Animal Piss It’s Everywhere Grace LP (Sophomore Lounge / Half A Million)
I don’t suppose that the folks who decided to call their band “Animal Piss It’s Everywhere” intended to infer any negative vibes with the name. These folks are just too hippie-dippie, having too much of a good ol’ time to care what they’re stepping in on the sidewalk, and they’re probably not even wearing shoes! Grace is their sophomore album following 2023’s self-titled debut, and in a way I’m surprised they haven’t cranked out even more in this relatively short time. Theirs is the sort of rock music that flows as natural as water from a spring, easy country Americana ensemble sing-along jams. All you really need to know is the root notes, and you can pull up an upside-down bucket and join in on third acoustic guitar, twelve-string electric, rubber-band stretched between two thumbs, whatever you’ve got, really. You can even just mosey up next to them and solemnly puff on an American Spirit, dabbing at the tears in your eyes pulled from the syrupy-tender lyrics as much as the burning cardboard in the campfire. There’s a smart-silliness to these proceedings that can’t escape a Silver Jews comparison, not that they’d want to; the tribute song to Dana Plato in particular is both sincere and amusing. Delivered in Allman Bros. / Flying Burrito Bros. / Fogerty brothers fashion, it’s hard to go wrong, as even off-course is right on target. It might be tricky to convince your dad to listen to a band called Animal Piss It’s Everywhere, though he’d probably love it. Maybe what you need to do is play him a few songs first, then tell him what the band is called.

Daniel Avery Digital Rain / I Miss You 12″ (Fabric Originals)
As the in-house label of world-renowned London club Fabric, Fabric Originals isn’t simply putting out records, it’s directing the traffic of dance-music trends, establishing not only what’s hot now while giving us a glimpse of what will be hot tomorrow. I know the drum n’ bass resurgence is in full swing – go on, try to find an electronic music outlet that hasn’t gushed about Tim Reaper in 2024 – and while I have plenty of respect for the genre, I’m also a little surprised that this new single from Daniel Avery is as precedented as it is. “Digital Rain” seems to want to move in a fashion similar to Burial’s more recent breakbeat-oriented material – hammering drum loop, downer bass-line, wounded-angel vocals – but in a manner that feels like it was hastily assembled on the plane between gigs. I don’t know many modern video games, but one of the few I do know is 2010’s I Must Run! for the PSP, and “Digital Rain” could easily be the long lost sibling of that game’s endlessly-looped soundtrack. I wouldn’t expect an a-side track from the upper echelon of electronic producers to sound like a fifteen year-old Playstation game, and yet that’s what’s happening here. “I Miss You” hits harder for me: the crusty breakbeat would surely earn a respectful nod from LTJ Bukem, whereas its aggressively noxious aura recalls Christoph de Babalon’s tunnel-dwelling rave style. On both sides, I’m hearing the facile replication of influential techno mavericks (who are all still very much among us today) more so than a fresh path to uncharted territory. Bet it sounds sick as hell blasting from Fabric’s world-class sound-system, though, which might be the only metric worth considering.

AV Moves Luna Aux LP (Cinnamon Disc)
Exquisite chillings aplenty on John Calvin Jones’s first vinyl full-length under his AV Moves alias. We’re already deep in a culture that fully embraces multi-genre synthesis, and Luna Aux finds new pathways between sub-genres as well as schools both new and old. There’s plenty of the ’90s electro post-rock / IDM camp happening here, care of lush, tide-drifting textures and the inhuman design of software-crafted melodies. (Opener “77mph” would fit alongside Duster’s 1975 EP nicely.) Those styles bump up against the modern Ulla / Pontiac Streator / Huerco S. camp of Boomkat first-stringers, where richly colorful strains of melancholic glitch are shuffled about in forms that might accidentally recall some aspect of Cocteau Twins, as well as the blissed-out non-resistance of Music From Memory’s contemporary new-age approach. I was thrilled (yes, truly thrilled) to see that Davy Kehoe guests on “Aluxe” here, though his specific contributions remain as inscrutable as the gaseous throb and galaxy-sparkle of the music within. Brian Foote contributes to the gentle kosmische relaxation of “K-Ci & Coco”, and we all love Brian Foote. Maybe he’s responsible for the Earthen Sea-styled snaps, or the Boothroyd-esque slide guitar? Whatever the case, Luna Aux coordinates itself in what might paradoxically be an overactive downtempo style, like a restorative spa experience where an app-powered wellness band carefully monitors and quantifies all your vitals. It’s very nice.

Brower Flour LP (Dig!)
Glammy pop-rock in the rich ’70s tradition is the sort of style that should be played by folks in multi-colored jumpsuits with big bright stars all over them, don’t you think? Good thing then that the second Discogs photo of Brower displays the group in precisely such outfits. Flour is the third Brower full-length, named after singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Nat Brower, and I’m not sure where his bandmates have run off to, as he is responsible for both writing and playing most of the music here. These songs are big, glitter-boot stompers ready to cause a high-school ruckus in 1978, back when you didn’t have to wait ’til puberty to start smoking cigarettes. Larger-than-life Big Star, T. Rex, Cheap Trick action here, though I feel a little uneasy knowing that it comes from one guy running between instruments in the studio and not a band of colorful freaks who all live in the same shoddy house on the edge of town with their hand-painted conversion van parked in front of the detached garage where they practice in front of random dirtbag neighborhood kids. There’s a beauty in the philosophical concept of The Rock Band that I find lacking in solo projects, though I suppose if I close my eyes while laying on my twin-size bed in the attic bedroom of my parents’ house while spinning Flour, songs like “Harmony Guitar” and “Confrontation” transport me to a screaming auditorium show, groupies storming the backstage as Nat Brower, sweat and glitter soaked, hands me his Les Paul (I’m the wide-eyed roadie) as he streaks on by.

Bushmeat ADFAQ / WCNSF 7″ (Yes We Cannibal)
More undiluted art-action here from Louisiana’s Yes We Cannibal crew, of which I’m gradually finding myself to be insatiable. Bushmeat is the work of one Thomas Stanley (author of The Execution of Sun Ra), and “ADFAQ” is also quite literally Sun Ra-inspired. This track centers Stanley’s spoken piece on the concept of “Alter Destiny”, looking towards future liberation with fearlessness and creativity. His voice is modulated, mixed and lightly chopped in a way that reminds me of Torn Hawk’s recent forays into spoken-word (if you wanna call it that), free to roam on a bed of spongy, pulsing beats and sporadic clarinet/sax. A lot of this kinda material often ends up assuming the shape of cool background music, but Stanley naturally commands your full attention from start to finish. “WCNSF” takes an entirely different route as a sampler-driven noise collage/duel with none other than Luke Stewart; surely no fingertip was left un-blistered following this lively electronic sparring. This entire single feels vital in both concept and form, regardless of if it ends up being a one-off sonic experiment from a seasoned writer or the humble beginnings of a new musical pursuit. Either way, I’m on board.

Cell/Borg Smash Blips LP (Dot Dash Sounds)
One glance at the three-dimensional grid and Atari 2600 font on the album sleeve and you know what Cell/Borg are serving: throwback electro-wave. One day, there will be a record cover that looks like this yet offers Greek death-metal or somber Midwestern shoegaze instead, but until then I will be readying my one-piece radiation suit with neon goggles when records that look like Smash Blips enter my home. Thankfully, this bi-coastal trio (they couldn’t force one guy to live in Michigan and expand their domain?) offers their own spin on the genre, one that’s lighter and softer without fading into the background. No buzzsaw synths, overtly modern digital effects or pulsing electronic tremors here – Cell/Borg find a nice spot that melds the moody-yet-wimpy minimal-synth of Ceramic Hello with La Düsseldorf’s glammy chug. It has the feel of venturing into a futuristic decade called “The 1980s”, one where flying cars and robot maids are as common as cookies and milk. Friends with the sounds of both Gary Numan and Brian Eno, Cell/Borg’s restraint and laid-back demeanor makes their songs cooler, sounding more like they were spawned alongside the original first-wave synth-rockers than the generations of Kraftwerk-resembling ensembles that have followed.

Charles Cicirella & Friends Poetry Autopsy LP (Bravecloud)
From the label that brought us those three simultaneous V-3 LP reissues we didn’t know we needed, here comes another salvaged document from the distant Ohioan underground. Charles Cicirella recorded this material on tapes spanning thirty-five years, yet Poetry Autopsy is his first vinyl record, not a moment too soon. He was a rogue poet tied-up with Tommy Jay and Nudge Squidfish among other notable names in that gracefully-grumpy scene and it appears he remains one to this day, spouting off his lines through a variety of appealing sonic approaches. Here you’ll find direct-to-tape verbal tantrums – just a man and his spittle-glistened microphone – alongside overtly-digital synth-accompanied treachery and actual live rock-band recordings. “Friend Or Foe” is antagonizing blues-rock more in line with Flipper than Mountain yet it somehow contains elements of both. A clear iconoclast among iconoclasts, Cicirella’s body of work cannot be pinned down to any one particular element: he’s slyly political, but he’s also unabashedly wacky, but he’s also disarmingly poignant, but he’s also furiously unrestrained. Undoubtedly the type of character who deserves a full and uninterrupted vinyl album dedicated to sharing certain highlights of what is clearly a rich and extensive body of work. On first glance, you might think “There Was Only Jim” is a DIY synth-prank ala German Shepherds or Nervous Gender, but dig into Cicirella’s words and you’ll find a sincerely moving tribute to his old long-gone friend, Jim Shepard.

Consec Biohackers 7″ (11PM)
Consec’s Wheel Of Pain album cemented them in my mind as the finest hardcore to ever lurch out of Athens, GA, and this tidy new seven-inch single (with a whopping three minutes of music on it) confirms my prior findings. They even play the slow parts fast, blazing through frantic, unrestrained hardcore riffing in the righteous tradition handed down to us by Die Kreuzen, Koro and Mecht Mensch. Of course, Consec have an additional few decades’ worth of hardcore to sift through, and on this blink-and-miss-able EP, they also kinda sound like Bad Noids enduring a particularly painful nipple-twist on the title track. The two other tracks are top-notch as well, with a satisfyingly out-of-place dive-bomb on “Coward” and the bystander-clobbering speed-mosh of “Misanthrope” bringing us home. Recorded crispy and loud and delivered for sale without a functioning record sleeve, this record thumbs its nose at the streaming era, the lack of DIY punk distribution for seven-inch records, favorers of style over substance, and pretty much everything else, standing on its own for those of who “get” “it”. I know I do!

cv313 / Federsen Sequential Space EP 12″ (Alt/Dub)
Leave your body behind, we’re going on a transcendental retreat care of dub-techno concierge Rod Modell (under his cv313 alias) and Chris Kelly (not of 97A) AKA Federsen (on his Alt/Dub label). The formula remains the same, but my god, why change a single detail when it results in music this sumptuous and soul-nourishing? cv313’s “Skycrossing” kicks it off with eight minutes of reverberant bliss… this is surely what ASMR must sound like on the moon. That’s really all I need, just give me “Skycrossing” on perpetual repeat, but we get four tracks here anyway, a wealth of digital-dub riches. Federsen dubs “Skycrossing” for the second track, toning down the choppiness (my favorite part) in favor of a drifting, distant orbit. He kicks off the b-side with his original track “Skyway”, which, while still situated in outer-space, calls to mind some sort of moving walkway through a glass-ceilinged space-station causeway. cv313 gets his chance to remix “Skyway” to wrap the EP, and in his version the purified air is suddenly thick with a scented humidity, the light techno shuffle activated like bundles of eucalyptus leaves in a steaming sauna. Friendly warning that when this record ends, reality immediately feels ruder and less inviting. Please, cv313 and Federsen, take me with you…

Dorian Concept Music From A Room Full Of Synths LP (Ous)
It’s all right there in the title! Austrian synth geek Dorian Concept charmed his way into the Swiss Museum for Electronic Music Instruments (let’s call it SMEM), and Music From A Room Full Of Synths is the end-result of his dicking around in the “SMEM playroom”. I love records like these, where a curious-minded musician enters a room full of gear that isn’t theirs and just lets it rip, from amateur Guitar Center noodlings to this playful and fluent set of hardware jams. Dorian Concept has released a bunch of records on Brainfeeder and Ninja Tune, and that caliber of high-end electro-tinkering is on display here. Even without studious rehearsal, Dorian Concept wrings out fresh and previously untapped sounds from what must be tens of thousands of dollars of electronic gear. Techno-minded but not techno, these pieces are rich with melodic invention and avoid typical pre-set sound-banks, as one would expect. If I didn’t know they were off-the-cuff, I might not have been able to tell, though the short track lengths (averaging two minutes) offer a clue, seeing as no particular motif or track is given much time to develop. My absolute favorite Dorian Concept track, “Trilingual Dance Sexperience” from 2009, is a three-minute stunner, so perhaps his best work usually comes out in these succinct bursts of colorful sound.

Echthros A Tooth For An Eye LP (Iron Lung)
Friendly reminder that on occasion, Iron Lung delves so deep into sonic brutality that it leaves the realm of hardcore entirely, venturing into the dark, scorched terrains of industrial, noise and power-electronics. Following a tape also on Iron Lung, Echthros delivers A Tooth For An Eye, a self-described “indigenous sci-fi story about getting our land back”. The specific land being referred to is in northern Alberta, Canada, namely the Fort McKay First Nation area from which Jesse Decay (AKA Echthros) hails. While many harsh-noise records fall flat conceptually – oh really, middle-class suburban white guy, tell us more about serial killers and sexual abuse! – Decay’s lived experience and righteous fervor go hand in hand with A Tooth For An Eye‘s speaker-popping low-end drones, crumbling walls of static and throaty, unhinged screams. While there’s no sign of light penetrating the record’s thematic putrid atmosphere (at least not until the chanted voice appears in “Rending Teeth / Retribution”), the album is comprised of separate tracks with different approaches, from the body-blow exhibition of “Spiritual Poison” to the uneasy bed of sinister murmurs in “Horrible Wound / The Flood”, which calls to my mind Bloodyminded’s relentless anguish. Much like Tony Hawk’s race-war meme, I can only hope that Echthros feels some slight hesitation before disposing of me along with all the other kin of European colonialist settlers.

Haunted Horses Dweller LP (Three One G)
On first pass, I assumed that bassist Brian McClelland elbowed out the other two guys when it came time to mix, as his bass cuts through loudest and clearest. No self-respecting guitarist would allow themselves to be outdone by a bassist! As it turns out, the explanation here is simple: Haunted Horses doesn’t have a guitarist! This trio operates with bass, drums and electronics, pummeling and throbbing in equal measure “industrial-punk” and noise-rock. It’s interesting how seamlessly their electronics fit into a slot usually reserved for guitar. They moan, grind and squeal not unlike a heavily-effected guitar, yet always under control and contributing to the push and pull of the songs rather than splattering for splattering’s sake. It comes across similar to the last (final, right?) Daughters album, or Young Widows and METZ with a Neubauten fetish, replacing crash cymbals with extra-large toms and a vocalist whose bellow teeters between ominous repute and choking-on-tongue. Cool stuff for sure, though they should consider getting an on-stage guitarist who isn’t necessarily plugged in (Vinnie Stigma style), if only for the singer to kick around and beat up on. That live video of Marilyn Manson catfighting John 5 on stage is ready for its non-disgraced spiritual successor.

Lavender Flu Tracing The Sand By The Pool LP (In The Red)
At this point, I’d have to consider Chris Gunn’s Lavender Flu in the same esteemed league as Dan Melchior: garage-y, guitar-centric songwriters at heart who can’t help but break off into heady experimental realms with equal gusto. Lavender Flu are proving to be nearly as prolific, having also released Los Pelecaras in December, a geeked-out improv album that smacks and sputters like the 25th hour of a Sunburned Hand Of The Man jam sesh. Fresh for 2025, here’s Tracing The Sand By The Pool, a far more traditional affair in the form of psych-pop, garage-rock and indie-glam, all fully rehearsed songs guaranteed. “Traditional” is a relative term, of course, as these songs leap all over the place, any interesting idea considered. How about the the weird mix of sugar-pop vocals, farty bass and fluttering Suicide-esque rhythms that ends on a harsh-noise wipeout called “I’m Gonna Love You”? It sounds like Beck if he never hit it big with “Loser”. Then there’s “Patron Eyes (Cocoon 2069)”, which opens with a chuggy intro redolent of White Boy & The Average Rat Band before it rips into Toxic State-quality hardcore-thrash with a totally different singer! If Lavender Flu are engaging with concepts of continuity and correlation, their decisions elude me, which is part of what makes it such a fun listen… loopy, memorable garage-rock that disorients with each new turn.

Legowelt Casio CTK630 Homekeyboard 10″ (Hotmix)
If there’s a bad time for a new Legowelt record, I have yet to encounter it, so why not step to this new white-vinyl ten-inch? For those unfamiliar, Legowelt is kind of like the Lil B of Dutch techno, a beloved oracle of the culture who is equally inscrutable and consistently ahead of and/or starting the trends, casually moving through the world with only occasional adherence to the common laws of physics, space and society. “Drumcomputer Glory” is a prime Legowelt cut, with big ’80s drum rhythms, fluttery synths and perhaps his own vocals, unless he got some other guy to huff and howl into a cheap microphone that runs through a vintage Space Echo unit. You could throw it on an FXHE mix, or tell me it was comic-noise troupe Extreme Animals and I wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in either instance. The title track is actually the b-side, another colorful taste from Legowelt’s legendary stash of exotic synthesizers. This one is giving me feelings of Anthony “Shake” Shakir messing around at a swap meet, a live-edited, multi-instrument groove that will have the children inventing new forms of double dutch. Triple dutch, maybe?? Whatever the case, Legowelt is probably already on to the next thing, but I’m thankful he always takes care to leave a trail behind him.

Lifted Trellis LP (Peak Oil)
Heavy-lidded after-hours set here from Maxmillion Dunbar of the Future Times posse alongside Matt Papich (aka Co La), aided by friends like Jeremy Hyman (of Ponytail) and Joe Williams (aka Motion Graphix). I think Jacob Long (Earthen Sea) even has a cameo here, and at this point I’m starting to get jealous I never got the invite myself. I could hang, crack wise and order takeout, guys! Anyway, after the party is over and the turntables and MPCs are powered down, these DC-area music-lovers pick up a guitar and sit down to the drums and keys for a feathery foray into post-rock opulence. As is often the case with today’s post-techno chill-out artists, the sophisticated patina of ECM Records looms – I’m thinking of Bill Connors and Art Ensemble Of Chicago, in spirit if not blatant sonic overlap. These guys slather the proceedings in tasteful dub, of course, subjecting aerosol keyboards and skittering percussion to vintage-echo rinsing. Mix that with the modern percussion-driven tone-float of Eli Keszler and the quizzical interiority of Jim O’Rourke and you’re close to the vibe permeating through Trellis. If you’re still uptight after a start-to-finish spin of this one, a CVS bag full of edibles couldn’t loosen you up.

Mope Grooves Box Of Dark Roses 2xLP (12XU)
There’s a disconnect for me within Mope Grooves’ final (master)work, Box Of Dead Roses – how can an album as bursting with messy life and all its happiness, fury, indignation and beauty exist when the person behind it sadly left this mortal plane just a few months before its release? It’s rare that a record feels so alive, and it’s a profound heartbreaker that stevie, the heart and soul of Mope Grooves, is no longer here among us living folks. Across twenty-seven tracks, stevie gives us so much, a creative mind in the no-budget underground reliant on community ties and dodgy gear to shape and tease her musical ideas into existence. Keys, synths, bass, guitar, lots of drum programming and a variety of voices all contribute to the gorgeous sprawl, one that bears the DIY exploration of Katie Alice Greer, the charming, secretive weirdness of Microphones and the Rentals-esque contrast of angelic vocals and big thrumming pop chords, all intermingled with collaged spoken-word samples, oddball effects, improvisational elements, jungle/footwork-inspired MPC programming and the soothing familiarity of a Mellotron. Some songs are stinging indictments of the world, while others celebrate its hidden beauty, all through stevie’s uncompromising and unfiltered approach. Trans liberation is not merely an abstract concept but the fuel on which Mope Grooves burns – as mentioned in the crucial, thankfully-extensive liner-note booklet, the recorded sound of stevie putting “$7,500 into a cash counter at (her) surgeon’s office” appears in “Home Sick”. stevie’s life was thrust fully into Box Of Dark Roses, as she speaks to those who directly inspired her: “if I’m ever hard to get a hold of u can find my whole heart in here.”

Pondlicker Soft Focus 12″ (NAFF)
Soft Focus indeed! The debut EP from Canadian producer (and NAFF label owner) Adam Feingold’s Pondlicker project is as safe as memory foam, an IDM-ish ambient techno that centers its soothing aura. Lots of guys in canvas ball-caps and oversized pastel-colored sweatshirts have been making music like this over the last five years plus, and while I have not been able to gaze into Feingold’s closet to verify, his music seems geared for similar homebody comforts, Pondlicker setting up these beautiful synth processes and letting them rip for minutes at a time. He throws some tasteful guitar strums into the mix on “Orchid Media”, and amazingly features a guest spot from someone named Richard on “Pluck (ft. Richard)” that couldn’t have possibly required more than one person to make. It’s very post-Huerco S., and of similar mind and body to Purelink, Cousin and the excellent AV Moves album discussed above. Truly no shortage of this style going around, gorgeous expanses of wind-eroded synths with intricately-calibered rhythms buzzing beneath, and while I can’t say Soft Focus is a standout, neither completist nor dabbler will feel cheated by the sensuous introspection offered here.

Pypy Sacred Times LP (Goner)
It’s apparently not pronounced “pee-pee”, but how many times has this Canadian garage-pop group had to tell people that? They made their bed, but Pypy don’t seem to mind lying in it, particularly with all these feel-good riffs, technicolor synth splashes and upbeat rhythms at play on their third full-length (in no less than fifteen years!). Once you learn that they’re Canadian, their sound makes sense, as this group goes maximalist in a way that seems to thrive among my Northern neighbors. (Is it true the Canadian government provides artist grants to bands based on their number of members, hence the exploding ranks of The Arcade Fire, Fucked Up, The New Pornographers et al.?) I’m getting used to bands that hone in on one meager sliver of a sub-sub-genre and mine it thoroughly – a technique that I’m totally fine with, generally speaking – but Pypy take a wider approach, no wild ideas refused. There’s a whole lot of party-time, surf’s up garage-rock happening here, often splattered with bleep-bloops, as if a food fight catered by The Epoxies broke out between The B-52’s and Dum Dum Girls. They happily throw anything else into the mix, trends or taste be damned – how else do you account for the opening cut “Lonely Striped Sock”, which opens with a mutant-disco strut before blasting off into a metallic breakdown that’s far more Anthrax than DEVO? There’s even room for the power-ballad of “Vanishing Blinds”, a dramatic slice of ’80s MTV-friendly new-wave. Pypy took everything they liked and somehow found a big enough blender to throw it all in.

Retail Simps Thousand Stairs / My Own Attitude 7″ (Total Punk)
Retail Simps have seemingly run out of humorous definite articles this time around (are they saving “those” or “thy” for the next album?), but they remain chock full of googly-eyed punk rock songs! This new two-song single is staunchly vinyl-only, a noble if self-defeating designation in this age where we all insist that music be beamed directly into our phones at all times. Anyway, if you’re still one of those superior people who has a turntable and uses it, you might enjoy the flashy-trashy jangle of “Thousand Stairs”. I’m picking up a big Home Blitz vibe here, from the guitar playing both itchy and overzealous, and vocals which are sneering just a little hard to match the melody note for note. “My Own Attitude” goes long for Retail Simps – precisely the same length as John Cage’s “4’33″”, in fact. There’s no room here for examining the errant natural sounds around you, however, as Retail Simps squawk and stomp like John Belushi interrupting a Penetrators rehearsal, swapping between laid-back, guitar-soloed blooze and double-time punk-rock gospel. I think I want Retail Simps to one day do me wrong, just to see what that would be like, as they’ve developed a consistent pattern of doing me no wrong for the entirety of their career to date.

Rozz Rezabek 1979 Pop Session LP (HoZac)
HoZac continues to excavate valuable missing pieces of first-wave punk’s puzzle, which is impressive considering how deeply quarried that era has been over the present millennium. Rozz Rezabek is a memorable name and tied to Negative Trend, as Rezabek was the unruly vocalist for that early and pivotal San Fran punk group. Other members of Negative Trend went onto Flipper (and Toiling Midgets), though I will confess my ignorance as to the rest of the Rozz Rezabek life story – he’s still happily alive, at least, which is a refreshing plot change among so many deceased first-wave punk rockers. Unlike many other HoZac archival releases, 1979 Pop Session doesn’t come with a booklet or wordy insert, so all I’ve got is the music, which is fine as these songs require little in the way of contextualizing to be enjoyed. From a musical quality standpoint, this previously-unreleased session offers no clues as to why it took a lifetime to get released, as these songs are on par with anything found in the pages of Slash in 1979. Rezabek’s sneer is clearly aligned with Johnny Rotten’s toxic whine, which he even pushes to a Darby Crash-worthy snarl on occasion. The songs are fast for punk but slow for the hardcore that was soon to succeed it, and while there aren’t any god-tier gems to be discovered here, any fan of classic punk (such as myself) has good reason to give it a whirl. Actually, I take that back: “I Don’t Wanna Be A Machine (Karen Anne Quinlan)” is a catchy ripper about a prominent figure in the right-to-die controversy of the day, and if I had a punk radio show right now it’d be first on my list.

The Sewerheads Despair Is A Heaven LP (Tall Texan)
Pittsburgh’s Sewerheads figured out their formula from the get-go and jump right into their first full-length on the venerable Tall Texan label following a self-released seven-inch. Much as that single hinted, The Sewerheads are in the business of serious, smoldering, mature rock music (where “mature” is in no way a pejorative). This stuff isn’t for kids, is what I mean – their sound is too ominous and dreary, the songs swaying like hundred-year-old trees and snapping like my knees when I try to get out of bed in the morning. It’s almost the opposite of “dad rock”, in that these songs sound like they’re for (if not necessarily by) child-less adults, those who have traveled the world without obligation, followed their dreams and still feel existentially bent out of shape. It’s a style that has me thinking of Rowland S. Howard’s art-sickness mixed with The Dirty Three’s sea-sickness (with vocalist Shani Banerjee’s violin providing that sonic edge, of course). More than anything, I keep hearing Elias Rønnenfelt in the voice of Eli Kasan here (maybe it’s an Eli thing?), a strained yearning with reams of poetry both heartfelt and disturbed and a loose collared-shirt unbuttoned dangerously low. Maybe even an antique crucifix necklace – there’s no shortage of murkily religious imagery here – but perhaps Kasan is saving his come-to-Jesus moments for their next album, when they can bring in the church choir’s grand backing vocals that his dark, sweeping arrangements will surely demand.

Skull Cult Can You See What I Mean? 7″ (Under The Gun)
If the weaponized genericness of the band-name “Skull Cult” doesn’t cause you to instinctively glaze past this review, I appreciate you sticking with me, and them. This Bloomington-based group came about in the proto-egg-punk years – what we can now depressingly designate as “the first Trump era” – this new five-song EP being their return to new music in nearly seven years (or two and a half lifetimes in contemporary punk-time). Thankfully, age has not mellowed this group, as the vocalist sounds like he’s climbing out of the speaker to personally coat me in spittle as their upbeat party-punk sounds are pushed past the limit, into something disorienting and bad-trippy. Imagine if Hank Wood had a younger brother who secretly dipped into his uppers stash; that same sort of “The Mummies as a hardcore band” vibe is present on cuts like “Organization” and “New New”, keyboards almost toppling off their stands as the boundary between stage and crowd quickly shatters. I would (and have) tolerate(d) a sloppy mess that delivers this sort of energy, but Skull Cult wield the secret weapon known as “an excellent drummer” and throw in some tidy guitar solos and athletic bass runs with no shortage of keyboards not simply adding to the cacophony but leading the charge. The uninspired band-name might lead you astray, but the freaked-out cat in a splatter-art dimension on the cover? For Can’t You See What I Mean?, it’s dead-on.

Slicing Grandpa Volume Thinker LP (String Theory)
For a musical project that consistently sounds like it’s dying, John Laux’s Slicing Grandpa soldiers on into its third decade, steadfast and limping as usual. Maybe it’s finally on the right medicine. Volume Thinker is a little lighter than recent LPs, in that there’s really no low-end to speak of – if a bass-guitar was involved, Laux may have forgotten to plug it in. That’s cool with me though, as Volume Thinker is noteworthy in its decrepitude, lightweight noise-rock borne of fitful sleep and poor diets. As with other Slicing Grandpa material, I’m reminded of Kilslug and Sloth, sans any overt Sabbath inspiration (I count zero head-bangable riffs here), only meandering home-recorded rock tunes that seem to be stricken with both drowsiness and insomnia simultaneously. It’s a slight, brittle sound, one that I wouldn’t hold against anyone for not enjoying, but as the minutes of the title track pass with multi-tracked guitar madness, I find myself engaged against my better judgment. Other songs, like opener “Fiberglass Feeling”, take hardcore-punk riffs and neuter them, as if Dead Milkmen were actually just one sole dead milkman with no surviving relatives to notify. Don’t feel bad, though – the direct sentiment of “I Forgot To Care” confirms that Slicing Grandpa needs nothing or nobody. The records will continue regardless of whether morale improves or not.

SnPLO Lastday Cookie 3×12″ (Pin)
The duo of PLO Man and Sentena shared their exquisite formalist techno with last year’s Seven Hundred And Fifty Loops EP, and while I counted far less than the promised number on my copy, this new triple twelve-inch release goes deep enough to strike oil. With one track per side, these six cuts are stoic and extensive, mining the classic sounds of reductionist Detroit techno in a manner that Germans like SnPLO have been doing for decades now. The title track opens things, a bleary yet persistent drift through the after-after-hours, and they take it a step further with “Lastday Cookie [No Hats]” on the flip, true to its modified title. “Smokerecording” pushes the delay knobs to their limits, resulting in something that sounds like a Skee Mask screen-saver (this is a good thing); “Smok2” is a redux of “Smokerecording” with a brighter, more ASMR-forward mix, the vibrant trickle of notes and lack of low-end resulting in a hypnotic state far removed from any typical dance-floor. After such a heavy-lidded four tracks, those of us who somehow can muster the energy to flip to the third twelve-inch will surely be rendered unconscious by the even more refracted pitter-patter of “Reduced Peaking”, over ten minutes of spacial drip more in line with the work of Tod Dockstader than Jeff Mills. Closing track “F1” would make sense as a blank groove, continuing Lastday Cookie‘s sharp slide into extreme minimalism, but it offers three minutes of palate-cleansing space-fuzz, the final sound an outer-atmosphere satellite hears before it’s powered down for good. A scant few will be able to hang with Lastday Cookie, and they are all my people.

S.O.N.S Drive 12″ (Kalahari Oyster Cult)
You can count on Kalahari Oyster Cult for pure hands-in-the-air techno euphoria, but this recent EP from the South Korea-stationed Frenchman S.O.N.S is particularly thrilling. Thrilling, but certainly nothing new – people have been ripping wormy acid squiggles with snippets of female voiceover vocals and unrelenting 4/4 kicks for decades now, of course. To an unmedicated techno addict like myself, though, “Nite-Club” is sumptuous comfort food, a streamlined contemporary offering of Y2K trance moves. The same can be said for the furious stare of “Drive”, an Alden Tyrell by-way-of Knight Rider offering on par with the Dragula soundtrack (the drag-horror competition TV show, not Rob Zombie’s signature whip). I’d be fine if EP closer “Crystal Rhythms” offered a moment of ambient reflection, but nah – S.O.N.S goes all in on a hop-skip rhythm, more sexy-android voiceovers and an endless supply of supplementary bongo hits. Early in the pandemic when we were all splurging on ourselves online, I purchased a Kalahari Oyster Cult baseball cap, and the next time someone asks me what it means, I’m going to blast “Drive” in their face, peppered with a sample of Ian Mackaye’s famous “do you fucking get it??“. Enough’s enough.

Unlettered Five Mile Point LP (no label)
Mike Knowlton (of ’90s groups Poem Rocket and Gapeseed) continues to play and record post-hardcore/indie music, though the way in which he does it has changed with the times. Whereas back in the ’90s you actually had to meet other people and stand around in the same room together to get things done (and, distressingly, there’s a good chance someone was smoking cigarettes indoors the whole time), now you can fire up your iMac, load some software and bring your sonic vision to reality with as little conflict or outside interference as you’d like. And you can press up a professional-looking vinyl LP by simply filling out a digital order-form on the same laptop where you recorded your music! Unlettered is Knowlton’s project with his wife Kelly Grimm, though my understanding is that Unlettered is Knowlton’s baby. He plays mostly all of the music, sings the words and programs the beats as necessary, scattered with little digital details that are noticeable with the level of scrutiny you’ve come to expect from a review in these pages. I like it, honestly – I suspect that even the “real”-sounding drums might be programmed, and the occasional glitched-out guitars are a nice touch. It’s extremely in the Sonic Youth / Slint / Jawbox school of dreary post-grunge indie, with Knowlton’s vocals providing a sort of holy help-desk oracle voice not unlike Hum’s Matt Talbott. Sounds a lot like something Numero would reissue in their tireless campaign to shine up any obscure ’90s emo/indie artifact, but Unlettered are happening in the present tense.

Voice Imitator Of How Hits LP (12XU)
Perhaps the most peculiar post-hardcore group in all of the great continent of Australia, Voice Imitator drop a new full-length following their 12XU debut from a few years ago. It’s simultaneously post-grad and anti-intellectual music, in that these songs seem to be the result of strict attention to detail while also showcasing a fond appreciation for heavy, bludgeoning, repetitive chug. Of How Hits probably falls under the very wide tent of “noise-rock”, but Voice Imitator seem to construct (or deconstruct) their songs with a similar architectural eye as Wire. They don’t sound like Wire, per se, but both groups seem to relish repetition where it normally doesn’t grow, glitchy hiccups as rendered by humans not computers, sustained tension with no guarantee of release, that sort of thing. B-side opener “Sportcoupé” is a good example of the Voice Imitator style, as it sounds like a skipping Slayer CD until the vocals kick in, the energy churning inward as an eventual half-time drum rhythm appears. And just when it feels like it’s finally ready to explode like pus from an infected wound, the whole thing cuts off, into the next nervous tick of a rhythm. I can imagine an alternate reality where James Murphy retreated to isolation after no one liked the first LCD Soundsystem records, enhancing his love of krautrock rhythms with an anti-social late ’80s Touch & Go twist into songs he keeps private, or I can spin Of How Hits, far more well-adjusted in spite of our actual reality.

Voyeur’s Market Songs O Yule 12″ (Minimum Table Stacks)
Something you should know about me is that I love Christmas, and subsequently Christmas music. I’m not a nut about it, though – I love Christmas and its associated songbook the precisely right healthy amount! That said, I respect the many folks for whom the “Christmas” genre is an immediate dealbreaker, as well as I respect Ash Pridham of Calgary, whose Voyeur’s Market project risks it all on this debut vinyl release, a Christmas-themed, one-sided, red-vinyl twelve-inch EP. It’s going to be a real conundrum for those who hate Christmas but love home-assembled DIY post-punk, as Songs O Yule is an undeniable treat (stocking stuffer?) for fans of The Mekons, Slant 6, Fatal Microbes, Erase Errata and L. Voag. Sure, they’ll be bopping to the mangled pop and basement twang happening here, but what will they make of Santa’s guest vocal appearance on “The Man In Red”, or the ample use of jingle bells? I’m guessing that they’ll have no choice but to let the overt holiday theme slide, on account of Voyeur’s Market’s knack for crafting such memorable and charming post-punk fragments, even down to the yuletide re-working of Country Teasers’s “Henry Crinkle” into “Henry Kringle”. Is it too much to ask for a Valentine’s themed EP next? There should be a Voyeur’s Market EP for every yearly tradition.

Al Wootton Calvinist Hospitality 12″ (Trule)
Al Wootton’s collection of elite techno constructions continues to grow, starting off the new year right with the Calvinist Hospitality EP. I enjoyed his more populist offerings as Deadboy earlier in his career, but under the name that appears on his passport, Wootton is committed to stranger realms. That’s what’s happening here: four more shining slabs of freaky industrial techno in the different-yet-similar spirits of Shackleton and Regis. While muscular and fine-tuned, Wootton enjoys scuffing up his grooves with dubbed-out percussion (see the title track here) and bewildering effects. Whereas Shackleton has long escaped his earthly tether, Wootton’s material always feels grounded, both in these solo productions as well as his work as part of the trio Holy Tongue (whose collaborative album with Shackleton remains a high point on my record shelves (and his)). Closing track “Imperial Toledano” creeps and crawls and teases a drop that never arrives, the sonic equivalent of standing in an empty bus terminal at 3:00 AM and slowly realizing that no one is coming to pick you up. Somehow it’s an intoxicating feeling when delivered by Al Wootton.

Zillas On Acid Regression Session LP (Feines Tier)
Philly acid kings Zillas On Acid quietly drop this fresh party-ready set care of Cologne’s also-party-ready Feines Tier label. Maintaining a workable mid-tempo throughout, Zillas On Acid are mindful of the cartilage in our aging joints with this one, pumping the burrowing acid lines with a casual zest. Even with the sinister bass-line that lurks throughout “Underling”, the vibes are unrepentantly smiley; “Cha Cha Cha” makes a hook out of its title, a hardware-driven stomp that mashes the street-level L.I.E.S. aesthetic with the hard-beat bounce that the Kaos Dance label served through the dawn of the ’90s. These eight tracks are unified in that manner, sticking to the same basic mid-tempo groove and moving parts (analog drum machines, acid squiggles, punchy EBM bass-lines), but it never lags, not even at this leisurely pace. I know this duo is throwing parties all over my city, and while they surely don’t bring out nearly as many crop-top / baggy-jean wearing drugged-out Europeans as their music deserves, I feel bad for how little I’ve personally contributed to their various dance-floors, particularly as they seem to be on a roll churning out casual-creeping bangers such as these. Finally, a worthy personal resolution for 2025.

Miniatures compilation LP (General Speech)
General Speech has been an excellent resource excavating international historical punk sub-genres that seem to come from alternate timelines, this Miniatures compilation being a prime example. General Speech leaped the threshold from purist hardcore-punk audiences to the avant-garde curious with its Die Öwan reissues, though really, it takes only a slight perspective shift to interpret The Swankys as high art (also reissued by General Speech). Miniatures comes from the Die Öwan camp, originally released on cassette in 1981 in tribute to the British compilation of the same name, the title a requisite to shorter song lengths. The premise of “short songs” is never a bad one, and Miniatures is a glorious mix of one-off projects, fake bands, self-recorded nonsense and random sparks of genius. I’d file it alongside the Fuck Off Records tape comps of the same era, the best of the Bullshit Detector series and the Japanese noise freakery of the Unbalance label. The Miniatures style is overall more playful, naïve and uninhibited than the other compilations I just mentioned, though just as unabashedly amateur and reckless. Occasionally, between the telephone beeps, tape-machine feedback and thrift-shop keyboard tomfoolery a rickety post-punk song will appear, but it’s the spirit, not solely the sound, that connects these various artists to punk. Why bother learning guitar chords when you can shout into an answering machine to crack up your buddies? And then go ahead and try to sell it as a tape?

A Large Sheet Of Muscle Dracula Completo LP (The Trilogy Tapes)
The British avant-industrial prankster responsible for Wanda Group continues to plumb the demented recesses of his psyche with this new-ish project, the vividly-named A Large Sheet Of Muscle. Dracula Completo is a twenty-six song LP, putting A Large Sheet Of Muscle in contention for the title of The Napalm Death Of Domestic-Experimental Music. I appreciate the brevity of these tracks, and the loose threads that run through them: sparseness, ghostly undertones, tiny up-close sounds, pitch-lowered vocal mutterings. The vocal processing has me thinking of The Shadow Ring’s I’m Some Songs, but Dracula Completo is controlled by someone with a trigger-happy finger on the remote, constantly changing up tracks before any idea is thoroughly examined. I like it this way, the appealing contrast of humdrum sonics and quick-shifting edits. It plays out like an abandoned house with a couple dozen tiny rooms in various states of disrepair, many of which are inhabited by disgruntled ogres shifting their weight under straining couch springs and ready to supply you with their personal grievances if they catch you coming in. A Large Sheet Of Muscle gets its hands dirty in these strange and unkempt zones so you don’t have to.

Apolitiq Now. 12″ (Curious Electricity)
NYC industrial duo Apolitiq has existed since the late ’80s, but sparsely so; this five-song EP is the group’s first release since 1993. These guys are from a pre-Giuliani NYC, back when the filth was still overt and groups like Missing Foundation could wander the evacuated warehouses at will, and their sound tends to exist in that same era. Underground sex-club EBM, Atari Teenage Riot, the tape-trading noise underground and mid-’80s Cabaret Voltaire seem to swirl together here like petroleum by-product in a Lower East Side puddle, if not direct influences of Apolitiq then at least sharing some sonic and cultural connections. These tracks do show signs of existing in the present-day as well, from the AutoTuned vocals that smear through “Breathe” to the spectral post-clubbing reverberations of “Start”, almost Burial-like in their wrenched emotion and smudged appearance. It’s pretty dense stuff, with at least half a dozen layers of sound surging at any given time, which can lead to a muddiness, either intentional or not. Judging from the dystopian imagery, lyrics like “stop / no one owns us” and “keep on living the lie”, and a vaguely Banksy-stylized sense of social uprising, cleanliness isn’t a quality Apolitiq are after.

Archetype The Ick LP (Knekelhuis)
Viennese artist Leonard Prochazka has run through a number of musical aliases in the last few years, many of which were lucky enough to find a home on the Knekelhuis label. He is a member of the fantastic experimental post-punk group Jean-Luc, released an album of experimental electronics as Geier Aus Stahl a couple years ago and now has surfaced as Archetype. Took me a minute to figure that out, seeing as the cover has The Ick in a large font and the album opens with a song called “Archetype”, a trick I haven’t seen since Fuck On The Beach. But as Archetype (and not entirely dissimilarly to Geier Aus Stahl), Prochazka winds his way through nebulous, murky electronics at unhurried speeds. It’s dark enough to brush up against goth, but there’s a playfulness, or at least a lack of uptightness, that shakes some dust off the old aesthetic. “Industrial” is probably a better descriptor, though his rhythms never pummel, grind or imitate heavy machinery; rather, Archetype favors brooding trip-hop rhythms and slinky downtempo grooves that pair interestingly with the swampy low-end melodies. In more than one way, it’s clear that Archetype has given us The Ick.

Blu:sh Pinky Promise 12″ (Kalahari Oyster Cult)
Delectable extended-play of guilt-free Euro techno care of the always dependable Kalahari Oyster Cult. Who else but a European would call it a “pinky promise” instead of a “pinky swear”? These tracks are slick in an early aughts way, full of tidy, melodic bass-lines, upbeat kicks and the shimmering gloss you’d expect to hear on a Sven Väth remix of Madonna’s “Ray Of Light”. The kicker for me is the variety of vocal interjections, from flirtily conversational in an Alexa Dash sorta way (“Fly And Mimi”) to softly cooing (check the hook for “Rave Up”) to digitally-sliced in a manner redolent of Ricardo Villaobos’s “Andruic”. It’s like you’re dead-center in the main room of Amsterdam’s Club Paradiso, pummeled by the insistent, drop-less techno thump, but somehow picking up all the interstitial conversations happening all around you with perfect clarity. I actually saw Lil’ Jon perform at Paradiso many years ago (it was funny seeing all these white Euro bros throwing up their little gang signs at the front of the stage), but I would trade that moment for a packed dance crowd with Blu:sh tracks careening out of that million-dollar sound-system directly into my skull and out my spine. I’m sure Jon would understand.

The Circulators Insufficient Fun LP (Total Punk)
When I brainstorm what the Platonic ideal of a Total Punk release might be, and depending on precisely how constipated and/or drunk I am, something very close to this full-length debut from San Francisco’s The Circulators enters my consciousness. Theirs is a timeless form of punk rock tomfoolery, songs based in classic garage/rock n’ roll idioms, the same troubled path you might trace the influences that inspired first-wave originals like The Lewd, Shock or The Randoms. The bassist goes on all those slick melodic runs (Matt Freeman much?) while all six strings of the guitar are wildly strummed, and the singer is playful and charming, the sort of character sure to lead you into trouble that’s worth it for the excitement. His voice carries a tuneful shout delivered with the jolt of a bullhorn, similar in swagger and joie de vivre to The Time Flys and The Exploding Hearts without feeling like a late-to-the-party tag-along. The Circulators deliver it pure, and in a highly recognizable form – their existence lies closer to the millionth band that sounds like this than it does to the first – but that’s a testament to the power of audacious, freewheeling punk rock, unkillable by any media consumption trends or technological advances. Riot Fest’s roster should be filled with more bands like this if it has any intention of someday living up to its name.

D. D. Mirage Feel It / So Hot 12″ (Isle Of Jura)
Right now there is no shortage of Balearic soft-rock disco funk being made by alt dudes dressed exactly the way their dads dressed in 1995, and… I really can’t seem to get enough! Rather than forage new genres, intrepid musicians take to refining their favorite pre-established ones, which goes for everything from crusty punk to hardcore techno to the relaxed-pace disco-funk of Sydney’s D.D. Mirage. “Feel It” comes in pop-vocal and extended-instrumental formats, smooth as Lionel Richie swimming in an infinity pool filled with piña colada. A verse invites the listener to “lose your mind”, but the groove is far too slickly sedate for me to lose anything other than my wedding ring in the silk sheets of a resort-hotel bed. “So Hot” arrives decked-out with a four-on-the-floor strut, light, period-piece cosmic touches and actively funky bass. The shout-along chant engages with a blissful vocoder’d refrain, like a robot maid serving up space-age charcuterie in a midnight lounge. “So Hot” receives a Jura Soundsystem dub, highlighting the slapped bass along a coterie of drifting keys, wet-hot pads and synths that descend like sunsets. I guess it’d be a little too try-hardy if these guys wore the unbuttoned silk shirts, crotch-choking booty-shorts and turquoise jewelry of the genre’s forefathers, but there’s gotta be some daring nu-Balearic producer out there who could pull this off, right?

Djrum Meaning’s Edge 12″ (Houndstooth)
The flute has been creeping its way into having a fresh cultural moment, it seems. Not a whole lot in these pages starts with Lizzo, but she’s certainly due significant credit, and then of course the exaggerated beatdown-hardcore of Speed prominently features a flute on their newest, and Andre 3000 reinvented himself as an ambient flute maestro… the names are varied and the talents generally pretty impressive. Add Djrum to the list, as the British producer centers various flutes in the vigorous techno braindance that comprises his first record since 2019, Meaning’s Edge. These tracks twitch and flutter like Aphex Twin’s Syro with the hydraulic oomph of Mumdance & Logos’ Proto, woven with deadly precision and physically energizing even without the easy benefit of a typical 4/4 thump. The atmospheres are rich and the forward-motion is dizzying, and then there are those flutes, calling like a beacon from the opposite shore (“Crawl”) or enchanting the king’s court with a jaunty melody too dextrous and flashy to be performed by human fingers and lungs (“Frekm Pt. 1”). Not club music, unless of course your club discourages dancing in favor of eyes-closed head-wobbling and the occasional hand in the air, fingers wiggling as if conducting Djrum’s fanciful melodies and dazzling drums.

Earthen Sea Recollection LP (Kranky)
There’s chill, and there’s very chill, and there’s Earthen Sea, whose music provides enough chill to maintain a warehouse of industrial coolers at a constant 33°F. There’s a lot to love about Jacob Long’s long-running solo ambient project – the records are all really good, for starters – but what I find most impressive is the way that each album takes on a life of its own, managed by its own unique sonic parameters yet beholden to a consistent state of meditative bliss. I assumed 2019’s Grass And Trees would be the project’s zenith, what with its memorably unorthodox hand-clap rhythms, but 2022’s Ghost Poems was equally mighty with its gorgeous, tempered glitch. And now Recollection might best them both, with decidedly jazzy movements care of delicate drumming and bass that wafts in like incense. There are even some more upbeat moments here: “Sunlit Leaving” feels like my favorite Kettenkarussell moments, rain-dappled dub techno that centers emotion and grace. The instrumentation is a little more familiar this time around, what with bass-guitar and keys, yet like those previous Earthen Sea albums, the sound remains fresh and vital. “Clear Photograph” even pulls back the curtain to reveal a bright blue sky outside, playing with forms of dub-techno, ambient, new-age and jazz with a breezy sense of time and space. Does Long even sneak a tiny bass solo in there? I’m not remotely religious, yet this feels like my kind of holy music. Let us give thanks and praise.

Eros Your Truth Is A Lie LP (Downwards)
Big, bold, beautiful full-length outing here from Karl O’Connor AKA Regis in a newly-configured band formation. He handles the programming, percussion and vocals and is backed by My Disco’s Liam Andrews on guitars and bass alongside first-wave goth icon Annie Hogan on piano. As is to be expected with anything Downwards- or Regis-related, the production here is immense, with industrial percussion mastered to make your Honda Civic’s factory stereo sound like Berghain’s main room. Rather than drill us all into the ground (a technique of O’Connor’s that I personally find deeply enriching), Your Truth Is A Lie is restrained and sensual by comparison, preferring to slink through its lengthy tracks like a bolt of crimson velvet dragged down spiral marble stairs. No amateur Draculas allowed, this is high-functioning industrial-goth couture that expects its listeners to already bear the scars of Dead Can Dance and Bauhaus. I’m reminded a bit of Einstürzende Neubauten’s recent years, where the music remains intense, bleak and thrilling but is equally languid and charismatic, all with the wallop associated with Regis’s sonic signature. Eros is offering us a significant glimpse into their darkly decadent world, so try to behave yourself and act like you belong here, okay?

Fake Last Name Persuasion Domains 7″ (Yes We Cannibal)
Fake Last Name is Ronni What’s solo project, who you might recognize from the under-appreciated Spllit. (Myself included – I need to spend more time enjoying their great Infinite Hatch album.) Fans of Spllit will undoubtedly appreciate Fake Last Name, as this studio-assembled solo-band is more post-punk in an over-it, queasily funky manner. The title track is right up there with the Artificial Go EP from a few months ago, and the Mania D. EP from a few decades ago, a serrated no-wave guitar twang on top of a poppy DIY bop with supremely disaffected vocals. “Gadfly” rides a cheap elastic bass-line into another cool zone; I can picture What in black sunglasses on the bus, no-selling the shrieking baby directly across from her. In a power-move, especially for a limited seven-inch few will hear, Ana da Silva (of The Raincoats) provides a deconstructed dub of the title track – vocals to the front! – before “Rain Come” wraps the EP, an instrumental with gently warbling synths and a choppy drum-machine. I could go for a Fake Last Name full-length pretty much immediately, couldn’t you?

Flower-Corsano Duo The Chocolate Cities LP (C/Site Recordings)
I love when people who run DIY labels use the opportunity to do whatever the hell they want with it. Stephan Christensen’s C/Site Recordings is generally utilized as a platform for the guitar improv/rock/psych scene in his general region, but if he wants to reissue a 2009 CD-r from Chris Corsano and Michael Flower, why the hell not! While I’m surprised at how well some of my ’00 noise CD-rs have held up (weren’t they supposed to disintegrate in ten years, or was that a conspiracy propagated by Big Streaming?), the original release of The Chocolate Cities evaded me until now. I can certainly understand Christensen’s rationale in giving this one a second life, as this duo recording is marvelous, two inspired players operating at full capacity. Michael Flower (whose work I have enjoyed as part of Vibracathedral Orchestra) plays a “Japanese banjo”, which sounds a whole heck of a lot like the taishogoto that Bill Nace has been spotlighting over the last few years. Flower ripples through it, a cascade of high-pitched harmonics spewing forth like a celestial Eddie Van Halen, and Corsano is in unrelenting octopus mode, low on auxiliary percussive elements in favor of straight-ahead tireless bashing on his trap kit. It’s a beautiful, thrilling pairing, and what with five song titles that all reference the indulgence (and overindulgence) of high-percentage-cacao chocolate, it comes strongly recommended.

Fracatso Fracatso LP (Versatile)
What’s up with France? There’s the great Nina Harker and their offshoots, the buy-on-sight Few Crackles scene with Ssabae, the wild-card Bruit Direct label, and now Fracatso adding to the mix of France’s anything-goes, post-avant music that’s as likely to borrow a motif from Stockhausen as Nicki Minaj. Surprisingly, Fracatso comes from a different social scene, one featuring the darkly-comedic techno producer Lowjack and Zaltan (just Zaltan) of the fantastic modern dance label Antinote. Alongside vocalist Laura Lippie and An-i collaborator Lueke, the quartet clearly had a hell of a night (actually make it two) composing and recording these heady vignettes, subliminally dripping through psych, jazz, left-field electronics, dub and spoken-word. Of all the names I’ve mentioned thus far, I sense a closest sonic camaraderie to Nina Harker, as Fracatso revels in jarring contrasts, sprinkling the smoldering embers of dub electronics up against a ravishing torch song or manic spoken-word. It has to be an extended sample on “The Shadowless” (right?), where a non-American English speaker recounts a disturbing tale of his toe being eaten by the shower drain over fat tuneless notes, and it fits in here as much as the slinky electro slow-jam of the self-evidently-titled “Moderne R&B” or the digital dub of “Free Root”, replete with live whistling. It’s fearless music, unconcerned with finding an audience so much as exploring whatever was laying around Lippie’s apartment that could be plugged in, blown, tapped, strummed or pressed.

Helen Gillet Tonnerre – Live At YWC 7″ (Yes We Cannibal)
Belgian-American cellist Helen Gillet wields her cello in a war against war in this visceral live performance recorded in Baton Rouge on April 10th, 2022. For this piece she layers and loops her live cello over an old, static-laced recording of Charles De Gaulle urging French resistance, and it doesn’t take a French historian to connect with the urgency and fervor of Gillet’s performance. A versatile player, Gillet can shape her cello into a powerful locomotive engine, an angelic choir and a dentist’s drill, often simultaneously. “Tonnerre” is in constant molten movement, sharing more in common with Anti-Cimex than Arthur Russell – this is rage music with no qualms about getting filthy or forcing you to confront its filthiness. I wasn’t in the room with her, but this recording really captures the captivating essence of the piece. The Crass-indebted artwork surely isn’t a coincidence. Between this and the Fake Last Name EP, Yes We Cannibal is reminding me of Rough Trade at its infancy, offering up a fresh and diverse roster bursting with underground creativity and undiluted ideals.

Inspector 34 Squint Your Ears LP (Sad Milk Collective)
It’s nice that even in our homogenized, de-localized music culture, you can still occasionally pick up on where certain groups are from just by listening to their music. Take Inspector 34, for instance, who started off in Lowell, MA and relocated to Los Angeles, a move that only jealous Lowell locals could fault them for. They’ve got the free-wheeling, hippie-freak rock style I associate with Vermont and New Hampshire, that sort of outlaw guitar behavior I’ve come to expect from Feeding Tube Records, but they deliver it in this spastic, art-funk manner that has me thinking Jane’s Addiction and LA decadence. Harvey Danger meets Frank Zappa, perhaps? Vocalist Jim Warren likes to go high, loud and long on the mic in a manner not far removed from a youthful Perry Farrell, though I can only assume Warren hasn’t made half as many mistakes in his life. Squint Your Ears is alt-rock that nowadays could probably find a home in the semi-underground jam-band scene, but in the ’90s they would’ve been doing shirtless video-shoots with UV body paint on some million-dollar Geffen Records deal. Miss those days! Nowadays, you’re kinda screwed no matter what you do, but there’s a freedom in that, and it seems Inspector 34 are going to pursue wherever it is that their freedom takes them.

The Intima Peril And Panic LP (Post Present Medium)
The strain of reissue that inherently makes the least sense to me is the one where you can still pick up original copies online for cheaper than the cost of a new record. That’s the case with The Intima’s 2003 album Peril And Panic, originally released by Collective Jyrk and Zum and available on Discogs at the time of this writing for $7.99. To be fair, not all reissues are based in cold hard economics; it’s clear that Post Present Medium wanted to shine a fresh light on what they considered an under-heralded underground Portland classic, regardless of the original vinyl’s resale market value. I can understand why, as Peril And Panic is a pretty sophisticated record for the time and scene it existed in, surrounded by the first-wave of costumed art-school noise-rockers and sloppy mutant-disco freaks. The Intima had more in common with the dark post-punk poetry of The Ex than with their contemporaries, with elements of gloomy art-folk establishing the unsettled mood. I could see them sharing the stage with Black Eyes (and they did), both groups delivering urgent post-punk missives with specific intent and artistry over shock value. Nora Danielson’s violin is probably the most distinctive element, offering the familiar sound of the instrument in ways both seasick and stern, with even a little Behead The Prophet NLSL-styled chaos for good measure (check “From Exile” – because how can any punk band resist?). The Intima would’ve made as much stylistic sense alongside Mineral as The Cranium, and back when every sub-sub-genre wasn’t over-saturated and you booked a show with whatever bands were willing to make the drive, The Intima probably shared foot-high plywood stages with both.

Lifeless Dark Forces Of Nature’s Transformation LP (Side Two)
Often “blackened” is a metal descriptor that comes at the expense of an expansive, heavy sound, but if you think notable control-freak guitarist/producer Chris Corry (of Mind Eraser and No Tolerance) is gonna serve us a meager, brittle recording, you’ve been living in the (lifeless) dark for the past twenty years! Lifeless Dark is pitch-perfect blackened thrash, very much in the vein of Sacrilege (and to a lesser extent Détente), the full history of underground speed-metal studied, clarified and reduced into this potent, richly constructed debut album. If it’s not purely metal, it’s close, from the speed-demon riffs to the crushing breakdowns, dual guitars leading the charge like grim reapers on flaming stallion skeletons. (Did I accidentally come up with an appropriate T-shirt design?) Drummer Ryan Abbott (who recorded the album alongside Corry at his Side Two studio) enhances his kit with the thick, roomy boom I’d expect to hear on a Testament or Agent Steel record, his tom-heavy fills thunderous and heavy as lead. Vocalist Elaine Sullivan may not have the range of Katon De Pena (or if she does, she keeps it to herself), but her scowling, tortured voice delivers a fierce bite while still enunciating to the point where a lyric sheet isn’t needed. Not sure what else you need – every puzzle piece is in place here, the dirges balance the raging gallops, the imagery is mystical and foreboding, the album title references some oblique supernatural occurrence… if you don’t know how to bang your head, someone else is going to have to teach you.

Mommy Boys Mommy Boys 7″ (Saalepower 2)
Bravo to Berlin’s Mommy Boys for the creepiest cover art of the month – that red-eyed cop (or is he a bus driver?) is giving me nightmares and I haven’t fallen asleep yet! I’d expect these characters to exist in the same cartoon universe as the parade of freaks on the cover of the Hatelijke Groenten compilation, which I mean as high praise. Not enough compelling and original punk cartoon characters these days! What are today’s punk kids supposed to draw on their notebooks, Allroy? As for Mommy Boys, let’s look past that band name without a second thought, seeing as they filled this seven-inch EP with eleven songs, the mark of a quality punk artifact. They do a good job of unintentionally sounding as early to hardcore-punk as the bands on the aforementioned 1982 compilation, in that European way where the songs are simplistic, cheaply recorded, vaguely humorless and performed with angst, not skill. The bass-guitar cuts through the haze of pawn-shop guitar, each little note on display among the rapidly shouted German vocals, and they stick with it the whole way through. Not special, but also somehow perfect? I still need a copy of The Squits’ sole EP, but until I track one of those down, this Mommy Boys record will satisfy a similar hankering.

Jayden Mont Jayden Mont LP (Frihetens Förlag)
I love a record laden with strange personal circumstances, and this album from Jayden Mont, who was twelve years-old at the time of release, is soaking in it! Not that this album needed any help being weird as hell on its own, but this self-titled album was released on Frihetens Förlag, a subsidiary of Discreet Music and its family of Swedish lo-fi experimental music labels of which I have been an enthusiastic fan. Last September I was driving to Chicago, having freshly listened to the Demeters Döttrar album on Discreet Music, and I stopped in a particularly desolate western Pennsylvanian town called Belle Vernon – little more than a couple traffic lights and a standard-issue Taco Bell – en route to staying with my friend Derek Erdman. A few weeks later, this album was released, featuring Jayden Mont of Belle Vernon, PA with cover art by Derek Erdman! None of it makes a lick of sense, not even the insert which outlines how the pre-teen Mont reached out to Discreet Music’s Bandcamp page soliciting demo recordings – don’t worry, the label rightfully checked with Mont’s mom before proceeding. No idea how Mont found Erdman, either! I am, however, familiar with twelve year-olds, and Jayden Mont’s material, consisting of his singing/speaking and an unaltered electric keyboard, certainly sounds like it came from a twelve year-old. Strong early Daniel Johnston vibes, with the occasional sound of the TV on in the other room over songs that provide a naked glimpse into the inner psyche of a lonely small-town American boy. I don’t see myself listening to it much in the future, but I’ll be thinking about it forever.

Naked Roommate Pass The Loofah LP (Trouble In Mind)
From the perpetually-active hive of punky freaks (or are they freaky punks?) in Berkeley comes Naked Roommate. They formed around the “real-life partners” duo of Andy Jordan & Amber Sermeno (who both play(ed) in The World), and as Naked Roommate they opt for a more electronic, dance-oriented route than the jangle and strum I’d typically associate with these folks. Pass The Loofah delivers a quarantined dance music, played on bass-guitar and keyboards you can cram in a closet after you’re done. One could certainly trace these funky bass-lines and snappy electronic percussive elements back to the heyday of 99 Records, disco-not-disco from underground artists who wanted the no-wave crowds to shake their asses, not scramble for the exit. Of course there’s a vast variety of sonic options for Naked Roommate here in the present day, and they seem to have mashed up the sugar-free electro-pop bliss of late ’90s indie-tronica and the winking sass of early ’00s electroclash along the way. It would be a heap of carefree fun if every song had generic “baby I miss you” lyrics, but Naked Roommate tease the quotidian in memorable ways, getting in well-deserved shots on Botox and “a highly pixelated bored ape”, celebrating public transportation (“Bus”) and teasing out the awkward topic of class-status in friendship (“Successful Friend”). It’s fun to dance and chuckle at the same time, even if you eventually have to ask yourself: have I ever been the ‘naked roommate’?

Bill Orcutt How To Rescue Things LP (Palilalia)
While I despise Elon Musk as much as the next rational human, I can’t help but relate to his simps with my own personal Bill Orcutt fandom. I find myself exclaiming “masterful gambit, sir!” after each new Bill Orcutt release, and How To Rescue Things is certainly no exception. The process for this album involves slow-drifting samples of old-timey, church-y vocal choruses/strings at their most extremely dulcet. Over these sleepy-time lullaby Bambi / Snow White-era orchestral movements for children and their nannies, Orcutt calmly sits on his stool and finagles his own conjoining guitar licks, messages transmitted back to those tender ghosts of yore. This is the closest I feel like he’s ever gotten to John Fahey, which maybe I’m only saying because I recently pulled out my Fahey Christmas records, but there’s that shared sense of serenity with tremulous energy nipping at its edges happening here. Orcutt’s style remains singular, of course, and while he reflects back a similar holy deference at times, he also whips his flash-bang note-clusters into a frenzy on occasion, surely moved by the mood of the moment. It’s a conceptual piece, no doubt, but for my limited money, Orcutt’s concepts are always a cut above, be it a Joey Ramone count-off blasted via computer algorithm (A Mechanical Joey), intricate harmonic interplay ala Philip Glass (Music For Four Guitars) or the pulchritudinous, yes pulchritudinous, How To Rescue Things.

Or Sobre Blau Piri Piri Samplers + O Terço Dos Homens LP (Stroom)
The gloriously non-denominational Stroom pulls out a hairy one here from Or Sobre Blau. The duo of Andreu G. Serra and Kiran Leonard came about when the Catalonian and English pair found each other living in Lisbon at the same time, new friends in an unfamiliar surrounding. It’s my personal dream to one day move to Lisbon and find someone cool to make music with, and I’m glad that Or Sobre Blau do well with this chance encounter of their dual guitars. It’s certainly the closest thing to The Dead C that Stroom has ever released, as there’s usually some form of buzzing caterwaul tempered by inquisitive picking happening here, lively conversations between storm and ship. I have no idea which guitarist is doing what, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they take turns sharing all aspects of the emotional spectrum, from meditative ring-outs to itchy noodling. I’d say it’s in league with other isolated rock deconstructionists like Mosquitoes and Greymouth, though Or Sobre Blau sounds the most “live” of the three, as if what you’re hearing is a direct line to the two of them sitting on folding chairs with their 1×10″ tube amps aimed at each other, late on a Sunday evening while the rest of the city settles into sleep. Completely unexpected from Stroom, which of course means it’s precisely what I should’ve expected.

Stylianos Ou & The Cortisol Cows Fucked Forever LP (Ever/Never)
New York’s Ever/Never travels to Greece for this new find, singer/songwriter/painter/writer/ruthless experimenter Stelios Papagrigoriou under the guise of Stylianos Ou performing with local ensemble The Cortisol Cows. Ou is a wild card among wild cards, and while I wouldn’t be surprised if an album titled Fucked Forever was full of shrieking high-pitched sine waves, I’m only a little more surprised that it’s actually a sleepy, countrified indie outing. Backed by a string-heavy ensemble (cello and banjo feature prominently alongside guitars and keys), Ou is kooky in an understated way, trudging through relaxed rock in line with Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Neil Young, at least in a very macro sense. If anything, these songs remind me of Bill Callahan’s full-band live setup, were Callahan to allow his inner-weirdo to take over entirely, no matter if it compromises any chance of financial compensation or industry accolades. You have to be willing to accept that some people won’t take songs called “Our Fake Tits” and “Pornhub Spiritual” seriously no matter how much of an esteemed artist CV you’re toting, but Ou surely isn’t bothered. Making sense doesn’t seem to rank high on Ou’s list of concerns, of course, which is how we ended up with this meandering, oddly pleasant and darkly playful album of non-American roots rock in the first place.

Kelly Lee Owens Dreamstate LP (dh2)
Techno is big business over there in the UK, and I can imagine its investors are scrambling to get behind DJ/producer Kelly Lee Owen’s fourth and biggest full-length, Dreamstate. This isn’t big-room techno, it’s stadium techno, larger-than-life, pop-minded dance music that demands so appealingly little of its listeners. Throw your hands up with the glow-sticks they gave you when you scanned your ticket past security and release yourself to the pulsing melodies, relatable drops and angelic voice of Kelly Lee Owens. I was watching an episode of Buffy recently, one where she knocks her college roommate for listening to Cher’s “Believe” on repeat, and I couldn’t help but chuckle at how the image of featherweight, trance-adjacent techno-pop has been revitalized into the zeitgeist of today’s party-going youths (if mainly still in the UK and Europe). Dreamstate is full of similar soft-thrills, essentially taking Coldplay’s melodramatic emotional core and splashing it onto a 4/4 electronic grid, and just like “Believe”, it’s cotton-candy soul-food that hits just right. Dreamstate is high-precision in that regard – the production assistance from Euro mainstream-cracking Bicep and Tom Rowlands of The Chemical Brothers doesn’t miss, nor does it deviate from the sensual, Pure Moods vagueness that leads us all into the corporate-friendly euphoria of Kelly Lee Owens, myself included.

B. Rupp Pop Music LP (Accidental Meetings)
Pop Music is one of those rare album titles whose face value can never be taken seriously, not that seriousness would ever be its intention. B. Rupp’s definition, then, seems to be an electronic form of post-punk that behaves like a skeleton made of rubber, the form stripped to its barest parts and rendered in wobbly elastic. No guitars here, or at least none that I can recognize – Rupp’s music is built around slithering bass-lines (either fully synthetic or played on a bass-guitar), psychotic mid-tempo drum-machine pulses ala The Normal’s “T.V.O.D.” and his trash-compacted vocals. He’s not the first to swing in this direction, yet while a majority of minimalist, electronically-formulated post-punk artists create music that is as sexless and imposing as an auto mechanics textbook, Rupp exudes a weird sensuality throughout, in an appealing and unforced way. Maybe it’s the production of the bass and selection of low-end grooves (see the slippery funk of “Please Continue”) that has me recalling the joy I felt listening to Matthew Dear’s Black City for the first time, but even a true oddball track like “Our Sedentary Lives”, built on steamy vocals and sustained guitar picking, feels as grotesquely human as the naked curled-up shoulder on the cover. The next time you encounter some dark post-punk industrial dance project that colors entirely by the numbers, inconspicuously send them a link to Pop Music, a shining example of how to succeed beyond the genre’s typical confines.

Nina Ryser Water Giants LP (Dear Life)
If you don’t know Nina Ryser from Palberta and Shimmer, I recommend that you acquaint yourself with Palberta if you like it soft and Shimmer if you like it hard (and both if you like, uh, both). Ryser’s never been short on creative ideas, and this new full-length bursts at the seams with lowercase pop in a variety of subversive guises. There are soft indie guitars, electronic loops, a variety of synths used for both texture and melodic lead, and of course Ryser’s charming voice, confident and traditionally tuneful in a way that reminds me of Ruth Garbus (you can just tell that they’re both glasses-wearers, you know?). With the way that practically anyone can spend unlimited time in “the studio” (ie. in front of their laptop), the freedom can be creatively crippling, but Ryser is one of those best-case scenarios, where each song sounds dramatically different from the next, not only sonically but from the instrumentation involved as well, yet it never feels slapped-together or incoherent. The warbling instrumental of “Piggy Boys” somehow makes sense amidst the fuzzy digital-pop of “Underestimate”, wherein what are those, pitched-down cellos at the end? The unrestrained, kaleidoscopic vision of Water Giants reminds me of Katie Alice Greer’s excellent Barbarism were it crafted with Grass Widow’s deadly precision and Howard Hello’s impish-prog tendencies. Recorded with seven auxiliary performers, Ryser and company clearly labored over Water Giants so we could love it.

Shafrah Bnat El Medinah 12″ (Saalepower 2)
Lots of hardcore bands like to present their music as existing in a fraught state of turmoil, as though their lives on are on the constant brink of violence. It’s a nice fantasy for bored suburban teenage boys, but it feels a lot more authentic when it comes from a Germany-stationed hardcore group singing in Arabic. There is scant information to be found about Shafrah online, probably because of the very real threats that pro-Palestinian artists are faced with in any of the quietly-fascist first-world countries on our planet today (Germany in particular!), but I trust that the good folks at Saalepower 2 know the group’s deal, and I applaud them for giving them the platform they’re due. I appreciate that there is zero English on this release (German translations are provided alongside the Arabic lyrics), but a quick online translation reveals song titles like “Arguments”, “Spirit”, “I Stand Up” and “Forced On You”. This music, which is somewhat typical modern pogo-beat hardcore in a lo-fi fashion, is surely a direct protest against the genocidal warmongers who continue to ignore any and all rational pleas for peace. I hate that Bnat El Medinah might be looked upon as a dangerous and radical album by some, but that’s where we’re at right now: recognizing the humanity of and demanding compassion for all people are somehow bold and disturbing ideals to the leaders of our upside-down hellworld.

Straw Man Army Earthworks LP (D4MT Labs / La Vida Es Un Mus)
The first two Straw Man Army LPs have been irreplaceable punk beacons of the ’20s. This decade might not be the most volatile and violent one since punk rock has existed, but it also very well may be. It’s certainly the most distracted decade already, so any group that has the capacity to thoughtfully cut through the crap while presenting their rage-filled protests with coherence and sonic originality… that’s big! Earthworks follows the same template as Straw Man Army’s first two albums, as such: dextrous single-note guitar riffs, dual-tracked spoken-ish vocals, lyrics that speak directly of our fractured and inequitable moment in an updated form of peace-punk. I’m still indirectly reminded of Propagandhi too – it’s the vocal delivery and content, for sure, not the Fat-Wreck drumming – and “Extinction Burst”‘s main riff is pure Eddy Current, though for how many punk records come through these pages, Straw Man Army’s sound is in the top one-percent of uniqueness for sure. And even though their inspired combination of brittle guitars, nervous-tick drumming and somber vocals is immediately recognizable, they play around within their parameters, working with proggy riffs, pensive ballads, atmospheric elements, unexpectedly catchy choruses and a multitude of memorable one-liners that gel together to create another cohesive, powerful album unlike anyone else out there.

Tiikeri Tee Se Itse E.P. 7″ (Tiikeri)
The members of Finland’s Tiikeri may have put in time in hardcore-punk groups, but Tiikeri is G-rated pop-punk fun, as friendly as it is enduring. With what sounds like tiny amps, a tiny drum kit and a distortion pedal they forgot to turn on, Tiikeri follows in the Chuck Taylor hi-top footsteps of The Dickies and The Undertones, affixing big punk badges to their thrifted cardigan sweaters as well as their leather jackets. They lean pretty hard on the tuneful, poppy side of the early punk-rock equation, verging on power-pop with simplistic songwriting and pogo-dancing energy. They don’t seem to have any concerns about proving their punk credentials, which is refreshing; the chorus of “Punkkari Oon”, for example, is like one chord away from matching the end of Green Day’s “Basket Case”, and “Rokenrollia” melds the classic pop-rock feel of Sheer Mag with the ’90s pop-punk delivery (and vocal style) of Wizo. If your punk needs to be bleak and suicidal, I completely understand – this Tiikeri is certainly not for you. For those of us willing to smile in public, however, it’d be hard to have a bad day when Tee Se Itse is spinning.

Tolouse Low Trax Fung Day LP (TAL)
More gloriously damaged, genre-bending rhythmic propulsion from France, this time coming from one of its longer-running statesmen, Tolouse Low Trax. He’s been around for a minute, confusing and titillating dance-floors in equal measure, and this new album Fung Day is an excellent addition for fans both longstanding and recent. Slung low and creeping slow, his tracks here offer lopsided struts as appropriately-suited for a L.I.E.S. twelve-inch release as instrumentals for Danny Brown or Ultramagnetic MC’s. There’s always been a sense of criminally-ambiguous g-funk lurking within Tolouse Low Trax’s style, but the possibility of a slickly-polished groove is always tweaked by some strange sample, choice of rhythm pads or combination of both; imagine Jeff Mills raised on the records of Èl-G and Ghédalia Tazartès. I’m sure a track like “No Pick Up Version” sounds great on a well-rounded club system, the sparse percussion chattering like pigeons on a wire high above the hypnotic bass-line, as would the title track, which seems to answer the question of “what would a Beau Wanzer hip-hop instrumental sound like?”, but until I make the necessary sojourn to France for all the impeccably strange post-punk dance experimental electronic dub it has to offer, Fung Day is on my home stereo getting the job done.

The Wolfgang Press A 2nd Shape LP (Downwards)
This happens every year, and I’ve learned to embrace it: mere days after finalizing my year-end best-of lists, I discover some other record that would’ve absolutely ranked at the top had I heard it earlier. I certainly wouldn’t have expected the first album in twenty-nine(!) years from alt-electronic group The Wolfgang Press to be the one that blows my mind in 2024, but it’s surprises like this that keep me excited to check out new music. A 2nd Shape is incredible! It’s extremely subdued, low-pulsing electronic music in the tradition of Suicide-worshipping post-punk, but so incredibly luxe, rich with personality and perversely catchy. Opener “The Garden Of Eden” hooked me immediately, establishing a loose, languid tempo with a six-negronis-deep vocal performance, hypnotic bass and psychedelic effects. “Sad Surfer” is how I wish modern Nick Cave sounded, but he’d never get over himself enough to do it. Throughout this magnificent album, I’m hearing Tin Man’s Wasteland (one of my favorite albums of all time) with the spooky-sexy atmosphere of November Növelet (one of my favorite musical duos of all time), the sarcastic showbiz pizzazz of Alan Vega and the sensual-industrial groove of Clock DVA, all churning up against each other to create something truly unique and thrilling. Michael Allen’s vocals just kill me, dripping with desperation, delivered over music that is fresher and more vibrant (and far more restrained) than much of The Wolfgang Press’s razor-edged Downwards Records contemporaries. I really can’t get over how good A 2nd Shape is… what’s next, SPK unexpectedly on Hospital Productions with the best new power-electronics album? Highest recommendation right here!