Choncy Trademark LP (Feel It)
It was only a matter of time before someone in Choncy decamped to New York City – you can’t play punk this swaggery without feeling compelled to try to make it in the Big Apple. Some of the more conservative members of the group remained in Cincinnati, where one can survive by working twelve hours a week at the Feel It record shop and snacking on buckeye nuts fresh from the tree, and thus Trademark was born (and recorded) in joint custody. Not that you can tell – these jokers sound tighter than ever, weaving their influences (punk, post-punk, egg-punk, garage-punk, hardcore-punk, not ska-punk (yet)) into a tangle you won’t want to escape. Imagine Parquet Courts going twice as fast, Uranium Club if they could grow facial hair, Le Shok if they never tried cocaine or the perfect Mother’s Day gift for the mom who only listens to Sweeping Promises, Plugz and Eddy Current Suppression Ring. These guys are subtly wacky in a modern way (mustaches, glasses, props and other aesthetic choices not entirely dissimilar to Oliver Tree) that can easily lead to solo-laptop hyper-pop projects, so I’m glad the four of them decided to be a band instead, their individual powers boosted in the form of a traditional rock band. If you love Choncy, let them go – if they manage to stay a band after driving across all of Ohio and Pennsylvania and back, it was meant to be.

John Dieterich & Michael Krassner Bullish(ish) LP (Moone)
Beloved American indie-rocker John Dieterich (of Deerhoof, outspoken Spotify hatred and a million other creative and/or noble causes) makes friends everywhere he goes. This includes Phoenix, AZ, where he met fellow guitarist Michael Krassner and subsequently played together back in 2018. Their introduction led to a weekend-long recording sesh in Krassner’s studio, which led to the recordings I am about to describe to you, Bullish(ish). The a-side reveals loose, bantery guitar-improv, full of garbled half-riffs, off-kilter amp tricks and polite conversations in noise. When it teeters towards some scantily-clad form of the blues, I’m reminded of Tetuzi Akiyama’s improvisations, though the overall feel lingers closer to the stringy, sticky mess of Bill Nace’s solo guitar recordings and Max Nordile’s musical negations. The b-side offers an entirely different frame of mind, heavenly harmonic drones that rise, crest and decay with the grace of William Basinski on roller-skates. For a duo who just met, the b-side feels surprisingly vulnerable and personal, like a couple moving in together after only a handful of dates. I guess that’s what Dieterich does to you – you think your heart’s gone cold and then he shows up at your doorstep with a bouquet of tulips tucked under his guitar’s strings.

Ecology: HomeStones The Cruel Quick Reverse LP (no label)
Lots of artists are interested in the idea of building a world around their music, but in the case of Ecology: HomeStones, the music seems to be but one aspect of an already sprawling cosmos. Having garnered a massive online following from an ongoing series of uniquely peculiar video shorts (the kids watch them on the TikTok), I’d like to relate The Cruel Quick Reverse as the sonic extension of Ecology: HomeStones’ dark-web presence, but that might be confusing because I’m not referring to the parts of the internet that avoid Google’s indexing – I’m talking about an actual dark web, a crawlspace overrun with generations of arachnids, poorly lit and crammed with detritus. Many of those Ecology: HomeStones fans who come for the videos might be baffled by The Cruel Quick Reverse, but those of us with a penchant for gnarly home-brewed electronics will immediately connect. Picture Mat Brinkman’s Forcefield project (costumes included) given a modern blade-sharpening ala Vessel’s Punish, Honey. The serrated electro-rhythms unlock novel ways to pulsate madly, strobe with epileptic danger and trudge ahead on dying batteries. “Buddycrusher” is like Queens Of The Stone Age bum-rushing a New Blockaders performance; “Fear Of Objects” is Coil without the weekend-long bout of ketamine constipation. Compared to the more abstract, harsh-noise textures of previous Ecology: HomeStones musical releases, The Cruel Quick Reverse is practically pop, at least for those of us who find Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” as old-time cutesy as “Surfing Bird”. I’m personally too scared to ever watch an Ecology: HomeStones feature-length film if/when it arrives, so The Cruel Quick Reverse is the perfect solution.

Sam Gendel & Sam Wilkes Unrelated LP (Sam Gendel)
Few albums touched me like Music For Saxofone & Bass Guitar, 2018’s emergent duo recording from Sams Wilkes and Gendel. It revealed hidden tunnels between conservatory jazz and weirdo new-wave post-punk, delivering the epiphany that not only could you combine elements from both, the results could be quite thrilling (but in a chill way). Since that time, Gendel has released about a metric ton of albums: all sorts of collaborations, traditional ideas, triple LPs, bizarre experiments… he’s been going for it. It’s great to see Gendel and Wilkes back together with a similarly-designed (if you wanna call it that) cover, but the results are decidedly whatever. Whereas that original collab paired curious melodies from bass and “saxofone” (both in composition and texture), Unrelated doesn’t seem to have the same level of big, cool ideas behind it. Loops linger in place, with a focus on synths and pads, and resolve without undue delay. File under chill-wave, if there’s still any room left for new records to be filed there, though the genre’s sense of esoteric wonder is absent. The ECM smoothness isn’t stark enough, the emotion is hard to place, and even the cheese isn’t cheesy enough. Gendel’s discography is full of truly incredible records, as well as records that kinda miss the mark for me; unfortunately, this one’s landing in the latter category.

Gush Splash Of Milk LP (Huntleys + Palmers)
Steven Warwick drafted some of the finest wackadoodle art-pop of the 2010s, first as Heatsick and then under his own name. (He also delivered the reportedly drunkest performance of all time at Philadelphia dive-bar Kungfu Necktie back then, which is neither here nor there.) Show me what you’ve done lately, I say to anyone of this (still ongoing but) post-Covid era, and he’s answered with Splash Of Milk. Gush features Warwick on vocals (and presumably some programming) alongside Iván Brito, whose Vanya project exudes a similarly over-the-top approach to electronic dance (question mark) music. If you told me Splash Of Milk was a new Heatsick record I wouldn’t think twice, as the music continues to gesticulate like an Optimo DJ set with the erudite humor that can only be unleashed by gay men in vibrantly-colored outfits. There’s certainly a “Walter van Beirendonck at Berghain” sensibility at play here, from the alarming cartoon cow on the cover to the commingling of camp, aloofness and hedonism, all with an effortlessly cool soundtrack. Warwick remains an excellent narrator, shouting over the post-punk breakbeats of “Over” like a voguing Sleaford Mods and channelling the kind of synth sleaze that Dark Entries has spent tens of thousands of dollars reissuing on “Naked In Netto”. I’m only smart enough to understand half of what’s happening here, and I’m perfectly satisfied – imagine what it could do for someone like you!

Indikator B S/T II 7″ (General Speech)
Contrary to the plethora of record covers that showcase the violent, outrageous energy of hardcore-punk, I love when bands take a more honest approach. Look at the shadowy figure on the cover of Indikator B’s second self-titled EP… hands in pockets and shoulders hunched, he’s sandwiched between graveyard fence and prison fence, awaiting a bus that will never arrive. It really sets the mood for this Croatian hardcore band – their music rages with a post-war coldness, the scent of societal failure lingering in the air. “Ovdje, Baš Tu” is panicked and guarded, to be played with fingerless wool gloves and a moth-eaten scarf blocking the bottom half of your face, like Kalashnikov’s sole EP and Junior Achievement’s (likewise sole) LP. Unlike much of today’s hardcore-punk (even the really good stuff), these four songs don’t sound like the product of thorough studying, but rather a natural reaction to life’s pressures. The guitar is raw like The Faith, and vocalist Karlo (who also plays the guitar) knows when to throw in a melodic ahh-ahh-ahh (just once, halfway through “Zadnja Stanica”). At three minutes, “Ukopani” walks with a limp as it mourns some sort of tragedy. Indikator B are clawing their way out of the muck, even if muck is all that’s visible for miles around. Recommended!

Intensified Chaos That’s Not Freedom 1982 LP (Nausea)
The 1982 Maximumrocknroll compilation Not So Quiet On The Western Front wasn’t simply a formative record for my personal journey into underground punk, it was the record, played incessantly once I hooked up my parents’ old turntable a good thirteen years after it was released. Intensified Chaos kicked it off with the magic of a song also called “Intensified Chaos”, and while those fifty-five seconds are permanently etched into my memory, I now have five other tunes and a live set to enjoy in the form of That’s Not Freedom 1982. Good news: “Intensified Chaos” is featured not once but thrice here (the Not So Quiet version, mysteriously lacking the original sample, plus two live versions), and while the other songs are on par as far as sound quality and style, like many obscure punk reissues, it’s a release that best serves enthusiasts and completists, not dabblers, poseurs or cops. I personally can’t get enough of vocalist Rob Noxious’s phony British street-punk accent (he’s gotta be what, one of at least a thousand “Rob Noxious”es out there), and it was illuminating to hear his self-described boot-boy status (“Boot Boys”) and religious haranguing of the audience (“Romans I & II (Live)”). Even with a growing number of retrospective collections from this unruly stable of bands (that Maniax Lost Tapes collection remains the pinnacle), so many mysteries from the Not So Quiet roster remain – who will pry open the remaining vaults of Lennonburger, Bent Nails (pre-Mr. T Experience!) and Juvinel Justice?

Jailed Rebirth EP 7″ (Olde Fade / Carnalismo)
From the ashes of West Bay hardcore outfit Healer comes Jailed, committed to holding down the strict gangsta integrity of Plutocracy and No Less. Healer’s nimble, blinked-and-missed approach to post-power-violence hardcore-grind is sanded down to an even sharper point as Jailed; while there are nine different tracks on this EP, I’d be surprised if the entire record breaks three minutes. In true West Bay fashion, song and dialogue samples bridge these microscopic hardcore blasts, almost all thematically linked to heavy drinking here. The songs themselves are two or three parts at best, epitomizing the short, fast and loud aesthetics that a zine dedicated to this particular scene once named itself after. It’s almost as if those Bllleeeeaaauuurrrrgghhh! comps were the work of one focused band, completely content with writing songs that are shorter than the average professional bull ride. I’m not entirely sure who is in Jailed versus who was in Healer – it’s probable that Tony Molina and Frank Marchi (of Agents Of Satan and Plutocracy!) are/were in both – but this scene has always venerated the tightness of the crew over the popularity of a specific individual. We could learn a lot from them: the power of the tightly-knit collective and danked-out hardcore riffs.

Jump Source Fold 2xLP (NAFF)
Jump Source throw it back to the cusp of the digital era with their full-length debut, when stuffing a compact disc with music was your best bet for getting your name out there. Fold has that turn-of-the-century dance-music feel of albums-as-events, where a single, lengthy release was purposely crafted to navigate all of the evening’s moods, from lightweight warm-ups to ecstatic release to post-rave comedowns. And they nail it! The Montreal duo’s nimble, pop-friendly techniques hit big here, calling to mind all of those indispensable Luomo albums (some of which still somehow haven’t been pressed on vinyl). Cool guests vocalists are all over this one: Helena Deland is a provocative diva on multiple tracks, POiSON GiRL FRiEND offers her uniquely narcoleptic charm on “Close”, and you’ve even got billy woods’s breathless flow on “Empty Bars” in true Galcher Lustwerk fashion. These eleven tracks bridge the gap between short-form pop nuggets and extended dance mixes, ready to engage today’s dopamine-damaged Instagram user-base as much as old-heads who fondly recall digging through bins of well-worn Kompakt, Force Tracks and Perlon twelve-inches (back when hamburgers cost a nickel and rent was pay-what-you-wish). If I blare “Fold” loud enough in the dark, I find myself transported to a pre-9/11 dance-floor… maybe it’s still the year 2000 in Canada?

Landowner Assumption LP (Exploding In Sound)
Assumption is an indie post-punk record vividly, indisputably borne of Trump’s second term. Even the privileged are no longer able to smirk their way through things: the dark comedy of it all has simply turned dark, those hurt before are hurt worse, the rest of us newly hurt, and Landowner are painfully aware of these pitiful circumstances, seamlessly infusing it into their music. With nary a distortion- or fuzz-pedal in sight, the dual-guitared quintet set their fingers ablaze with simple-yet-maddeningly-cyclical patterns as vocalist Dan Shaw reads today’s internet back into our wearied faces. Right now, it’s unpleasant to dwell on, but if we someday come out of this on a happier, greener side, schoolteachers will look to “Expensive Rent”, “Assumption” and “Unboxing” to explain what American life in the 2020s was like to their engaged student body. When the songs are fast, they share the feel of RMFC (like a rollercoaster with the brake lines cut), and when they move a little slower I’m reminded of The Embarrassment and The Feelies. It’s the snark of Shellac with the acumen of Protomartyr that shines through consistently, and Landowner, uh, own it. The world really doesn’t need any more self-assured white guys telling it (hollering it) like it is, but until we somehow manage to learn more productive social skills, Landowner’s Assumption is a positive outcome.

Mai Mai Mai Karakoz LP (Maple Death)
Italian artist Antonio Tricoli has pursued a darkened path through noise, industrial and experimental territories for over a decade now. These travels have been more than just conceptual: in 2024, he underwent a six-week residency in Palestine (care of Radio Alhara), in what must have been a deeply emotional (and undoubtedly dangerous) engagement with traditional musicians from Bethlehem and Ramallah. Palestinian artists such as Ussama Abu Ali and Maya Al Khaldi contribute to Karakoz, an album that is not simply inspired by Palestine and its people – it couldn’t exist without it. Understanding this, Tricoli is more of an assembler than a composer here, blending traditional singing, percussion, the yarghul and the bouzuq (and archival recordings from the Palestinian Sound Archive) among his own understated synth warbles and humming textures. The similarities to works by Muslimgauze and Zoviet: France are overt, though it feels like Mai Mai Mai really has skin in the game, a grateful outsider who lived alongside and learned from this resilient, besieged population. The progenitors of industrial music have alleged that their shock tactics were in hopes of pulling back the curtains of social decorum and revealing the unflinching truths of the world. Some misguidedly interpreted that as infatuations with serial-killers, BDSM or even right-wing theories, but for Mai Mai Mai, it’s the mournful beauty of Karakoz.

The Reds, Pinks & Purples Acknowledge Kindness LP (Fire)
It’s crazy to me how people continue to hem and haw over supporting Morrissey in 2026 when Glenn Donaldson is calmly sitting right over here, absolutely not preaching xenophobia or right-wing nonsense. And removing the personal from the equation, Donaldson’s work as The Reds, Pinks & Purples is culminating into some quiet form of genius regardless of how you stack it, his charming, insightful, whip-smart lyrics central to the experience. The music has always seemed to arrive painlessly for Donaldson, quick sketches of silver-lined indie-pop to carry his words (ala The Cure, Another Sunny Day, Brighter, etc.), but Acknowledge Kindness feels ever so slightly more labored over, as though there might have been someone else in the room during the recording process. There are overdubs and distinctive leads, with various shimmering textures to pad out the sentimental moods while stepping out of the closed-door bedroom and into the fading sunset horizon. “Houses” could be his Goo Goo Dolls “Iris” – it has that same tender, catchy sway – but it never feels like Donaldson is toying with our emotions so much as bloodletting his own. He’s written an incredible number of songs in the last few years, and I’m glad that process took him to “Emo Band”, an appropriately stinging take on the reunion industrial complex: “I saw your emo band / keep it going if you can / another show, can you still pretend / to have feelings inside again”. You can scream and curse all you want in your songs; Donaldson’s droll delivery is responsible for some of the most brutal blows.

Elori Saxl & Henry Solomon Seeing Is Forgetting LP (True Panther Sounds)
Might this be the first True Panther Sounds release that actually sounds like a true panther sound? Keyboardist Elori Saxl and woodwindist Henry Solomon have struck dusky, velvety gold with this collaborative album, comfortably situated within today’s neo-new-age jazz-ambient fallout zone but an exemplary offering at that. Saxl’s keys radiate warmth like the belly of a sleeping cat – just peep the restorative flutter of “Dream” and nestle in close. If Brian Eno was an electric vehicle, you’d want to hook him up to this track when his battery light starts flashing. These nine tracks follow their own paths, be they playful dance choreography, fog-sector levitations or jazz-in-dub, all with the high-gloss shine of modern pop production. Unhurried, outward-facing and opulent, Seeing Is Forgetting often feels like curtains pulled wide open after weeks of rain. Opener “Reverence” reminds me of Earthensea’s recent live performances (a lone saxophone beaming out all the stars of the galaxy); “Raindrops” feels attuned to Laurel Halo’s exotic-virtuoso landscapes. “A Thousand Steps” is the cosmic jazz-trance cousin of Donna Lewis’s “I Love You Always Forever” you might not have thought you needed… but I knew. I knew.

Yu Su Foundry LP (Short Span)
I wish there was another way, but really, you just have to send all your money to Short Span. I know, it’s climbing up to like fifty bucks an album now, and it hurts, but in the end it’s only money, and you’ll have a stack of exceptionally-crafted electronic records to enjoy in perpetuity. With every detail smartly considered (right down to the artwork design), Short Span Cares™, so the ongoing partnership with talented and adventurous producer Yu Su makes perfect sense. This relatively succinct album builds off last year’s twelve-inch single – “Foundry” was the a-side of that one, and its encore appears here in the same party-pumping guise, the upbeat centerpiece of a collaboration-friendly album whose gorgeous still-life electronics generally maintain a lowkey demeanor. “Os Cionn” plays with light and texture in a way that almost feels like techno, and “Ripe Fruits” pulses through a number of ornate little rooms, but Foundry on the whole welcomes seated, motionless listening. “Sunless” (featuring Memotone) trips out on some Jon Hassell-esque new-age styles; the Seefeel-assisted “One Place After Another” lounges on the softer side of electronic shoegaze techniques before a dream-like spoken word borrows stage settings from The NeverEnding Story (1984, dir. Wolfgang Petersen). It’s peak-operational Yu Su: graceful, playful electronic music that sways like fields of tulips in colors you’ve never before seen. Remind yourself of this when you overdraft your account for the second time in a month.

Zaliva-D 好奇 Curiosity LP (SVBKVLT)
There are claims that electronic duo Zaliva-D hail from Beijing, but the slimy metallic residue that trails behind their music appears interplanetary in origin. I often seek out techno and industrial music that comes with an otherworldly sheen, but few aspects of Zaliva-D’s music are customary or routine. The pacing is ritualistically slow, their sounds merge the animalistic and the digital, and perhaps their most signature motif is this crazed, vocoder-like effect that simulates some big wet slug baby giving birth to goats, over and over again, the viscera all different neon shades of green and purple. Real body-horror electronics: the dank slurp of “长淫 Long Obscenity” spells it out quickly, whereas “不是歌谣 Inexistent Ballad” is Drexciya at quarter-speed, with some sort of parasitic nest lurking behind the walls. Amazingly, Zaliva-D have developed this sound for over a decade now, 好奇 Curiosity their most purposeful and direct statement yet, substituting some semblance of pop structures in place of the harsher tones of prior releases. That’s ostensibly a repeated verse happening on “蟒头果实 Boa-Head”, even if it sounds like an eel has wriggled down the vocalist’s esophagus prior to singing. For however weird I’m making 好奇 Curiosity out to be, trust me – it’s actually weirder.

Bitter Fictions Amethyst & Emerald LP (Shaking Box)
Kind of a Polyvinyl-ish emo name for a project, but Bitter Fictions takes a far more conceptual route to your heart. It’s the guise of one Devin Friesen, a Canadian who begins with his guitar and discovers what curious new delights might bloom from it (like one of those mail-order mushroom logs). Opener “Sapphire” wrings a mysterious ringtone out of his guitar as a soft electronic tumble offers some sense of momentum, almost like that Richard Youngs “techno” record, whereas “Garnet” delivers nearly ten minutes of shimmering guitar improvisations. Maybe it is kind of emo, in that if you were able to capture the actual underlying guitar melodies of “Garnet” and “Aquamarine” like fireflies in a jar and hand them to American Football, they could probably construct a suitable living arrangement. Bitter Fictions has been opening for Body/Head and Merzbow, though, so he celebrates those rougher textures as well, like the out-of-nowhere synth zaps on “Aquamarine” and the thick palisade of noise-guitar that sends the side-long title track tumbling from the clear night sky deep into the muck below. The aggression points to Ben Frost, whereas the fragility points to Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, ready to be purchased with currency that points to Canada.

Cancer House The Moth LP (Motion Ward)
You know how there’s that Plantasia album of synth music you’re supposed to play for your plants? I’m recommending that you play Cancer House’s debut album The Moth for all the neglected, dying and dead plants in your home, not in hopes of healing them but as a somber farewell before you toss them in with the weekly trash. This is deeply unwatered music with no sign of natural light: guitars, banjos, violin, drums and bass-guitar are plucked with deep remorse, resulting in an updated version of emo that harnesses the scalding bleakness of black metal without any of its other aesthetic signifiers. It’s like the mysterious sounds of Don Martin Three rendered even more inscrutable by the post-rock innovation of Gastr Del Sol, and as it’s released on a label known more for ultramodern ambient/techno electronics than guitar bands (they might be the only one?), there’s a sense of that experimental abstraction in here, too. As you might expect, The Moth is kind of an uncomfortable place to dwell, but once you get a feel for the pitch-shifted vocals, tape-hissing samples and the way that Cancer House seamlessly tailors it all (see the beautiful “Flowers Over There”, it’s like Moss Icon living inside of Grouper’s haunted attic), you might want to linger long past closing hours. Cancer House’s music is divinely morose and frightened, and appropriately enough, it feels like the near future.

Countach Power EP 12″ (Feel The Four)
No sooner were Ghösh gaining momentum in the digital-hardcore clown-rave scene (look it up) than they vanished in a puff of green smoke, leaving Zachary Fairbrother to reconfigure himself as Countach. Once you feel the pull away from guitar bands and into Detroit-style acid synth arpeggios, it’s a craving that cannot be ignored, and that’s precisely where Fairbrother is at with Countach. These four tracks are DIY dance-floor munitions, teeth bared and ready to jack. “Feel The Power” establishes the parameters – acid-on-acid crunch, diabolical vocal sample – before my favorite of the EP, “Any Other Way”. Featuring the charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent of none other than Morgan Garrett, Garrett’s bloodshot deadpan over Countach’s gated electro-rhythms recalls another Philadelphian original, M Ax Noi Mach. Garrett has been more than ready for his “Jesus Built My Hotrod” moment and this very well could be it. “Gauntlet” goes full-throttle ascending-acid, receding only for a quick Legend Of Zelda breather, just long enough to cast your die before the ogre awakes. “Who Is In Control?” swings from the windows to the wall, classic 303 and 808 sounds that result in involuntary screwface when the sampled guitar solo hits in classic Bomb Squad fashion. Feel The Four should’ve pressed some of these on old-timey shellac discs, so you can shatter it over your own head after listening.

ex_libris ex_libris 003 12″ (ex_libris)
Like a handful of other forward-thinking post-dubstep producers (Guy Brewer AKA Carrier immediately comes to mind), Dave Huismans’s decision to pause old monikers (in his case, 2562 and A Made Up Sound) and rebrand with a fresh new image has succeeded. His self-released series of EPs under the guise of ex_libris are flying off the Bandcamp shelves (and onto Discogs for inflated prices), and it’s not hard to see why: he’s pursuing a more uniquely personal sound and has graced these records with an individualized touch. Continuing with the attractive Pantone color schemes and a dash of hand-stamped abstraction, this third installment is comforting, soft-spoken and begging to be played over and over. “#6-27 (untangled)” opens with a gauzy puff redolent of the Music From Memory label before its gears start to turn. It’s got that sense of sweet European strangeness I’d associate with early ’80s records from Michael Rother and Mœbius & Plank, but the ex_libris screen is filtered to remove all warts and wrinkles – if it was a bed at the group Airbnb, everyone would be trying to claim it. “#7 (cosmic ripples)” moves in more of an outlandish dub-techno direction, like a Pole record comprised of carnival sounds, or Augustus Pablo getting a new high score on Cruis’n Outer Space (an arcade racing game I have just now invented). Across nine minutes, it folds back into open-air bliss, giving way to “#31 (reprise)”, freaked-out effects unmoored from grid-based time and loving it. Huismans is not short on dub/ambient/techno experience, and in this most humble and relaxed mode, we are treated to his brightest side yet.

Hoavi Architectonics LP (Peak Oil)
Peak Oil’s commitment to top-shelf electronic music is unwavering, and the people know it – rarely will one of their releases remain available to purchase on Bandcamp for long. Architectonics is Russian producer Hoavi’s second for the label, and it hits on a sweet spot, blatant catnip for those of us who seek the head-rush that comes from richly detailed electronic rhythms. Wielding the sword and mace of today’s experimental vanguard – his phone and a contact mic – Hoavi built up a formidable library of percussive effects, ran them through enough filters and software systems so as to no longer resemble their source material, and built out impressive webs of Gamelan-inspired rhythms. The tracks are as overactive and dazzling as any Nonesuch collection of Gamelan recordings, and while he could’ve tipped it over into some sort of hyper-real IDM zone clearly beyond human capacity, these eleven tracks feel like they exist within our earthly realm, just a highly stylized version of it… Avatar-ready rave music. It falls between the ruminative pacing of De Leon and the alien-native rhythms of Shackleton, and while the conceptual boundaries are firm, there’s plenty of room to play. “After The Cyclone”, for example, stirs up some unconventional horn sounds, a flock of gulls soaring through a thicket of interlocking percussion that would make Philip Glass blush. Hoavi created a richly detailed world, and we owe it to him to explore.

Ignorantes No Hemos Inventada Nada Ni Nos Interesa Hacerlo LP (General Speech)
“We have invented nothing, nor are we interested in doing so.” The English translation of the title of this new (and final?) Ignorantes album brings a tear to my eye. So eloquent! So righteous! Their Chilean punk rock is mid-tempo (very pogo-friendly) and inherently raw, a timeless tradition that rejects innovation in favor of stinking, pulsating immediacy. No Hemos was recorded in 2021 and left to languish in a digital-only Bandcamp purgatory until now, and I’ll admit that I wouldn’t have noticed had General Speech not stepped up to the plate with this appealing vinyl edition. It’s so difficult to make simplicity sound so thrilling, but the two-note riff that comprises “No Tenemos Propuesta” has me hammering all nearby flat surfaces with my fists like an idiot. “Sapos” manages to mimic note-for-note obscure ’90s crusters Vile Horrendous’s “Dead Nazis Don’t Hate”, a melody that sounds fantastic when either band does it. With seven straightforward attacks and a lengthier, spookier closing song, it’s the perfect length for the perfect form of music. For fans of Peggio Punx, Germ Attak, Crazy Spirit, Kangrena, B.G.K., Confuse, Blazing Eye… (please send SASE for complete 4,526 for-fans-of band list).

Index For Working Musik Bunker Intimations II LP (Tough Love)
News of a new Index For Working Musik album is met with jubilation around my neck of the woods, but not so fast – it turns out Bunker Intimations II was originally released as an enticing enhancement to a deluxe edition of last year’s Which Direction Goes The Beam. My copy of that album was a plain ol’ regular one, so I missed out on the limited cassette that came along with it, that is until Tough Love issued it, standalone and on vinyl, as Bunker Intimations II. Apparently recorded under self-imposed duress – written (actually scratch that, improvised), recorded and mixed in three days – these lengthy instrumentals diverge from the already-divergent style I’ve come to associate with this bold post-punk group. It’s as loose-limbed and unresolved as you might expect from such creative limitations, group-jams without a clear leader, evocative atmospheres if no distinct sense of purpose. As an add-on to Which Direction Goes The Beam, it’s a treat, a little “Director’s Commentary”-style bonus for infatuated fans to dig even deeper, but it’s not leaving much of an impression on me from its own merit, certainly not the way their ‘real’ albums have. With a scant two hundred and fifty copies pressed, I am certain there are enough loving homes to go around – maybe in a few months I’ll stop by for another visit.

Microwaves Temporal Shifter LP (Decoherence)
Nice to see Neil Burke’s day-glo imaginary landscapes all over this new Microwaves album. For decades now, if his art graced the record cover, it offered a seal of weirdo-punk authenticity – it’s uncompromising in a way you have to respect, even if it ends up on something as nonsensical as the Towel eight-inch EP on Vermiform (though Burke only “art directed” that one, to be fair). Microwaves are an underground institution as well, Pittsburgh guys-with-jobs who never really seem to have toured in their twenty-five-year-plus career and don’t seem particularly pressed about it either. Even after all these years, Temporal Shifter stays true to the root cause, one where bass and drums dig Melvins-sized ditches as the guitar dabbles in math-rock and metal of all stripes (even hair-). Guitarist/vocalist David Kuzy often sounds like he’s trying out for Van Halen by playing various Castlevania themes, all while his two compatriots barely notice, so deeply locked into their airtight post-hardcore grooves they must eventually turn blue in the face. Personally, I like it when they go off the deep end a little – I think it’s the hidden track on their debut System 2 where a pitched-up voice keeps giggling out the phrase “he took a picture of blood!”, a musical moment that comes to my mind way more than it should – but Temporal Shifter is a proud display of noise-rock muscle and bone. If they’re suffering from arthritis at this advanced stage, the meds are doing a great job of hiding it.

My Wife’s An Angel Keep Honking I’m About To Fucking Kill Myself LP (Knife Hits / Broken Cycle / Grimgrimgrim)
Local Boys Make Bad: Philly’s My Wife’s An Angel continue to shine a light on the most abhorrent personality types with their second full-length, commonly referred to as KHIATFKM (y’know, like TAGABOW). Their debut album was a clean way to experience a deeply messy band – you could listen at home without fear of vocalist Garrett Stanton Vandemark tying you up with his mic cord and hanging you upside down – and they lean into that filthy underbelly of blue-collar city living here. Their music is ninety-percent Landed and ten-percent TAD – it’s a thrillingly toxic cocktail, like the neon-swamp liquid that collects in the bottom of a dive bar’s trash bin, and for some reason My Wife’s An Angel took a sip without waiting for someone to dare them. Over these inebriated noise-rock riffs (and splattered with infernal sound effects), Stanton Vandemark goes full-method with his character portrayals, a rogue’s gallery of the absolute worst guys at the bar. I can practically smell the coke addict who refuses to pay rent to his parents, the Eagles fan who failed the background check to get the mall security job, the ex-jock hopped up on testosterone cream and ZYNs who refuses to believe all his money is gone… Stanton Vandermark commits like DeNiro in Taxi Driver to his impressions of these heinous men, and I sincerely hope he’s been able to find his way back out. He was recently spotted army-crawling across the city with a GoPro on his head (I’m not joking, it’s floating on the web) – if he turned his limitless energy towards high-definition AI mapping, we’d all be getting around town in driverless hover-pods by now.

Night Of The Hunter Night Of The Hunter LP (Curious Electricity)
With sub-genres splintering into sub-sub-genres as artists hope to claim their own hyper-specific niche, it’s kind of refreshing to be met with an all-purpose goth record like Night Of The Hunter. The group hails from the vampire capital of the USA, Los Angeles, and they even have names that read like the character list of an episode of The Vampire Diaries: (the human) Jeff Browning along with the mononymic (both undead) Ezrah and Thorson (with Aradia (demon prophet) providing guest vocals on “Safe Inside The Storm”). Over eight tracks, Night Of The Hunter cover a lot of stylistic ground, not mixing it up so much as doling it out separately, like a mixtape to satisfy all of their nocturnal denizens. Their sound lurks in the ’90s for sure, with overt similarities to Machines Of Loving Grace, Marilyn Manson and Black Tape For A Blue Girl, especially when the guitars kick in. Other more synth-forward tracks recall Balaclavas, Nine Inch Nails and November Növelet, and not simply because there’s no way I could make it through this entire review without at least one umlaut. It’s over-the-top dramatic in the way that goth should be, a caricature of wicked lust delivered with the self-seriousness you’ve come to expect from people who, if they haven’t purchased their own bespoke dental fangs, have at least given it some thought.

No Nose Party In The Sky LP (No Nose)
Copenhagen’s hottest artist is a contested field, but Copenhagen’s weirdest has gotta be No Nose. They’re friends first, band second, a pointedly guitar-less rock group (bass, drums, keyboard, vocals) who are keen to take a silly idea and run with it, trip over it, get up and run with it some more. They’ll repeat “I lost my credit card” (on “Creditcard”) like they’re trying to seduce you, chant “CIA invented the dentist” like they’re rooting for their favorite football club (“Ciainventedthedentist”), and fill up any empty space with plenty of boldly off-key trumpet. One solid night at the pub spent shouting hilarious and bad ideas at each other could have spawned the entirety of Party In The Sky. Is “The Lowtalker” Carla dal Forno with a Residents infatuation? Party In The Sky is kind of like late ’80s Butthole Surfers in the way that it frequently misses, but then you wonder, was missing the actual point? And further like Butthole Surfers, it never feels as though No Nose are pandering for our acceptance, or even giving us a foot in the door to laugh along with them. We are voyeurs at best, trying to make heads or tails of these sleepy dub-, indie-, space-rock tunes that go on for way too long, provoked only by No Nose’s indifference to provocation.

Scissor Fits It Wasn’t Nothing LP (Minimum Table Stacks)
Another obscure UK DIY group finally gets their roses: this time it’s Twickenham’s Scissor Fits, care of the well-considered Minimum Table Stacks label. The bald femme that graces the cover of both of their 1979 EPs is cover-bound once again, dealing both previously-released EPs along with a comp track and a handful of unreleased tunes. Scissor Fits were clearly a fun band to be around, as they offered both the jouissance of immature knucklehead humor and the well-rehearsed chops of a headlining local band. Scissor Fits were too good to pretend to be bad, so they wrote a bunch of charmingly spunky, mid-tempo rock tunes, clearly aware of NME-favored outcasts like The Magic Band and Ian Dury, though they mostly kept things crowd-pleasingly in the pocket like then-contemporaries Dry Rib and Television Personalities. They didn’t make it easy on everyone, though, happily spoiling their otherwise respectable songs with lyrics and titles like “I Wish I Hadn’t Shaved My Pubic Hair Off”, “D.H. Lawrence Wasn’t A Mexican” and their all-timer, “I Don’t Want To Work For British Airways”. Every small town had its own Frank Zappas and Johnny Rottens in the late ’70s, and Scissor Fits clearly had a ball thumbing their noses at the established decorum of the day, made available again here for the delight of today’s DIY post-punk enthusiasts. The insert comes with a tender little “current whereabouts” update on the band’s members (all impressively still alive!), but I won’t spoil for you which two are currently playing in bands with their sons – you’ll have to pick up a copy for yourself.

Suitor Saw You Out With The Weeds LP (Feel It)
It would seem that Ohio’s punk underground no longer allows for idle spectators – if you haven’t gotten a band going, they simply assign you one, like teams in gym class. I’m not complaining, though, as Cleveland and Cincinnati are hotbeds of punk-related energy, with Suitors being one of the newest to be delivered from Feel It’s soft palms. They already seem to know what they want to go for, and that’s the kind of edgy middlebrow zone of today’s cool non-shoegaze rock sounds. I’m talking Wet Leg, Dry Cleaning, Mannequin Pussy, heterogeneous underground stars that balance melody with discordance, probably adore The Cure, wield deadpan sarcasm like a knife and re-imagine a ’90s post-grunge era that wasn’t just dudes with pointy goatees and frosted tips celebrating misogyny and abuse. At times, I’m hearing Helium if they played like a punk band, and on certain songs (let’s say “Televangelist”) Suitor remind me a whole lot of that last Priests album, if perhaps a bit more technically solid (no offense, Priests, I’m sure you understand). It’s like Chaotic Good “indie”-rock without the unpleasant sense that you’ve been gamified by a wave of algorithm-shifting bots, because we all know that Feel It would never do us dirty like that… at least until Marvel throws them a million dollars to license “I’m An Adult Baby” by Vanilla Poppers. Only a matter of time.

Tapetud Rott See Mees / Lähme Õue 7″ (Porridge Bullet)
Every region of the world has its own signature export: Southern Europe’s red wine, East Africa’s coffee beans, the United States of America’s imperialist violence, and Northern Europe’s black metal. Black metal is like ninety percent of Finland’s GDP the last time I checked (the other ten percent is Angry Birds), and even when you think you’ve found a safe space, like the Estonian left-field dance label Porridge Bullet, this classic corpse-painted aesthetic will sneak up and deliver a jump-scare. Tapetud Rott is a new project from Estonian dub maestro Robert Nikolajev and Mikk Madisson, and while its origins may be digital in nature, the results are as grim and frostbitten as the wolf on the cover of Ulver’s Nattens Madrigal. “See Mees” is grueling and miserable, a theatrically-heightened despair that may appeal to fans of Dom Fernow’s various attempts at black metal. “Lähme Õue” picks up the pace with traditional helicopter-chop black metal drumming (of a digital nature) and guitars as brittle and unpleasant as permafrost’s crispy outer layer. It’s over in a blip, and to what end, I’m not certain, as this EP seems predestined to miss its aesthetically-aligned audience, what being distributed by European dance-hub Rush Hour and all. The cover’s nod towards a homoerotic black-metal fan-fic further muddles Tapetud Rott’s intentions – is it sincere, or a Limp Wrist-ified gag, or simply their civic duty?

Upsammy & Valentina Magaletti Seismo LP (PAN)
The hardest working drummer in improvised showbiz linked up with an unorthodox techno genius and the results are understandably spectacular. Apparently borne of some sort of museum-sponsored collaboration (cool progressive arts funding inconceivable to us Americans), the duo literally wandered the museum recording “improvised percussive sounds”, the seed from which Seismo sprouted. Neither Upsammy nor Valentina Magaletti are ever short on inspiration when it comes to seeking out unexpected rhythmic pathways, and while I would’ve been happy with a live, one-take improvisation from the two, Seismo is clearly an orchestrated affair, in line with Upsammy’s modern refresh of Aphex Twin’s braindance techniques and Drexciya’s thermal hydraulics. Here, we get Magaletti’s nimble and inventive drums in various designs, from spicy-hot trap-kit fills to patterns and sources less easily discerned. It’s a vibrant haul of ingredients for Upsammy to cook up her high-speed twinkle jams, and cook she does – “Superimposed” sounds like Eli Keszler trying out for Mahavishnu Orchestra; “Mementoes” is a postmodern anime dream in the clouds. It’s technically advanced and exquisite yet easy to appreciate, and if you want the true museum experience, you can ask a friend to stand in the corner in a cheap suit and stare at you disapprovingly while you listen.