, no distractions from recording technique, they've managed to create all this kind of imagery out of elements which individually shouldn't necessarily add up to this neo-country. The convertible rusted classic cars and sunglasses...a Julee Cruise Calexico sound.
How'd they do that.

Get it from Random Acts of Vinyl, preview the tracks, here on their Soundcloud page.

Eww Yaboo on Summersteps Records

2012-01-12T10:43:00.000-05:00

Eric over at Summersteps Records has been at it over there in Dunmore, PA for the past sixteen years, putting out his own personal band projects along with a roster of friends and relations of various sorts on big vinyl and the occasional tiny single like this one from Eww Yaboo. A couple friends relocated from Brooklyn and put together the current lineup of Eww and hooked up with the Summersteps.

"Make it Fast" on the A-Side sets this sense of urgency from the minute the tape started rolling, with Nathan or Drew sounding frustrated into the mic: "I'm on?" right before they launch into an epic sounding indie, with background hints of piano, and bursts of gated swirly distortion with all kinds of counterwoven melodies, the cymbals crashing. They go from that overwhelming huge melodious pop into a bassline breakdown the next measure. Lot's of echo on the vocal, which is really great, full of hope, raukus, off kilter, on the verge of dismantling the whole sound, like the punk pop of The Balkans. Odd time signature muted guitar gives way to a wah wah solo....which might even belong on the heavier side of a tropical pop sound of something like Ski Lodge or Abe Vigoda...with their own brand of sheer optimism, and punchy single note grooves that has all the unjaded enthusiasm of dudes from the underground of PA.

The B-Side with, "So Many of the Kids", slowly fades in with a rolling tom beat and the drawn out distortion of layers of guitars. It's nice to hear a 180 like this... as much as they can go for that catchy pop on the A-Side, here it's getting heavy and a little more out of control in working within that signature huge sound. Heavily on effects, the thin vocal is a pretty serious choice, the whole thing showing off their experimental side. Here, they embrace those grungy sounds, and this hollow slapping snare track. In the age of unlimited tracks... go ahead and use them. Make it sound like a brick wall is coming for you, an old speed racer cartoon background, the lines flying all over the place, one big a crazy blur, and these guys want you to run straight into it.
The bookend studio banter taking this out says a lot about how these guys got here, one take, no edits, see you later, we gotta go open for Turbo Fruits (which they've actually done by the way).

On black big hole vinyl with handwritten download card from Summersteps Records.

Weird Party "Honey Slides" on Sex and Death Records

2012-01-11T11:44:00.000-05:00

Weird Party from Houston, sent their "Honey Slides" single in a little bit ago, this one off their own Sex & Death Records. The best thing I like about their Facebook page is the fact that they list Van Gogh as an artist that they like and the drummers name is "Dick Cravings", which is my vote for best band member name so far this year, an early entry but a strong one. Honk Honk.
It all kind of points to where we're headed with this one, but who is that freaking hunk on the cover? I still haven't decided if that's someone in the band, or an possibly an old Teen Beat cover? I have trouble believing this guy has anything to do with this energetic Cramps-style punk, even if it is a weird party. Is everyone invited?
"Honey Slides" starts off with the party tom beat and groove-ass bassline with some guitars coming in over on one channel. Rowland on vocals starts off pretty low key, talking about the sings that he's possibly losing his mind, and that's where the vocal turns to a scream. There's a little bit of a psychobilly trashy punk feel going on here, especially talking about insanity and in such a peppy, dick dale way. I'm going to invoke that genre's standard, Deadbolt, and these guys are the younger bratty relatives, who even get a little Jello Biafra sounding at the emotional, lost his mind points. There he is singing, "I'm not your maniac", but clearly he is, at least by the second chorus...at least he's being honest. They've got an obvious wink feel to this single so far that works between party punk rock and disturbing.

The B-Side titled, "Sarah Palin" is going to pose a lot of problems, starting with the name of the track, you risk a lot by even talking about this waste of time at this point. It almost feels bad to even have wasted a side on her...the radio dial is spinning through the stations, all the static eventually leads to an off kilter distorted riff, with even a Frank Black type moment with the return of his maniac vocal over this melody. The chorus of this one is full of similar big layered guitars, huge chords of Sparta style punk, and a great chorus about how evil she is...but still at the end of the day, you're stuck with singing about that idiot? It's a damn shame to waste perfectly good chords on her....let alone a whole side of a seven inch? No matter how catchy...but who would have thought "I'm emperor Ronald Reagan..." would have worked either.

On black vinyl with download card and lyric insert...well, I guess they could have put her face on the cover if they really wanted to be jerks. Weird Party alright. Give my regards to Mr. Craving.

I Dream in Transit - self released

2012-01-10T13:45:00.000-05:00

I Dream in Transit sent me their latest self released halfway across the world, from Melbourne, Australia. A very cool chipboard matchbook style screened sleeve, on thick black vinyl, with a red xerox insert and download card.

Both of these tracks are intensely intimate, quiet droning pieces of minimalism. "Explosion" starts with a massive thump of a hollow electronic kick with drawn out, etherial vocals from Louise, as lonely sounding as the harsh electronics. She's buried under a metallic distant echo, like some kind of broken telephone line, and it plays against the full sounding lower register response lyrically from either Stephen or Phillip. This morose hymn-like back and forth has the best lyrics about our anti-relationship with technology. The kind of detachment that happens from being desensitized or too close to a tragedy...this abstract pop-drone goes all the way back to the sparse whispery pop of Young Marble Giants or The Spinannes the same brand of deliberate and minimal. Even slightly combined with the swirly shoegaze warmth of Portishead...well warmth is the wrong word...it's more lonely sounding or apocalyptic.
Thanks in part to the background of slowly bowed strings, it's an unsettling, perfectly clear vision, crisply recorded with huge gongs and live room sound non traditional percussion that deliberately doesn't follow the mechanical rhythm. It's a sort of dystopian future, clouded by who knows what substances and overall dread, all of which is in the tone of Louise's vocal, which says it all.
"A Drop of Blood on The Surface of The Moon" uses a more organic structured instrumentation this time with the gentlemen in the trio layering vocals over an electric. More lonely sounds, with a woodwind instrument of some kind, all spread out with plenty or room to breathe. Louise, barely floating above their combined loud vocal about the most isolated idea...a person, millions of un-rescuable miles away from earth, gets cut. I think that's what got me about the Kubrick/Speilberg AI movie...seeing little helpless robot automaton Haley Joel sitting in that helicopter under the water for all eternity. I lost it.
This trio is capturing that Godspeed You Black... melancholia. There's nothing overtly as ominous, but it works in the same subtle, environmental ways.
I Dream in Transit has an amazing handle on their own creepy, shoegaze, filtered, slowed down MBV, carefully taking important stock of each word as if it's the last thing you'll ever hear.

Import this direct from the band on their bandcamp page. $10 AU is about $10 US. An edition of 250.

The real tragedy is that I probably will never get to see them live and say thanks for this single.

Preorder Epic Ditch on Velocity of Sound records

2012-01-09T09:23:00.000-05:00

Darren over at Velocity of Sound ended up getting in touch with the guys from Superdrag who told him about their latest project, Epic Ditch, and naturally talk of a seven inch started to come together...and it went up for preorder this weekend.
That sleeve, which I just saw myself, is a shredded logo...from what you might ask? Grinding curbs, or pvc on the edge's of halfpipes probably. The second you buy that brand new deck, just throw it in the street, or scrape it down a bench. If there aren't gouges in the bottom from day one, then what kind of a skater are you?
Here's my review for the VOS Site:

Here’s a packed to the grooves power sk8 punk seven inch from Nashville’s own Epic Ditch. Having long paid their dues in various bands, John Davis for one was a founder of early nineties alternative band, Superdrag and bassist Nick Raskulinecz is a Grammy award winning producer for up and comer bands like the Foo Fighters, Rush, and Alice In Chains. Adding Pegclimber's Stewart Pack and The Pink Spiders Nick Slack to the mix, this isn’t a bunch of new kids on the block.
That doesn’t mean they aren’t going to rock punchy distortion driven riffs with energetic, anthemic punk vocals
This is evident from the A-Side opening track, “More Juice”, which comes off as an updated speed hardcore track with roots in Suicidal Tendencies, godfathers of that skate punk sound, and playing about just as long, the abrupt stop echoing off the walls. They’re setting the bar high for delivering a tight, explosive package. By “Singular Form”, the riffs stretch out a bit and that layered guitar crunch is heavily on display, the soaring harmonics of skilled sonic manipulation ranking this right alongside the best examples of power punk from the likes of Hot Snakes or Sparta. “Unexploded” continues to build on those layers in rapidly increasing starts and stops becoming a show of force in power chords. The epic layers of head thrashing chunky guitar have their fair share of screaming solo moments in the rapidly disappearing time of this side, which, even over too soon, has already been exhausting.
The B-Side, “Tried and True” now ventures into proto-punk Dictators territory, the all tom rhythm drives the track right into windmill distortion strumming, the levels all peaked to the very edge of the sound, compressing every last decibel out of their own wall of sound. “Resistance is Victory” then brings the whole single full circle and we’re back to their thrash punk, hyper melodic roots, recorded in a mere 36 hours, this single captures the frantic energy of their power hardcore, more than just a late night halfpipe session soundtrack, they’re shredding record needles.

Preorder this one from Velocity of Sound Records, they definitely have some of those stickers, pre-grind, ready and waiting.

Mrs Magician on Grizzly Records

2012-01-06T13:07:00.000-05:00

Got another one from Mrs Magician, their third single by now, this time on Grizzly Records. I'm just getting into this matte feel monochromatic green sleeve when their completely out of control harmony from "Prescription Vision" on the A-Side, starts up. The heavy layered blasts of 'whoa oh's' on the first breathy vocal note is an unapologetically pop storm of glee. Not the show, but earsplitting grinning. This is overwhelmingly enthusiastic, it can throw you off a bit, so I'm preparing you now for the unbelievable brightness. The reverb inverts over a pop surf single then double snare beat with just a little bit of a grim twist in the vocal:

prescription vision / blinding my baby's eyes

Even taken metaphorically there's some kind of drug abuse problem referred to here which is in direct contrast to the higher than high surf chorus.
It embodies pure goofball beach antics, and it's no surprise they're from the west coast, I mean not to pigeonhole the sound, but what is it about all that damn sunshine? It makes you this kind of happy manic, that's for sure. The vocal is so strong here, it almost makes those a capella clubs make sense...you know the one from Social Network, except Mrs Magician all have PHD's in surf, and are wearing jams with tuxedo jackets.
On the B-Side, "I Know What Girls Like" takes a hard nostalgic turn into Hunx territory, with plenty of reverb but slowing it down to that high school dance feel...the disco ball spinning, chaperones checking hands. The tamborine echo on this stickier bubblegum track is yet again hiding the lyric just under the surface about how the lead vocal Magician was:

...way to fucking nice to you

Because if he was a jerk then she would be into him, but then he wouldn't her...just a circle of lies that when delivered with under such sunshine is turning the whole thing around, like the 'oh so quiet' bjork video in an insane asylum.
Both tracks time in at under 2 minutes, being that we're in the middle of the dark days of solstice, this single might actually save your life... or push you completely over the edge.

Mountain Cult - Self released EP

2012-01-05T11:10:00.000-05:00

The trouble with the never ending onslaught of great singles out there is that it's easy to get behind on posts and end up missing the release party of this single from Mountain Cult that happened right before the holidays at Pianos, which after hearing the first track on the A-Side, I'm regretting already.
This sludgy, buried under reverb, raw feel has elements of The Sentiment Club or the German Measles re-imagined no-wave sound with a classic Stooges stripped down garage, dirty soul. Maybe it's the growly bass fuzz on "Christmas Day" over the low end squeal of Ben's guitar work, along with his lackadaisical whispery delivery...in the abstract way where the vocals are secondary to the overall sound. I tried to listen for some kind of holiday lyric like a maniac.
They've decided to find a ballsy, earthquake riff for "2pm special", becoming all about the sustained distortion ringing out between slow chords, slightly out of time with each other...it's the best thing to hear, when the core of the track is this decisive. They're just completely focused on pure, distilled, sludgy stoner jams right before things historically went punk and then faster and faster.
"Mailman" the third track on this side (!) starts to pick up with a melody, and the heavy echo on Ben's vocal along with the heavy delay on everything is almost getting into a JAMC type of layered distortion...it definitely doesn't sound like this was recorded on an old 4-track. There's just the right amount of sloppiness here, like Los Llamaradas, there's a core of authenticity in going for this sincere reworking of those sounds and they're nailing it. Like Earth, getting as slow as possible, and then adding the punk anarchy...really, it's exactly like what I like about the Stooges, only mellow. I don't think Ben's going to be smearing peanut butter on himself. Does it need to be that uncomfortable anymore? Does music need that kind of masochistic performance art? Anyway, who knows, it could have been a messed up release party...

The B-Side opens with "Dog Specimen", I'm getting the sense that they all know their parts, they've all rehearsed them, but they don't necessarily have to come together exactly, and that's why I love what they're going for, it's almost the approximation of a song, nearly conceptual in that way. Here's all the pieces, you get the idea, we're going to slow this way down, and keep it simple...the spirit is all there and I'm glad to hear they're taking it to it's logical extreme, like the last track, "Friends" which could be The Mekons and Dirty Beaches collaborating on quaaludes.

Go check this out on their bandcamp page, then go make these guys rich and pony up $4 bucks.

Baby Tears on Rainy Road Records

2012-01-04T11:42:00.002-05:00

Got a single in here from Baby Tears on a label out Omaha, Rainy Road Records. Baby Tears started with Ethan Jones (ex-The Faint and Church of Gravitron) who invited Todd VonStup and Jef Shadoan to round out this scuzz-noise trio which involved a donkey laying across some kind of organ on the sleeve there, but mostly a broken 4-track and a few bucks for beer and a tape in the livingroom, but that didn't stop these guys from getting the most blown out peaking trash sound since the Mayyors, and where you didn't want to probably be in the same room with those guys once the music ended, Baby Tears suggest they might not kill you favoring a slightly more melodic sound and recognizable vocals.
On "Homeless Corpse" the vibrating sludgy wall of reverb is massively impressive when you think this sound is coming from a three piece, and this is not a blues inspired garage sound, it's more like a dirty basement with a single bulb swinging slowly in the middle of the room... possibly a bad situation, maybe you shouldn't have come by yourself at least. Everything is just crackling, those 20 extention cords and adapters plugged into the 2 outlets on the verge of tripping the whole neighborhood. When you can get a kick drum to peak out and have a trebly snap sound to it, well you've accomplished something loud my friends. It sounds like the tascam starts to run out of batteries during a breakdown part, and they're just verging for a minute into those pure sound experiments, and the spring reverb coming to a quick halt with a yell. pOWerful stuff, with a capital OW on your ears.

B-Side's "She sells eggs" uses those incredibly overdriven drums from Jef right out of the gate and Todd playing along in menacing Shellac style (if Steve lost all of his fancy microphones of course) which in a weird new way makes it sound that much more dangerous, and that's where this kind of rough recording can serve the sound. It says a lot when seemingly they aren't concerned with showing you the entire scene, you're sort of making it up, coming to your own conclusions to this punky trash beating. There's some crazy effects or synth in the chorus, and it's even sounding like some of the best moments of Terror Visions, there's still a lot of possibilites in that Units combination of synth-punk (that never sounds good). You can take unnatural sounds from electronics and have them play nice with blown out rock like this, The Faint background serves them well here, building on those crazy sounds...not afraid to use them.
Not that it doesn't take just as much time and effort to find the right peaking places and mix those three tracks together, but then this isn't the first time for any of these guys. The sum of experience and starting over sounds a lot like this.

200 black, 100 gold with xerox insert and big font rpm guide, which I appreciate...on Rainy Road Records, who also have a crazy back catalog of Brimstone Howl, Alija Trout and even a single from Darek Lyn Plastic, so you know who you're dealing with like Baby Tears themselves, they didn't just press records yesterday.

Viva L'American Death Ray on Lo-Fi / Disordered Records

2012-01-03T12:49:00.000-05:00

This one came in the other day from Rocco over at Disordered Records, looks like he teamed up with Lo-Fi Records also out of Italy for this single from Viva L'American Death Ray, a band I've been seeing a lot of releases out on Mexican Summer and I've been meaning to check out. Or it's that I've checked them out before and they keep turning out different every time? They aren't ever going in an easily definable or easily pigeonhole-able direction, so let's see where these two tracks are going.
"Wrong ways" on the A Side is a couple of layers of direct, slightly distorted electric melody playing in and around each other, a dense weave of brief single picked notes. A complex nervous melody for the see-saw bass groove to keep a hold of. A goofy story song about shoes, in an almost JSBX crazy screaming blues man style but more restrained. The shoes don't fit and chaos ensues, albeit within this ultra brief 2 minute punk structure.
The AA side with "Nothing" then sounds like an '80s era Lou Reed 4 track demo, right up to the mic, unemotional monotone vocals under a direct line in reverb guitar played to it's own rhythm despite an echo'd shaker. It's got the same kind of nihilism as Lou, he doesn't need anything either, and it's doing everything it shouldn't: making this really clear, direct statement about this choice to be a complete loner...in other hands this would be unlistenable, but they sem to have that disease where everything they touch turns to melody. That's not so bad now is it.
I also like the sleeve where every part of this guy is a middle finger, he really needs a friend.

The tough part is going to be in tracking this one down, try Disordered's blog or Psycheout's crazy wallpaper website.

P.S. God damn great interview, (well great because it's Captured Tracks anyway) at Clash Music, glad to hear their great attitude towards the single, and how it's played a role in their development...just how they treat their artists, making a ral go at a sustainable label of truly challenging contemporary music. One of the best.

Charlie McAlister 'Savage Arena' on Tick Tock Records

2012-01-02T11:30:00.001-05:00

I've been waiting for this Charlie McAlister from Tick Tock Records to get to the top of the pile, sadly it wasn't before this light blue lathe cut was sold out from the source, so you best be quick on the draw yourself checking back regularly with Tick Tock because you obviously can't rely on me to break any of their new releases. Charlie McAlister last showed up on a Tick Tock lathe cut about a year ago, the same kind of awesome screen printed white inner sleeve and handnumbering. Charlie has been writing his particular brand of scuzzy no-fi swamp folk numbers since at least 2009, when I came across this Carolina by-product single co released with Unread Records, each time I end up poking around the world wide web for this guy I get more intrigued, imagining the front porch of a cabin in the middle of nowhere, an ancient 4-track machine, broken instruments...a bathtub of moonshine maybe in the basement. A combination of Beck from the one foot in the grave era with the patina of Mountain Goats early cassette recordings and the personality of Jonathan Richman. Hearing it delivered on this one sided handcut lathe is the icing on the cake, giving the whole thing this weird authenticity, like an old blues 78, buried under layers of hiss, taped off an old AM radio...there's nothing better to compliment this sound. It started out in the backwoods without a decent mic for miles and it will end up on this slowly degrading thin piece of plastic, leaving anyone within earshot to wonder exactly when the hell this was recorded.
The first track, "Savage Arena" has something to do with a book by Joe Tasker as noted on the reverse of this sleeve but more than that the plague of mosquito's referred to many times, every other word in fact, as 'fuckers'. I have a similar reaction when it's dusk in the middle of nowhere in the woods of the northeast...they are everywhere, and they are complete fuckers. There's no escape. The beat up stabs of guitar melody from both a halfway decent acoustic and I think one of those little plastic numbers with nylon strings is giving this a carnival ramshackle feel, fighting with the instruments to make this noise, not lasting much past a couple of go's probably. Beating on the floor, or a piece of wood, the succinct, perfect argument for making gold out of whatever is lying around. Old necessity is the friend and trademark of Charlie McAlister. At this point I don't want to hear this on anything but a hissy lathe record...do they distress brand new LP's like jeans? I bet Charlie could. I want a full length, but I'm afraid of those perfect, clean grooves. THAT'S NOT CHARLIE.
Next track, "Piss Parade", is about having to really use the restroom, as you could imagine, lots of wine, gatorade, whatever he could find to drink and I won't ruin the ending lets just say he 'rained' on their parade if you know what I mean. A couple layers of bluesy, slow bending chords...vocals right up in the blown out mic, narrating the story in a slight nasal whine, a mellow Bob Log III, I would love to hear those guys collaborate on something....or hell, play on the same bill.
Finally, "I ain't scared of shit", Charlie ends this side with a really classic almost protest track of lists of things that he's not afraid of, nuclear bombs, fire, ghosts, you name it...I also think that he's probably just really trying to convince himself most of all. A true contemporary folk sound, this is carrying on those traditions in a south carolina endgame. There's probably no one like Charlie steadily carrying on in those broken chords, and holy guitars, beating on washboards, hating mosquitos, not afraid of anything.

Marshall Mcluhan would also approve of this format.

Advance Base / Hello Shark split on PIAPTK Records

2011-12-31T11:10:00.002-05:00

People in a Position to Know have been consistently coming up with the most amazing packaging for the lowly single and beyond, from an 8" square colored vinyl of Springsteen covers from Owen Ashworth and his brother to a sprawling 6 LP Wooden Wand boxed set (in appropriately enough...a wooden box), picnic plate shaped lathe cuts if I remember correctly he cut himself on his own machine...well machines plural because you can't have just one....literally, every piece breaks and you probably need to have a couple just for spare parts. It makes you want to move out into a part of the world where the cost of living is way less than brooklyn and start tracking down enough pieces to press your own records...in the meantime I will just be buying what PIAPTK is crazy enough to put together, always amazing, and worthy of blind buying their entire output. Consistently great, I admire all the projects they come up with over there.
It's no wonder Owen agreed to release a second single from his latest project, Advance Base, this time split with Hello Shark out of Burlington, VT, in a really nice matchbook printed chipboard sleeve from Stumptownprinters.
The Advance Base side starts out with a typically heartbreaking track, "Whirlaway The Horse", a Rhodes organ and a Whippany Rhythm Master (thanks liner notes) which is the sole core of his ever skeleton minimal structure. It serves to highlight Owen's songwriting, and this one is just a perfectly crafted story of the horse, Whirlaway that reveals a bar owners story verse after verse, and if this isn't based on some actual conversation late one night in a lonely bar then Owen, you are more of a genius than ever. Delivered in his deliberate understated style, barely rising above the trembling warmth of the organ melody, which against this ancient drum machine always reminds me of the sparse lonely sounds of Arise, Therefore, but Owen always manages to make these sad stories sound optimistic, the pieces seem to be always sort of working against that idea, and that's always the biggest trick of his songwriting, to give those kind of melancholy moments enough charm to be a little bit deceptive almost....once you start to investigate a little deeper.
Next up from Base is "Spanish Flangdang", which is listed as a traditional cover, and has a carnival uptempo carousel melody, which actually is so related to the Whirlaway melody they may as well be twins. This one still is riding that line of sadness, but maybe it's the closeness of these two that makes this sad somehow.
The B-Side from Hello Shark, starts out with "Stayed on an Island", recorded by Joey Pizza Slice in his apartment, the 4 piece reserved band lead by Lincoln Halloran on guitar and vocals, sounds like it works right alongside on old Palace album, he's just as understated in his delivery as Owen and the simple sentiments of making an island out of a mattress or giving a good friend a solo cigarette, come off as intensely personal, you're being let in on this intimate performance that doesn't ever need to be loud or scream for your attention. "Stars are Glow" continues this loose, good friends together writing music, a sleepy melodic track with Brooke Morrison bringing a high register harmony to the low key proceedings. A great pairing with Advance Base, and a serene end to 2011.

Get this one from PIAPTK who says:

The debut release from Casiotone For the Painfully Alone's Owen Ashworth's new band, Advance Base is a split with his Vermont buddies in Hello Shark (voted one of the 50 best new bands in America by the Boston Phoenix). 2 tunes each, in hand-screened arigato paks with free digital download coupon (and instant download upon checkout!).

Cousins on The Noyes Records singles series

2011-12-30T11:01:00.000-05:00

The Noyes Record subscription series is still going strong and their latest from Cousins came in just before the holidays. In the same ways Yuck or Broken Water...or fellow subscription series-mates, Dog Day, this duo from Halifax is mining the attitude and guitar tones of the nineties. "Secret Weapon" on the A-Side carries the ramshakle good times of Pavement with a loose, gritty electric blaring out of a broken practice amp from the right side of the stereo. The percussion jerky, odd timings and slightly distorted at times, high falsetto vocal from Aaron Mangle gives this a less than deadly serious delivery which makes them immediately likable. When you can coax out a near perfect rhythm like this, the combination of gutsy muted strumming with double time ceramic (?) cowbell it doesn't need any extra dressing up, the simple capturing of this rimshot stomper is plenty. It's not getting into anything near lo-fi, but the exact right amount room sound and immediacy, and more importantly precise, catchy songwriting. That's what reminds me of Dog Day, The Hussy or another 'related' band, Blood on the Wall...there's pure classic innovation pouring out of these guys.
B-Side's "Speech", brings out a bit more of this raw practice room, garage side. There's some kind of down the hall sound from a record being played...or someone singing and a bluesy blown out garage number blasts in. This combination of Aaron's high vocal under heavy reverb, this elegant almost frail vocal alongside this scuzzy guitar is a great crazy direction, not to say he can't completely belt this out when the drums, with all fills take this solidly into the red. A raw sound expanding on the loose groove....I think that might be Leigh Dotey on drums, if the video below is the current line up.

Fantastic single, playful and stripped down, elements of garage and loose indie-rock, but classically all in service of the songwriting.

Damn this came out a while ago and should have been in contention for the year end thingys, but that isn't what this is about, they deserve to be picked up from Noyes Records...another solid edition to the singles club...you need more reasons?

Get this one direct from Noyes Records.

COUSINS - Speech from Mitch Fillion (southernsouls.ca) on Vimeo.

Ghost Towns of the West on Chase Bliss Records

2011-12-29T12:15:00.002-05:00

Joel from Chase Bliss Records out of Minneapolis sent me his latest single from Ghost Towns of the Old West, who are also residents of Mill city. This 5 piece classic rock, grunge era sounding group just committed these two new tracks to vinyl not long after their debut EP.
A-Side's, "Robust" takes a distorted twangy electric into a solo mini-funk area with Dan Crowe delivering a piled up Chris Cornell style vocal, a bluesy sounding emotional echo, extending syllables, drawing out the scene and a contrast to the punching heavy arcs of distortion. The whole thing being immensely clean sounding, a dense fuzz of classic power riffs heavily cutting through the delicate melody. Danielle Wagner is on belting soul backup duties, a seriously trained vocalist, adding her 'oh yea's' in overdrive, eyes closed one hand on the headphones. Against the guys in the band yelling into a room mic between going back into the valleys of riffs it's an attempt at a grungy blues with the power of a thousand watts.
"Mr. Loewe" on the B-Side takes things down into a narrative track about this know it all creep with tremolo organ and electric, piano, and an ultra slow rhythm see saw punctuated by the band on that room mic again yelling in chorus every once in a while... a nice break from the up close, smooth vocals by Dan on this one. He's not too angry about the whole situation, more like in a stoned haze about the whole thing. By the time this honkey tonk psyche ends he won't even remember what his problem was with this guy in the morning.

Get this one on White or black vinyl from Chase Bliss Records.

Buck Gooter on Flannel Gurl Records

2011-12-28T10:24:00.003-05:00

There's a new label out of Christiansburg, VA, ...actually maybe the only record label out of Christiansburg, it's Flannel Gurl Records run by Jonathan & Kimmi, a little less than a year old already with a handfull of releases including this single from Buck Gooter which is the first time the band has released anything on vinyl. A duo of guitar and drum machine/electronics, it's the best kind of punk, experimental noise chaos.

Take the A-Side live track, "Devil Worship" which has that thin, fuck-the-drums repetitive loop running under a mess of distorted snake guitar work from Terry who along with Brat are yelling through a shitty house PA about...you guessed it, devil worship. You can hear the audience yelling along with them, there's no regular melody, this is based in pure expression. I will always hold something like this up a little higher than a commercially successful band who is making a living. You could almost make the theoretical 7" argument that if they're doing something that popular it's suspect by default. The motives behind it can too easily have to do with something other than the music itself. Buck Gooter exorcizes all the jaded marketing PR emails away. If these guys are at the Little Grill in Harrisonburg, VA then there's still hope for new music and frankly for the country as a whole. It's hard to overlook the massive strip mall that can be the US sometimes...but let's not get sidetracked, (red states, GWB) this is the sound of hope, a complete dirty, live mess of inspiration that resulted in wreckage physically and mentally in the form of an electronic theremin breakdown solo or maybe that was just manipulated feedback from a tiny guitar. A tree falling in the forest of VA. The only downside to this recording is that it feels too far removed, like you're standing way at the back of the room, or outside...I want to be right up in the middle of this...but maybe that's just because we couldn't handle it yet.
The B-Side, "Fife and drum" is a dining room recording of a heavy bass stomping drum track and classic riff rock echo guitar repeating a fist pumping anthem melody. All drums with a skeleton of rock, it's an awesome combination of that ballsy '70s almost metal with the freeform electronics of the days of Butthole Surfers, Ministry or Skinny Puppy...(you know those guys weren't ever thinking about the future, it's insanely dated and impossible to listen to, but you wouldn't get to the state of things today without it, it's an important overlooked era...where's the 33 1/3 book?) So here's this new line of thinking in obvious synth sounding electronics against the a classic rock sound. They want to go to the highway of hell, taking the exit off dystopian future bladerunner highway. Finally we come to a fitting end to the single and Buck's take on existence... a completely delayed out a capella blues track, "Echoes from a Lonely Tomb", it's layers of serious controlled heartfelt singing with yelps and screams just under the surface, all the stages of grief at once. A single 4/4 kick beat keeping time, they are willing to go anywhere, given the right effect...they don't even have a plan for this, this was overlooked, recorded too late/early in the morning and only months later did they realize it's worthy of the seven inch. That's a feat in and of itself.
They would also like to remind you that snakes are cool as artwork, but I don't see a single snake anywhere on this sleeve...lots of liner notes on the reverse which helps to set the scene of the crime further and are as important as the recording itself

I'd wish these guys luck but with their dark lord pressing record they don't need my help, they are also coming to Death by Audio on January 20th.

You can hear this and Flannel Gurls latest on their bandcamp page and pick this single up for $7 from Flannel Gurl. No multinational corporations will receive any percentage. Occupy seven inch! (Not 7inches, I don't have the room)

The One & Nines on Cotter Records

2011-12-27T15:25:00.000-05:00

Got this updating of a throwback '50s harmony sound from The One & Nines who put this "Tell Me" sngle out on Cotter Records, and I'm pretty sure this 12 piece wanted the 7" format to reflect the roots of the 45 around that period as well.
The A-Side's "Tell Me" is a massive blown out classic '50s pop structure, BIG horn section, lots of R&B soul from Jeff Marino on dual duties of vocals and the reverby wet electric. This one reminds me a lot of that "Love is Strange" track from Micky and Sylvia, it's a combination of Chuck Berry era rock and roll, surf picking and even a Stax motown sound, keeping in mind that these are area's far away from what little knowledge I may have picked up in the past few years of this, but it feels like it comes out of the same place Electric Cowbell does: they greatly appreciate this overlooked style and are faithfully recreating a version of it with a contemporary angle to everything. The horn solo in particular near the end is sort of like that Calexico inspired Mariachi, and a lot of the latin stabs into unfamiliar waters on Electric Cowbell as well, sometimes that metal brass squealing belongs on the mini vinyl. Backup vocals from Vera are responding to Jeff's lyric in every verse on par with his controlled delivery, there's plenty of backup Doo Wop layers vocally making this dense mix of instrumentation probably ideal for an actual dance hall, bring back the velvet curtains and singles mixers at the churches, The One & Nines are headlining.
The B-Side, "Make it Easy" features Vera now taking a crack at filling this track with the same kind of soul, and she can clearly deliver the goods, from breathy and belting. Everything is faithfully arranged, this reconstruction is unbelievably put together in support of this room filling vocal. Almost funky, the big melody is driven along with this backbeat, the horn section doing this great punch and fade away during the chorus. A little bit classic rock influenced even by the end, like Janis on Pearl, having already arrived at this ensemble blow the roof off place it takes alternative bands years to get to, and out of their element, completely fail at. Leave it to the One & Nines guys, they're products of a hell of a music education and didn't get here by luck and talent alone.

On black vinyl from Cotter Records, who have the most minimal site on the best way, they just need a link to this record already. Go to The One & Nines direct.

Darling 'Keep Out' on Cardboard Sangria Records

2011-12-26T09:53:00.000-05:00

Got a single in of dreamy layered pop from a three piece out of Chicago called Darling, on Cardboard Sangria Records, which is about to turn 13, and goes on the list of labels that have too long flew under the all powerful 7inches radar. Looks like these guys have at least 3 full length/EP's behind them already so this is no debut single baby, but just one of those personal labors of love in the form of the seven tiny inches (Isn't that a caroling song?), two tracks here, "White is Night" and "Mako Sica" from the
"White is Night" on the A-Side starts out with the warm acoustic guitar layers and background organ, while Jeff comes in with a slightly echo'd vocal that has that sincere slight break from a guy who's giving in to delivering the emotion and not to the judges. Something of a Jeff Tweedy comforting country...or is that the rim shot rhythm...or the call and response from the rest of the band like a ghostly chorus. It must be the stabs at the warbly hammond organ that put it in the lonesome west for me anyway. A solemn horseback tune, which is putting a new spin on the paint chip card that usually is the color for night. Same kind of melancholy though, wandering...might just be trying to convince himself of this positive spin. The breakout moment is this distorted organ/guitar solo where those two opposing sounds find their way into each other, maxing out in great ways.
The B-Side, "Mako Sica", goes for the slow guitar centric chorus this time, slowly building in the layers of shaker as the whole thing picks up to a poppy shaker, definitely in line with American Analog Set or Dean Wareham's projects. I think that's Native American for 'bad lands' if you trust the internet and these guys make it sound alright to me, another attempt at changing name expectations? Or they just can't help themselves to get a groove going under any circumstance. I hear some abstract lyric references to tough situations, but again is feels completely fun...maybe they're normally a hardcore band and this is their blue period which fails nicely. Clean as hell for getting to the bottom of the pit without getting too dirty, rocking the whole way.

Sleeve art from Stacey Chapman, liner notes thanking everyone on an interesting (raspberry?) shade of opaque red vinyl, with download card, 250 pressed on Cardboard Sangria Records.

Pillars and Tongues on Endless Nest Records

2011-12-22T16:09:00.000-05:00

Pillar and Tongues are a three piece out of Chicago making expansive, spiritual droning orchestral pieces which feature Mark Trecka's cavernous vocals, which become the focus of the record. It's almost about someone who has this kind of control over his vocal ability, and can transform a lyric from just a vehicle for communication into a compelling instrument.

It shouldn't surprise me when a band like this makes the focus of their work the exploration of something that can too easily be taken for granted in music composition, but when Pillars and Tongues deliver it in this subtle way it sneaks up on you and suddenly seems obvious. There's still infinite possibilities for this most basic instrument before even banging on something outside that cave, we've been continually innovating the sound and use of the voice since the very first compositions. Evan has a deep Peter Murphy type voice, with an authoritative, blues style seriousness of Mark Lennegan. Sort of like that demo album, the recordings Wai Notes between Will Oldham and Dawn McCarthy for The Letting Go, recorded in Iceland, somehow perfectly representing that geography in spirit.

Pillars and Tongues then utilize minimal accompaniment, the three members are working with a bare bones structure from violin and bass which end up a lot of times being bowed in an imperceptibly endless way, resulting in one long, deep foundation to lay Evan's dense prose on this meditative album, The Pass and Crossings. There's a big churchy reverb to everything to give it that expansive feel, it belongs in this huge space, it easily fills that kind of area.

The A-Side begins with an expansive piece, "A Dance in The Billowing Absence", just strings and organ, the violin wavering in a deliberately unsettling way, conveying this kind of a breakdown, giving you an idea that this isn't going to be conventional classically delivered instrumentation. They are creating contemporary dirges between the harmonies of the stringed instruments. The pairing of Elizabeth Remis' violin with Evan's works throughout the album in the same huge frequency and range of expression, they are equals working in different ways.

They continue to explore melodies that range from slowly shifting drones to middle east inspired arrangements on the next track "Palms to Tell". While the instrumentation takes it's time, lyrically Evan is piling up all kind of abstractions seemingly dealing with the deepest primal emotions of love and death. There's religious references throughout to votives, pilgrims and virgins with children. Surprisingly, it doesn't ever feel dark, there isn't an ounce of gothic's foreboding or morbidity, they're dealing with these heavy subjects in something of a hymn to a higher powr. By the last track on the the A-Side they even start to introduce more tribal percussion rhythms moving clearly from an introspective personal place to maybe an outward celebratory feel, probably evident by the title of this one, "Thank you, Oaky".

The B-Side opens with "Oaky (Doting)" and I'm starting to put this entire album together as a conceptual album about a spiritual journey, where as the previous track, the narrator was praising this Oaky character, in this one another voice is condemning his following, and we're back to the bare minimal layering of strings in rising and falling mantra's. Introducing doubt. "The Making Graceful" picks things up again with a complex primal rhythm, the vocal and violin mixed closely together, the beat taking over the middle of the B-side and the violin here even sounding hopeful, optimistic. This side ends with "Decadent Crossing", bringing the somber tone of the opening full circle, this time Evan's vocal is echoing sentiment from a distance, another character chiming in from another plane, a far off echo on the vocal, this could be some kind of end/beginning transformation 'crossing' and these are just the kind of heavy themes Pillars are going for, trying to elevate self expression into something bigger than yourself.

Pillars and Tongues extend their tracks into hymns that stretch out for seemingly endless periods of time across both sides of this full length LP from Empty Cellar Records a hugely celebratory mantra about this abstract spiritual journey but for the human voice.

Track listing:
1. A Dance In The Billowing Absence
2. The Palms to Tell
3. Thank You, Oaky
4. Oaky (Doting)
5. The Making Graceful
6. Decadent Crossing

http://pillarsandtongues.tumblr.com/
http://pillarsandtongues.bandcamp.com/

Go pick up this full length record with great newsprint poster with reverse liner notes from Empty Cellar Records. Completely related to another on from Empty Cellar, The Sandwitches and Will Oldham's massive catalog.

Top 10 7 inches of 2011 with Darren from VOS

2011-12-21T16:04:00.000-05:00

TOP

Darren, from Velocity of Sound and I talked about our top 7" picks for the year.
Spoiler Alert.

Darren:

10) Wilco - Dpm records

9) The Ketamines - Hozac records

8) Fresh and Onlys - Sexbeat Records

7) Raw Blow - self released

6) The Boomgates - Smart Guy records

5) The Vivian Girls - Polyvinyl Records

4) The Lower Dens - Sub Pop

3) D Watusi - Cass Records

2) Diarrhea Planet - Infinity Cat

1) Tim Cohen - Captured Tracks

Jason:

10) Natural Child/Liquor Store split on Almost Ready Records

9) Snakeflower 2 - Southpaw Records

8) The Whines - Mt. St. Mtn. Records

7) Ty Segall - Drag City

6) Jeff Novak - Trouble in Mind

5) Real Numbers - Floridas Dying

4) Grass Widow - HLR Records

3) Art Museums - Dul-Ci-Tone Records

2) White Stripes - Third Man Records

1) Jay Reatard - Shattered Records

Now go listen to us play excerpts and defend our picks below or download the show here (48mb). Stay tuned for an upcoming TOP 30! with Styrofoam Drone as I reserve the right to completely change the entire list.

EP92-VOS-Top10-2011.mp3 by Sweaters + Pearls

2011-12-20T17:32:00.000-05:00

Just messing around taping singles off the stereo speakers for a year end round up Darren from VOS and I did about week ago...talking about our top ten's for the '11's when this email came in from Matador about their singles club they're launching for the new year with bi-monthly exclusive releases from the OBN III's and the Jicks?
I'm in.
Early xmas present.

Launching in January will be the Matador Records singles club, Singles Going Home Alone, featuring six new 7" singles over the duration of 2012. The first of these bi-monthly releases featuresStephen Malkmus & The Jicks and L.A. Guns, with the former covering the latter's "Wheels Of Fire" and Tracii & Co. tackling "Gorgeous George" by The Jicks. Following this, releases are set to come from OBN III's (March) and The Men from New York City (May), with more acts to be confirmed for later in the year.
The annual subscription includes free shipping, a free Matador tote bag, a 10% discount on the Matador store all year long and a secret bonus item. The following subscription options are available:
$45 US
$55 Canada
$70 rest of world
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks

L.A. Guns

OBN III's

The Men

Tenement on Toxic Pop Records

2011-12-20T12:52:00.000-05:00

This one came in from Amos, a member of Tenement, a punky Wisconsin three piece with a full length behind them already and this single from Toxic Pop Records.

The A-Side track, "Taking Everything" is a punchy, blasting pop punk sound with a bratty punk vocal, feeling a lot like the huge catchy power chord sound of something like the Promise Ring, complete with backup harmonies. Singing as hard as the mic's will take, taking jabs at swinging guitars. Stop for the distortions to drop out for a minute and it's just a verse and drums, that tension launching back to the chorus of "Taking everything the wrong way!", with an organ (or synthy electric) melody line over the layers. I've been there buddy, you try to explain, but it just makes it worse.
The next one, "Paper Airplanes" really takes things down to a slow picked electric slow dance mood with a heavy distanced echo effect on vocals. This one is clearly positioned to be a sadtown tearjerker, it's what happens when all the energy is turned inward and you get that emo introspection...but it's definitely tempered by the medical oddities textbook imagery on this single...well, that description makes it sound ok...one guy is missing his entire lower jaw and mouth, even in black and white, on the reverse of the insert... it's disturbing. Is he going to appreciate being taken on this serious ride? Maybe he can... for a minute... forget about his problems. Or this will be the last thing he ever hears. Yikes. I did think this was going to be heavy doom metal, so when it's optimistic power pop like this, it throws me for a minute.
The B-Side with "Daylight World" then goes in an entirely different direction sort of power alt-country with a line dance rhythm, tinny acoustic guitars turn to power chords and alternating big riff harmonies. Big reverby solo makes this really feel like things are going to be ok, until it turns into and a long backwards song hidden track that makes me think the sleeve art wasn't a mistake. They're not letting you off easy with 4 tracks of cohesive material, it's a one band gymnastic mix tape. Here's the giant obstacle course and what we can do with it.

Check out their bandcamp page and get it direct from the band or on Toxic Pop Records.

Four brand new songs from your new favorite band. We're super stoked to get to bring you this EP. If you're unfamiliar, think a modern take on Sugar, the Replacements, Mudhoney, and later Husker Du. 100 on clear vinyl. First come, first served.

Witch Gardens "Raindelay" on Highfive and Handshakes

2011-12-19T08:30:00.000-05:00

This single was released way too long ago for me to just be getting to it now, but really that's how this year has been going. The singles keep coming out in exponential numbers, to anyone who's wondering if I'm getting to their review, I can't believe that honestly once a day isn't at all enough to keep up and in order to get all the last candidates in for the end of the year lists etc, I'm going to step things up until at least a little past the new year....
So Peter over at Highfive and Handshakes Records let me know about this Witch Garden "Rain Delay" single he put out a couple months ago and both of these fuzzy layered guitar tracks have everything to do with letting go of the summer grooves and settling into a long winter, but we can still hold on to those surf memories, even on the East Coast. Especially this A-Side "Goodbye Ball", which also might refer to equally as tragic loss of a ball into that yard that you aren't about to go get it from. Just let it go, no one wants to deal with that crazy neighbor. There's a huge Real Estate chorus guitar sound, along with that laid back focus on a harmony to the point of only catching tiny fragments of lyric. The slow snowflake falling tempo is broken by a snare on every beat chorus, taking a page right out of the origins of the Vivian Girls with Frankie on drums, the huge wooden batons and tambourine resting on the tom.

The B-Side might be more related to Grass Widow in their 3 part unique vocal harmony, working in a separate vein altogether from the reverb strum but with that Nodzzz kind of laid back vibe. When this one really picks up reflecting that stayed indoors insanity, it's a nice touch, they're driving themselves crazy in their own song. I'd also like to note it's no accident this comes from a label encouraging fair play with their moniker leading right to "Good game, good game, (yea right, yea right) HEY! I like that you can hear the hum of the cables trailing out after the song is over, but that's the kind of succinct vision they carry out with this one, exacting and thought out.

A criminally small run of 300 copies from Highfive and Handshakes...damn I love this sound, it is the definitive soundtrack for the last 5 years or so. Dum Dum Girls, The Babies, Best Coast...these guys aren't taking themselves too seriously and I like them more for it.

Batwings Catwings - Radio on Gravy Records

2011-12-16T11:30:00.000-05:00

Gravy HQ are the guys who put out that awesome Divorce single and they recently sent in this new one from LA based Batwings Catwings, which sounds to be something of a revisit of the rock punk synth movement from a few years back only expanded into a couple of towering mammoth-rock tracks.

"Radio" starts out with a minimal repetitive synth note with Dana coming in under a heavy layer of echo, powering out verses about the radio...which is a popular subject for catchy songs (*See Elvis Costello). When she's on the top of that cliff belting out, "I wanna listen to the radio!" I have to think she's talking about the idea that you can find anyone's great 'radio' station thanks to the internet, but actually tuning in a dial to someone playing records? I don't believe it even happens anymore and this isn't the thing she's talking about. It might just be NYC radio blows (except of course WFMU and WNYU) let's hope it's getting a second wind and beaten down by programmers and advertisers, maybe the only DJ's left will be doing it for the right reasons, and making those connections between tracks...live. Or the radio is actually pretty good in LA, which I'm sure is what she's talking about. After Dana gets you with this modest, low key opening there's a severe split in the single and this blows up super studio style, shiny guitars, booming drums, it's a little jarring...they're going for that big ass smash hit and they're definitely getting it...without a second to prepare yourself.

The B-Side "Early Exit" is a more of the full on rock attack from the beginning this time with a lot more keys of analog melodies, like some kind of x-games soundtrack version of Crystal Castles, or even the super pop of something like Bloc Party, a ridiculously over the top sound that's the furthest thing away from a garage, ultra compressed for maximum volume. (It says so on the center label). It's a heavy layered sound on the anthemic arena side, the bass slightly more distorted and defining a melody for that chorus wind machine effect on 11.

As always go check out their bandcamp page and decide yourself..this on is available from the Gravy

Buffalo Bangers on Private Leisure Industries

2011-12-14T18:30:00.002-05:00

This one came in from Private Leisure Industries, who put out that Brian Lewis Saunders' bedbugs full length spoken word album. You aren't going to find anything even close to that release on any other label, and this single from Buffalo Bangers is just as unique. Private Leisure is quickly standing out with some truly original releases.

The A-Side, "Blockader" has a slow, deliberate attitude, that raw, stripped down electric over a simple beat, plenty of room to breathe, the sound of the silence as much a part of the composition... it's Lindsey Elcessor that's the standout element pushing this simultaneously into a goth place alongside that minimal post-punk place. It's as much informed by the cold nu wave of Pylon as it is the dark themes of Siouxsie Sioux. The minimal grooves of post rock get me every time, maybe because they're so accessible...if they're doing it, why can't I?... but her delivery and vocal is definitely anything but. In contemporary music I'd compare her to Zola Jesus, just being such a unique singular talent, an artist who is approaching the tracks with a complete vision with a willingness to go more experimental. There's no hesitation in switching from a deliberate quieter monotone vocal to breaking vocal.

Like Cosey from Throbbing Gristle, Lindsey's exploring a similar psychic territory, with a Georgian slant. Like Benjamin Smoke, who would have only been able to evolve in that environment, the darker southern elements, combining in that swamp, the unfamiliar specific creepiness from that part of the world. She's doing some great things with her voice, a croaking 'ahhhhhh' vocal, it's the way she's completely giving in to her instrument that I appreciate. If it's going to be a great contrast to go from that to a trained vibrato then that's where this track is going. There's no pressure to pretty it up.

The B-Side, "Granite Grandma" has a chorus-y, Cure guitar melody and a chanting vocal this time from Lindsey...when you are honestly able to pull this homage off, it's remarkable. Getting to that same place is just as interesting now as it was then. It is crazy to even try, but they're coming together with the right feel. She's obviously talented right out of the gate... a serious vocal force... she makes you think about the obvious advantage that female singers can have, putting energy into a track like this while still sounding laid back, or effortless, it's not exactly 'yelling', but she's got your attention. This one instrumentally is equally as creepy as the A-Side, a sturdy drum track and distorted bass. Lyrically there's a lot to dissect...plenty of layers here to transcribe in teenage diaries. It's really bringing back listening to the saddest bastard music on the bus on the way to school and praying the batteries would hold out for another side.

I'll be damned if I can't recognize what this sleeve is done after, I've been searching out every Siouxsie and Bauhaus cover for that typeface...but no luck. Get this one on black vinyl from Private Leisure Industries Records

Beerface/Pointing Fingers split on Rot Gut Records

2011-12-13T18:46:00.006-05:00

First of all let me say this is a glow in the dark vinyl 45, which actually works, flip off the lights and it's a glowing platter, not enough to get picked up by a camera, so you'll have to take my word. This is actually a split between a gentleman who goes by Beerface among other hip hop aliases, and a pleasant fellow Pointing Fingers, AKA Progeny, not too many hip hop singles cross the 7inches desk, but I've kept tabs on Stones Throw and their insanity likeMF Doom dime box sets, but I really have no kind of context for this except a few touchstone albums.

So Beerface is going to school me about his part of the dirty south on the A-Side hip hop style, a classic combination of old school beats: grab a couple of good loops, some horns and of course barfing and pissing samples because after all this is a hardcore jam about drinking beer. "Number one" is impeccably crafted, a verse after verse jam about microbrews and getting wasted, this alter ego pushing the subject matter to it's absolute limit punctuated by a chorus of "I'm fucking drunk!". It's constructed in the perfect tone of those story tracks from LL Cool J or KRS-1, a utilitarian beat under that direct vocal track, that leaves it all up to Beerface to keep this interesting measure after measure. Completely entertaining he's just leaving me with one question after pouring a cold one myself....can he pull this off for a whole album of this? Each track an ode to a particular brand, Bud, Miller or Genesee, maybe the bars and especially the things that happen after having a few too many? There's a lot of material here, clearly Beerface is in his element and this has to just be scratching the surface.

The B-Side, "Goes So Hard" from one of Progeny's alter egos Pointing Fingers brings things somewhere into the late '90s with a real low bit rate sampled beat, and eastern style samples, a little like DJ shadow's more introspective tracks. Those muscley beats and unexpected instrumentation like this huge rattling chain sound. Progeny has a bit of that Marshall Mathers frantic yell style, between verses he's taking in huge breaths on the verge of hyperventilating.
I like that these guys got together and made a single happen....and on glow in the dark vinyl...a first for me I have to say.

Get this Texas hip hop glowy single from Beerface's tumblr, and after a few beers turn out the lights.

DBCR - Two song EP - Self Released

2011-12-13T11:31:00.000-05:00

This single came in from Kenneth with a nice note on the reverse side of a miniflyer to a show DBCR played at the Charleston. This kind of dirty punk rock (that's recorded really separated and clean) has been living in that basement for years.

I was talking with someone outside Death by Audio the other day about how much the surrounding neighborhood has changed, and I have the same sentimental feelings about The Charleston, I hope it somehow sticks around for a while. A lot of friends and great bands have passed through, metal and otherwise, playing the low ceiling, full of kegs basement. I don't feel like I'm even in the city anymore, it's someone's random punk house in the middle of nowhere. The single from these guys makes me feel the same way, I'm glad they exist, this kind of enthusiastic DIY punk that made spaces like ABC NoRio possible.

The A-Side of this one, "Let Them Eat Bikes" is that DIY call to arms, do something about this bullshit... a sarcastic chorus...lay it all out: denial of human rights, people living with AIDS....well, they can all eat bikes, which I guess is to say all the hipsters are giving up their fixies for food? Or the green environmentalists are trying to solve these problems with bikes, when we need some armed resistance instead? DBCR has a fast, hardcore wrist shaking riff under the near growly vocals, all bulging neck veins, grabbing the mic. You can hear they're putting everything into this. The channels are real separated here with the two guitars working practically on opposite sides of the fence. Dense protest lyrics, on one hand I really hope these guys are making some noise down at Occupy Wallstreet but they've probably been disillusioned years ago. You think a couple of tents are going to make a difference? So you're stuck in that Suburbia dilema...to bitch or not to bitch?

The B-side has a slower dirgey Dead Kennedys feel, when Jello would get extra creepy, singing in a cartoon elf voice about blackmarket organ sales. Slow picked distortion, a couple of dissonant melodies, half stops and more of those alientated lyrics...I appreciate this kind of protest and I also think it's pretty great they get to do it in the first place without actually being a target of the man. They're taking that mix of politics and punk headon....in a lot of ways they're already intertwined, but it's a fine line of ruining the message altogether. I don't know too many band that want to attempt it...even if it is the perfect historic time. You get no arguement from me about the 1%, but I still feel guilty that I even have the opportunity to bitch about it when I think about the rest of the world saying, "you america....you are the fucking 1%".

So to be stuck in the dark basement having your eardrums blown out with a slice of free Charlestpon pizza in your hand and a cheap beer in the other you can sort of maybe just appreciate that you have it pretty good after all. Sure, there's room for improvement, but you can go see DBCR and think about it.

On black vinyl, massive 7x7 b/w cardstock insert and download card... listen to me the collector scum I am.

Get it from their bandcamp page.

R.A.D. Vinyl Interview of Sweaters and Pearls Records

2011-12-13T10:14:00.004-05:00

Thanks to Ross over at R.A.D. Vinyl for the very first Sweaters and Pearls interview! I still have copies of The Super Vacations/Ceiling Stares, Fat History Month and Soccer Mom Records....check them out. I appreciate the support, these are great bands that deserve to have records out there...and do me a favor, and punch those skateboarding jerks in the face!

Craig Colorusso - Sun Boxes - Interview + Self released single

2011-12-12T10:51:00.000-05:00

I got this in from Craig a few weeks ago, a self released single which essentially is an audio documentation of his ongoing installation project called 'Sun Boxes'. 20 boxes of different tones are set up in an outdoor space, powered by solar panels the loops of guitar chords take days to go through a complete song cycle, the two tracks here were even recorded at different times of the year and in completely different environments. It's as much a field recording of happy accidents, the natural sounds of the environment adding as much to the recording as the tones themselves.
The A-Side has this track listed as "Frozen Pond", it sounds a little bit like the Budda Machine in it's real ambient understated tones, it's actually hard to sort of focus on paying attention to the fading in and out of layers of harmony here, it's easy to drift off thinking about other things for a minute. The really nice thing about the recording is that you can hear literally this recording was created on the frozen pond, in fact, Long Pond in Plymouth, MA. Environmental elements start to appear here and there...birds, ice cracking, ducks....it's hard to pick out exactly what is captured, but I know I'm hearing something other than the slowly rising and fading tones....which have as much to do with either the distance away from the speakers or the suns intensity. I imagine they're a bit like the 2001 monoliths, stranded here from another civilzation just blindly communicating away, transmitting information...and it's exactly what a frozen lake would sound like. To then take this solitary, weird experience and put it on vinyl adds another layer of mystery...this thing that slowly spirals inwards recreating these vibrations.
The B-Side notes this track was recorded in Maudslay State Park in Newburyport, MA in September...because of course the time of year is going to have different ambience and in this case the sound of grasshoppers adds another perfect layer of natural quiet sounds. You start to wonder how this might have effected insects, or bats at dusk happening to fly by this piece. There might even be bullfrogs off in the distance? It's the kind of recording where the differences are going to be in the subtle, tiny things, the way the tones overlap, the air, the creatures...because there isn't a section or track that you could even judge as better than another. It's afield recording of a great sculpture that is transformed into it's own artifact that's different than the original, and is just as important as being there in person.

Check out the bandcamp page for a feel of these field recordings. Double sided color sleeve on marbled grey vinyl with download code and postcard from Craig's Sunboxes website

I got a chance to talk to Craig on the phone about the single and this piece, Craig comes from a 7inch background with his own music projects and we talked about the b flat 6th chord, and a possible Sunboxes phone app coming soon.

The except during the interview is from a Sunboxes performance at Martha's Vineyard.
Direct link to the MP3 (20min) or click on the player below:

EP91-sunboxes by Sweaters + Pearls

ATM + Yvette at Death By Audio

2011-12-09T09:35:00.000-05:00

Went to check out both of these guys at DBA last night, Ted from ATM had sent me his latest cassette and I had been listening to it for past few days, so when I noticed he was on a bill with Yvette I had to go catch both of these guys at my favorite venue...that refuses to change, the last holdout, surrounded by vespa's and condo's.
ATM set up a semicircle on the floor with tiers of effects, and tom drums, from the shows I remember with him drumming for These are Powers, the heavy submissive beat is key, and the hit of a real booming tom is the cornerstone to being beat-notized. The effects come on heavy and thick, a repetitive echo-y sludge bounces around the concrete walls and Ted put on his sunglasses for Suicide effect. He's got the same kind of mechanical menace, combined with primitive rhythms pounded out occasionally on the cluster of raised drums beside him. It's a frightening version of Dirty Beaches, take away that twisted attempt at soul, the classy yesteryear vibe, or Handsome Furs neo-springsteen pop, you have this utilitarian unglamorous future. Like Mattress opening for the Liars, Ted's got an impressive master plan and is singlehandedly pulling it off.

Yvette set up in the same way, right there on the floor in front of the stage, facing each other with cases of pedals at their feet. You don't realize from the single the elaborate footwork required to create the dense layer of electronics that come out that guitar amp and the amount of control Noah has over that blinking mess...bursts of ringtoned chords, swapping between a high pitch bell feedback and a sweeping crunch. Rick is pounding away in precise polyrhythms, from hitting the metal edge of the toms to some kind of trigger attached to the top of the drum head. Just when you thought this overwhelming rhythm can't possibly get bigger, all kinds of alien rumblings come in on every hit. They are wizards at incorporating these kinds of technical possibilites without it ever being a crutch of complication, losing momentum live. They're capable of crafting an impressive collection of sound that doesn't even seem like it's possibly happening with guitar and drums, even though I'm standing two feet away. It's being done on an incredibly high level of established groups and you're lucky to catch them at a small venue like this, not that it's going to help you figure out what exactly is making these sounds. Go pick up their great single and then get creeped/chilled out with ATM.

Shenandoah Davis on Offtempo Records

2011-12-08T09:13:00.000-05:00

Got this latest single in from Offtempo Records continuing their neverending mission of documenting the american Northwest underground. This single is from Shenandoah Davis from the Seattle area, and from looking at a lot of her releases she seems to be a ridiculously classically trained musician, combining that skilled sensibility with pop music, or vice versa. On top of being book smart, she was born with a seriously unique vocal ability...one of those almost scary musicians that you watch from a distance.
So it's no surprise that she's destroying me with this A-Side cover track, "Are You Devo?", as much as I have a knee jerk reaction against these sort of dramatic sitcom soundtrack moments (piano and heavy vocal) during a breakup scene, she won me over almost as immediately with this voice. I dont know the original track from Shelby Sifers, but Shenandoah sold me on this being her own emotionally. When someone is just born with vocals like this, it almost isn't fair. She's evolved beyond the normal voice, if you scientifically can't create a sound with your throat within this range than you're out of luck. To combine that talent with a handpicked track she's already trying to do some kind of justice to the sentiment, is a deadly combination for an A-Side.
Not only are the lyrics for "Are You Devo" are included on an insert (which in hindsight need to be consumed sober) But a huge personal note about how both of these tracks came into her own experience. It starts to almost reach that Kimya Dawson tipping point but just teeters here on the cliff, she even gets away with the red riding hood references, what can't she do after this? Where do feelings come from, I thought I was a robot.

The B-Side, "This is the Life" by Paleo is another cover of an artist I've never heard of, this one is slightly more upbeat, but will break hearts in a different way, you don't end up in the same place as the A-Side, and that's probably for the best, if you aren't used to it. Being able to be this naked, with only a thin sounding upright piano against this fluttery massive ranged vocal, she can pretty much do anything. It would be a real shame to overdress it with too much of a band. It doesn't ever become cabaret or too open mic singer. A real argument for the thing no ne can put their finger on that anyone can see in five seconds. The only thing holding back complete praise of this, is that now I want to know what music she is going to make, or if we have another Chan Marshall, capable of delivering established material, but apparently out of originals....cause I didn't come here for karaoke versions of old standards.

This effort, all the way down to the heavy stock silkscreened sleeve with a draw of ink splatter that ended up on the reverse and the insanely tiny block lettered, love letter to the discovery of these songs and the artists that created them. Just based on her choices in this entire package I'd take this relationship further. It's perfectly executed, two covers she is in love with and rightfully so, she wants to share them in this tiny intimate way, devoting a lot of energy to their presentation and recording, and it really shows. You will feel lucky to have this on vinyl, 5$ is a steal for this ultrahandmade object.

Listen to this on her Bandcamp page or check out the video below:

Shenandoah Davis "Two Cover Songs" 7" (promo) from Off Tempo (records) on Vimeo.

Plates of Cake on All Hands Electric Records

2011-12-07T09:11:00.000-05:00

This one came in recenty straight from Jonathan, the lead singer of Plates of Cake on the gowanus label, All Hands Electric. It's a mellow vocal harmonic pop sound informed by jangly guitars which build the chorus on "As if the Choice Were Mine". The abstract lyric and winding melody is straight out of a psyche-influenced west coast sound, those huge ancient harmonies from a group content to sing together out in a field, or mic up the rehearsal barn space. But this was in fact conceived here in Brooklyn and their laid back delivery is an unusual direction for the hard, mean city, but that would explain the solid rock slant to the slight haze. They're from that era when the vocal harmony was king, just give it the barest of instrumental melody to hang on to and let the voices do the rest, as catchy as the Fresh & Onlys if more aligned more traditional cleaned up rock sounds, but again they're relying on that melody, which takes the most effort...a guitar can get along by itself just fine sometimes running through all those effects.

"Transit Trials" on the B-Side uses some heavy reverb stops, with that classic three beat kick and snare/high hat on the fourth, echoing all over the place. Those huge tambourine hits make this feel more contemporary, and Jonathan has an Alex Kapranos deep, sure feel to his vocals backed up again by upper octave harmonies from the rest of the band. It's a catchy storysong about the water behind the walls in the tunnel from NY to NJ. It's pretty delicate and about to fall apart.....the tunnel, not this tune...the fade out of crazy far off delay from the electric is the star of this one, a huge restraint, sounding more like summer than the scuzzy wet surf efforts do sometimes.

Check out these tracks on their bandcamp page and order this up from All Hands Electric, excellent sleeve art by Stan Vanderbeek, black vinyl, 200 copies.

Powerblessings on Manhattan Chemical and Electric Records

2011-12-06T09:07:00.000-05:00

I was pretty sad that I ended up missing the Hot Snakes when they came through literally last week, my neighbor actually clued me in to them touring in town and that sold out tickets on craigs list were going for $200 bucks. Hey guys, maybe you should tour again? Or for those of us that inevitably missed out with those kinds of prices can check out this single from Powerblessings on Manhattan Chemical and Electric. Whenever I hear this kind of energetic punk, the hours of listening to Hot Snakes always comes to mind.....or AtomBombPocketKnife and At the Drive-In and even at 45rpm, these guys manage to fit in 4 lengthy tracks making this an EP...like that Peel Sessions Hot snakes single. Powerblessings match the punk freight train of those guys, and Jon is even a close match to John Reis' punk yell which makes these tracks, keeping up this intense rhythm, the best kind of thing for a long ass drive in the middle of the night...you would want to have this single on hand to wake the hell up and power through to the dawn. On 'Stunt Whale' Jon pushes his vocals to the brink of that hoarse point, dividing his time between a minimal post unaffected delivery and the melodic power scream, instrumentally they are hitting all those start stop moments, the drop in pauses of pure rock, taking the speed of something hardcore and then dealing with it in pop ways, it can be an unstoppable force...I'm a little sad the lyrics are completely lost on me, not that it ever stopped me on ATDI, but that would have been nice on the reverse of the huge insert.

On "Go To Hell" they hit those great chorus moments that made the Hot Snakes so great, there was this great era of bands working in between punk and hardcore which ended up in sounds like this.
The B-Side has the best Don Cab named track, "In the men's room of the sixteenth century" which sounds like the whole thing was recorded right on that in-the-red edge, a hint of distortion, threatening to blow the cones...it's also reminding me of Glass Rifle, but instead of the introspective Fugazi style pauses and delicate complex moments, Powerblessings just plow through not ever taking a breath. It's as frantic as it possibly gets, post-punk jagged structures and high register distortion running under a complete maniac giving it completely everything. Somehow they keep ramping these tempo's up, and who doesn't love that moment when everything stops but the grimey guitar distortion on 'Wet Ones'. I think the true test of this band would be to see how they manage to keep this up live, but I'd be willing to give them a shot.

Get this one from Manhattan Chemical and Electric Records

Ichi Ni San Shi 'Here Sometime Today' on Super Secret Records

2011-12-05T08:05:00.001-05:00

Rich over at Super Secret Records just sent me this followup single from Ichi Ni San Shi, I reviewed their previous single just over a year ago and their latest sounds like they're still into exploring a dense array of weird electronics and rock guitar in that late '80s way? (I'm thinking of Klaus Naomi or Herbie Hancock) That odd combination of produced pop, using a heavy dose of synth because it was such a new sound...I can't imagine what it must have been like breaking the seal on an RX-7 and having your mind blown like that...of course you would write everything around it. Those sounds had never been heard, and someone else was definitely going to use them. This opening dotted sine wave on "Here Sometime Today" sounds exactly like The Units, "High Pressure Days" and they have a similar washed together new wave sound, Bill Jeffrey has a smoother, less nervous energy than Devo or The Units, but it would fit right into that enamored with the technology and adding it to what we've already been using sound of the '80s. At least that what it seems like in hindsight, but not getting as far as the super tech groups like Information Society or Camouflage, Ichi Ni San Shi are working around the days when a lot of the organic instruments weren't abandoned just yet...and here they're using a lot of layered trumpet even...and rely on a heavily distorted electric that provides an experimental dissonance, it's a nice contrast to the jagged keys. A dense production that goes through a lot of changes with all six members hard at work plugging the cables in to the old time telephone switching synth thing they lug around from show to show.
B-Sides, "Insurmountable" really pays attention to not only using these bizarre pioneering sounds but capturing them as cleanly as possible, which makes sense in this case. Sheila is after a cool crisp new wave sound, just barely mic'd off a PA. The guitar work here from the get go is playing completely against that precision with crunchy riffs evolving into layers of tuneless, rhythmless noodling...a complete human breakdown, the machines have won my friend...the last gasp of vibrating strings. The clicks of the high hat against this fading out warped mess is where Ichi is going to find it's most interesting moments for me. It's when they go for the cold unemotional pop that I want to go back to the green neon grid photo backgrounds and pink splatter paint paints of the future.

Check out Ichi Ni San Shi at their bandcamp page, easily there's no one really working along these lines, they're following along with the Art Museums in letting their lonely freak flag fly.

Red vinyl, freudian sleeve (or is because I just saw that Cronenberg movie?), I'm still not sure what exactly that mushroom/seashell thing is...it also looks like the behind of someone diving into a pool if you squint....available from Super Secret Records.

Interview with Pat from Cellar Hits Records

2011-12-03T16:01:00.000-05:00

I talked with Pat a couple weeks ago about his label, Cellar hits and the singles he's recently put out by Netherfriends and his own project, The Zookeepers. He's documenting the scene there in Cape Cod and I had to hear what that's all about as well as this Davis Leibe Hart/Adam Papagan cassette. Pat put together the WTF fest in the cape that Fat History Month actually played at a while back...it's a small 7inches world.

A couple of tracks play during the interview, from the Netherfriends, on their angry coast EP, the cut, "Washington, DC", and the opening of the Teen Crumpets lathe from the Zookeepers as well as a couple of tracks from The Best of David and Adam cassette.

Click on this link to listen in your browser, (17-min) or click play on the soundcloud file below

Cellar Hits Interview by Sweaters + Pearls

The Gang Violets on All Hands Electric

2011-12-02T13:34:00.003-05:00

Got a single in today from a local label All Hands Electric which isn't far away... in the gowanus section of Brooklyn...in fact they might have been neighbors with the old Issue Project Room that used to be out there in a huge silo shaped building on the polluted canal. Really awesome weirdo space actually that sort of mirrored the variety of serious art/music they had there. All Hands Electric have been around possibly longer than that venue from the looks of their extensive catalog, and was founded by a talented group of musicians who decided to put out their own records, which puts me completely behind this release already from The Gang Violets. This husband and wife duo also share coasts and in between get a whole lot of friends to contribute to the chorus of voices on "Black Clouds", which has this loose Lou Reed country jam feel. My whole introduction to Lou Reed was that "Dirty Boulevard" song, his cool voice, over bare bones electric, (the video is exactly as blunt as it shouldn't be...this was Lou Reed? Jesus.) and this is working in that general direction. Jim Schwartz has the same deep, real serious delivery and with this huge varied vocal accompaniment, it has something of a kids singalong album temperment...(Did Lou record a kids album?). Raw jangly honley tonk guitar, from that time and part of the country where people just played music to each other for enjoyment because there wasn't anything else to do. The Gang Violets are having the same kind of join along unpretentious fun...when this one starts to fade it comes back with a Velvet Underground "Heroin" speed up, faster and faster. Am I the only one hearing this? Seriously...did I listen to a lot of those guys lately or something?
The B-Side, "A Touch From A Wild Child", opens with some synthtastic sine waves into a more indie Fleetwood Mac sound with acoustic guitar, accordion and handclaps, and this time the vocals aren't coming off as directly a descendant of VU, more layered with optimistic harmonies, but still in a gypsy-country way. An american Beruit sound, mining all of those backwoods sincere influences, the porches of these united states.

Great sleeve of pieced together photos of billboard letters, which reminds me of JAMC for some reason, black vinyl in an edition of 200 with download card, from All Hands Electric:

Traveling band, The Gang Violets, play eclectic music as they gypsy their way between Long Beach, CA and Brooklyn, NY. Their blend of psychedelic americana effortlessly shifts from sunshine-pop to space-rock, while making more than a few country, folk, and blues detours along the way. Side A kicks off with "Black Clouds", a tune that rises up like a campfire despite moody lyrics, and is impossible to forget with its hook laden cadences, elated group vocals, whispery calls, gospel swagger, and swooning closure. Favoring an eclectic pop aesthetic that recalls early Beck as well as the highs from The Brian Jonestown Massacre, these tunes are are just mere hint as to what this band is capable of!

Mondo Ray - Hyptnotized on Windian Records

2011-12-01T13:41:00.000-05:00

Windian Records sent this single in from Mondo Ray along with The Penetrators single, and the back sleeve liner notes report this is a brother duo, the Da Cruz's, out of Munich, Germany going after a heavy clear garage punk feel on the A-Side number, "Hypnotized". Actually it's even getting into late '90s Superchunck indie sound for me, palm muted chords over a beating away tom rhythm. It's essentially straightforward power rock track, create a massive racket with just the two of them. I'm starting to think part fo the equation with a duo is this insane energy that wants to make up for a lack of members onstage or something. David gets a little Jello Biafra warbly on the vocals towards the end of this one, but he just can't help it. Fellas, we all know what it's like to be hypnotized, it happens right before being dicknotized and in about as long as this track is on, that cover art is pretty accurate.
The B-Side, "Nothing" has a more layered melodic rock feel, interweaving those tight progressions of quick distortion. They really captured that raw, twangy sound of a metal string being plucked just a little too hard. This one is moving past just the punk garage of the first side and into a sort of nervous post punk present. Get a skinny tie out for this driving, one note punchy rhythm, which quickly blows out into both brothers woah! oh! oh! oh!-ing into the party. Is it any surprise that this genre is being steadily revisited lately with no end in sight? It sounds fun to listen to, let alone play in as a couple of guys touring the bars and basements of the world.
Ultra short bursts of garage rock via Germany with a great psychedelic sleeve from Alex Fine, on Windian Records:

MONDO RAY has been at the forefront of Munich Germany’s Pop-Garage-Punk scene for a while now, pushing out a hand full of singles and an LP due out as well. They have been on the WINDIAN radar since we started 2 years ago, and we are excited to finally release their latest offering “Hypnotized”. The A-Side title track is a quick heater with a “West Coast Sound” drawing from the States, reminiscent of a Circa: Now! RFTC. The B-Side “Nothing” is more of what you expect from this duo. Great Garage-Pop, with a Punk undertone, keeping this song moving at a nice pace.

Whiting Tennis on Fin Records

2011-11-30T13:47:00.001-05:00

Fin records out of Seattle is a pretty good place to end up as an emerging artist, not that you can send them a demo...(well...you never know, try it) because they are simply in the business of putting out artists they like. There's no master plan for tracking down the most hyped with an assurance the pressing is going to sell out. They curate based solely on their own taste and then giving that group complete creative control over the packaging...it's a dream situation, and their latest is from Whiting Tennis, who apparently is an established sculptor as well as a musician. Two tracks on this crystal clear vinyl at 45, an embossed Fin inner sleeve with printed lyrics and hand numbered. It's seems they're always coming up with a little something new in putting together a complete package you know exactly where it's coming from.

The A-Side "Every Night I'm Killing" is a tortured, slow alt-country style extended track, in a more upbeat Mark Lannegan style, drawn out vocalization, without even understanding the content, it's a lumbering somber piece. The janky player piano sound bouncing around in an abandoned back room, the scratch of the strings in an acoustic chord change, the heavy psyche-echo vocals. What starts out as a sentimental, hymn about loss and regret ends each verse section with '...once/if I get my hands on you I'll...' and I'm starting to feel this dark number might be headed in a sinister direction...I know he'd be happy to have her back in a way....but when put like that it feels more like tempting the heroine back so he can be the one to let her go this time and he doesn't even want to say it out loud. A big western electric solo rides off into the sunset next to cello, and it fades out in the distance.

The B-Side, "July", feels like it must be at the wrong speed, they're playing through syrup on this one. It's a massive effort to work in the trademark Velvets haze...or in recreating that feel which is definitely coming through here. A slow chord slide guitar, the half time beats under a thin, cheap mic vocal, (which is actually almost too close to Lou's, but it passes) barely keeping up with itself...this track's lyric is attributed to a Nate Johnson poem which is insanely dense and abstractly refers to drunken love and NYC...perfect subject matter for Whiting in tune with this super loner ethos, which comes across on both sides of this double scotch, no rocks....wait, no...straight from the bottle, in the liquor store parking lot. It's finished by the time you get home.

500 copies on Fin Records.

By the Sea on The Great Pop Supplement

2011-11-28T10:33:00.002-05:00

Still getting caught up with reviews, and getting back to Brooklyn.... it's been a long while since I mentioned the Great Pop Supplement and their limited UK releases. They've been steadily pressing away, selling out of everything in their back catalog and were an early inspiration for trying to put some stuff out myself after hearing their early Washington Phillips single...completely eye opening. They have a long history of fostering singles all kinds of psyche artists, from MV&EE to Wooden Wand, and By The Sea have a similar hazy, reverb delivery, with a wet twang from a surf guitar and heavily echo'd tambourine shakes. There's almost a Real Estate laid back, heavy melody feel to "Waltz Away"...this sort of mellow falsetto harmony sort of reminds me of my first concert ever (well... that I would admit), The Ocean Blue at a local college many a fading memory ago...like this slow motion carving video of pipes and pools.

Dom is also planning a new offshoot label and you can:

email deepdistance(at)hotmail.co.uk to receive info on some killer releases planned… (I should apologize to those who’ve done that already and are now reading this twice, mind you!) ….The first release will be ready in around 3 weeks, expect info on that email pretty soon…

Get this one from The Great Pop Supplement.

Next 45 up on the great pop supplement features the debut proper from wirral based by the sea, following the rapid fire selling out of their split 7 with london's the see see this summer.

both sides here 'waltz away' and 'stay where the sun is' point at a mighty songwriting pedigree, belying fully the bands' age and relative 'newcomer' status. put simply, this is classic pop. the a side to these ears owes as much to the west coast pop art experimental band as it does geographical counterparts the pale fountains or the stone roses. as the first chorus hits on 'waltz away', you almost hear the sun burst through the clouds bathing all in it's pristine glow- just a perfect pop moment.

produced by ex-coral guitarist bill ryder-jones and released in a numbered vinyl only edition of 300 in hammer press sleeves with an expected rapid fire sellout. the band are currently recording their debut lp amidst packed out, acclaimed live shows. get on it!

Pink Films on Sans Escape Records

2011-11-23T09:39:00.002-05:00

This one came in from Andy over at Sunsneeze Records, who in addition to being in San Francisco Water Cooler is a member of Pink Films, this one on a different label, Sans Escape who have only a myspace page. Pink Films is definitely in the same family as SFWC with that psychey garage haze, but on the A-Side track "Pay a Price" it feels like that all of that sound now comes with a lot of nervous new wave energy. The jangle guitar is a frantic, high fret melody, the vocals buried under a blown out distortion, the bassline is a bouncing support for the heavy melody rising out of this haze. Like the Fresh and Onlys there's an inherent drive towards a catchy pop sound with tambourines, being filtered into a loose overdriven filter. It comes on hot and heavy almost getting away from them and I imagine a loose German Measles type of nonchalance except these guys have had a lot of freaking coffee. Punchy changes don't derail this energy, just enough force for a overwhelming brief ruckus.
The B-Side, "Wrong Direction", starts out with a clear loose warm electric, this one really following the classic sound which I imagine is heavily rooted in the foggy city. Organ, standard time tambourine, definitely more laid back on this side, getting way into that psyche stream fed by that panic'd strumming. They let up for a second so that electric melody can come forward and launch back through their hazy harmony. Halfway in the garage during the haight-ashbury days, they've nailed this sound...I want to hear it alongside White Fence and the 13th Floor Elevators.

Collage art sleeve on crystal clear vinyl from Sans Escape Records... you're best bet would be to get a hold of these guys on their facebook direct and send them a message there to pick this one up.

A Happy Death self released 7" EP

2011-11-22T09:30:00.000-05:00

This 4 piece based out of Portland by way of NYC, where this single was recorded, sent this in to 7inches HQ, along with a typewritten press release on a honest to god typewriter...something of a clue to this nostalgic heavy reverb spring echo that comes off on the first track, "Nazi Zombies", the single note surf melody is tight, the lead vocal has that cave echo to it, a bouncy Cramps feel with a garage loose execution. I mean I guess Nazi Zombies is a pretty big clue, but instead of the dark creepy vocal, Ryan is yelling himself hoarse which steers this in a weird cap'n jazz direction. "Mr. Rutter" is a slow dance disco ball throwback number, but like Hunx, if you listen close he's talking about this gentleman who happens to be a transsexual and hides his life working at the factory. A smooth organ drones happily away along to those big strum reverb chords vibrating. Ryan eventually losses it big time in sympathy with this sad bastard while the backup singers oooo and ahhh. Wounded Lion wouldn't be a stretch either.

The B-Side kicks it off with a anti-autobiographical (?) track "Surf Rock Band", which now that I'm hearing it is really big time rock under a haze of delay and lyrically they're picking apart the pathetic existence of said band. Big loose chords about too many drugs and touring, just pausing during the chorus to let Ryan in a falsetto give it to these guys one more time.

"Ghost House" continues the huge rock sound they've been building up on this side with a creepy hockey rink organ, more heavy riffage to cymbal crashes. They've steered way away from the gimmick B-movie sound and instead make this one a pure raw trash rock song, panning the wah pedal right before more head bashing. A trippy garage rock EP from one of my favorite cities...has everyone moved there yet? I bet they aren't going to miss the snow. Start staring at that sleeve before you drop out.

Get this one from the band direct, on their bandcamp page.

The Penetrators on Windian Records

2011-11-21T09:03:00.000-05:00

Windian Records sent this single in a little while back, a rerelease of a single from Syracuse's own The Penetrators, who, when I was barely one living about an hour away in Rochester, Fred Records released this garage rock single to the post Nixon world. For all the bitchin my dad did about bands not being as good as classic rock and roll countdowns on the AM radio, The Beach Boys, Jan and Dean....I wish I could have told him about local bands that were tearing it up like this...but 30 years later, I'm still getting caught up picking up late '90s singles I missed out on so I can tell my kids that their music sucks and they should have been around during 'lo-fi'.
This single just proves the point I've always knew....there is good music happening in every time, and every place if you just work head enough to find it. Could you even imagine a time when there was no internet and you'd have to talk to someone in Syracuse and find out who the good local bands were, let alone score this single from The Penetrators? I guess in that way people were more 'connected'? Oh hell, it just seems crazy that's all, and you have to respect that.

I love that this A-Side "Gotta Have Her" starts right out with Jack Penetrator introducing the band with a 'Good evening Syracuse, we're called The Penetrators and we're happy to be in town tonight'...this live intro is a genius touch, thinking about them in some studio recording that loose start makes this totally classic, and sets up Jack's verse talking delivery. Spike is echo-ing Jack's chorus in a junkyard dog snarl off in the background, completely drooling into the mic 'You know I gotta have her'. Basically this girl is going to make him forget about everything, who cares about school, you name it...all slightly echo'd over this surf reverb gritty guitar with thin all treble drums...and legitimately sounds like a lot that could have just come out of Floridas Dying or Goner a month ago...even this plain sleeve. But 1976 was a long time ago, and if you say this band was the very beginning, then I'm going to believe you and that's not a bad legacy to have left behind.
The B-Side, "Baby, Dontcha Tell Me", gets real jangly and raw, more melodic and stripped down. Definitely could be a Kinks sound/riff influence, with great vocal quality here just blowing out into the red, and Jack's passionate as hell, really selling this bluesy rock. Even getting to screaming a little bit, because someone is going to tell him what to do? No way...as much as they might have a west coast surf influenced sound, they have a more underlying dangerous edge, real biker gang, working class leather here...actually makes me reminisce about upstate NY. Both of these tracks have still got it...if you've ever heard of Sing Sing or Last Laugh then you should pick this up.

I'm a little worried that it's not listed on Windian's merch page...oh god have I become one of those site's that I always hated...talking about singles that aren't even for sale anymore? NOOOOOOO!

Ok I think I found it after all....did I mention this is faithfully reprinted, down to scanning the original sleeve?

San Francisco Water Cooler on SunSneeze Records

2011-11-18T10:22:00.004-05:00

San Francisco Water Cooler contacted me about their new single on SunSneeze Records and I threw it on this morning not expecting the '90s style hazy indie pop from the trio...or the number of solid catchy tracks on this 33 long playing EP. it's completely suited to these guys who seem to excel at creating a little burst of noisy guitar melody, complete with a twisting Mascis solo to boot.

(By the way, this name even made me pause for a second and question if I really truly believe that a band name means nothing. Indie rock since the late nineties has hamfistedly shattered meaning attached to any band name...it's been well worked over territory...so you can't give these guys shit. Hey, I love that Liquor Store was named by a bouncer.)

"Kool Shoes", sets the tone for the EP's overall texture which is definitely high (as in treble) fuzzy guitar stabs, I've read some comparisons of them and TNV, but this feels more indie blown out in the way that it's been recorded at just slightly too loud, they're just plain full of energy, and not necessarily because of such a distinct reel to reel choice of compression, or lack of, let's say. Vocals across the release seem to be the entire band singing along, low and banished to the background, with a synthy layered guitar solo on this one.

Do they even believe in bass? There's a bit of psyche-pop here too, like the Ganglians maybe? "Summer Sun", is more sound of a classic indie guitar melody and the bunch of dudes singing along in the backing tracks is all buried still, but I like the slightly out of tune looseness, it's a big hazy sound, heavy on distortion. I'm not sure why exactly but it's even taking me back to By Musket and Sextant, or GBV...or even seeing Sebadoh last week, playing all of Bakesale live, you're reminded of how straight ahead rocking this is, and it's not just because I listened to it for weeks on end...it's that period when they evolved back around to being really produced and controlled, but you got to the heart of that songwriting...and it's really aged well. San Francisco Water Cooler might be working in that in between space...they've skipped the home demo acoustic era, right into the Dinosaur Jr. 1st album era, and it's coming off as pretty classic.
"July" has a more intimate picked melody, with a heavy tom rhythm, and once this ends up blown out again in the chorus it's in a more mellow Husker Du way. If there's one thing these guys are hitting home, it's the ability to craft a solid, complex burst of a wall of pop out of a single guitar. It sounds pretty intimate and honest, there isn't any effect for the sake of a weird sound. It's like Real Numbers they're using what everyone else is, so how does this sound so good?

They're really into those brief dirty solo's...
The B-Side seems to go over to the heavy side of things, (the Jason Lowenstein side?), with "Bankshot", minor riffs, off key monster chords, odd vocal phrasing...those out of sync changes from something like Sebadoh's "Got it", with an equally dissonant solo this one fades out into feedback and drone tones...a weird choice I guess since there's a pause before the next track, but I guess they want you to get your money's worth. "Vacancy Sender" captures that indie sludge once again, like the more experimental punk offering on Bubble and Scrape, then goes blues/country with feedback, a see saw ride but most of all they end this EP with a commitment to re-cement the guitar back into classic indie rock. Never forget.

Go check out the tracks for yourself and pick this up on Sunsneeze records.

Team Gina - Sensual Seduction on Offtempo Records

2011-11-17T10:25:00.006-05:00

This one I've been saving for a while, since I got this heavy cardstock single with what looked like layered spraypaint graphics of old boy band covers...the freaking work that must have gone into this packaging alone led me to believe this one was going to be really special. Not only that but there was sealed letter inside, after tearing into it this morning and reading a copy of a letter to Karl Blau from Clyde Peterson...I won't divulge exactly what's in the letter, you have to pick this up, but R. Stevie, Calvin Johnson and the Cars are mentioned...at first I thought Clyde was that weirdo producer who put together 98 degrees or something, and I'm reasonably sure this single is from an electro pop duo called Team Gina...but I'm not sure of anything at this point. It's a great mystery, and I have 25 tabs open trying to figure out who's involved in this exactly...on top of that I think Team Gina has called it quits and this might be the only single they ever released, which is a damn shame, this is completely in line with Ariel P and Luscious Jackson's long lost collaboration.

"Sensual Seduction" from the A-Side (pot leaf rubberstamps on the center label, further murk the waters of what exactly is going to be on this record) has more layers of dubbing than deciphering where this came from. A subtle buried cheap beat and synth rises out of the hiss and dolby r(s?)eduction and a deep up front male voice seductively says something in french? (nice) then soulfully breaks into a smooth chorus part. The mic is up close, it's a barely sung vocal, almost whispered, holding back the croon. This would be enough to set the scene for this reinterpretation of the '80s, capturing everything in spirit, but doing it in this contemporary no-fi way...and if you commit like this, the result is hilarious, and awesome..being able to pull this off...and then damn...the Gina's come in loud as hell, back and forth in the bedroom, no pop screen mic'd, rapping about all the ways they are going to seduce you...it's just plain funny as hell, and I almost did a spit take with my coffee...all over the turntable.

Baby let me tell you how im going to seduce you / its starts with funny videos on youtube / then I leave a message on your answering machine / telling you to pick a number one two three / lead you on a scavenger hunt all over seattle / its like choose your own adventure / I'm a maude to your harold

It's that fake sexy they really give in to, a trashy, kitch, glitter pants sexy....that actually exists, but these ladies know better. They're messing with the whole idea of seduction...and what about flipping the hustler script to this world where ladies are crushing hard, and out to get what they want. Is that why it's funny? No, they're putting together great ridiculous player lyrics, but the bigger concept is what they're obviously getting it. Maybe it shouldn't be so hilarious buddy.

The B-Side, "You Got It, The Right Stuff" starts with a Gina singing a capella in what has to be a cover of The Right Stuff. This version is slowed down and for the chorus there's a group of friends half singing oh oh ah oh oh, the right stuff....come on you know it. It's ridiculous that music during that period was so pervasive...into every part of your stupid adolescent life. You had no choice! We all know this song...how the hell did they do that? What kind of pay per play society do we live in to have something invade every high school dance? It makes me sick. I know Team Gina is singing this ironically...and what makes this maybe better than just earning a wink is they sound like they're half falling asleep...a sort of experiment to see if this song can still get to you if we really distort it into something else. You still know it. I think it's safe to say that no matter what you do to this song....it will never be good, and middle school will come rushing back in a bad way. Damn you Team Gina, you had me with the A-Side.

Get this sexy single from Offtempo records.

Kitty Little / Scientific Maps split on Peterwalkee Records

2011-11-16T11:09:00.003-05:00

Pulled another one from the stack of Peterwalkee Records out of Buffalo today, this one is a split between Kitty Little and Scientific Maps who both claim Albany as locations in their bios, and both offer up a couple of songs each at 33 on this long playing EP

The A-Side from Kitty Little starts out with "Milk Shakes", this is pure pop rock, crunchy guitars, really clean recording, chorus sounding vocals. A gleaming, squeaky clean shine on the whole thing. Emerging from a huge distorted riff, the dual vocals from Matto and Jessie are delivered in that insanely energetic way, a frantic kind of yell, and the three piece is already feeling a few times bigger. There's a big drum/percussion break that leads back into that energy that's born out of a lot of live shows and I think they have captured their punch and anthemic punk performance in the studio. "Never Stay" starts to even get into Promise Ring territory for me here, maybe it's the chord progression along with the muted crunch of a downstroke riff. Beating the hell out of equipment and taking a page from the post-rock book of speed along with an inherent instinct for a catchy chord, it's the kind of thing born out of backyards and bars instead of bedrooms in the middle of the night. It's all out there, on the sleeves, to rock.
Scientific Maps on the B-Side starts out with "Oh, You'd Like to Think So" and these guys for me straddle a weird folk/'50s pop line that bands like the Decembrists do....maybe thanks to this horn section along side the high note jangle, or the folksong sounding melody. It's a mashup of genre's, but in the way that something like Elvis Costello is a mix of era's...you've got a classic pop on the jukebox sound alongside a kind of neo-folk structure, if that makes any sense. It's deceptively on the surface something like a bubblegum pop, but then on "The Demon's Bite", the trumpet takes over on this early melody, and there's a thin layer of fuzz on the vocal that places it into something more folk contemporary. When the guitar distortion and the horn get together mirroring their melodies it's pretty interesting how close that sound can get all under a sort of funk groove, that bassline and layers of bopping brass melody...a mystery of influence that is indeed done in the same indie pop spirit as Kitty Little.

On clear green vinyl with download card from Peterwalkee Records who says:

KITTY LITTLE/SCIENTIFIC MAPS SPLIT 7":Two different favors of tasty pop rock deliciousness on this split 7"! Kitty Little brings you more of that Superchunk inspired indie rock you have come to expect! More of their patented male/female vocals, snappy melodies, and gritty guitar action! Scientific Maps delivers up some seriously infectious British invasion style pop rock that any Kinks fan would love! Their songs are so memorable you will be singing them in your sleep! Each band has two songs on their side of the vinyl. Each record comes with a digital download code and both bands have contributed a bonus track exclusive to the download only! Limited to 300 copes first pressing!$5.00 plus shipping.

Concern / Advance Base split 'Traditionals' on Orindal Records

2011-11-15T13:28:00.002-05:00

When I saw that Owen was retiring the Casiotone for the Painfully Alone moniker on his last tour, I was a little worried that he might have called it quits altogether. After 13 years of touring and numerous full lengths, singles and collaborations it was enough work for a few bands, it was a sad loss, but he'd surely be forced back into the scene by one collaborator or another sooner or later. I just selfishly want to keep hearing what he's up to and catch a show now and then. The huge section of CFTPA singles would have to be enough...a mammoth memorial of different labels and discoveries in local record stores...because I have a disease of if I get into a band, I will have to keep an eye out for every single one of their seven inches.

Then I get an email from Owen letting me know about his new project Advance Base, and this split 7" with Concern, his brothers project where they cover Carter Family songs on both sides. They have to be the most famous music family beginning in the late '20s and who have the distinct honor of being one of the first bands screwed over by record companies...but you know what? No one will ever give a god damn about the Victor Talking Machine Company, but here we are listening to Owen & Friends reinterpreting these simple folksongs from The Carter Family in an entirely new way...I know which side I'm on, it's just sad there's such a price to pay for the Carter's.
Advance Base, according to the liner notes is a few collaborators: Nick Ammerman playing autoharp, Edward Crouse on piano, Jody Weinmann on bass, and Owen on among other things a 'rhythm box', which I want to imagine is just that, a special box that for some reason ended up on the recording, possibly sketched in as a temp track, and then finally elevating the cardboard square to an instrument. The same way those cheap electronics were given special attention in Casiotone...now that I think about it, it kind of goes for the whole concept of this release. Ancient, simple, unassuming songs that shouldn't otherwise be anything extraordinary and then finding a way to make it special....or to say, there are these mundane things in everyday life, they are just as important as the big ones....they might even be more so since you probably live with these more than the few times a year you're happy...or something equally as cynical and depressing.

But maybe that's because this song, "Single girl, Married girl', is a pretty insanely depressing view of a ladies future in the '20s. The song contrasts how the single girl goes shopping and wears nice things and the married woman sits by the cradle and cries? Those are actual lyrics...I guess this one was for all the single ladies in the audience...since the wives were all at home anyway with no time to go to a Carter show.
Owen and company create a simple rolling rhythm with a very unrock beat, just a downstroke of the autoharp and bass, don't make anything too fancy, don't stray far from that melancholy. The whole band singing in a simple harmony over the solid see-saw rhythm. There's barely a hint of Owen's vocal, but the layered combination of back of the room mic'd piano and electric piano/organ sound is unmistakably CFTPA. It's a huge sound that takes an organic melody and hints at the percussion happening underneath, it comes off as an early demo setting in a primitive Casio, and not just because it's coming from Owen.
The B-Side, from his brother Gordon and his project, Concern is a track called, "The Wandering Boy", which is actually a kind of sweet sounding melody in spite of the fact we're presented with a somewhat low quality recording of warbled beyond belief lyrics, that go between out of reach angelic choir to gurgling robot, and which really shouldn't sound somewhat comforting coming out of a talkbox...but paired with this definitively church organ, it ends up like a degraded reel to reel of a lost sect's hymn. It's not something to be afraid of. Sure, you don't understand it, but it isn't going to hurt you....maybe being so removed from the original source it's passed into it's own unique sound. Extremely long, it might be somewhat slowed down on top of the lo-fi nature of the recording, but that kind of experimentation is to be expected for this family affair...wait there's another connection to the Carter Family.

Get it direct from Owen's own Orindal Records

Tracks:
1 Single Girl, Married Girl (Advance Base) 3:27
2 The Wandering Boy (Concern) 5:13

500 copies on random colored vinyl with 320 kbps MP3 download.
Risograph covers printed by Issue Press in Grand Rapids, MI.

You can also get this single from PIAPTK who has that square 8" of Springsteen covers from both brothers!

Yvette - 4 song self released EP

2011-11-14T13:52:00.001-05:00

Noah from Yvette, sent me their latest single the other day, a 4 song EP from his band Yvette, of course I love the matte feel of a screen print...and on both sides of the sleeve...it's those extras on a self released single that show how much these guys care about the music inside. What we're got inside is the magical focused combination of a duo, traditional drums and random percussion elements and what might be tweaked guitar.
The A-Side, "Vibrations" has a frantic tribal drum energy like Health or These are powers...or even going back to the Liars, Drum Mountain, but this feels slightly more subtle, there's a quieter power buried under layers of these effects. The far off ghostly vocal, all broken syllables, chanted, working over the melody rhythms, this feels like all of the good parts of Animal Collective combined with a decayed bank of blinking electronics. But this isn't a case of glitchy accidental sounds ending up as ambient background feeling. They must search out this grating steel specifically to lay the heavily echoed layered vocal back, way down into the cave.

"Plussed" is an ode to ring toned, arc welding These Are Powers nightmare tones...and these guys are a duo? The layers of recording here, the chugging loops, huge room echo tom sounds, is impressively put together. None of it feels like it's being played off a laptop, so I really want to see what kind of an experience this is live.
The guitar is mostly deconstructed, hardly even a strummed string anymore, just the base wave of a vibrating string sound, a program to approximate the second hand description of a note. They've got a lot fo Black Dice up their sleeves, really unique unsettling sounds and rhythms. The shoegaze etherial vocal is maybe closer to The Soft Moon, so distant and layered it starts to not even sound like a vocal....or at least like it most definitely doesn't belong in this bladerunner back alley, it's too 'nice' soundign compared to everything else.

The B-Side, "With Fangs" has big synth teeth and ever pounding drums. Hugely hyptnotic and dark, I can't get past HEALTH's self titled record on Lovepump United and how you had no idea where that album was going, it was surprising at every turn and Yvette is able to pull off that same freedom, in four tracks they've managed to carve a huge swath out of noise that goes everywhere from the Swans to The Big Sleep. All the while kind of working in an angelic way, the vocals are equally buried and unrecognizable but essentially the harmony is deliberately opposite rhythmically and instrumentally from the obviously human parts.
On "Less" they have this synthetic sound so completely nailed, the drums recorded perfectly huge, I'm convinced they have carved out their own variation of ghost punk...like this swirling distortion effect on crash cymbals? It's a rocking back and forth in the corner of a padded room beat, that compels me to move and flip this over again.

I love that there are bands like Yvette further strip mining these future primitive sounds, I could use more of it. So glad they sent this, looking forward to seeing them at DBA Dec 8th.

Check out their bandcamp page here and buy the single here.

Terror Bird on Night School Records

2011-11-11T12:06:00.003-05:00

Got another one in today from UK's Night School Records, who put out that great Divorce single, this one is from Terror Bird, who I first heard on Atelier Ciseaux/La Station Radar, and the Vancouver 3 piece, (or now married duo?) offers up a couple more dark, minimal pop tracks with Nikki's great vocals, the matte ink screened sleeve is really nice and these all come in super thick heavyweight mylar outer sleeves, a nice touch for this kind of handmade object.
The A-Side's "Outside" manages as Terror Bird does to make this haunting distant sound attractively poppy. It's a little bit deceptive, drawing you in combining Nikki's soulful vocal against the cold machine instrumentation. Like the most successful bands in the genre there's no attempt to cover up the source sounds, the percussion is obviously thin and manufactured, reveling in it's inability to emulate the real thing. The keyboard synth sounds are direct line in and slightly in the red, with a subtle layer of distortion covering everything. What really gives the tracks their unmistakable humanity and feeling is Nikki's breathy vocal. Like Zola Jesus, it's unmistakably unique, she's just one of those people born with a great voice and natural phrasing, layered over itself or far off buried over a telephone line, you're listening to a real control...it makes me want to go back and dig out old Siouxsie albums. She's delivering her lyric in a loose, laid back way, under a heavy delay, never struggling or competing with the rest of their sound, it's as much atmospheric as the overdriven synth. As much for me as it's about the vocal, it also feels like it's trying to hide in the shadows, to stay away from getting too optimistic. It's a dark ride that's settled in to the isolation, like there's no fight left.

The B-Side, "When I Woke Up" highlights an overwhelming repetition from a simple piano melody over live sounding drums this time that reinforces that trapped no-wave feeling further while Nikki really gets into a low register tortured soul. She instills all the feeling over both of these tracks, this one building into a more epic losing control sound. Insanely talented, with a clearly definitive unique sound right out of the gate.

Their full length is on Night People records...'night' labels.... that's no coincidence.

Go get this one from Night School, along with that Divorce single and count yourself lucky.

Debut UK 7" from Canadian Terror Bird. 2 tracks of luscious home-recorded DIY gloom pop of the most romantically forlorn quality. Limited to 300, Screen-printed sleeve, insert, stamped labels. Artwork by Gina Baber.

Three new ones from Mammoth Cave Records

2011-11-10T17:12:00.007-05:00

Got a little Mammoth Cave preview today... I'm beginning to put MC in the hard-to-keep-up-with pile of people like Trouble in Mind and Captured Tracks....by the time I'm done writing this and checking out their latest releases... I'm not sure why I even bother...these guys know what they're doing...you gladly pay them to do all the work. What are you doing wasting their time looking around? reading bio's?...take Lantern, a perfect example, bad ass, stripped down, ultra roots blues, spazz garage rock...distorto vocals, something like a reincarnation of Bob Log III. They tour with at most 6 pieces of equipment, ready to play in about 10 minutes, rock out for twice as long and blow out the shit out of there.

For what it's worth, Vice named them, best band in philly.

Lantern – I Don’t Know 7” (MCR 019)
A: I Don’t Know
B: Out of Our Heads
300 Copies / Black Vinyl / Large Hole / Digital Download
Art: Liza Czech

Following up to killer cassette releases on Night People and Electric Voice, this is Lantern's debut 7" single. Zachary Fairbrother and Emily Robb were the brains behind Oman Ra II, a band we loved a great deal (the Oman Ra II / Dirty Beaches split cassette will never leave my van). "I Don't Know" sounds like a 'roided out Bo Diddley and "Out of Our Heads" which sounds like it could have been included in the Stooges Rough Power bootleg. Lantern have been on tour throughout the USA for the last month and a half, and I guarantee that you won’t have trouble selling these.

Next, we remember the Moby Dicks and their single about a local eating establishment, here they team up with B.A. Johnston, who seems to be a sort of Joe Jack Talcum, or John S Hall type of loveable weirdo fixture. The Moby Dicks recreate their favorite B.A. classics, like this "You're gonna miss me when the zombies come", which is about all the ways we're going to think about the good times even after we're walking around dead zombies. That's nice. The sleeve is also.

(2) B.A. Johnston with The Moby Dicks 7” EP
A1: Robot World
A2: You’re Gonna Miss Me When the Zombies Come
A3: McDonald’s Coupon Day
300 Copes / Black Vinyl / Large Hole / Digital Download
Art: Paul Hammond

We have been huge fans of B.A. Johnston for some time now - a song and dance/comedy/folk. Neil Hamburger's delivery with David Lee Roth's stage antics, B.A. Johnston is the last true vaudevillian entertainer left on the planet. He tours Canada constantly, playing 250-300 shows per year to the point that he has become somewhat of a national icon. And we love him. The Moby Dicks re-create three of their favourite B.A. Johnston “songs” - "Robot World" (off B.A.'s classic album "Call Me When Old and Fat is the New Young and Sexy"), "You're Gonna Miss Me When the Zombies Come" (off "Stairway to Hamilton"), as well as the previously unreleased "McDonald's Coupon Day."

FInally the Mandates are up next with a precise post rock sound, the amps have been cleaned up, maybe even polished, the grille's replaced...that shitty ungrounded hum is even gone. They can even yell without distortion, that starts to feel novel actually...punchy, clean power punk that sounds like it was recorded with a bunch of talented young ones. The way it should be. Did you know anything about a scene in Canada? Now you do. Well, get these singles and you will.

I also swear there is a hot gentlemen on gentlemen's magazine which I hope these guys are named after.

Mandates – Photo in My Wallet 7” EP
A: Take You To the Dance
B1: Photo in my Wallet
B2: So Much for Saturday Night
150 Copies / Black Vinyl / Small Hole / Digital Download

How many good bands does Calgary, AB need to have before people start taking it seriously as the current hotbed of Canadian Rock 'N Roll? The Mandates are just the latest example of how good things are getting. Straight-up punk/powerpop in the vein of Carbonas or Exploding Hearts. "Photo in my Wallet" alone makes this worth having, and we are already almost sold out of this record (50 left).

Go check out any of Mammoth Cave's stuff on their bandcamp page and order direct from them here.

The Figgs on Peterwalkee Records

2011-11-09T14:01:00.004-05:00

It took a while to put this together with The Figgs from long long ago...I swear my friend Matt had a cassette from them in high school that always ended up in his car or mine. The name is definitely familiar, and after learning they're from upstate, I'm positive this has to be the same band - and here they are coming out with a new single on Peterwalkee Records, out of Buffalo...checking out their catalog they've been steadily documenting the upstate NY scene for a while now and this is the first time I've come across them, more proof that by the time I even attempted some kind of map keeping track of the labels it would be sadly outdated and irrelevant.

A-Side and the title track "Casino Hayes" is solidly rocking, slickly produced and the opening sweeping pysche warp riffs give away it's underpinning hard rock cards...a poker reference? Well ask Pete Hayes, who the song was written for by guitarist Mike Gent. It sounds like Pete earned the nickname from a slight obsession (if the song is even slightly biographical), "he stays / unshaved / he crazed" at the slots for days, splitting 3's on the blackjack table. I'd like to think I choose not to know anything about poker or gambling because I might try to make a living at it and spend my life obsessed on a corner trying to beat the system. The sleeve carries this gambling motif into a '50s looking pop art design, with chips on the reverse. It's a heavy rocker, punchy guitars up front in the mix and Gent emotionally pleading to Hayes with a string of clever rhymes counting the ways it's gotten out of hand, and it would take a band with an extensive history to carry an inside joke into a catchy power rock affair like this A-Side.

The B-Side, "Another Point of View" is previously unreleased and was penned by the other founding member Pete Donnelly. A more restrained, nearly alt-country rocker, populated with acoustic and a distant organ, focused more on the bands pop harmonies, it's a far too catchy breakup song about all the difficulties in this somewhat dysfunctional relationship. Keeping it upbeat, instead of wallowing in it, might come off as denial, but it's sold as a singalong pop ballad...you decide.

Faded, faux preworn sleeve on marble light green vinyl with download card from Peterwalkee Records, who also has the 10th anniversary Figgs record, Sucking in Stereo for the first time on vinyl...super limited, so pick these both up.

Tonetta Vol. 3 2XLP on Black Tent Press

2011-11-08T12:25:00.000-05:00

Will there ever be a time in the future where Tonetta has exhausted every fetish subject... when he's completely run out of ways to describe his numerous sexual taboo's?

Three albums later wouldn't lead you to believe there's any end to Tonetta's confessions. In fact he's expanding his sphere of influence to include his similarly head shaking extreme political views in multiple tracks across this double album on "Obama's Prize", "Teach Me", "Saddam", and "This Old World". I guess you could say there always tends to always be a connection with sex and politics, or maybe for Tonetta it's the extreme reactions, the polarizing views in setting out to explore either of these areas. On "Obamas Prize" he points at the world laughing at America thanks to Obama's undeserved Nobel Peace Prize. Tonetta's never been afraid to alienate his audience and this is a loungy pop casio keyboard jingle where he expects better from the US president. Compared to some his cutting criticism, this is pretty tame, more of a subtle warning I guess...which is all relative for tonetta, he still sings "have the balls to step down". "Saddam", takes on 9/11 in a new (?) way, Tonetta wants proof (of weapons of mass destruction?) of Saddam's death? Maybe this was written before the cell phone video? Then there's something about cloning in here? This one is a mystery.

There's some interesting new glitch electronic directions showing up in tracks like, "Wild & Free" which is the clearest example for Tonetta's subtly evolving musicianship throughout these releases. Either that or it's the way Black Tent has chosen to present them, but given some of the contemporary subject matter, it seems to be mostly chronological. In addition to heavy panning of a lot of distorted guitar across channels, he's playing with a lot of layers of synth along with his vocal percussion, like Ariel Pink, is really inspiring to hear the result of living in a bubble, developing such a clear sense of rhythm and if it's impossible to program that drum machine...I get it, just beatbox the beat the best you can.

But as much as a whole his output is getting clearer and more produced sounding, 2 tracks in particular, "Apache Woman" and "Hell" take things back into his cassette world in only the unique way that Tonetta can, with legitimately great guitar lines, outsider rhythms and completely unique vocal melodies. This seemingly archival recording fades in and out on the left channel, just barely holding on with a flowy '70s psyche jam feel over this layer of hiss, reminding you just how mindblowing Tonetta can be when the pieces fit together like this especially when it's more understated. I love the in-your-face sex jams, but "Apache Woman" especially, would legitimately stand up in an R. Stevie Moore mix.

The there's "Yummy Yummy Pizza" where you're waiting for that hammer to drop, but this is pure bubblegum pop, at least in the world of Tonetta. He loves pizza, and doesn't love you anymore. Plain and simple. My grandma might even appreciate this before church..."Not so yummy you". The same puzzling sweetness is evident on "Knowing my limits" where he sounds like the attentive worrying partner. I guess he's covering all his bases and this is yet another version of extreme in Tonetta's mind. To be the center of attention is just as freaky as a four way.

The over the top sexy songs are still here in abundance, and all positions are explored: "Ride Me" (self explanatory), "Be My Concubine" (stick it to the one I love, without a glove), "Two Annas & a Bri Bri" (Two prostitutes and their friend, Tonetta's twelve year old humor in full effect, naming their hometown: penis manor), "81 in Prime Ass" (a weirdly sweet ass play song...), "Pressure Zone" (something to do with the prostate?), "No Lip" (he's tougher than a butch dike), "Glory Hole" (surprisingly about a 'small cock, big heart'), "Planet Lip Bush" (not political - life 'began here with lips' that he'll never see...there's an oedipal complex for you).

As if you could forget nothing is off limits to Tonetta, and he continues to make that very clear every album, and "On the Toilet" might be the point where you'd have a hard time getting through this. It's as medically accurate as The Human Centipede, a little too descriptive about the excretive process, what this particular movement consists of...literally. I have to admit I'm even feeling a little dirty, and you really have to wonder where he crossed that line from funny into sick? He further tests the waters with "This Nigger Don't Run" which I'm having a little trouble with what viewpoint this is from, let alone give this a serious listen without looking over my shoulder. I think it's his fictional black perspective towards skinheads, that kind of extreme hate and pitting those two factions against each other.

In this case I'm wondering what exactly compelled him to write this song, which features an acoustic guitar by the way. I have to think he's just drawn to these extreme's, in language and behavior down to his songwriting. If it isn't a little scary to him it isn't worth doing. Needless to say Tonetta is not an album to have in a random playlist, playing publicly. You could very literally get your ass kicked. Is that part of the draw? Sure, in the same way the blackest of Norwegian metal can defy expectation.

These 29 tracks are a lot to take in, and he still suffers occasionally from the same monotonous beat, but I think he can rely on it being such a unique, singular focus; the slightly distorted kick/snare, kick/snare back and forth with a double time tamborine, or shaker, and the layers of instrumentation are so uniquely his own, it's almost always forgiveable.

He's also continuing to explore a lot of new melodies and as much as that beat is recycled, there's as much thought in composition as there is in the subject matter. I would even go so far as to say there's more thought...mentioning his cock every song comes naturally, it's in the sitting down to layer in another melody where new things are cooked up. There's room across this release to go further into all facets of Tonetta, from the truly heartfelt love songs to new depths of troubling fetishes. Tonetta can ably work across extremes, and that makes those 'straight' tracks a little more tense, knowing the Tonetta could drop a 'cock' at any moment.

Go complete the series with Volume III, there's no turning back now with this double album on Black Tent Press...I expect there is a triple album in the works for Volume 4.

Not quite sure what happened to Tonetta but Black Tent had this to say to fans recently (posted at Grandma Knows Best - the definitive thinking man's Tonetta blog)

In light of recent events I think that TONETTA needs to hear your support and admiration of his music and art. He has been shut down, terminated, censored, lied to and robbed over the last month. Have you ever wanted to tell him what you think and feel about his music and art ? Have you ever wanted to share with him how important and special his work is ?

Now is the time to do so. This is a call for letters and gifts for TONY.
show some love.

BLACK TENT PRESS
3940 Laurel Canyon Blvd NO. 245
STUDIO CITY, CA 91604

all packages will be forwarded to TONETTA.

Stay gold, you crazy sexy bastard.

Iji - Bird-Man Movement Team EP on Offtempo Records

2011-11-07T10:22:00.005-05:00

Got this single in the other day from Off Tempo Records, who say they're documenting underground music of the Pacific Northwest. I think I have to start a google earth plug in with all the labels like this, broken down by geographic region...Fort Lowell, Electric Cowbell, Super Secret Records, Nashville's Dead? I guess it would depend on if the label described themselves that way, not on where the bands were actually from....it's what singles do best, humbly document the micro movements of a local scene, better than anything.
The band on this clear green 7" is Iji, a music project of Zack Burba, who's collaborating of course, with a bunch of people on this recording and packaging. Friends hand stamped the center labels, spraypainted the inner white sleeve and probably stuffed all these in one drunken night. Songs were written about them, while they provide backup vocals and even played instruments...he's just one guy after all.

The first track, "Viber" gets into a pop tropical lounge feel, a little bit Ducktails and Tennis....the jangly brisk rhythm guitar, a slight reggae bass line, that early Crowded House sound of enjoying the experiment of these genre's that seem out of reach. The handmade touches don't stop with the packaging, the handclaps, a really alive sounding sax, all the way down to a flute breakdown. "Toony Loom" has a real Daniel Johnston feel to the raw live recording, Zack's warbly high register vocals against this rehearsal room slightly out of tune piano. All the things that make this recording sincere and unmanufactured...a precious commodity. There's no faking the warm sound of a livingroom, and people playing together instead of isolation booths...Zack's yelp when a chorus of friends join in, that's a real moment of excitement. Zack might have put this scene together, but it's still surprising to even him in the end....and clearly they were enjoying themselves. It's all coming through loud and clear on this.
It's mixed pretty quiet, so you'll want to turn this up, but that's what happens when you get the best take with a couple of room mics straight into the mixer. I wouldn't call it lo-fi, just DIY... that's a genre right? The sort of handmade record in every possible way where it's just a bonus it happens to be filled with honest, sunny pop songs.

The B-Side, "Wavy One", takes me back to Calvin Johnson's anti-pop sound, that rejecting the usual trappings of pop, not necessarily flying in the face of it or complete rejection, but deliberately not caring to follow the formula, the tired expectations. It doesn't follow a verse/chorus structure, Zack instead tends to stay loose and free form. In the liner notes he mentions a lot of this record is based around bass rhythms and that puts a lot of these pieces together, all the permutations of bass directions ending up driving these 4 tracks. "Whatever" rounds up the two week residency at the Funny Button in Seattle, this one throwing in all the kitchen sinks in a rolling carnival ride. It gets pretty epic and probably wraps up the experience, a little sad to leave, but a blow out while it lasted.

Get this one from Offtempo Records.

Mattress - Eldorado on Malt Duck Records

2011-11-06T09:51:00.004-05:00

"I found a reason to live." Rex Marshall of Mattress says on the first track of Eldorado, and I'm inclined to believe this theatrical character, even if it comes off as desperate, I think at least he has convinced himself for the moment, despite the cold, bleak way he's chosen to express it.

Although this was released back in '06 as a CDR, it's very related to Dirty Beaches, with that same kind of combination of vocal abandon, weirdo soul, and blues yelps.

There's definitely a backwoods country soul living in these songs full of paychecks and pawnshops...that monotonous beat shares the same overcompensation for mechanics as Dirty Beaches does, and instead of a lost in translation reinterpretation of southern rockabilly Elvis, Mattress explores a John Waters character, reveling in pure weirdo and pushing the boundaries of taste....both of which owe a lot to Suicide for starting this apocalypse in the first place.

The title track, "Eldorado" has a creepy warbly howl vocal that could even go back to a Cramps, TV on the Radio hybrid and the specific outsider choices they make. He's sounding sweaty, weighted down with chains, (probably not gold, since he's really looking forward to his discovery), drives an old rusty cadillac and probably owns that stip club on the edge of town that no one has ever been to. The thing is he's convincing you of all this seedy underbelly with instrumentation that would never normally sound like back alleys and smoke filled OTB's, minimal electronics aren't exactly tools for this kind of bleak realism...but then, oh yea, don't forget Joy Division.

He sounds desperate to find that lost city where everything is going to be made of gold, with his vocal breaking apart...he's going to make himself find it. This delusion, that crack with reality sort of permeates everything and a distorted harmonica, which sounds like it's pieced together from samples is a great echo of

Like a loungey Blank Dogs figure where that crooning somehow adds another layer of creepiness. The digital mystery wasn't enough. Mattress is assuming that shadowy electronic world already exists and he's created a personality to perform there. A superstar entertainer within the bleak apocalypse, because I'm convinced by Mattress that they'll exist there...and that they'll be as idiosyncratic as this.
The B-Side's first track, "Got to come on" is using that Arise, Therefore organ fake beat, it's the halfhearted compromise to attempt to add some humanity to the proceedings. Here he is singing how there's too many songs about the bad times which is beyond ridiculous coming from the inherently cold, distant sound like this. He's thought a long time about how there's too many downer songs and this is a song for you? Who's he kidding? Still very much living in this self created delusion to the point by the end of the side he's belting out, "I've been looking for my people!" and it's a clear call for some freaky listeners who if they are taking i this last track, they've found each other.
Stephen Merritt says in "Strange Powers" that all songs are just rehashing classic pop sentiments and structures, that all the songs out there have already been written...just completely cynical. I have to think he's being just a little facetious, but it made me think about how anyone at this point could ever sit at home and say there's nothing out there for them... that all music sucks. Mattress is proof you just haven't looked hard enough. If you can honestly be bored by a playlist then you are just plain lazy with fringes out there like this.

It's an album that sounds great on vinyl by the way, like Trans-Europe Express, hearing those extreme, unnatural snare hits or... button presses in this case and an ultra low end thump of a cheap overcompensating drum machine, but with such insane clarity, it almost is psyche in that attempt at altering reality. I started to imagine this might be what it would sound like if the art museums put together a halloween album with Jesco White.
in Eldorado, he's describing all the gold dresses, gold airplanes, gold roads...never suggesting that there would be any down side to the fantasy. But I know if Mattress ever acheived it, this nervous, psychosis would be over, and that would be very bad for the audience.

This one is on heavy red clear vinyl running at 45rpm, $12 from Malt Duck Records:

Eldorado was originally released in 2006 on CDR – the very first release by Mattress. Since then, Mattress has put out a 7-inch single and two full length albums. Rex Marshall, the mastermind behind Mattress, is a Las Vegas native who currently resides in Portland, OR.

Eldorado is an incredibly minimal, raw, and sometimes frantic record, yet it some how creates a sense that hope can prevail even in the dire post-apocalyptic vision formed by its beats. This is definitely synth done raw – which is often times synth at its finest. Rex’s vocal styling is what makes this record incredibly unique though. The crony vocals, reminiscent of a gin guzzling lounge singer, reveal his true Vegas roots. He’s one of those people who dare to sing - with most excellent results.

Divorce on Night School Records

2011-11-04T11:54:00.003-04:00

No one creates a racket quite the way Divorce does, and they remind me of it every new single that comes my way. This one on Night School Records has a really thick screened heavy cardstock foldover, which was stuck on the inside to a heavy mylar, almost picture disk outer sleeve with a Divorce sticker....making this homemade as hell...a big tear line down one side of the printed sleeve, really great work in making this one stand out.

There was a time when bands like Lightning Bolt, Hella, SIDS and Diet Cola were all I wanted to listen to, at the time it sounded like the most forward looking, original direction for any genre to be attempting...I think if you follow this line of thought you get your Abe Vigoda and Mika Miko, combining that heavy rhythm hardcore noise into punk pop and when Divorce ended up on my radar a little while ago, it brought all that kind of early extremist stuff back for me.

I'm trying to think about what it is about this sound that doesn't get old and a lot of it is the live show so I suppose another branch of the Lightning Bolt tree is some of the glitch electronics stuff like, Dan Deacon in terms of how downright fun and original seeing a band live can be.

But back to Divorce, who all at once take a pure love of hyper rhythms, experimental guitar and Jennie's vocals which are surprisingly clear rising over the weird guitar screechings, the entire fretboard played high to low as a single note on A-Side's "Love Attack". Now that I'm hearing this back to back with yesterday's Aids Wolf, there is a pretty clear connection I never made, Jennie is also coming up with entirely new melody lines for her vocal, even given this solid foundation of pummeling tom beats and gestural distortion, she won't follow any sort of predetermined line, instead reminding me of The Coathangers or White Lung's unique, singing-spoken word style...the difference between Aids Wolf is there's still lyrics here, even if a lot of it is lost in this aggressive chaos, sometimes yelling, but the consistent hollow pop of the snare keeps it headbanging.

B-Side's "Meating" continues to step up the beat, they're really pushing themselves in marrying various strong rhythms together successfully. Jennie also has to be as strong and straightforward as Vickie's riffs and crazy timing drumming. There's nothing timid in any part of it's performance and creation. There's nothing like that combination of shaking tom and kick, single note low end bass and Vickie's growl. There's not much else to say. Someone get a kickstarter together or something to book them in NY. I selfishly want to see them break some ceiling tiles at Death By Audio.

You can order direct from Night School in the UK or head over to Deathbomb arc and add this to the pile of other quality recordings you're going to find there.

Aids Wolf - Ma vie banale avant-garde on Lovepump United Records

2011-11-03T14:05:00.002-04:00

This double album, Ma vie banale avant-garde or My Boring Avant-Garde life, from Montreal's Aids Wolf on Lovepump United came out almost exactly a month ago now, and even working on listening to it everyday.... it's taken about this long for me to decode my way through it. I say 'working' on it because Aids Wolf isn't a passive experience, they've created a freeform sound that, absent of repetition or rhythm, at times is impossible for your brain to kind of separate into background noise, and I'm sure AW wants it that way. It completely demands your attention. I'm physically unable to construct sentences while listening to it. That's kind of a feat in itself, giving in to this complete audio hijacking, but then takes time to stop what you've been listening to to make a note and then hope that makes some kind of sense.
But not only is it dense in sound and working with completely unfamiliar song structures but it's done across TWO records, well over an hour, 28 tracks, of these experiments. Although to call them their work or categorize the band as 'experimental' does them something of a disservice, having gotten together almost ten years ago at this point and sounding like they have a well defined vocabulary they stick to.

I immediately thought of Cave Bears and their similarly dissociative and cathartic sound on their 7" from Feedingtube Records, but where Cave Bears almost threaten to fall apart in their raw, basement sound, truly channeling mind altering substances and confusion, Aids Wolf comes off as a formally trained orchestra...a well rehearsed disaster, carefully placing the charges, and watching that hotel of rock come crashing down.

The vocals from Chloe across the album are always distorted to a severe degree, like on "Nothing but a Tape Recorder" she's seems to be exploring the way her instrument is played, rhythm itself, maybe the whole western idea of rock... although that implies that Aids Wolf is favoring some part of the world over the other, which isn't the case when these roots are altogether alien. The human voice is going to be pushed in new ways without any sort of behind the scenes meaning...any lyric or story. On "What's an aphid" this vocalization improv takes cues from the guitar which seems to be approached and played in gestures, the notes themselves are secondary. The most important thing is this pounding rhythm, and the will to make a noise at all...that's ultimately what makes Aids Wolf interesting is in exploring this chaotic form of communication, what happens when you take away signifiers...what happens when the vocal sounds don't stand in for anything else, they are purely left to communicate exactly what you get.
When applied to something like, "London's not like home" for example, there's a clear sense of panic and unrest. Even stripped of words, this really can't be misinterpreted as anything else...any culture or people would get the message coming across this recording and in some cases turn right around. Along with a hard percussion, free from traditional rhythm this goes to a Hella kind of place and a lot of the time the two guitar parts being played are separated into the left and right channel, playing off each other, almost right along with what the other is playing, and that's where I get that sense of deliberate, disciplined rehearsal. The big picture isn't where you're going to find evidence of this masterplan.
This vocal as explored as pure noise is probably most clear cut on "Like PSHTS of Aerosol" where Chloe clearly mimics the guitar, or vice versa , and it gets insane to hear this scat done in the same tone and rhythm as that dual Beefheart guitar line.

"I've had such an acrid taste in my throat" is named after the hours of rehearsal, sounding like it's created from manipulated tapes of screaming, or bleating bursts of free-jazz sax, and then disappearing down into a low register croak. How her vocal ends up anything reminding you of a brass section is just a testament to the places they're willing to go. To make those connections in sound between an instrument like that and our own voice opens up all kinds of questions about what range, what the limits are to what we can come up with absent of an external instrument. The guitar riffs here also sound manipulated, the fast complex fingertaps, broken down by speeds, and adding that element of chance. Line up the samples, and the tape loops, let's see where we come out on the other end. In that way they get experimental, they have to leave room for the unexpected.
In that way Aids Wolf is about losing control, in the same way that if you hate David Lynch or Jodorowsky's...or hell, Matthew Barney's dreamlike, plotless films. When asked to give up everything you're taught about story structure, and think for yourself for an hour and half, it's scary. If you'd rather sitting passively while a writer and actors walks you through every twist and turn in the bank heist, then this isn't going to be your favorite album. You sign an agreement with Aids Wolf to enter this chaotic freeform audio experience that takes work, real effort to let go of everything you've ever heard before and give in to this experience. It's a fight.

After reading more about Aids Wolf, I also believe they live this style of music, they have tenants nailed to the church door about tones and rhythm....it isn't a choice based on anything but wanting to make exactly this. At the end of the day there are no compromises in what they're doing. These complicated seemingly random bursts are their received SETI signals, finally caught on this double album and ending up as a universal document of possibility.

Get this one on Lovepump United

Netherfriends - Angry East Coast on Cellar Hits Records

2011-11-02T10:02:00.003-04:00

Pat from Cellar Hits Records let me know about his new label documenting the basement scene of Cape Cod (and soon the world) with this first 7" single from Netherfriends titled "Angry East Coast". It's a three song EP with city names for track titles because Shawn Rosenblatt embarked on a year long project where he wrote and recorded a song and performed in all 50 states. Only after I got to listening did I realize this sleeve was a stapled glossy insert magazine, and opened up to an extensive tour diary of the process. Now before you go dismissing this thing, thinking he ripped off Sufjan or something, I don't know that Sufjan ever actually intended to finish his 50 states albums, it might have just ended up being a good hook to put on a press release...or maybe he intended too at first but now with orchestra's at his disposal and a little neighborhood venue called the Brooklyn Academy of Music hosting his shows...he's obviously moved on from the states idea. But Shawn, not being one to create an easily reachable goal, decided to take a year and attempt this idea for himself. In a way, that's even more balls, I'm not trying to be the first, it's purely for me.

In the zine/sleeve he talks about being worried about wasting time, and wanting to combine playing with creating on the road...and as selfish of a pilgrimage it might seem to be, it's also admirable to put in your time out there in the unknown under the excuse of a band, make this kind of impossible circumstance and then go for it. Possibly more of a performance art project if someone doesn't slap me for calling it that. The point is, you would come back with a bunch of experiences and songs, and you would personally be better...I'm all for it.
With all that in mind I put on the A-Side track, "Philadelphia, PA" where Shawn plays everything but the drums (on this entire record) and there's a hell of a lot going on instrumentally, a hazy cloud of synth and echo guitar lead this one into a bouncy pop that I sort of relate this to Sunset Rubdown with it's ever changing epic structures, or A Faulty Chromosome's warped glitch pop, maybe just vocally. Shawn goes to that bedroom space in moments of hushed harmonies, it's recorded surprisingly crystal clear, I don't know what I was expecting, but if I was writing songs every three days, some of them might be sung into the answering machine back home....but this was a serious setup. I guess I don't know how else you would have gotten to this complicated place...he's not just setting up a one man guitar and amp, it's layered, alien sounds, all in service of a big sound. The synths and effects take this to that story narrative epic place, it sounds huge, and really I'm blown away this could be done on the road and in basically 72 hours, but that's probably what he's thinking about now too.
The B-Side takes us to the capital, "Washington, DC" where Netherfriends goes a little tropical with a high-strung timpani sounding snare from Scott Westrick, who also mixed the single, and gives this one a crazy dub groove, the high pitch echoing all over this basement of a house in DC. I like that Netherfriends builds up a rhythm like this just to abandon it, drop into a chorus of vocalizations and then pickup a completely different groove to deliver a catchy almost spoken melody over a banging stripped down kit...they got a great percussion sound on this one, but it's appearance is brief...like The Annuals, all kinds of great experimentation with sound or even the Lilys, who seemed to write this psyche-pop operatic prog stuff that I couldn't believe I could even like. The pieces made no sense, but I couldn't help but keep listening.

Shawn has that same sense of the bigger picture in each one of these...I'm having trouble believing you could write 50 songs like this in a year, or if you wouldn't have to cheat just a little with a tape recorder at a rest stop.
Finally "Rehoboth Beach, DE". There's a lot of autobiographical sounding things going on lyrically in all of these tracks, I think it's hitting me most on this one, sort of talking to a girlfriend about what he's literally going through...the couches, playing shows to a couple of people...but the way the sound is Flaming Lips blown out, it doesn't ever feel confessional, I think you can get to that weird place where it's so specific you can't relate to it anymore in a personal way...but then he's already working in that 'god damn he's talented' Bright Eyes style that's hard to relate to the everyday jerk. I think maybe that can be the stumbling block for stuff like this, it starts from an intimidating place (let alone the amount of material) and maybe it's not the coolest thing right now to put this kind of time and effort into one track, but I have to hand it to someone with this kind of work ethic.
Part of me wants to like this purely conceptually, it doesn't matter what the result is, but now that this single is going some really intersting places I sort of wish I didn't know that story because these are almost better than the mythology surrounding them. He's motivated as hell, his blogspot is a serious blackhole of random influences and unreleased tracks, I wonder if the rest of the series might appear on Cellar Hits singles?

Go 'like' Netherfriends and then check out their bandcamp for all kinds of releases from this prolific guy.

This single is on Cellar Hits Records, impressive glossy sleeve/zine and some of these are on pink swirl vinyl.

Rollin Hunt - Criminal on Moniker Records

2011-11-01T11:04:00.003-04:00

I'm starting to get an idea now about the overall direction of Moniker Records after getting into this single from Rollin Hunt this morning. First we had the intricate warped electronic bedroom stylings of Stacian from Moniker and it sounds like Rollin Hunt is working with a similar method of production but with a different set of variables...I mean instrumentation...and viewpoint. This isn't so dark or sad bastard as that kind of isolated late-night self exploration can be in the bedroom recording world. That way of working can inevitably lead a lot of artists right into that same sounding hole...as interesting as the results might be...it's going to be dark as hell. It takes a lot for someone like Rollin to break out of that path of least resistance and experiment in his own sort of demented alien pop.
As much as I appreciate the ballsy live rocking garage blues sounds of Natural Child, this kind of whatever-fi-you-got home recording is going to have a special section on the 7" shelf...maybe it's because I know I'm not going to ever experience this track any other way. If Rollin does make it to Brooklyn, it's not going to be at all like this single....for better or worse that is the curse of the 4-track artist. It might force you to continue to evolve, the audience doesn't ever expect that track to sound like that record.

This kind of really introspective home recording, on whatever cheap tool you end up using, isn't ever going away as a subgenre. I'll always seek this kind of thing out, having gone through that '90s home recording seven inch resurgence with Pavement, Smog and Sebadoh (If I was going to start a band back in time, it would have to be named something in the s or r section, being the only place in the record store that mattered) and messing around myself with whatever stuff was around to record on. So when people are out there today recapturing that kind of fucked up, no rules sound....I get really excited.
I'm thinking about all this stuff this morning, because I'm seriuosly debating ordering a couple more of these full lengths from Moniker, since now I'm sure they're specificaly seeking this stuff out and curating a vision....I can't just hear these two seven inches...they were the gateway drug for sure, but now I'm definitely hooked.
But back to Rollin Hunt, and the A-Side, "Criminal" which uses a warm, slow picked reverb and layered distorted warbly vocals to place it squarely in a private kind of space, right away. In this interview in the Chicago Tribune Rollin talks about reworking songs over and over, deleting sections, the composition going from hip hop inspired beats to acapella and back to noise....over the course of months. You can hear these disparate pieces semi-woven together here throughout, but it's subtle and works...the song is in a very different place then where it started, but there aren't any crazy unnatural breaks. There's definitely an Ariel Pink internal logic to the rhythms here that could only come about in this abstraction of the song itself. This never ending process of erasing and building back up again. It's almost as if the way this was recorded is driving the direction of this...but I guess that's what makes 4-track-lo-fi a genre.

There's a timeless nostalgia throughout the pieces, covered by layers of process...the underwater Gary War mystery with a lot of sincere pop... that comes out of not denying that pop influence that's inescapable in daily life anyway. Why not try to create something good out of that purely commercial sound. This one goes from a lonesome country sound to backwards percussion, a sort of dreamy '80s Cars pop. The combination of drum machines and real feeling is a weird one to pull off, it takes a lot of humanity to pull out of that obvious, overused sound.
The B-Side, "Castle of Nothing" is a weird tropical, heavy reggae dub feel track with truly disturbed vocals...but in a laid back way....I think that can be the benefit of recording with the tapes and analog, when those inevitable cuts and pieces are punched in, it's masked with that dull hiss....and comes off as completely natural...it's part of the medium.

The fact this is on vinyl...it's a little like looking at the poster of the painting at the Met, but it's the only way I'm going to hear this....a cassette has always felt like a temporary medium, and maybe that's the attraction too, but a magnet, or accidentally hitting record could erase all of this...I need a concrete record document. Those characteristics of magnetic tape recording are perfect during the process, but now I would also be worried about that sound changing and slowly degrading away. Not that computers are much better actually. You really have to back up constantly....the first time you lose an afternoon of fucking around in garageband....you plug in that shitty 4-track where only 2 of the tracks work anyway.

I want a full length of this...it's working between that Ducktails place of tropical repetition and Ariel Pink's unassuming experimental pop.

Needless to say as far as I'm concerned there can't be enough of this in the world.
Go check it out, and pick up this single from Moniker Records.

I have to go record now.

Natural Child - White Man's Burden on Infinity Cat Records

2011-10-31T16:12:00.003-04:00

Ended up catching Liquor Store and Natural Child over the weekend at Union Pool for their split 7" release on Almost Ready...and I almost got one...

Guys let me give you some advice...if you see a split single of your dreams out there on the table and no one is there selling merch you have to WAIT...stand there all night, because when you come back after a set or two, they're going to be sold out. If you have to physically pick it up with your bare hands and just stand there holding it like an idiot...then YOU DO IT. I learned my lesson when Seth told me they sold the last two on the table. What a sad beginning of Halloween. Very scary.

But the show was awesome, Liquor Store, yea buddied all kinds of punk, got to hang out with a bunch of good friends and Natural Child are so damn fun live with that classic rock stoner massive groove sound, they're just fun to watch. Having the best time, fucking around with the lyrics, changing them to Monster Mash, and just the sweet southern harmony from this sludge blues. I don't care who's done it before them, no one has ever taken it as not seriously as these three. Don't miss them, they will win you over by being simultaneously nice and out of their minds in the best way.

That's why the photo on the sleeve of the single I did end up picking up last night is so perfect. They genuinely want to hang out together and have the best attitude on stage. Liquor Store and Natural Child seem to go about writing the same way, take primal, hilarious points of view, in Liquor Store's case, it's with more of a hardcore punk sound about being an American man or eating a trash sandwich, while Natural Child sings a lot about weed and getting 'strange'... but they don't ever sound like they're selling it. On paper they're both impossible.

This single is green marble vinyl from Infinity Cat, who Billboard Magazine just named the 10th best indie label! I mean Billboard Magazine? That's like Nirvana winning a grammy....completely irrelevant, but still crazy that some big dumb institution like that actually noticed something like these guys....now that I think about it, it's kind of scary.

I thought the A-Side to this one "White Man's Burden", might be an alternate version of "White People" from 1971 but no... it's another take on the tongue in cheek idea of what exactly are white dudes blues?... surely some kind of oxymoron to begin with and maybe that's why they have the blues in the first place? Their lack of actual problems? It's sort of this ridiculous feel-bad-for-me track that's also saying they know exactly how dumb that sounds, but it can still rock as long and deep as Thin Lizzy.

The B-Side's " Ray Thompson's Blues" is another less than serious blues track about wanting to be in Miami, drunk on the beach, quitting your job, proving your girlfriend wrong with a pocketful of weed....see what I mean, these are troubles that more responsible people would be pissed off about, but it's up to guys like this to sincerely not give a fuck and make you love them for it. It comes off as an adult Beach Boys, the alternate Stones verision of the Jacuzzi Boys. Dreaming of the beach instead of sounding like one.

"Bang my Head" can't help but sound like 'Do wah ditty" to me, that rhythm and even melody keeps popping in my head, but the harmony lyric delivery from Seth and Wes thankfully takes it somewhere else, the way they're yelling to each other. I forget half of their songs, and it's like I'm hearing them for the first time again but I still catch every ridiculous honest truth:

"I can live my life like a maniac." ...or be forced to have sex with someone you didn't want to have sex with or smoke crack....all of which they make sound pretty funny...definitely guys.

Oh shit, but both of their singles on Infinity Cat are actually sold out! Or are they? No surprise there I guess. Go see them and get these from the merch table AFTER you grabbed them and waited patiently. That's your burden...those are your blues.

I'm so sad for you.

Write a freaking song about it.

Knifey Spoony on Orifice Dorm Records

2011-10-28T15:13:00.004-04:00

The Knifey Spoony dudes from Oakland, sent the very first vinyl offering on their own Orifice Dorm Records label. That circle graphic showcasing a monsters crazy genitalia is actually from a window cut out of the printed sleeve, probably by hand. I bet you anything if I asked if they would do that again, they would say, "Not in your life". Handcutting 300 giant circles? It looks cool with that insert peeking through, but someone's hand is severely cramped...not like that isn't par for the course with this shredding, scuzz-punk...even if I keep hearing some variation of that "Ace of Spades" riff running through my head. Especially on the first track "Art Show Press Pass", this one is Suicidal Tendencies speed hardcore, blistering speed recorded in the back of the room, because that speaker is smoking, and the mics aren't that good in the first place. The speed metal fingers are flying with distorted vocals. Great title, it's easy to pick on the art world, all the good artists just start bands anyway, so you're left with the monocled, chain watch wearing ponces. I hope Knifey is going to lock them in the stairwell. They keep consciously changing up the rhythm on this, a sludgy, slow beating, slamming on the cymbals, to bringing back that pause for the metal licks to show off just a little bit. The next one "Retro Poser Enema", (man they are hitting all the focus groups) slows things down for the most part, sounding more classic rock, the squealing fudgy riff a little blues this time. I love that KS's next target is an old nomadic loser in a psychedelic band, I get it, there's a lot of really stupid things happening in the world and the only way I want to hear about it is punked out on a seven inch, nothing will get me more fired up that hearing about idiots for 3 or 4 minutes. They have to be the party starters, where you feel like something interesting is gong to happen tonight, they aren't too cool to be playing for you.
The B-Side seems to be credited to John Fogerty, "Heeeeey Tonight!!!!", but I'm pretty sure they didn't exactly spell it like this. Nice way to sneak this one in...it's got a lot of low end balls, while still sounding as thin as How will I smile tomorrow... except with Steve O's (different one) screamy core. It starts out as a warbled hissing found tape, I don't know what's going on at the beginning of this, but I'm ready for it to blow up any second. Crackling humming cables, the wind blowing across a tape deck built in mic. Some panned back and forth drums come in and an unfamiliar guitar riff and when did they start sounding this together? This could be some Dead Meadow demo tape, a cover they put down live, just blown apart...there's an album I like to play called my 'man' album, it's really effective if I'm fighting in some 1st person shooter, just shooting and shit blowing up, and it's that Harvey Milk (is it weird I forget about the assassinated politician?) live album The Pleaser...this song would sound great on that. Serious man music, I'm going to virtually break something.

Anyway I like when a real bad ass band names themselves something so completely ridiculous they probably have to fight regularly about it. It shows they aren't afraid to throw down, in fact they are sort of taunting you...like another band I used to know, Kolostomy Fag.

Something Men on EzPz Records

2011-10-27T12:25:00.004-04:00

Got an email from Joe about checking out a single from his band, the Something Men, on EzPz Records. He was nice enough to ship this one from across the pond, so that means this one is going to be an import (local disto below -ed)...but take a chance on this one before the whole European union breaks up over Greece and there's no more mail period.....ever.
"Birdy Roof" on the A-Side has a pretty massive reverb sound cutting wide through the whole snotty blues sound. Vocally it's a high register nasal sort of Hunx sound, you can almost hear the grin and the sweaty leather vests. It sounds like they're faithfully recreating that slow blues shuffle up and down the fret scale, with a wet, almost surf mix. The distanced snarly vocal would be right at home in the Nashville scuzzy distortion blues, or Florida's laid back snot surf. Sounds like something similar conceptually must be going on over in their part of the world that appreciates the same things that made the Jacuzzi Boys or Nodzzz.
The B-Side "Mud Brown Mistress" seems to expand out of that classic sounding blues to a more melodic trash rock, a sibling of Cheap Time or even Personal and the Pizzas. The far off reverb vocals are still here and jangly big Rickenbacker guitars this time go for broke in finger bending solo's. There's no rhyme or reason to this meltdown except being informed by those Kinks or Velvets almost punk departures from rock structure all together...you could even go back to some of the singles on France's ownLes Disques Steak for comparison. This sound is going to live on in every generation, raw stripped down setup of melodic rock, lots of reverb for the vocals and guitar, make it catchy. These guys are gong to open for shannon and the Clams soon.

Hand assembled sleeve and classic checkerboard center sleeve that is a reflection of this throwback sound on the German Label EZPZ Records, go check out the B-Side on their soundcloud page:

EZPZ is proud to present to you all the debut 7 inch single from UK's best kept secret, SOMETHING MEN. All copies come in a hand glued sleeve with hand-stamped inners. Limited to 300 only! EZPZ001

Also locally this is distro'd from Sorry State.

Love of Diagrams - In My Dream single

2011-10-26T10:21:00.005-04:00

I forget how I came across this one...might have been a facebook post on their page, weird way to find out about a single, but when it comes to Love of Diagrams, I just want to find out somehow about their next project... and it's a seven inch preorder at that. I'll warn you, it isn't going to be cheap, coming from Australia...not sure if it's the exchange rate or what but 10 bucks plus 10 more shipping to Brooklyn. Yikes.
But it also looks like you're getting this direct from those guys, they are sitting at a desk and taping up the 7" mailer and filling out the customs form, so you're going to pay for that kind of personal attention, not to mention 2 new tracks, the A-Side, "In my Dream", feels like they're tipping towards a Brilliant Colors, Reading Rainbow more pop sound...but I'll admit I've been stuck on Mosaic since '07, and have to get caught up with their other more recent full length, but those sludgy, huge riffs seem to have been traded in for a focus on more layered pop melody. At least on first listen. I'm glad I was able to catch them once at Death by Audio, thousands of miles from home...even better live.
The B-Side, "Too Long", is of course my favorite, not just because it's the B-Side dammit...but because it reminds me of "Ms V Export", that driving swaying rhythm right from the beginning that is just huge, great vocal harmony in this one...which seem to overall be recorded lighter somehow so they have a more indie pop sound, closer to Dog Day, or Grass Widow.

They're great... go check out their bandcamp page, where you can order this direct from those guys, and like those credit card commercials...that's priceless.

This will Destroy You / Bleached preorders on Suicide Squeeze

2011-10-25T13:48:00.002-04:00

Keep forgetting to mention these two preorder singles on Suicide Squeeze who thankfully are still making a deliberate effort to keep their long, varied history of releasing historic singles alive, continuing with this one from This Will Destroy You. Just when I thought I couldn't possibly listen to another instrumental album after weeks of Explosions, Red Sparrowes, Pelican, Mogwai, The Fucking Champs and Mono, these guys came along and made me realize there's still room left for at least one more. When they are creating tracks as epic as this, "Black Dunes" from the A-Side and checking out this video, first of all, I don't know how this ends up fitting on a single, maybe at 33, but it's a live document of concert footage so it's not exactly the album version, and secondly lately they sound like they are getting closer and closer to that dark, dark Sparrowes sound... that Locrian territory of utter despair, real Godspeed apocalypse now....just hopeless. It doesn't make you want to go triumph at something the way Explosions does, or have the overt agression of Pelican...it just washes over you with hopelessness. At least this track does...but not being a fan of remixes, the B-Side is a little disappointing not being an unreleased TWDY track, at the same time I am curious what a Holy Other might do with a track like this...that bonus cd of Explosions remixes are alright once in a while. Looking forward to this, plus they are doing a cool thing of 100 copies of 5 different colors, so you can go crazy deciding if you need one of each.

Great.

Then I noticed their preorder for another Bleached single, the sisters of Mika Miko who had a great one on Art Fag that I just missed out on...great cover. I'm an idiot.

They have that sort of indie garage, junk pop sound, a bunch of melody, not too complicated, how it ends up just sounding cool is something you can't pin down. So to make up for it, this single can be had from Suicide Squeeze on solid red if you get in on this preorder.

Bromp Treb / Horaflora split on Yeay! Records

2011-10-24T11:10:00.005-04:00

This one came in from Yeay! Records out of Turnersfalls, MA (is that from It's a wonderful life?) and between these guys who have been steadily releasing stuff since '91 (!) and Feeding Tube...MA is definitely hogging it's share of experimental eclectic LP's...there are so many to order...but this one is a split single between Bromp Treb and Horaflora.

Back in 2008 I came across Bromp Treb on the Breaking World Records label and after looking that post over again I immediately recognize this hyper dense mash of samples and tones in disparate bursts of rhythm. This time it feels like Neil on this track, "Readinessmax" is going for a more mechanical sound, or let's say the pieces here are definitely taken off a turntable, giving away more about the process this time, going traditional DJ style with the whirring slow down, speed up of the hand manipulated record. The array of samples are from dub beats, sub basslines, which really pushes the limits of vinyl, and wouldn't sound the same any other way. I'm beginning to wonder if the entire piece isn't constructed entirely out of turntable mechanics...and somehow this is a table full of the same record, being messed around with in this extremely chaotic way. The rhythms never seem to repeat for long...it's chopped up, but not digitally...that might be the point here. A record proof of concept, the way your grandpa used to DJ.
The Horaflora side, "Glibbertonne", is coming at this chaotic structure from an almost purely digital angle, these glitches and bloops only exist out of the headphone jack of the electronics that made them, there emerges an overall very primitive rhythm, from sounds that could be an early TRS-80 drum circle. Dog range clicks, the vacuum tubes don't care if you can hear this sine wave...maybe it's for the robots. The call to revolt. How do digital warbles like this sound strangely like dripping water? Why isn't there some kind of plug-in that will let you draw out a waveform on the timeline filled in with pure tones and then you could trace something like a drip? Maybe Horaflora is doing that. Is that a locked groove? Not yet, just a skipping beat...actually had to get up and go watch the needle visibly vibrating and bouncing back a few grooves each revolution. That's a low ass frequency. Has anyone ever put a locked groove right in the middle of a piece? That's what I honestly thought was going on here...you have to physically move it over the lock to hear the rest. That's something that cassettes or cd's could never do. It's a new piece every time.

The sleeve is what really makes this unique, designed by Sightlab, it's a laser cut custom font with a random color image behind it (mine is a microscopic view of fireants eating a cactus). Turns out it's both band names, which I was pretty sure of previously, out of the corner of my eye, I swear I could read it, but then they are 180 degree mirroring each other and I was convinced it was just ornamental. Great design, impossible to do any other way, the detail of this cut out is only possible with lasers, the edges are burnt, and the rubberstamp on the reverse brings it all together.

Get this one from Yeay! Records. An artifact in more ways than one.

John Wiese 100 7" Retrospective at Family gallery in LA

2011-10-23T11:33:00.007-04:00

I'm just realizing that John Wiese needs a serious in depth study from the 7inches archivists, he is a rabbit hole of projects and collaborations in all aspects of noise...so as seemingly impressive as 100 singles are, after looking at the list of bands on wikipedia he's been a part of or worked with over the years, I wouldn't expect anything less. From Sun O))) to Merzbow, Sissy Spacek to Wolf Eyes, this retrospective in LA at the Family gallery would be a perfect place to start. I'm imagining you can take the singles out of their sleeves and listen to them on the record players in the gallery. I actually pulled out a single I had in the noise section of the shelves on Mike Shiflet's defunct Gameboy label called "Soun - An Anonymous And Random Compilation / Composition" which is a collection of 100 sound samples from John, Matmos, Bastard Noise and Greg Davis among others...at least 3 from John, solo, as Sissy Spacek and Amps for Christ with John Wiese. Now that I'm looking at this list of artists on the back of the sleeve it's surprising how many more I recognize now, this compilation is a mini-show in and of itself. I have to start looking up the rest of these guys.
This single a pretty interesting mess of sounds that really illustrate the range of experimentation that is happening in this badly named genre where really anything goes. From the subtle quiet experiments built out of some interesting process to an attempt to outright damage speakers, every kind of artist at work, pushing and exploring the idea of music, or even the idea of sound itself.

Sad I can't actually make it out to this one, hope it makes it in some form here to NY, but in the meantime there is a signed catalog for the exhibition which is going on the shelf next to Touchable Sound.

Justin Pearson - How to lose friends and irritate people on Soundscreen Design

2011-10-22T11:41:00.005-04:00

Soundscreen Design is back with another pushing the limits package design, collaborating with original artists and then on this project in particular taking it one step further in making the tiny record itself more than just the usual seven inch.

Justin sounds like a maniac renaissance man, his myspace is full of so many remixes, side projects, spoken word and weird videos....it doesn't seem to ever be about what you think you're getting into, as going along with the fact this is going to be part of his epic ride.

So this collection of book/zines and flexi disks is just an extension of his usual practice. Sounds like the books are stories about fronting DJ duo acts in order to give them some kind of punk cred, and all the misadventures that inevitably come out of that touring mess. Sort of reminding me of that Slow Death comic single....listen to the band and read about the adventures...great idea. It's even like those read along books with a 45 I used to get as a kid about star trek or batman...very cool, and coming from soundscreen, these will be printed with the craziest standards.

Get this one from Soundscreen Design, publishers of the greatest book ever written: Touchable Sound