Archive for 'Reviews'

Reviews – September 2023

Ahulabrum Strange Lights Portend Their Presence LP (C/Site Recordings)
Metal is such a fascinating concept, because while there are undeniably strict aesthetic, visual and sonic guidelines, at the same time, kinda anything can be metal? In 2023, even canned water! Case in point is the mysterious Ahulabrum, whose illegible black-metal logo and ominous Old English typeface are as kvlt as kvlt can be, yet the group’s primary inspiration here appears to be… Bigfoot. I love it! It’s risky territory of course, the sort of thing that can spin into a self-parody if it looks in the mirror for a second too long, but by ensuring their music is as steadfastly unlistenable as Strange Lights Portend Their Presence, the whole thing clicks perfectly into place. It’s really more of a noise/guitar project than metal by a strictly sonic metric, with extended passages of harsh-noise-wall guitar to recall The Rita or Hanatarash, though the execution feels like black-metal pushed beyond its limits, which can be an exciting feeling. Who hasn’t wanted to torture black-metal a little? Alongside the smithereen-blasted guitars of the first side, a smattering of percussion and what may or may not be vocals first emerge on the second side (allegedly recordings of Bigfoot himself!), closer to the free-form morbid coke visions of Terrorism than any Roadburn-endorsed acts. Even if someone else attempted it, this would remain the finest Bigfoot-themed noise-guitar album out there.

Anunaku 063 12″ (AD 93)
Anunaku’s first couple EPs absolutely dazzled me with their inventive percussive workouts so I figured I’d check in with this new one on AD 93, a forward-thinking British techno label that’s always worth a peep. This time around, gone are the precisely-pitched polyrhythms, replaced by progressive monk-chant trance. Not what I expected, but I can dig! These six tracks (it’s a lengthy EP!) are chicken soup for the raver soul, the sort of big-room techno you’d expect to hear at a warehouse party that was advertised with a colorful postcard flyer filled with tie-dyed smiley faces and a list of club amenities. (Lasers! Full sound-system with a dozen subwoofers! Smoke and confetti with chill-out room and bar!) These tracks make me nostalgic for a ’90s youth I certainly didn’t experience first-hand, so comfortable and fun are these pilled-out grooves with their space-themed titles and Gregorian vocal samples. Even “Nebulosa”, with its repeated vocal sample of the word “control” is pleasantly apolitical, music that exists beyond our day-to-day concerns in a drugged-out techno escapist fantasy.

Awanto 3 Party Volume 1 12″ (Rush Hour Store Jams)
It’s almost time to put a lid on the grill and deflate the pool floats, but Awanto 3’s first volume of, uhh, Party, might keep the Citronella burning a little bit longer. This is rich and supple house music, as deep as the diving end of the pool. “The Lime King” pairs lively drum breaks with slow-cooked keys, landing somewhere between The Mole, Moodymann and that first track on Air’s Moon Safari. A perfect warmup for the sweetly hypnotic groove of “Seeyousoon”, whose eight-note progression is almost too lush and mesmerizing. I walk into that track and its seven minutes absolutely fly by… release the extended cut, Awanto 3! I’m already completely satisfied, but “Sawyoulater” wraps it up with another flashy house excursion, the live hand percussion and soft piano chords keeping things warm long into the after-hours. It sounds extremely Detroit to my ears, and yet Awanto 3 is unrepentantly Dutch, which just goes to show the universal party sensations invoked by staccato grooves and well-placed keyboards. Time to finalize my guest-list so that I’m ready in advance of the eventual drop of Party Volume 2.

Children Maybe Later What A Flash Kick! LP (Sloth Mate Productions)
Not all twee is created equal: there’s the cuddly-wuddly teddy-bear nerd stuff, with felt hearts sewn into its fleece and tears on its pillow, and there’s the chain-smoking, chunky-black-sunglasses-wearing cool-kid twee. Of course the two sometimes overlap, but Children Maybe Later arrive from San Francisco in the secondary camp, sounding like they’re wearing tight turtlenecks and berets in summer, drinking black coffee while discussing Godard films and Ferlinghetti verse. Their songs are delicate, elegant, and free from the loud thumping of a traditional drum kit; at their loudest, the trio augments their harpsichords and guitars with the light tap of a tambourine. It’s decidedly quite post-punk sounding in a first-wave British art-school way, almost to the point where the aesthetic supersedes the music itself, but their confidently understated delivery has made me a believer. The album title sounds like something a London mod would’ve yelled at his mates while goofin’ in the tube (chube) on the way to Rough Trade back in ’78, but maybe Children Maybe Later yell it at the bitcoin miners and NFT grifters they pass on the way to work, too?

Chinese Junk Fly Spray LP (Big Neck)
Probably the first punk band out of Orpington, UK to be reviewed here, here’s the debut full-length from Chinese Junk. Assuming you’re willing to give these jokers the benefit of the doubt on the band name (it’s a type of boat of course, but uh, is that their point?), you might find yourself enjoying their American-sounding garage-punk, straight out of the colorful pages of Rip Off Records and that whole “budget rock” scene full of bands like Supercharger, The Zodiac Killers, Teengenerate, Loli & The Chones and so on to infinity. You better believe the guys in Chinese Junk wear 3-D glasses for the fun of it, sprinkle their leather motorcycle lapels with buttons of bands they like, and sing quick simple songs about how they don’t like you, how they’re sick of you, and how you make them sick. If you find this sound appealing under basically any circumstances, there’s no denying that Chinese Junk have it down pat, with songs like “Ain’t Nobody Payin’ Me To Think” and “My Baby Works For Rentokil” delivering the goods. I’m fine with it, although my favorite part of Fly Spray is the little comic book insert that comes inside, which takes you through a typical Chinese Junk gig and all its tribulations. Why simply behave like a cartoon when you can become one, too?

Coffin Prick Laughing LP (Sophomore Lounge)
Cavity were always one of the coolest sludge-metal bands operating in the vaguely power-violence-centered nexus of extreme underground hardcore in the ’90s, so when I learned that Coffin Prick was the solo project of Cavity guitarist Ryan Weinstein, I showed some respect and threw it on immediately. I wasn’t expecting Cavity 2 by any means, and hooray for me, as Coffin Prick is an entirely different beast. Actually, not a beast at all really, maybe a playful house-cat that keeps getting into areas you thought you blocked off. Working on his own, Weinstein’s music features plenty of guitar, but plenty of other stuff too: lots of synths, funky drum machines, strange electronic melodies and a smattering of warped filters. As a whole, it ends up having a “Gary Numan and Scott Walker conspire on a yacht” vibe, reminiscent of Weinstein’s current residence of Los Angeles where the sun shines on palm trees and putrid gutter-trash in equal measure. The songs are overloaded in a way that works, somewhere between Here Come The Warm Jets, Matthew Dear’s Bunny and Wire’s early ’80s run of albums. In other words, the musicality is bizarre and off putting (both positive attributes in this case) and the songs are well suited to withstand the strangeness at hand. Pushead always loved Cavity; I wonder what he’d make of this?

Connections Cool Change LP (Trouble In Mind)
Columbus indie-rockers Connections were a songwriting force way way back in the 2010s, filling up albums with reliable and unassuming tunes. Been a minute (five years) since their last album, but Cool Change keeps the train rolling, more confident college-rock that puts the songs first. I can’t name a member of the band off-hand, or even claim to have ever seen a picture of them, but that’s not what Connections are about – with them, the music comes first! They come from the school of indie thought where the work speaks for itself, with nary a viral-worthy attribute to their collective name, and if you dig that sort of understated style, they have a whole bunch of records for you to check out. This new one is full of appealingly varied tunes, at times calling to mind the somber jangle of REM, the abnormal bliss of Built To Spill and the glistening breeze of The Lemonheads. Those aren’t new groups, but nothing about Connections feels nostalgic, either; guitar-pop like this is a timeless art form, and Connections spin their honest sound into its own sturdy web. Now seems like a terrible time to be a restrained band indifferent to attention, but Connections clearly have enough faith in their songs to leave it at that.

Coordinated Suicides This Could Be Heaven LP (Temporal)
There’s plenty to noise-rock about over there in the sprawling Midwest, as the weather gets more extreme and the sense of impending breakdowns (social, emotional and otherwise) grows ever stronger. Madison’s Coordinated Suicides synthesize a few disparate heavy, screamy, abrasive elements into their sound, sometimes in unexpected ways, which is always appreciated as so much music that comes out these days is severely expected. This Could Be Heaven was mixed by Today Is The Day’s Steve Austin, and that sort of discordantly arty groove-metal vibe is present in the songwriting as well, nodding to Chat Pile and Neurosis with kind of a softer ’90s alterna-vibe that lingers throughout like moths in an old flannel. The vocals stand out as well, as they opt for either a screechy black-metal caterwaul, its intensity often at odds with the somber, sludgy riffs, or a soft melodic coo, vocalist M. Martin unafraid to activate his inner diva. Beats the same ol’ shouting buried deep in the noise-rock mix, I suppose! They certainly keep it varied, even tempering some of the metallic misery with the acoustic guitar of “Mary Magdelene”. It runs into the opening, Converge-esque verses of “Like Shining Flies” before the Deafheaven metal-gaze chorus carries us home. All this and a band name that makes for an uneasy t-shirt to wear around town!

Dan Sour Drinkers Mass LP (Spoor LLC)
Dada meets animal husbandry on this new album from Dan Gilmore and Pat Barnsour aka Dan Sour, arguably a more compelling name choice for the duo than “Pat More”. Having become all too familiar with the Barn Sour seven-inch from a couple years back and its screaming wheels of agricultural madness, I was mentally prepared for whatever Drinkers Mass turned out to be, though I knew I’d be leaving the experience unclean. For the uninitiated, these two sound artists appear to combine samples (or live performance?) of tasteful musics – classical and fingerpicked guitars, orchestral concertos, jazz – with some of the most wretched, gag-inducing sounds created on this planet. The comforting drift of an acoustic guitar will be met with what sounds like pigs at a trough, bones being reset after an accident, acapella gore-grind vocals and so forth, all drifting in and out of the sensory field like a field trip meant to make you barf. What a ride! It has me imagining the intestinal breakcore of Otto Von Schirach playfully remixed by Matmos or Boards Of Canada, not only in the sonic content, but also the dexterity and thoughtfulness with which Dan Sour handle the material. The reactions these songs elicit are not due to the overpowering force of the sounds – no piercing feedback, no harsh tests of strength – but rather the startling and disconcerting nature of the sounds themselves, and the ways in which they’re integrated.

Martin Frawley The Wannabe LP (Trouble In Mind)
Can’t blame Martin Frawley for operating under his own name after leading Melbourne’s indie-rock outfit The Twerps. He’s all grown up now, twerpiness firmly in his past, and this new solo album (his second) is a pleasant and assured affair. These songs volley between night-moving power-pop and soft-touch alt-rock, resulting in a record with songs capable of shouldering up next to Haim, Tom Petty, Hackamore Brick and Terry on any readymade Spotify playlist. The overall feeling is one of tenderness and vulnerability, not always easy emotions to convey as a rock band, but that’s what a piano ballad like “I Wish Everyone Would Love Me” is for. My favorite cut is probably “Heart In Hand”: it’s pretty millennial sounding, with an instrumental hook sounds ripe for one of those sunny commercials advertising depression meds (do they have those in Australia too?), but it really works for me here, thanks to Frawley’s smirking vocal, sounding like the Aussie Kurt Vile. They both like using pics of cute kids on their record covers, although in the case of The Wannabe, I believe the child is actually Frawley himself, caught in a cute nuzzle with his father, the late Maurice Frowley. See, I told you it was tender!

FRKSE Desecration Anxiety III LP (Divergent Series)
Third and final installment of the Desecration Anxiety series from Boston’s FRKSE, who is also responsible for my favorite ambient-industrial electronics album to be released by Iron Lung (yup, that Iron Lung!). FRKSE’s music has always had a kind of body-horror / organic occult vibe, like some sort of ritual-based performance using only items found in alleyways on garbage night, and while that same eerie presence is felt here, I appreciate that it’s not a straight rehashing of the sonic themes explored on the first two volumes. Most notably, this time around FRKSE collaborates with a variety of people, most of whom offer their spoken-word talents. The various vocals are full of personality and manifold in style – some sound like they’re ready to snap, others are casual and relaxed, and in the case of D. Joshi on “Jai Maa”, a little melody is sung. Again, I’m strongly reminded of Demdike Stare in the way that melody, electronics and found-sound noise are psychedelically combined, although FRKSE doesn’t feel remotely British or susceptible to the allure of drum n’ bass. Desecration Anxiety III is a very American form of dreary industrial collage and a stellar final installment of the series.

Grawlixes Very Fucking Grawlixes 7″ (Shock To The System / Brain Slash)
The noise-not-music virus has made it to Albany, NY, infecting the brains of the three guys calling themselves Grawlixes (two Dans and one Not Dan according to the liner notes). They seem to exist in near-tribute to Swankys (and by that measure, partial tribute to Wankys), playing bare-bones melodic-punk with piercing noise-guitar – six songs here, though the room should clear out before you make it to the second. If it wasn’t for that Disclose-inspired guitar, this stuff would remind me of the crustier side of pop-punk in the ’90s, something like FYP or The Wackers or maybe even Showcase Showdown, but the Lebenden Toten tendencies at play here kind of override any other aesthetic, like trying to scroll through pictures on an iPhone with a shattered, spiderwebbed screen. Fun and noise seems to be the point here, not originality or “art”, as the insert even owns up to one of these songs being stolen from Chaotic Dischord (I pose too hard to recognize which). Chaotic Dischord were probably just stealing from The Exploited anyway… who cares about who originally did what when all property is theft and we’re just here to swill free cider until it comes pouring back out our noses?

Ilta Hämärä Origo 12″ (Bergpolder)
If this record wasn’t already covered in umlauts, it would be necessary to add them – here’s some seriously Euro brain-mushroom music from the duo of Ilta Hämärä. I’m not entirely sure how the two of them worked it out, considering that my ears are hearing a drum kit, a guitar and at least one keyboard, but maybe it’s simply my mind playing tricks on me (or, you know, overdubs). Not an impossibility considering how psychedelically-fried these tunes are, the drums keeping a slow-motion, drunken sense of time amidst so many reverberant tones. Very much in the school of Amon Düül, Amon Düül II, Popol Vuh (and if there was a Popol Vuh II, probably them too), as well as the more modern psych-improv meanderings of Ulaan Khol and even the Gunn-Truscinski Duo. It appears these tracks were recorded over the winter of 2015 into 2016, surely in some well-insulated Dutch studio setting with multiple incenses burning and the lights down low. Might’ve even been a little bit of the devil’s lettuce being partaken too, but I don’t want to get anyone in trouble with my speculations! The final tracks go further out there, negating percussion entirely for a swirl of occult droning and flute-like tones fluttering through the haze. I wonder what they’ve been up to since this recording session, presuming of course that Ilta Hämärä remain bound to our earthly realm.

Infinity Division INTOXTC 12″ (Never Sleep)
Ash Luk was half of techno duo Minimal Violence, a project whose name somewhat outlined their electronic style, and now they’re producing tracks on their own under the Marvel Comics-sounding moniker of Infinity Division. INTOXTC is the debut EP, and it acts as kind of a bellwether for prevailing Berlin-centric electronic trends, moving away from the thick granite thwack of Sandwell-inspired industrial techno towards jungle breaks, Mortal Kombat-throwback raving and opulent goth-pop. Big trance chords shoot skyward over a mix of drum n’ bass cut-ups, streaks of acid and high-tempo warehouse kicks boldly make their presence felt, and just when you think you haven’t seen enough fishnets and latex, a commanding diva vocal redolent of Zola Jesus announces their ghostly presence on “Visions”. I can’t tell if Luk is trying a little too hard to sign to PAN here, throwing every trick in the book together in hopes that it all sticks, but on the other hand I find that sort of brashness appealing – why operate in half measures, especially when hyper-pop is taking off from doing exactly that? Listening to INTOXTC can feel like watching a highlight reel of rapid-fire slam dunks: maddening or transcendent, depending on your personal constitution the moment it meets your senses.

Läuten Der Seele Ertrunken Im Seichtesten Gew​ä​sser LP (World Of Echo)
Excellent solo outing from Christian Schoppik, half of gloomy folk-collagists Brannten Schnüre over in Würzburg, Deutschland. Rather than sharply diverge from Brannten Schnüre’s darkly whimsical horror musics, Schoppik essentially does more of the same thing as Läuten Der Seele, offering up two rich twenty-minute tracks here (as opposed to Brannten’s more compact song-form). What’s borrowed and what’s home-brewed is incredibly difficult to calculate, though I get the impression the majority of the sounds here were “found” elsewhere, stirred together by Schoppik into an enchanted revision of history. It’s essentially haunted Christmas music, stuff from old wooden churches centuries ago, long before the Coca Cola-looking Santa we know today showed up, probably even from back before Krampus turned evil. It’s beautiful, soul-stirring stuff, similar in some ways to the classical dream-states of The Caretaker but far more melodic and memorable, at least by my count. These two long passages are filled with different songs, sounds and atmospheres, all edited together with warmth and care. It’s a love letter to centuries past written in a manner that resonates with daring modern audiences like me and you.

Loopsel Öga För Öga / Eye For An Eye LP (DFA / Mammas Mysteriska Jukebox)
Loopsel arrived as yet another Swedish underground phenom with a “blink and it’s $100” debut album in 2020. How many hundred-dollarses am I expected to have, just to keep up?? A member of Monokultur and Skiftande Enheter, Elin Engström records solo as Loopsel, seemingly existing in conversation with her local noise contemporaries while leaning towards a moody, melancholic melodicism instead. She’s clearly got a solid understanding of how to blend the scabrous with the shimmering, in her other endeavors but most certainly as Loopsel, too. These songs connect the dots between Young Marble Giants and Cocteau Twins, rainy-day twee and industrial-ambient, and work particularly well as songs, memorable, hummable songs as likely to excite an obsessive sub-underground Swedeophile as your friendly neighborhood Radiohead-worshipping barista. At first, DFA’s business deal with the JJulius and Loopsel crew seemed unexpected, maybe even suspicious, but the simple act of listening to Öga För Öga / Eye For An Eye is all it takes to realize that this isn’t some oddity created for the sake of its own obscurity, but rather a beautiful, enveloping album unbound by genre allegiance. The possibility of a Rapture remix twelve-inch is merely a bonus.

Мир Mindecision LP (Beach Impediment)
Hardcore archeologists are a passionate bunch, but few areas outside of the major American cities have been as voraciously excavated as the DC / Virginia / Maryland de-militarized zone. And the hits just keep on coming! I for one had no idea there was the Cyrillically-named Мир operating out of Roanoke, VA in the mid ’80s, and I certainly had no idea they were this mercilessly ass-beating! Mindecision was released on cassette in 1985, their sole non-compilation offering in their day, and it’s staggeringly good. They remind me of Wrangler Brutes if they had an X-Claim!-styled drummer, or No Fraud if they played with the wild abandon of Autistic Behavior. Just furious, raging stuff, with the songs taking their own original forms rather than ripped from the obvious blueprints of Negative Approach and Minor Threat. There’s even a little of that early menacing psych-damage sound here, moments of No Trend / Spike In Vain self-annihilation that aged far better than MDC and DOA. A song like “What’s War For?” twists typical peace-punk vibes into something Reagan Youth would’ve sanctioned, and I can’t stop listening to it. If Mindecision hit vinyl in 1985 I’d be slugging it out on the various digital marketplaces for a copy, but Beach Impediment saved us the financial bruising with this tasteful and dare-I-say-necessary twelve-inch release.

Мotorbike Motorbike LP (Feel It)
No shortage of playful Midwestern punk on the Feel It label these days, the label itself having relocated to Cincinnati a few months(?) ago and surely becoming quickly inundated with all the punk weirdos in a few hours’ driving distance. Motorbike is a new band, full of Cincinnati locals alongside Welsh ex-pat Jamie Morrison on vocals, because if you’ve got a guy with an accent from the UK in your American band, you’ve gotta get him to sing! On their self-titled debut, Motorbike play a self-assured form of contemporary punk rock, cherrypicking the tastiest influences and throwing it together in a refined and effective form. Some Stooges’ chug, the sly power-pop romance of The Exploding Hearts, some Thin Lizzy guitar heroics, a little of Chubby & The Gang’s good-time pub-rock and an itchy post-punk energy redolent of a good number of Feel It bands. Very modern, in that timeless way. Some of these songs carry a cool driving energy and songwriting style beyond the standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure to remind me of that first (and fantastic) Ooga Boogas album, if it was played by punks not yet stricken by the onset of middle-age. Can’t necessarily say it surpasses the confluence of all these influences (or similar sounds), but they’re not re-writing the Holy Bible here, they’re playing music in a band they called Motorbike, which is success enough.

Pleaser Pleaser LP (Part Time)
There are worse things to do than go through the various entities named “Pleaser” on Discogs: DJs, butt-rockers, classic Harvey Milk albums, and now this shouty Danish punk group to round things out. They’re young and energetic with a self-described “lollipop chainsaw punk” sound, conjuring images of Hello Kitty wielding a spiked mace, or leather-jacketed femmes out for revenge. Their music is generally pretty fast and dense – kind of low on the lollipop side of the equation, to be honest – and the melodies are downer and unfriendly, an alt-grunge sound tinged with ’00s emo and played at hardcore speed. It’s interesting, but doesn’t quite result in something coherent or catchy enough to really lure me in. Part of that comes from the vocal delivery, which is almost always a monotone shout delivered by either of Pleaser’s two vocalists – the singing is so uniform across all of Pleaser that I find myself fatigued after either side, wondering what it’d be like if the vocalists tried something besides continuous full-volume wailing. And while I appreciate the somewhat eclectic collection of influences, the black-metal-inspired instrumental that ends the first side doesn’t strike me as beneficial to the overall album. It’s very cool that Pleaser found in each other a willingness to sound like 7 Year Bitch, AFI and Nog Watt at more or less the same time, I’m just not finding the final result to be especially, well, pleasing.

Rayne Rayne LP (Mighty Mouth Music)
Last month I was talking about the glorious randomness of the Almost Ready / Mighty Mouth empire, and now here’s a reissue of Rayne’s self-titled 1979 album, a four-figure psych-rock bonzer that appears on the grey market as frequently as Halley’s comet passes through our sky. Why not, right? I hadn’t spun this one before, not even in the form of its Shadoks reissue back in the ’00s, and I’m pleased to be making its acquaintance now, I tell you what. This is one of those “how come they never made it?” moments, as Rayne managed to combine the moody emotional righteousness of Neil Young, the street-rat strut of Dust or Leaf Hound and the blissful Southern harmonies of the Allman Brothers Band. This New Orleans-based squad sounded like Bob Dylan one moment, 1969 Blue Cheer the next, and often my favorite style, Bob Dylan as lead singer-songwriter of Blue Cheer. It’s obvious why this one became a rarified grail in the greasy world of obscure private ’70s rock collectors, as the songs themselves are as memorable, heartfelt and rockin’ as anything that came out on the majors back then, if not more.

Theee Retail Simps Live On Cool Street LP (Total Punk)
If the Total Punk label didn’t exist, it would be necessary to create it for the purpose of releasing music by Theee Retail Simps (you might also know them as Tha Retail Simps). They’re Canada’s finest bunch of rabble-rousers, vivid in my mind for playing pool with their guitars on the cover of their debut album and Instagram-beefing with some corporate-indie guy that kicked them off their tour. I forget his name, but I certainly remember thine Simps, who turn out another party-punk spectacular here. They don’t just rip a guitar solo, they’ll rip two or three at the same time (probably the same goes for their bongs), and they exude a manic punk energy throughout, like the runt offspring of Chris Farley and Black Randy tearing up some carpet. The music calls to mind the severely underrated Penetrators (from a couple hours’ drive and four decades away), securing their songs with a ruthless garage stomp and spazzing around on top of it, like those flapping inflatable tube men outside car dealerships. This time around, there’s even a hint of mellow hippie-burnout in some of these songs, though Joe Chamandy’s vocals are as blathering as ever, as congruous as Damian Abraham on those lite-shoegaze Fucked Up songs. The utter freeness at work here is exhilarating fun, equal parts bad-ass and silly; I’m reminds of Home Blitz in a spiritual sense, though he had a song called “Stupid Street” and Theee Retail Simps are cruising down Cool!

Silicone Prairie Vol. II LP (Feel It)
From my outsider perspective, the Kansas City / Lawrence punk scene is unique in its do-gooder vibes. All these cute and friendly bands, making their interesting punk art in cheap barns, helping each other out and having some wholesome fun… if I wasn’t mellowing out in my old age, it might almost be a little too much, you know? There isn’t a single shady label there that flakes on sending out a record everyone pre-ordered, or a band with sketchy lyrics that somehow gets to hang around, or even a notoriously drunk punk who keeps getting the cops called on DIY spaces out there! In the midst of all these feel-good vibes is Ian Teeple, egg-punk extraordinaire (and newest member of Snooper), who has been focusing his energy on community-aided solo-project Silicone Prairie. As Silicone Prairie, Teeple pulls back the spastic mania a few notches, taking a similar approach to the most recent Chronophage album, where it feels like they’re both trying to write theme songs for ’80s sitcoms that never existed. “Neon Moon” sounds like the theme for a public-access rom-com called Neon Moon; “Cows” sounds like a lo-fi take on the hyper-jangle that Angel Du$t have been boggling my mind with; “Elysian Fields” sounds like Ariel Pink when he was at the top of his Haunted Graffiti game… there’s a lot happening in these songs, vivid and bursting with ideas. Ten tracks, a couple of which are filler, though even the filler tracks are uncommonly engaging and add to the freaky-fun atmosphere. This is what happens when you’ve got Sweeping Promises planting flowers in your backyard!

Soft Shoulder Smile Building’s Exit LP (Gilgongo)
Not a lot of no-wave groups make it to seven full-lengths, but then again, not many no-wave groups have their own in-house label more or less dedicated to releasing their own music! If that sounds like I’m hating, maybe I am a tiny bit, but any sense of mild annoyance (or jealousy) quickly fades when I remember that I always enjoy the music of Soft Shoulder, this new album very much included. Sometimes they get a little conceptual, but this one is pretty straight-forward lo-fi disco punk, with the bass-guitar blaringly up front, crusty drums bashing along and vocals as fuzzy as they are sassy. Very much in line with the early Chromatics and Liars records, peak Y2K Troubleman Unlimited sounds to be certain. I’m sure there’s been at least one other no-wave wave since then – isn’t that kind of what Model/Actriz are all about now? – but Smile Building’s Exit sounds extremely twenty years ago, right down to the robotic throb of “Narrow Yellow Slip”, which reminds me that A Frames remain one of the greatest punk bands of the current century. Meanwhile, Soft Shoulder continue to deliver this satisfying sound well into our doomed future, and whether they’re operating in obliviousness or cunningly playing the long game, I’m glad they’re sticking it out.

Spiral Dub Spiral Dub LP (Sanctuary Moon)
Even with skyrocketing rents that already previously skyrocketed, a lot of the San Francisco underground seems eerily carefree and syrupy, content to see a flower and sniff it rather than hate it. The departed Life Stinks were a nice corrective to that vibe, vocalist Chad Kawamura being a big part of that equation, and I’m thrilled to see he’s making music with this new group, Spiral Dub. I know, “Spiral Dub” sounds like a techno project on Kompakt, but that’s precisely the sort of swerve these jokers like throwing our way – what else would you expect from an ensemble that also claims personnel from Pitchfork darlings DIIV and some band called Fuckwolf? Whereas Life Stinks were one-note kings of annoyance, Spiral Dub have clearly gotten too high to be cynical downers all of the time, even if that sense of the grim reaper reading your DMs over your shoulder remains tucked away in the far end of Spiral Dub’s DNA. Rather, I’m hearing the rowdy slacker-pop of Scott And Charlene’s Wedding, a touch of Happy Mondays’ blacked-out dance grooves, and on a track like “Hang From The Line” in particular, the jubilant, dance-y art-punk of Parquet Courts. “Punch Me In The Face” coalesces these styles with gusto, arriving with an immediately memorable hook in “punch me in the face / once for luck, and once for the fuck of it”, the sort of thing perfectly primed to receive weekly airplay on a 120 Minutes that no longer exists and hasn’t existed in decades. Thankfully I no longer need a late-night video program to tell me what’s cool – Spiral Dub is by far the coolest “indie” debut I’ve heard in ages!

Strapping Fieldhands Lyve: In Concerte LP (Ever/Never)
Sure, you can hit any one of those embarrassing tourist shops here in Philadelphia and pick up a t-shirt with a picture of Sun Ra eating a cheesesteak on the “Rocky steps” on it, but a pit-stained Strapping Fieldhands tee? That’s the real Philly, unable to be commodified even if it turned out the group was responsible for the word “jawn”. (They’re not.) Anyway, they were a weird folk-psych troupe playing for the bar crowds in the ’90s, and after a brief intermission they’re continuing on today as the same merry thing. Still, it can be nice to remember when nobody (as opposed to everybody) had grey hair, like on this live album which collects performances from the years 1993 through 1996. These renditions are spirited, loose and undoubtedly not sober, all with lively audience responses. I like them in this rougher, lo-fi, immediate form, fully immersed in the spirit of late-night college-radio rock and a proud nose-thumbing of the mainstream, less prone to sweating the fanciful details of a studio recording. The actual (as opposed to “throwback”) aura of the ’90s is especially prominent on the back-cover live photo: two members in backwards ball caps, all in shorts; one audience member in a Z. Cavaricci hoodie clutching his girlfriend tight; an inexplicable Adonis sitting behind the band on a stoop, shirtless in short-shorts and Adidas trainers with a backpack surely full of beers. Wonder what they made of the Fieldhands’ classic “Lonnie Donegan’s Mum’s Tea Chest”?

David Tholfsen Walk With Me LP (Spoor LLC)
Without question, David Tholfsen’s Walk With Me is the most demented record of the month! Of the decade, maybe? I wasn’t sure what to expect, what with David Tholfsen in a nature scene looking all singer-songwriterly on the cover, but I knew this was coming from the Barn Sour-affiliated Spoor label (and took note of Russ Waterhouse’s mastering credit), so something had to be off. My suspicions proved correct, so here’s the deal: Tholfsen goes on long walks, hums patterns to himself, then records them when he gets home, improvising multiple vocal takes over his original improvisations. It’s staunchly vocals only, harmonized in a way you’d expect from a barbershop quartet of salty sea captains, ninety-percent of which are without lyrics but rather oodles of “ooh”s, “dum-dah”s, “eee-yo”s and “wedda-loo”s. On one hand, it’s a completely maddening listen that grows only more intolerable as it progresses, but if you make it to the other side, it’s actually strangely beautiful? I’m up to half a dozen listens myself now (which might be a world record?) and my appreciation only increases as I follow the pacing of Tholfsen’s vocal melodies so clearly tied to his jaunty stomp down a wooded trail. Music can’t help but erupt from some humans, and it’s amazing that Tholfsen thought to record his internal rhythmic melodies, and doubly amazing that Spoor LLC thought to release it.

The Toads In The Wilderness LP (Anti Fade / Upset The Rhythm)
I hadn’t realized The Shifters were kaput, and maybe they aren’t, but it was a pleasure to hear the familiar voice of Miles Jansen fronting the equally affable Toads, fresh outta Melbourne. (Not to be confused with the Bay Area punk band Toads, a slightly different species.) Jansen teamed up with companions from Parsnip and The Living Eyes for In The Wilderness, an album of lively indie-pop that betrays none of The Toads’ members’ prior bands without directly repeating themselves. The squeaky pogo of The Fall’s early material is present and fresh-faced throughout, Jansen clearly enjoying himself as his bandmates hop and bop. I keep some of my Shifters records close at hand – Have A Cunning Plan is so warmly familiar at this point – and while some of the gleeful simplicity of The Shifters’ songwriting has given way to more elaborate (by comparison) arrangements here, The Toads are playing beach-party indie-punk, not “in the wilderness” so much as in a floating inner tube with cold drink in hand. No shortage of this kinda stuff coming from Melbourne, but that’s no complaint when it’s as agreeable and gratifying as The Toads.

John Wiese Magnetic Stencil 1 LP (Gilgongo)
Three separate volumes have arrived from noise lifer John Wiese on vinyl following their previous CD releases, extracted and assembled from a potpourri of fellow sonic travelers. He’s called them Magnetic Stencil, and just like Netflix, Wiese dropped all three episodes at once, allowing us to binge at will. This first volume has a pretty stacked list of contributors, from Aaron Dilloway to Lasse Marhaug, Charmaine Lee to Hair Stylistics, though the ability to ascribe any single sonic moment to its originating source is firmly out of reach. The answer, then, is to just sit back and let Wiese take the wheel, he being one of the masters of violent and painful jump-scare noise cut-ups. This first volume might be my favorite, filled with plenty of strange vocalizing (Aaron Dilloway and Charmaine Lee, is that you?), sounding as if the record is being yanked off the turntable by multiple hands, sometimes all at once. Ragged radiator noise gets bleeped out for tongue-pops and one persistent tuning fork; ham radios are sliced into ham sandwiches; alien transmissions are interrupted by a firehose filled with Mountain Dew. One could’ve truncated this set down to a single album, I suppose, but the results are pure uninhibited excitement, so three LPs it is!

Benefit For Prevention Point compilation 7″ (Strange Mono)
Philadelphia’s Strange Mono has taken the admirable stance of donating all proceeds from their releases to various worthwhile causes, this seven-inch compilation going towards Prevention Point. I truly thought benefit seven-inch compilations were a thing of the past, and I’m not even sure how it’s possible to make any profit on a seven-inch release in 2023, but hats off to them for figuring it out, or at least trying! This EP features six tracks from six different Philly groups, an enjoyable smorgasbord of what’s currently popping off in basements across the city. MESH are holding down the egg-punk wacky-sunglasses vibe and Added Dimensions arrive with some poppy post-punk strum, but the rest of the EP gets pretty grisly, with metal/grind/more metal from the likes of Shitty Wizard, Nothing Is Over, Programmed Hatred and Concrete Caveman. Very crusty stuff, music that has me lifting my His Hero Is Gone buttflap patch in order to use the house venue’s greywater flushing system. Music of a style befitting a DIY benefit comp, no doubt, where no matter how scary the double-bass metal of Concrete Caveman gets, I’m sure they’re group-hugging MESH and Added Dimensions by the end of the night. Seems strange it wasn’t packed in a silkscreened manilla envelope, but maybe it’s harder to steal from Staples these days.

Reviews – August 2023

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Alien Eyelid Bronze Star LP (Tall Texan)
Doesn’t get much taller or more Texan than this, the sophomore album from Houston’s Alien Eyelid. A band name like that has me picturing a bongwater-powered stoner-rock spaceship, but Alien Eyelid leave their distortion pedals and Orange amps out in the desert somewhere, preferring to get all sorts of countrified down-home rockin’ instead. Their sound comes from what must be a love of John Prine, The Grateful Dead, Blaze Foley, CSNY and all that ’70s mustache / bald-with-long-hair Americana that has charmed multiple generations of easy-going pleasure-seekers. Long-haired and friendly, Alien Eyelid don’t play up on the hokey, gimmicky aspects of the style though, preferring to let their ensemble-chooglin’ and delicate vocal melodies lead the way. Theirs is a sound entirely undisturbed by any person, place or thing more recent than 1974, though it’s my understanding that members of Alien Eyelid have played in all sorts of bands that most certainly don’t sound like this (hardcore and noise, among other things). Well, they know how to channel the vibe! These songs are humble and warm, the band singing about real-people stuff in a way that doesn’t feel trite or phony, with a sense of gratitude for getting to play these songs together and share them with any willing listeners. I’m glad to have listened.

American Nightmare Dedicated To The Next World 10″ (Heartworm Press)
There have never been more ways to be a hardcore band than right now, and while it wasn’t always this way, American Nightmare’s existence is most certainly a minority path in 2023. They’re a cult-worshipped life-changing band from like twenty years ago, who tour sporadically with a sound – fast melodic Boston mosh with diaristic lyrics – far from the more popular trends of today, still releasing new records but feeling more like a side-project to their various adult lives than the all-consuming existence of their twenties. They’ve got a reliable following of mostly their same age group, but the hype fests of today’s hardcore youth are asking other bands to play, you know? It’s a curious place to be, kind of a real band who previously defined an era, and I appreciate that they soldier on if simply because they’re hardcore dudes who have devoted themselves to playing hardcore music and will do so for the rest of their lives. Which, in their case, includes releasing a ten-inch EP of four new songs! I felt compelled to check it out, and I appreciate that their overall style hasn’t dramatically shifted, neither to the dominating trend of chugga-NYHC beatdown or moody synth-infusions (no need when you’ve also got Cold Cave, bandleader Wes Eisold’s more active engagement). It still sounds like post-Y2K Bridge Nine hardcore, and though Eisold’s voice isn’t quite as violent as it used to be, I’d imagine he’s not as violent as he used to be either, so it fits. My favorite track is the unexpected “Self Check-Out”, with what appears to be electronic drums and direct-input guitar for a fist-pumping sideways-stage-dive anthem, though “Real Love” could be a lost Nation Of Ulysses track for crying out loud. If today’s younger hardcore bands want to start sounding like Nation Of Ulysses, I wouldn’t be mad!

Anadol Hat​​​ı​​​ralar LP (Pingipung)
Anadol is easily one of the coolest artists to arrive on my radar in the last five years or so, 2018’s Uzun Havalar and 2022’s Felicita receiving endless plays in both home and car. And yet, I hadn’t tracked down her 2017 digital-only debut Hat​​​ı​​​ralar, that is until Pingipung recently reissued it! I didn’t expect it to be as good as the other two, and while it’s certainly not, it’s still a fun and rewarding listen, a pleasant glimpse of a semi-formed Anadol. The main distinction is that the music here is entirely synthetic, with the familiar sounds of old-school drum machine beats and cosmic synths driving the songs completely. Her melodic talent is clear from the get-go, but whereas later releases utilized a wide range of instrumentation, these songs are more like switched-on lounge music from the ’70s, something between Bruce Haack and Wendy Carlos with a touch of that Brain Records-styled krautrock fusion. The same general sound palate exists throughout, though Anadol is always a deft composer, squeezing a sultry melodrama out of “Orman Yangını” with casual ease. If this came from someone else, I’d be very impressed, and while I wouldn’t say I’m not impressed, it’s also kind of like watching video footage of Michael Jordan’s college career: spectacular, but a far cry from their future greatness.

Animal Piss It’s Everywhere Animal Piss It’s Everywhere LP (Half A Million)
Not the band name we wanted, but surely the band name we deserve: here’s the debut from Animal Piss It’s Everywhere! This Western Mass sextet are a whole lot of amusing fun, a hearty indie-country jam with head-turning lyrics. Imagine Silver Jews on an obsessive Workingman’s Dead kick with laugh-out-loud lyrics, and you can understand why it’s near-impossible to dislike the stylings of Animal Piss It’s Everywhere without being a bonafide hater. There are no less than two songs here that reference Jesus in the title (“I Like Jesus” and “Jesus Got Under My Skin”), plenty of direct commentary on wine and drugs and the situations that arise from their partaking, and a straight-faced delivery that makes it all work. They go from a falsetto harmonizing of the phrase “hot sewage” (in the song “Hot Sewage”) right into the next tune’s repeated sing-along chorus of the phrase “naked ass man blues” (“Naked”). I always loved that live video of Dr. Hook on German television where they’re all completely off their rockers wasted/high, barfing barely off-camera and falling off their stools with big warts poking out of their beards, and wondered when that specific mix of disgusting and joyous sensations might enter the roots-rock equation again. The answer is no clearer than Animal Piss It’s Everywhere.

Big Burly Tumors 7″ (Strange Mono)
You never really hear about anything being small burly, do you? Big Burly is a new Philly group and they’re hooked up by local label Strange Mono for their debut seven-song seven-inch, Tumors. Their sound takes me back to the realm of gleefully slop-tastic wannabe power-violence circa 1998, back when the coolest skate-rats in a few select suburbs across the US wanted to sound like Spazz. Big Burly avoid grinding (or really any sort of speed at all), instead delivering the slow and mid-paced parts that No Comply and Godstomper would’ve written between fast-core blast beats. I suppose you’d file it under “noise-rock” in that case, but there’s something happening here that feels equally as likely to be on a compilation LP alongside Charles Bronson and Suppression as a volume of Dope-Guns-‘N-Fucking In The Streets. Weirdly, Big Burly have two bassists and no guitarist, but the sound is just as trebly and itchy as the aforementioned Godstomper and No Comply. Maybe they only used amps that can be carried with one hand (or simply recorded it to sound that way), but it’s a DIY-sounding affair, right down to the distorted squeal of vocalist Dan T. If you want polished hardcore, you can go to the mall!

Burger Service Demo 12″ (Bergpolder)
Misleading Band Name Alert: if the idea of a project called “Burger Service” releasing their demo on vinyl is conjuring images of dirtbag garage-punkers in leather jackets and tighty-whities, I’m right there with you, but we couldn’t be more wrong! Burger Service is not remotely American for starters, but rather the project of Dutch-raised Belgium resident Jan Tromp, and it’s actually a subdued and tasteful indie-wave thing. A track like “Vervandaan Wordt Ingekort” sounds like The Xx with a touch of Flying Nun, and the track that follows it, “Sneeuws”, sounds like the elevator pop of Francisco Franco, or Young Marble Giants’ instrumental Testcard EP. Soft, homespun and appealing stuff, which also calls to mind the free-form synth-wave dalliances of Hessel Veldman. It’s released on Bergpolder, the always-adventurous Dutch label with ties to Lewsberg, and it also feels like the sort of surprise Euro-indie act I’d expect to find from Stroom, if that makes sense to any fellow Stroomheads reading this. It doesn’t sound like a demo so much as a balanced set of well-considered tunes, the dainty instrumental drum-machine tracks pairing well with the comparatively upbeat “Niemand Heeft De Schuld” and “Afslag Zuidas” (a Strokes-y one-two punch). I always knew that I’d one day find myself singing along with a song in Dutch, I just never expected it’d be something called Burger Service.

Burnt Envelope I’m Immature: The Singles Vol. II LP (HoZac)
I was confident that Heavy Metal’s IV: Counter Electrode / Iron Mono was going to be the greatest reissue of a couple years’ old cassette from a punk-as-disturbing-sketch-comedy project in 2023, but now I’m listening to Burnt Envelope’s I’m Immature: The Singles Vol. II and not so sure! I still love that Heavy Metal album dearly, but Burnt Envelope are equally demented in all the right ways. For starters, it appears that this is a collection of imaginary “singles”, the second such collection to Burnt Envelope’s name, fantasizing rare seven-inch EPs that never actually came. The group is more or less the work of Anthony Pasquarosa, whose name I remember from the grisly hardcore of SQRM and Aerosols (and apparently moonlighting in Animal Piss It’s Everywhere, too!). I loved those groups, but Burnt Envelope might be his finest moment yet: rudimentary, bad-kid punk rock ala the earliest Killed By Death era, sounding truly backwater and miserable in the best of ways. Over basic shit-can guitar and drums, Pasquarosa rants, argues with himself, accuses and jeers like the unknown punk outsiders of yore, on par with The Generics’ “The Bitt”, Peer Pressure’s “Underachiever”, Nubs’s “Job” and even the theatrical trash of Jimmy Smack and crude menace of Bobby Soxx. He picks apart his own band at one point, fake-cries like a baby the next, and then rolls out an echoed sample of an extended WWF promo over a brooding instrumental. In other words, just really great stuff, the sort of thing that would happen if The Spits devolved into a basement project or if Amyl & The Sniffers was just one single brain-damaged Sniffer, left to wander the streets alone while recording his ugly thoughts on tape. No offense to anyone else, but I’m Immature is far and away the punkest record of the month.

Feeble Little Horse Girl With Fish LP (Saddle Creek)
Not ashamed to admit my love of poppy emo, although it can be harder to find something fresh within the genre as I enter graying beard territory (speaking for myself, at least). Seems like there’s a million more bands than ever before (this goes for every genre, really), and while I’m not checking out every last one of them, it feels pretty safe to say that Pittsburgh’s Feeble Little Horse are one of the best things going for emo in its multitudinous forms. I loved their debut album and am settling into Girl With Fish nicely, as the best parts of their debut are still in place, just with new songs and a confident hold on what they’re trying to do. If you’re not already familiar, they’ve got these weirdly distorted, lo-fi shoegaze guitars, drums that sound like they were recorded in the other room, at least one or two tracks of amp feedback that turn on and off at appropriate times, and the captivating vocals of Lydia Slocum. Her voice is expressive yet detached, rich with individuality and that sweetly nihilistic Zoomer attitude. Like Stephin Merritt and Kathleen Hanna, I can already picture a new generation of indie-rockers trying to copy her singing style, so infectiously weird as it is and with great lyrics to boot. It’s a striking sound for sure, but any form of pop music requires catchy hits, and Girl With Fish comes prepared, from the Duster-ish “Tin Man” to the hazy grunge of “Steam Roller”, sounding like Helium on helium, or a hit off the first Rentals album chased down the street by Hijokaidan. Fantastic stuff, and lightyears beyond the emo made by millennials, which we can all agree was the worst era of emo thus far.

Freak Heat Waves Mondo Tempo LP (Mood Hut)
We can always count on Vancouver’s Mood Hut for relaxed-fit dance music; nostalgic sonic templates updated for today’s modern needs. This new one from Victoria, BC’s Freak Heat Waves fits the bill perfectly, melding laid-back ’80s cheese with after-hours hipster flavor. Mondo Tempo calls to mind contemporary artists like Juju & Jordash and labelmates Pender Street Steppers, Daughn Gibson’s sensual Carnation album and original Balearic inspirations like Tullio De Piscopo, Kano and New Order, all of it washed in a soothingly narcoleptic rinse. Pure Moods for today’s obsessive cratediggers. It’s music where you start off listening in a chair and find yourself flat on the floor by the end, which has been one of my favorite genres lately. The vocalist plays no small role in achieving this state, as his languid, recently-awoken voice is a dead-ringer for Tin Man, whose similarly icy drawl elevated records like Wasteland and Cool Wave to ’00s synth-wave classics. Music as vibe-y as this often gets lost in its own accoutrement, worried more about set-dressing than plot, but Freak Heat Waves have been at it for a while, and the songs they’ve programmed here are fresh and original, a sophisticated balance of pleasant and weird. Sweet stuff, even if the name of the group will grow less and less cute with every subsequent record-breaking summer on this doomed planet.

Geld Currency // Castration LP (Relapse)
A fresh combo here: raging hardcore-punk from Melbourne (of all places) on Relapse (of all labels)! A few cynical contrarians reading this are probably quipping something about how Relapse releases lots of hardcore-grind, and while I appreciate them for keeping me on my toes, Currency // Castration is purely grind-free, thank you very much. While I wouldn’t say it’s completely devoid of metal’s influence, those aspects play out more in the poisonous guitar tones and blown-out drum sound than the songwriting or drumming. Geld borrow sparingly from black-metal and thrash (and Septic Death), sparsely applying it to the overall sonic experience, which is fast raging hardcore with a smattering of moshy breakdowns. I’m strongly reminded of the sound and style Youth Attack fostered in the ’10s, sounding more like Aerosols, Raw Nerve and even The Repos than anything else, really. The riffing is very much in line there – a more complicated take on first-wave hardcore like Rattus and Die Kreuzen – and the gravel-voiced shouting of un-Googleable vocalist Al Smith seems to take more influence from Ildjarn than Uniform Choice, which of course is the way of the Youth Attack breed. Geld break up the onslaught with the instrumental industrial soundscape “Across A Broad Plain”, which feels more like a G.I.S.M. move than anything else, and which I’m hopefully allowed to say out loud now without one of their members crawling out of some old fiber-optic cables in my basement and strangling me. Come to think of it, G.I.S.M. are on Relapse now, too! Everything is crazy!

Incipientium Underg​å​ng LP (Happiest Place)
Richly developed noise record here from the tongue-twisting Incipientium, alias of lone Swede Gustav Danielsbacka. Not that I’d expect anything less than thoughtfully-crafted from the Gothenburg scene, but even so, Underg​å​ng stands out. Using voice, magnetic tape, sampler and “acoustic instruments”, Incipientium slowly moves from the deeply-rumbling crackle of Ramleh to the temperamental fog-zones of Demdike Stare, all with the “hand-made in a creepy old barn out back” feel of Aaron Dilloway. Can’t help but hear some similarities to Neutral as well, in the way that the music sounds like decaying organic material as opposed to crisp digital noise rendered from mouse-clicks. I say noise, but plenty of Underg​å​ng is subdued and almost melodic, the opposite of in-your-face (out of your face?); there are moments early on the second side that have me imagining Fennesz in a Tom Hanks Cast Away situation, resorting to composing his dazzling electronic soundscapes on downed palm leaves, a dying radio transponder and hollowed out coconut shells. Sorry, crime scene and bondage photo enthusiasts: this noise record offers neither, only a shiny silver stripe upon which to reflect your own blurry self-image.

Karenn Everything Is Curly 12″ (Voam)
Juggernaut duo of Jamie Roberts (better known as Blawan) and Arthur Cayzer (aka Pariah) blew me away with the debut of their adamantine cyber-death project Persher last year (still waiting on a vinyl release, guys!), but they’ve also been operating as Karenn for a number of years now. It’s crazy how Roberts never seems to miss… I’d forgive an airball or two at this point, but no, Everything Is Curly is an inspired four-track EP of rigid and uniquely-abrasive techno. These tracks engage like sharkskin, visibly smooth but prickly to the touch. Bass-lines creep up to the midrange and the rhythms twist (or should I say curl) like a snake up your arm, a hectic sense of motion always present. Great stuff! Samples are scuffed-up and tossed in, the heavy-artillery synths are only lightly invoked and it seems like these two are simply having a swell time together, making club tracks, or at least their interpretation of club tracks. Opener “Feeling Horizontal” is my favorite, reminiscent of Audion’s sleaziest hits and bustling with chaotic activity… it’s what I’d imagine John Wick would try to make if he traded in his guns for a copy of Ableton Live.

Al Karpenter & CIA Debutante Al Karpenter & CIA Debutante LP (Ever/Never)
Weird recognize weird, it would seem, as Basque noise-prank provocateur Al Karpenter has joined forces with French experimental-trash duo CIA Debutante for a full-length player (released in tandem with a solo (but guest-filled) Al Karpenter album). I haven’t heard anything from CIA Debutante I haven’t enjoyed, and Karpenter is a guaranteed wild-card, so it comes as no surprise that this self-titled collaboration leaves a satisfied smirk on my face. CIA Debutante are always up for downsizing, removing necessary elements of song-form (even avant-garde or post-punk song-form) to leave behind the picked-apart carcass of a tune, and Karpenter takes the opportunity to roll around in it, spouting off-the-cuff lyrics about medieval cocaine (“Medieval Cocaine”) and public scaffolding (“Public Scaffolding”) with the vigor and froth of Mark E. Smith’s Von Südenfed contributions. As is frequently the case, Al Karpenter comes with Mattin and friends in tow here, who add percussion and electrical interference (and “computer”) to Nathan Roche’s incidental guitar and Paul Bonnet’s shortwave electronics. These tracks have the feeling of being executed live in person, but also being post-operatively disassembled in true Shadow Ring fashion, levels raised and altered with abandon. I once questioned if Al Karpenter was a real person on here, and then he showed up in my Instagram comments asserting his existence! I almost thought I heard him speak to me personally during the uneasily-musical closer “This Is An Invisible Song”, but when I go back to play it again, it’s gone.

Graham Lambkin Aphorisms 2xLP (Black Forms Editions)
The field of quiet domestic experimental tinkering has grown crowded over the last few years, but Graham Lambkin reaffirms his status as master of the genre here with this new double album, Aphorisms. I find myself a little leery of the presumably-moneyed Blank Forms Editions label, who kind of arrived on the scene fully LLC’d with a business-y art-world vibe (their Discogs pages lists eight people on their “board of directors” and over a dozen on the “curatorial advisory board”, what is this, Succession?), but all Lambkin needs is some thick black vinyl and a sturdy sleeve and he can let his music (or complete lack thereof) speak for itself. Aphorisms is certainly a “piano record”, but in as much as the demolished pile of bricks and insulation down the street from my house is still a pizza restaurant. Recorded in both London and the Blank Forms studio in New York (see what I mean: they have their own studio!) and cross-edited, Lambkin summons high drama from incidental noise, the inner and outer workings of your standard-issue piano and surely a bevy of other unidentified causers of sound. I like it best when the piano is drifting away at sea, its wires gradually resonating, as Lambkin huffs, puffs and abruptly screams into it, an auditory jump-scare crafted out of common household items. It’s crazy how he can configure so much nothing into such a transfixing final product; lots of copycats out there with the same general materials but none of them could put together Aphorisms, not even if the Blank Forms Cultural Advisory Board taught a seminar on it.

Leda Neuter LP (Discreet Music)
The noisy Swedish underground continues to churn at a consistent pace, but I found myself growing disconnected with the amateur folk performance / domestic field-recording style which has really risen in prominence over the last couple years. Thank god for Leda then, half of powerhouse industrial/psych duo Neutral, whose debut solo album knocked my socks off. She’s back with Neuter, and it rules! Once again, it seems to be all (or at least extremely mostly) guitar, working a live looping technique where the crunch of a muted riff becomes the rhythmic backdrop for further heavy-psych exploration. Her playing is crude and powerful, and while the concept of layering guitar loops in real-time is as old as the loop pedal itself, Leda has found a compellingly ugly way to do it. Her guitar whooshes, squeaks, churns and vibrates without ever feeling cluttered, and though it’d probably be best to file Neuter under “experimental” instead of “rock”, she finds clever ways to integrate heavy stoner riffs in the mix. The first track on the second side sounds like Bill Nace covering an Emily Robb instrumental, for example, rejiggering a classic chord progression into something suitable for Throbbing Gristle and Randy Holden fans alike. Recommended!

Lifeguard Crowd Can Talk / Dressed In Trenches LP (Matador)
There are many steps towards feeling old in the underground: when your friend’s younger sibling starts going to shows; when your friend’s kid starts going to shows; a formative band breaks up; a formative band reunites; a formative band’s kids start a band. In this case, I’m hearing that the ranks of Chicago indie-rock band Lifeguard include at least one child of a member of the band The Ponys, who also released an album on Matador earlier this millennium. Sheesh! It’s bad enough hearing Wolfgang Van Halen on terrestrial rock radio and being reminded of my mortality, but I guess I hoped indie-rockers would be too hip to breed. Anyway, what’s even weirder to me is that Lifeguard don’t rebuff their parents’ style with a Mountain Dew Code Red-soaked 100 Gecs sound, but mostly adhere to an aggressive Y2K indie-emo aesthetic. These songs sound like Milemarker, Drive Like Jehu, a touch of Unwound, a whiff of Q And Not U and perhaps most of all, a subdued, less-incomprehensible At The Drive-In. Curious set of influences for a trio of youngsters, and kind of refreshing, as it’s nice to hear people under the age of forty who still have some cartilage left in their knees playing this sorta thing. And it’s on Matador, of all labels! Time is feeling less and less like a valid concept.

Brandon López Vilevilevilevilevilevilevile LP (TAO Forms)
Most annoying album title of the month without a doubt (and it’s not even the “complete” version, which apparently goes on a lot longer?), but all is forgiven when considering the meaty heft of Brandon López’s solo bass brutalizations. He’s known for playing in all sorts of improv trios, and while I’ve enjoyed him live alongside Steve Baczkowski and his car engine-sized saxophone, this new solo venture is a real highlight. López gets messy and violent from the get-go, moaning and wailing along with his standup bass in a way that reminds me of Bill Orcutt on “LikeTheEdgeOfAMachete”. The motion is constant and hectic, at times recalling the incessant synapse-firing violin of Agencement, or on “PonceNewYork”, sounding like he’s trying to replicate a full grindcore unit with only his two hands and a large, hollow, wooden box with strings. Even when he commits to simply tapping the body of the bass, it’s urgent and fierce. The energy is palpable throughout, and while the recording is precise and clean, it provides a close-up of the blood under his fingernails as opposed to filtering it away. Hell, you know what, this album can have as many viles as it wants! Even a Kurt would be nice.

The Malakas She’s My Walkin’ Rock N’ Roll 7″ (Almost Ready)
Almost Ready has been at it for quite a while now, and their promotional style has always been entertainingly lax. They’ll release a record without updating their website, reissue a reissue they already reissued, put out a brand new band and press up a demo from 1979 at the same time… it’s the opposite of industry professionalism, and I always appreciate it. You won’t be plagued by Instagram ads and unboxing TikToks if you keep up with Almost Ready, that’s for sure! This leads me to this seven-inch single by The Malakas, a band I had never heard of, with two copyrights on the back cover, one for 2000 and one for 2022. I’m always curious enough to Google bands like this, and it appears they existed right around Y2K, may or may have not released a CD or two, and then guitarist/vocalist Cranford Nix sadly passed away (there is now a tribute website for him, his various projects showcased and documented by a loving friend). It seems to be an all-too-familiar story, drugs wiping out a wild life ahead of its time, and these two songs certainly sound like the kind of Heartbreakers-y punk such a character would make. The lyrics are casually offensive by today’s standards, unsurprisingly; the a-side opts for a three-chord Ramones kick and the b-side is an acoustic-driven tirade driven by expletives and insults, in the spirit of the acoustic GG Allin records but closer in sound to Paul Westerberg. Which is all to say, this record is bad-apple punk that who else but Almost Ready would save from total obscurity.

Ron Morelli Heart Stopper 2xLP (L.I.E.S.)
Naturally, when the clubs were packed in a pre-Covid world, Ron Morelli insisted on making noxious ambient noise, and then when everything closed down, he put together the tracks for Heart Stopper, an unflinching and extensive set of hardware-driven house jams. Gotta love his style, essentially building his own cool-ass network of gritty techno individualists through nothing short of years of hard work, and Heart Stopper, his first solo full-length in four years, reminds us that Morelli is never, ever to be shorted. I saw a video of him demonstrating how he makes beats a little while ago, and for as chill as he maintains his demeanor, you could just tell he was psyched as hell to program a couple machines, run them alongside an old sequencer and build a caustic dance track from the ground up. That’s what Heart Stopper is, a love-letter indebted to after-hours dance music, far from the commercialized realms of corny EDM festivals and Tesla-driving Tiësto fans. These tracks are primitive, exposed, occasionally grouchy and often promiscuous, calling to mind Adam X, Joey Beltram, Clock DVA and Bam Bam. Uncompromising and heartfelt, where pop-industrial, tech-house and EBM meet. Not sure if that’s Lydia Lunch providing the uncredited sexy-scary vocal on “Tangled Trap Of Love”, but I can picture her dragging me down the basement steps behind a Manhattan club while Morelli watches, slowly finishing his cigarette with his hood up rather than offering me any help.

No Reality Daddy Longnose 7″ (Industry Standards)
California’s No Reality features personnel from Acrylics, Smirk and Spiritual Cramp (although I get the impression only one of them wrote and performed this EP?), and he/they open it with “Buying Drugs”, a near pisstake of modern hardcore. The pogo-mosh riff is just so distinctly beholden to Gel, Gag, Spy and countless others that I can’t tell if it’s parodying the genre in the way that Crucial Unit did with straight-edge or if it’s simply just a hardcore song like many others. The rest of the EP, while not as blatantly mosh-pandering, is more or less on the same tip: “Daddy Longnose” sounds like Iron Cross covering SOA (though the metallic guitar solo and breakdown finale throw this comparison a little off), and Smirk guests on “Fashion Rocker”, which means choppier punk-rock guitar (and maybe that he’s not a full-time member of No Reality). The vocals are firmly in the 86 Mentality school of gorilla mouth – always a fine way to go – and the song titles and written insert have me wondering what combination of “serious” and “joking” No Reality are delivering. If the question is “can anyone take a hardcore song called ‘Daddy Longnose’ seriously?”, I appreciate that No Reality have left me with no easy answer.

Optic Sink A Face In The Crowd 7″ (Spacecase)
Future-primitive punk outfit Optic Sink evolves from the duo of Nots’s Natalie Hoffmann and Girls Of The Gravitron’s Ben Bauermeister to a lean trio on this two-song single. Sounds great! “A Face In The Crowd” is motorik-punk with sass and class, the drums locked in place, the guitars thin and queasy and Hoffmann’s dead-stare vocals penetrating any non-metal surface. Sounds like Blondie if they signed to Subterranean in 1980 and were never heard from again by 1982. “Landscape Shift” is the flip, leaning harder into the rhythm-boxes and synths, eschewing guitars entirely while Hoffmann’s vocal sneer maintains a post-punk rather than new-wave stance. It’s as if someone gassed the punk bar with Italo-disco and the survivors came out sounding like this. I could certainly go for more songs like either of these, but for now I’ll be content to flip A Face In The Crowd back and forth until my carpal tunnel starts to kick in.

People Skills Hum Of The Non-Engine LP (Digital Regress)
People Skills (one Jesse Sinclair Dewlow) was doing the whole dilapidated-ambient thing long before the underground shifted its attention in that direction, and while that sort of oversaturation can sometimes point out an artist’s inherent disposability, Hum Of The Non-Engine is a shining example of what a true talent can do in the genre. People Skills has always toed the line between organized song and random noise, and the beauty of this new one is the way in which he melds the two. A buzzing loop will become the basis for a quiet indie dirge; keyboards flash on and off like fireflies and you only realize he was quietly murmuring some lyrics after the song is over. Can lo-fi hum, sampled drums in the far-off distance and a single strummed guitar string comprise a song? Damn straight if its People Skills it can! This new album is like the perfect convergence of Félicia Atkinson’s incidental-domestics and Flying Saucer Attack’s sandpaper-melodicism, sounding like a tiny basement band slowly consumed by the piles of cassette tapes and thrift-store synths that surround them and in turn becoming its own distinct thing entirely. Like I said, it feels like everyone is trying to record the sound of their empty kitchen and mix it with lonesome-sounding synths/guitars these days, but I swear if you didn’t tell me who this record was by, I’d recognize it as People Skills from the quaalude vocals, blue guitars and expressively-vague mood that surrounds it all.

Road Soda World’s Greatest Disappointment LP (What’s For Breakfast?)
Lots of cool, thought-provoking records reviewed this month, but none of them startled me as violently as the new full-length from Davenport, IA’s Road Soda. Why, you ask? Because I truly believed this particular style of extremely ’90s numbskull pop-punk ceased to exist! Much to my surprise, here are Road Soda, behaving as if the last twenty-seven years didn’t happen. Their style is an exact amalgam of The Nobodys, The Vindictives, Guttermouth, The Queers and any local pop-punk demo that dared to parody the South Park characters on its cover in 1997. I wouldn’t be surprised if these guys are the last remaining Boris The Sprinkler fans left on the planet, and you know what, I think I love them for it. All their songs are about how much they suck, or being losers who can’t help but party… I can practically picture them crawling out from underneath the ramps of an indoor suburban skate-park, Encino Man-style, assuming it’s still funny to talk like Beavis and wear a chain wallet so long you trip over it. One song takes a shot at Luke Perry (as if he’s still on the tip of everyone’s tongue!), and there’s another song called “Who’s Bad? Party Time”, a slogan that I understand to have originated from beer bong funnels, because when I was in high school in the ’90s I had friends in a basement pop-punk band (just like this one!) who actually named their demo CD-r Who’s Bad Party Time. Road Soda’s drummer’s name is even “Scud”, like the infamous missile used in the first Iraq war! I might have to skip writing about anything besides Road Soda for the next few months, so deeply have they struck a chord with both my fifteen year-old self and however old I am today.

Rocket 808 House Of Jackpots LP (12XU)
I think we’ve all agreed that “guilty pleasures” is a faulty concept, but I definitely believe in the similar notion of liking something you shouldn’t like. On paper, and even in execution, Rocket 808 isn’t something that would normally jive with my tastes – honky-tonk guitar over programmed rhythms – yet I can’t deny the pleasures it brings. Opener “Under Surveillance” sounds like the soundtrack to a commercial advertising a Ford F-150-inspired men’s body-hair trimmer, just really boldly in your face with that Jack Daniels-scented Old Spice vibe, and yet here I am, calmly tapping along with it while I warm up my morning oatmeal. The riffs are staunchly in the ZZ Top / Link Wray school of desert-casino rock, and they chug along with nary a care in the world, dropping a pair of pink fuzzy dice on every rear-view mirror within earshot. It’s a very different form of being cool than the ones I usually ascribe to – no other record this month will sound like an Elvis impersonator peeling out across the set of Breaking Bad – but there’s something so timelessly attractive to these slow-simmering guitar lines that I find myself fully along for the ride, no matter how many cactuses are in our path and vultures on our tail.

Son Of Dribble Son Of Drib Against The Wind LP (Minimum Table Stacks)
It’s cool that the nascent Minimum Table Stacks label is investing in both obscure cult artifacts as well as modern-day obscure cult groups. You can file Son Of Dribble in the second column, as this is a currently-functioning group out of Columbus, OH who carry the Columbus sound with pride. While their recording quality is significantly clearer than your average Columbus Discount Records release, the band’s demeanor and approach to songwriting are in a similar boat, a kind of slacker-y, half-drunk style where anything can knock a song gleefully off course and at least half of the instruments are borrowed from strangers for the night. Imagine if Protomartyr decided to write a full album in a day and only remembered their plans at 6:00 PM, or if Mordecai and The Walkmen had to combine into one band against their will… it’s classic indie-rock strum that sounds like it’s all beat up and doesn’t care, lumps proudly on display. Son Of Dribble’s is a style that relies heavily on charm, but they’ve got more than their share; they seem like they could talk their way into any backstage area, convincing everyone that “Son Of Dribble” is a perfectly normal and appealing band name by the end of the night.

Patrick Stas If Paul K.’s Life Was A Movie, This Would Be The Soundtrack Of His Death LP (Stroom / Kontakt Group)
As is often the case with Stroom releases, I’ll just start by saying I have no idea what the hell this is. From what I think I understand, it’s a guy named Patrick Stas, who also goes by the name Paul K., who appeared on a couple tapes back in the early ’80s, sometimes with a group called Gheneral Thi Et Les Fourmis, but also on a couple random remixes in the late ‘2010s? You’d think we’d have run out of musical mysteries by now, especially cool post-punk ones, and yet Stroom keeps digging and hitting gold. If Paul K.’s Life Was A Movie is a fantastic collection of this guy’s work, all of which is extremely Euro-sounding instrumental cold-wave post-punk, rife with funky bass, clinking electronic drums, bleating keys, brittle guitars and an imposing sense of dread that’s impossible to ignore. Feels right in line with Trisomie 21, Fred A., Ceramic Hello, Grauzone; any music that was created with a Korg in a dust-filled warehouse without working heat in 1983 to an audience of no one. I kinda can’t believe Patrick Stas’s stuff stayed undiscovered for this long, considering the quality of the music, which really displays the best that depressive cold-wave music can offer, back when it was the result of singular creative expressions and not a standardized goth aesthetic. The title’s no joke, either – Stas sadly passed away in 2020, but the album (and title) was in the works as early as 2018, yet another striking aspect to this exquisite collection.

The Stools R U Saved? LP (Feel It)
Detroit has never been short on head-punching punk rock, the type that makes no distinction between garage-rock and hardcore, and The Stools are one of that fine city’s recent exports of this particular strain. How can you argue with any of R U Saved?? They appear to be a younger band, roughly the age where you can destroy your body for twenty-four hours straight and bounce back the next day with nary a headache or ingrown toenail, yet the spirit of John Brannon is alive and well here, one of battle-scarred endurance. These songs call to mind Laughing Hyenas mixed with the cooler side of ’90s Estrus/Goner, taking equal heed from Bo Diddley and The Fix to craft their sound. The Stools are stompy even when they’re fast, making any scarf-wearing garage-rockers sound like Coke Zero by comparison, and they even manage to squeeze some hooks in there when necessary: the repeated chorus line of “falling out the window / and into the street” (“Into The Street”) feels a lot like that first Hank Wood album, which is a clear sign they’re doing something right. Mean and friendly at the same time, you know? They’ll smack you upside the head and then hand you a free Bandcamp download code when you come to.

Sweeping Promises Good Living Is Coming For You LP (Feel It)
Can’t think of a more hotly anticipated follow-up in the past year or so than this one… who among us wasn’t enraptured by Sweeping Promises’s out-of-nowhere debut? Hunger For A Way Out was one of the few highlights of 2020, and after these last few years, doubts quietly crept in: could they follow it up with something as exciting? Was the first album a random confluence of greatness, and what’s taking so long with the new one? Seeing them live in 2022 reaffirmed my faith, as they were undoubtedly the best bedroom-project-turned-live-act I’ve ever seen, and now that Good Living Is Coming For You has, uh, come for me, all uncertainty is destroyed. They’ve got that same punchy lo-fi sound and the same knack for writing classic-sounding post-punk songs that somehow haven’t been written before. This includes re-writing their first album, which is always a possible pitfall, but these songs branch out tastefully, with more synth/sax/etc. peppering when needed. Even more notably, the songs themselves feel more varied and free, less constrained by “classic post-punk” songwriting (not that it was ever a disadvantage for them before, but you know, the walls of the genre are pretty firmly in place). Beats are slower and less energetic overall, but more distinctive and intriguing because of it. The funky “Walk In Place” would’ve stuck out on the debut, but its synth-bass and slappy strut makes perfect weird sense among the many other moods on here. Honestly, the biggest similarity to their debut is the complete lack of duds – Good Living Is Coming For You was worth the wait.

Telegenic Pleasure Concentric Grave LP (No Front Teeth / Feral Kid)
Both the artist’s name and album title are so extremely angular on the cover that it took me some effort to figure out which was which, and judging from the group’s sassy synth-punk, I’m sure they’d delight in my confusion. Telegenic Pleasure are a duo featuring at least one Mononegative, apparently hailing from both London, Ontario and London, England for added kookiness. Their songs are overtly synthetic, laced with choppy post-punk guitar and topped off with some mouthy glam vocals. The end result sounds a lot like Jay Reatard fronting Digital Leather, which surely happened at some early ’00s Gonerfest, or at least it should have. Very jittery, anxious stuff, which has me imagining Too Much Coffee Man, stressful calculus tests, the gobblier end of the Drunken Sailor catalog, big science-lab goggles, the first Intelligence album… that sorta stuff. Kind of a thin sound overall, which seems to often be the case with many of these punks who do bedroom synth projects… the lo-fi mid-range sound works well with feedbacking guitar amps, but doesn’t always deliver the same results with software plug-in synths, I suppose. What are you gonna do though, say “no” when your friend asks if you wanna sing on some wacky new electronic instrumentals he’s been working on, and there’s a label down to release it?

Gene Tripp The Ghost Of Gene Tripp LP (Moone)
Gene Tripp opens this new album with a soothing soundscape, pulsing like indie-pop ambient over a starry canyon, before settling into his primary form of expression: lonesome troubadour pop. Be it a softly-strummed guitar or the warm reverberations of an organ, Tripp blinks a rhinestone teardrop, only for it to run down his cheek and land on his fringed velvet coat. Hate to bring up the cursed vibe of Orville Peck, but Gene Tripp (also an assumed country-guy name) has a similar mood, one of mild glammy camp and a preference for aura over songcraft. Not my favorite, I gotta say! At times, I’m almost reminded of the occult country of King Dude, although Tripp’s voice floats in a middle register, and his lyrics are often difficult to discern without focus. There’s no dirt here either, as the constant synths droning in the background pull Tripp away from the Earth’s surface. Everything’s coated in a misty reverb, which some might describe as “Lynchian”, though I don’t think it’s quite unusual or atypical enough to fairly wear such a tag. Those opening drones are probably my favorite part, both sonically interesting and universally soothing, but I get the impression they were meant more as an intro. I dunno, at least he’s from a real desert-cowboy state like Arizona and not the litter-free suburbs of Canada!