Blod & Shadow Pattern Midnite Blues LP (Discreet Music)
The housebound audio detritus from Discreet Music’s Blod continues, this time teaming up with Canadian sonic abstractionist Shadow Pattern. It’s a worldwide phenomenon by now, the practice of molding spirals of dust, accidental sounds and extremely non-musical sources into roughshod forms of, if not music, audio that is meant for intentional listening. The key here is to somehow figure out what sounds are worthy of saving and sharing with others, a trick that Blod and his Discreet Music posse seem particularly adept at. Some HVAC systems hum with a rabid intensity worth capturing and some thrift-store keyboards are possessed by ghosts, and I appreciate Blod’s continued efforts to capture, sculpt and curate this stuff. With Shadow Pattern in the mix, the possibility of “too much going on” enters the chat, but the duo continues to pull back nicely, content to let extended unorthodox droning or found-sound samples linger without interruption. The nearly eight minutes of “Kärleken Som Fanns” is surely more than accidental, layering the reverberations of metal sheets over a closely-miked acoustic guitar and a Swedish lullaby if you let it get there. The sounds are varied, though the general sense of a material-world-based malaise lingers. I’m reminded of the book Get High Now by James Nestor, which offers “more than 175 ways to alter human perception – without drugs or alcohol”; Midnite Blues feels like Blod and Shadow Pattern’s attempt at number 176.

Chris Corsano The Key (Became The Important Thing [And Then Just Faded Away]) LP (Drag City)
You’d think that it would be commonplace for experimental improv musicians to surprise and shock their audiences, yet it seems rarer than it should be. Enter Chris Corsano, master collaborator who pulls out the best of anyone he works with, or at least makes their material sound better than ever alongside his frantic, dizzying, stylish percussion. The last time I recall encountering a true solo album of his, it was nearly twenty years ago and full of extremely abstract sounds, so the rock songs he delivers on here are a fabulous revelation. Who knew he could play guitar, and in such a firm and capable post-punk style? “The Full-Measure Wash Down” falls somewhere between Lungfish, Shoes This High and Wire; same goes for “I Don’t Have Missions”, a track you could trick me into believing was post-punk Sonic Youth or proto-punk Captain Beefheart if the vocals of Thurston Moore or Don Van Vliet were applied to the instrumentals. It’s kind of wild to be referencing punk-anything with a Chris Corsano record, though knowing his DIY spirit it does make sense. There’s still plenty of abstraction to be found on The Key – “Collapsed In Four Parts” sounds like Bill Nace with an FMP contract, “Everything I Tried to Understand Wasn’t Understandable at All” recalls the outrageous joy of Han Bennik. It all comes together in this righteously entertaining snapshot of Corsano’s creative, freewheeling mind and spirit.

Croche Songs Of The Red Dragon LP (Fondation Petya Sasser Rike)
No shortage of electro dream-pop these days, and yet I feel like the audience for this sound remains ravenous. I’ll include myself in there, and make mention of the debut from French-Canadian singer Gabrielle Desjean who releases music under the name of Croche. Songs Of The Red Dragon hits a nice mid-point between diaristic futzing and wide-screen pop aspirations, falling on neither side of that court but some middle spot where her music can breathe unencumbered. For a quick reference, I’d tell you to imagine Carla dal Forno as informed by Sade and Tirzah and scrubbed clean of gritty post-punk residues, though these seven tracks move in enough different directions to avoid any easy “like this with that” descriptions from sticking cleanly. There’s spicy electro-house, ethereal guitar/drone/vocal reflections, acapella singing along with the sound of water being rowed, and surprisingly not much of a Cocteau Twins vibe, considering how similar it seems on paper. Desjean’s voice sounds like a person you’d know, tuneful but never perfect, and Croche is more interesting because of it; I find myself wondering more about this person than if they had the sparkling, digitally-corrected perfection of our typical pop avatars. If there’s an empty spot between your Sundays and Antenna records, I won’t chide you for not properly alphabetizing your collection, I’ll simply suggest that Songs Of The Red Dragon might fill that space nicely.

Cut Piece Your Own Good LP (Total Punk)
I’m no art historian but right off the bat I recognized Portland’s Cut Piece as a reference to one of Yoko Ono’s most famous art performances. Good for me, I guess? It’s a nice first impression at least, especially considering your average Total Punk recording artist dropped out of school long before modern art history entered the curriculum. For certain, Cut Piece’s sound stands out from that pack. This quartet are closer to moody-yet-urgent peace-punk than anything else, reminiscent of Boston’s Dame and Chicago’s Canal Irreal, bands that don’t lose sight of hardcore-punk aggression in their gloomy, atmospheric aspirations. Cut Piece let a NWOBHM-ish riff slip out in “Chase The Night” for a few seconds before jumping back into speedy, frantic hardcore, and it works well, a subtle reminder that Grim Reaper albums lurk within even the punkest of record collections. Once all the noise-not-music hardcore crusters have blasted through their sets in the back of some Portland punk bar, I’m sure the music of Cut Piece hits like Debussy in melodic comparison, assuming he also wore black eyeliner on occasion.

De Beren Gieren What Eludes Us LP (Sdban Ultra)
Came across De Beren Gieren’s Dug Out Skyscrapers when it came out back in the innocent days of 2017, and it kind of set some sort of tone for where my listening habits would head over the next few years, delighted by and seeking out further forms of unorthodox jazz instrumentation. Somehow I hadn’t caught up with them again until now, and while I’ve gained a footing for this sort of sound, this Belgian trio of piano, bass and drums continues to shine bright. Whereas many of their peers have long since drifted off into the land of sedentary room-noise, modified tapes and field-recordings, De Beren Gieren are still traditional musicians, and highly talented ones at that. Thankfully, their musical skill doesn’t override their creativity or curiosity, as the material of What Eludes Us ripples with new ideas without ever questioning the fundamental attributes of their given instruments (though that can be very cool too). They might not prepare the piano with contact-mics and other physical modifications, but a track like “Very Important Vs. Nothing” works according to its own unique language, somewhere between Isotope 217 and Tara Clerkin Trio. If the next Nordic crime-thriller series starring a beleaguered female detective with skeletons in her closet doesn’t feature De Beren Gieren over the opening credits, they’re making a terrible mistake.

The Drin Elude The Torch LP (Feel It)
The Drin maintain their rep as the dreariest, moodiest, strangest group currently operating on Feel It (and probably within the borders of their Cincinnati residence). Their Feel It debut offered a cool kind of forlorn, swampy twist to low-energy post-punk, and Elude The Torch moves further from the confines of post-punk into more unusual realms. These songs tend to slowly build and slowly burn out, somewhere on the dark-side of communal hippie and kraut-rock jamming. Guitars often take the helm as a semi-trustworthy guide, but they’re just as likely to fall out in favor of clanging percussion and groovy bass. “Comb The Wreckage” might accidentally constitute an obscure alt-rock hit in a different reality, sounding like One Foot In The Grave-era Beck on a La Düsseldorf kick. Told you they get weird! Throughout, The Drin seem to offer suggestions as to what kraut-rock all-timers like Neu! and Amon Düül II would sound like if they were raised in the toxic mud of American creekbeds, forced to eat gas station snacks in lieu of real meals and barely feel any sense of hope, let alone utopian visions. I’m making Elude The Torch sound gloomy, and it is, but cracks of light shine through, even if they just end up being the blue and red flashes on a cop car coming to break up the party. The Drin seem destined to persevere, but if not, at least they left us with a couple of great albums before departing.

The Exorzist III Gospel Jamming Vol. 1 LP (Cardinal Fuzz / XRSZT)
I think about The Psychic Paramount all the time, mostly in a reaction to hearing other instrumental rock bands who are nowhere near as thrillingly sky-ripping as them, so you can imagine the adrenaline rush that came with learning about guitarist Drew St. Ivany’s new band, The Exorzist III. I won’t argue that it’s the best band name in the world, but St. Ivany could come up with a band name as juvenile and stupid as to reference bodily waste ruining an article of clothing and I’d still smash that Bandcamp order button with five fingers. Of course, it’s possible The Exorzist III doesn’t stack up to his previous work, but guess what? It absolutely does! This feels like a direct continuation of what The Psychic Paramount were up to, massive and extended rock jams that are loose in structure and path, and tight in performance and execution. Bassist Von Finger (now that’s a good name) and drummer Nick Ferrante are up to the mighty task, both of them locked-in and changing in subtle, nearly imperceptible ways, taking the music from a slow simmer to a violent boil without leaving any trail behind. Three huge tracks and one short one here – the first cut, “Jabber”, clocks in close to sixteen minutes – and while “Deuce Berry” is probably my personal fave, thanks to the magnificently chiming guitars and Finger’s intensely unwavering bass-riff, Gospel Jamming Vol. 1 is an absolute treasure from start to finish.

Firewalker Hell Bent LP (Triple-B)
Boston’s righteous Firewalker get twisted up with the devil on their sophomore full-length, Hell Bent. There are multiple species of demons on the cover (from winged beasts to Bowser-esque ground-dwellers), song titles like “Devil’s Favorite Toy”, “Shackled” and the title track, and the riffs are more metallic than ever, borrowing from the sinister end of NYHC crossover (Crumbsuckers and Nuclear Assault come to mind). Of course, Firewalker are hardcore for the hardcore, so they take these twisted horns and wield them as powerful pit weapons without neglecting the importance of hooks – crucial if they want any chance of standing out in a sea of moshy beat-em-ups. I love that vocalist Sophie Hendry has an extremely distinctive guttural growl, yet every single lyric is somehow intelligible – I’m more likely to misinterpret Eddie Vedder’s words than Landry’s, which is impressive considering her old-school death-metal approach. Her voice is key to connecting with Firewalker as more than background mosh action. While overtly metallic, these nine tracks are brief and move fast, far removed from any of metal’s typical self-indulgences. The placement of “Scorcher II” towards the end is perfect, as it’s the shortest and fastest track here, the fast chop of the drums offering a brief and well-earned release from the protracted anguish that Firewalker are dead-set on delivering.

Flender Jender LP (Odditory Recordings)
I appreciate that the list of words that rhyme with -ender is vast, yet the two this Texas noise-rock crew opted to use are either made-up or spelled incorrectly. Why not have a little playful fun with our language – it’s certainly a fitting mindset for encountering this group’s wooly, maximally-fried style. Like a lot of noise-rock, both from the more overtly-masculine ’90s AmRep style and the freaky day-glo costume approach of the early ’00s, the bass-guitar and drums do all the heavy lifting here, allowing the other members to go off on whatever it is they’re doing (which, in Flender’s case, isn’t always clear). The bass/drums are consistently dialed into spastic, funky signatures, very much in the vein of Ruins, while the guitars utilize any number of effects pedals, adding blurry, suspiciously-wet stains to the rhythmic core. There’s no shortage of vocals either, which arrive in both high-pitched-scream and psychotic freakout variants. There’s not a lot of separation in the mix outside of the bass and drums, and without any overt consideration of hooks or intelligibility, the mess quickly overrides the cohesion that is surely lurking somewhere in there. Seems like they’re having a blast, though as a listener far removed from their personal relationships and band headquarters, I don’t find much of it sticking to my ribs… maybe there’s simply too much other stuff on my ribs already.

HÖG True Romance 7″ (Shipping Steel)
To Christchurch, NZ’s HÖG, the idea of “true romance” is a high-speed car chase that narrowly avoids capture from the authorities and a hero who calmly walks away from the ensuing explosions with their sweetheart, not even flinching from the blast. HÖG is a sextet, the sort of band that’s damn near impossible to squeeze into an economy-sized van with their gear, and they’re blaring some black-exhaust punk n’ roll with that level of wattage. These four cuts pace angrily, charging forward with requisite guitar leads, ominous classic-rock organ, the hint of tambourine and a vocalist who seems to be coughing up every last syllable. I have to wonder if vocalist Dan Richardson doesn’t realize he’s not in one of those Gag-, Gel- or Bib-sounding hardcore bands, the way he bursts capillaries in his temples with every strained grunt. It kinda works – or at least, he seems to be really feeling it – though the songs themselves rock in fairly predictable ways and kind of run into each other. “Confessions Part III” features the chorus line of “rock n’ roll won’t save my soul, might just save my life”, which feels impossible for anyone under the age of sixty to be singing in 2024, and yet here it is. I dunno, it’s a perfectly fine, motor-breathing record, and I’m not only saying that because I doubt I could take any one of these fine mates in a scrum, let alone all six.

J.R.C.G. Grim Iconic…(Sadistic Mantra) LP (Sub Pop)
Seth Manchester is a constant, significant presence in the world of semi- or overtly-experimental heavy music for adults, responsible for producing and engineering records by The Body, Battles, Metz, Lingua Ignota, Model/Actriz… the list goes on. Makes sense then that Justin R. Cruz Gallego would work with him for his Sub Pop debut, a rich and textural album of post-punk psych that’s as groove-oriented as it is difficult to categorize. If there’s been another Sub Pop release to directly reference G.I.S.M. (piece together the title!), I want to hear that one too, but for now it’s been a pleasure diving deep into Grim Iconic…(Sadistic Mantra), a record begging to be listened to with full attention, multiple times over. The instrumentation and orientation varies from track to track, usually establishing some sort of softly chugging rhythmic backbone and coloring it in with wide varieties of guitars, synths, uneasily-sorted sounds and percussion. Gallego remains at the helm throughout, his voice a consistently calming, authoritative presence not unlike Noah Anthony’s last few Profligate albums, yet the tracks offer a communal (not “solo project”) feel, not trying to recreate the kraut-rock hippie collectives of the past so much as finding fresh ways to approach left-field rhythmic rock music with a variety of talented friends and collaborators in tow.

Kenji Kariu Rain / Water LP (Bruit Direct)
Kenji Kariu’s Rain / Water is his second full-length for Bruit Direct Disques, a label that has more one-off artist releases than not. Nice to see the partnership continue here, as Kariu’s songs are now poppier and more robust, feeling as though they stepped out of the dimly-lit basement and onto the patio terrace for a cocktail. Sometimes it’s sunny out there and sometimes it’s as drippy-dreary as the album title, but it’s all sumptuous, soft-edged, lowercase-p pop music, borrowing techniques from bossa nova, Brazilian tropicália, Japanese city-pop and French chanson. I’ve seen references to Maher Shalal Hash Baz used in relation to Kenji Kariu’s music more than once, and while that same open-armed friendliness is proudly on display, Rain / Water feels a little too subtly sophisticated for such a comparison to hit the bullseye. Whereas his prior Bruit Direct outing showed signs of bedroom experimentalism, duct-taped seams occasionally on display, this album is silky, doe-eyed romance throughout, the sort of obscurity that Stereolab would’ve name-checked in a 1994 interview in Sassy had it come out decades ago. I know that the kids don’t slow-dance anymore, or even know what slow-dancing is, but you start pumping Rain / Water into some college dorm PA systems and it’ll naturally break out, just like karate kicks at a Hatebreed show.

Tim Koh & Sun An Salt And Sugar Look The Same LP (Music From Memory)
Tim Koh will probably be the coolest guy to be mentioned in this month’s pages: dude is an absolutely exquisite bassist, he’s collaborated with noise-maestro John Wiese over the years, he maintains a fine NTS radio show and, in local lore, once knocked out some jerk with one punch before an Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti show – Koh played in that group back before Ariel Pink swam out to sea, never to be heard from again. Now he’s teaming with someone named Sun An for a dazzling and diverse set of home-ambient electro-swirl. Sure, everyone is making records like this these days, and even though I’m already a fan I’m not here to give Koh a pass for mediocre work, so believe me when I say it’s exceptional. Across seventeen tracks, these two dig into many forms of delicately-edited digital bliss, with snippets of things you recognize (guitars, piano, Nutribullet blenders, footsteps) commingling with far less obvious sounds. The heavily-processed guitars recall Fennesz, and the bittersweet found-sound poetry has me thinking of Félicia Atkinson, but Koh and An have developed their own language within this form, fully in focus yet hairy and unburdened, like a junkyard where every bent bicycle wheel and cracked flower-pot is rich in detail for those who want to look. A top year-end lister, no doubt.

La Paire D’or Travelogue LP (Hex Enduction)
Guy Maddison and Martin Bland were in Lubricated Goat together, and now they’ve got a duo called La Paire D’or happening. As you might’ve assumed, anyone capable of surviving those naked, drug-fueled ’90s AmRep days has either withered into madness or come out the other end as mellowed-out, sophisticated adults, and I’m sure Maddison and Bland are pleased to fall in the latter category. Travelogue, then, isn’t a noisy collision of illicit substances and rock n’ roll mania, but rather a subdued and slick collection of extended synth/drums workouts aided by collaborative vocalists and auxiliary instrumentation. Take “Magic 8 Ball” for example, which shares Air’s subdued electro-coolness alongside trippy, communal percussion and spaced-aged keys. They’re keeping it pleasant and light, but it’s not all cottage-cheese and cantaloupe – the album ends with “Merde Du Chien Sur La Palouse”, a bad trip that meanders through poorly lit hallways as none other than Mark Arm (Maddison’s bandmate in Mudhoney) recites some lines in French. Being cornered by a French-speaking Mark Arm in a dimly-lit corridor is more dream than nightmare to me, of course, but La Paire D’or can’t resist scraping the edges of their album’s otherwise glistening surface, ending on a tastefully darker note. The easy-listening kraut-rock lounge vibe conjured here deserves a few good tweaks, and tweak it La Paire D’or shall.

Laughing Because It’s True LP (Celluloid Lunch)
Based on their track record, I’ve come to expect ripped, prickly margins from Celluloid Lunch, but Laughing’s Because It’s True is polished smooth all the way round. It’s their debut, but this doesn’t sound like the work of newbies, so refined and effortless is this collection of easy-going guitar-pop nuggets. It’s “indie” as in produced outside of corporate mechanisms, but not particularly “indie” in sound: I’m hearing more Lemonheads, Tom Petty and Gin Blossoms than Pavement, Guided By Voices and Liz Phair, veering towards the charming end of the ’90s radio-rock dial that mostly ignored all things grunge and alt. Laughing could probably cut a mean “Shady Lane”, but they’d scrub it ’til it shines before sharing it with us, and I appreciate that about them. There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of feel-good, G-rated rock n’ roll these days, but even so I’m impressed by Laughing’s gently catchy tunes and easy-going spirit. Could it be that the members of Laughing actually enjoy each other’s company and have lots of fun playing in a band together? Kinda crazy, but it just might work.

Mordecai Seeds From The Furthest Vine LP (Petty Bunco)
There’s a lot of Mordecai records out there, many of which I’ve heard, most of which I’ve kinda forgotten, though if the live performance I saw of theirs a good number of years back is any indication (they were d-r-u-n-k drunk), they’ve probably forgotten much of it themselves, too. I guess that’s one way of saying I didn’t have any particular expectations or excitement for Seeds From The Furthest Vine, their sixth album, but who is ever really excited about any band’s sixth album, to be fair? Perhaps that was the perfect headspace for which to encounter this album, as for whatever it’s worth, I can’t stop playing it! I recall them being more “regular” sounding in the past, a rock band shuffling through their original material, but Seeds immediately snaps free from that chain and never returns. I feel like I could mention Psychedelic Horseshit and Kemialliset Ystävät as musical kin, but Mordecai are less smart-assed than the former and far more meat-eating-American than the latter – it almost feels like Flipper would’ve ended up sounding like this eventually, had they all survived but had to sell their amps and drums along the way. The percussion frequently seems to be dinner-bells ringing and cardboard slapping; songs fade into focus only long enough to assure you they’re songs before drifting back into Magic Eye patterns. There’s probably some Pavement and Royal Trux happening in here too, but again, Mordecai’s path seems entirely their own on this record, the basic concepts of “structure” and “rock n’ roll” acknowledged but just as easily ignored. Petty Bunco primed us for this moment, and now it’s gloriously here.

Oneida Expensive Air LP (Joyful Noise)
An institution unto themselves, Brooklyn’s Oneida march forward into uncharted territory, namely that of being a consistently exceptional rock band impervious to trends deep in their third decade of existence. If they were ever a band with something to prove, they haven’t had to prove it in many, many years, and really, what rock bands are this deep into their career without finding themselves looking more backwards than forwards? I don’t know if Oneida ever did one of those “playing this classic album in full” tours, or if they even really tour at all, but I for one hope they only ever keep gunning for the horizon. Expensive Air is their newest, and it reveals a band still at the top of their game, miraculously if you consider the odds. You get more or less one riff per song, but they take these mostly simple riffs and ride them with a non-stop fury that would exhaust bands half their age. A large chunk of their continued success can be attributed to top rock drummer Kid Millions, who I can only assume was offered the Foo Fighters’ chair and refused. His playing is fluid, colorful, powerful and smooth, tossing off thrilling fills and ingenious rolls as the rest of the band either joins his groove or coasts on top of it. There’s really no place for a band like this in our society, so tenured and unusual and disregarding of the things that bands have to do nowadays to maintain any semblance of visibility (all that social-media crap for starters), which makes it all the more thrilling that they’re still, somehow, among us and operating at full capacity.

OSBO OBSO 7″ (Blow Blood)
OSBO wedge a splinter under the nail of their Sydney underground scene, otherwise comprised of happily boneheaded egg-punk and a gang called Speed. They play a form of ugly hardcore-punk that came to prominence in the last couple decades, the sort of thing you’d find growing within the Iron Lung or Youth Attack caves: derived from first-wave USHC but with a working knowledge of screamo, black-metal, grind and noise-rock (even if none of those genres do anything but coat the edges of OSBO’s firmly hardcore-punk sound). Reminds me quite a bit of that fantastic Men’s Interest single from more years back now than it seems, maybe a touch of SQRM as well and most certainly that Veins record on Youth Attack, in no small part to vocalist Tim Collier’s inflamed squawk, which sounds a hell of a lot like Michael Berdan. It’s fast and physical and they even dare to have a song called “Say It To My Face” that isn’t an Underdog cover. Whereas the traditional manner is to put the long miserable dirge last on side B (pioneered by Infest?), “Time” opens the b-side and eventually speeds up all Gag-like before returning to its original sedated pace. “Pleb Puppet” then tumbles to the finish line, replete with a particularly inspired vocal gobbling. There are no photos of the band members to be found anywhere in the packaging, because when you’re covering the room in violent stains, why would you want to make it easier to get caught later?

Panoram Great Times LP (Balmat)
After learning that preeminent electronic music writer Philip Sherburne had a record label called Balmat, I checked out this new one from Panoram (aka Raffaele Martirani), with fun cover art that begs you to pull it from a stuffed record bin and give it a whirl. Wasn’t sure what to expect besides “electronic music”, and while Great Times certainly fits within that massively broad designation, it’s not so easily pigeonholed. It often feels like a private tour of some reclusive synth collector’s archives, racing through dozens of prototypes, rarities and imported hardware synths. “Have you ever heard this preset?”, Panoram seems to ask with each new track, taking us on a trip through a wide variety of novel sonic motifs. There’s fuzzy sound poetry, intricate rhythmic patterns, clear-as-day piano, vocals run through the processing ringer… Panoram is clearly not short on ideas, working with a logical sensibility that may only be clear to himself. There’s really nothing to do with this music besides listen – it’s too active to fade into the background, and dancing is more or less out of the question unless you’re a professional. It’s a whirlwind of fantastical, audacious ideas, some more accessible than others, and if you have an opening in your schedule (and a nice set of speakers) to let Panoram take you away, by all means you should.

Peace Decay Peace Decay LP (Beach Impediment)
The debut full-length from Austin’s Peace Decay offers comforting reassurance that the world in which we live is healthy, just and equitable. Sike! Continuing their fruitful relationship with Beach Impediment Records, Peace Decay’s full-length is a ripping screed, ensuring that if war and human-rooted destruction doesn’t get you, a gnarly fire-breathing dragon will burn you to a crisp. The members of Peace Decay put time in a long list of backpatch-worthy hardcore and crust bands, names like Vaaska and Severed Head Of State and Deskonocidos (and even Masskontroll!), and if anything, their hardcore resolve has strengthened like molten steel cooling to its solid state. These songs pull from metal here and there (ripping guitar leads, fiery galloping beats, fist-pumping choruses), though the presentation, attitude and mindset are firmly hardcore-punk. When the music breaks for a split second and the vocalist growls “let their fucking heads roll”, I can’t help but know I’m in firm agreement with the unnamed heads he refers to on “Security By Sacrifice”. It’s like a fist-pumping Aus Rotten anthem reengineered for today’s power-crust standards, and if you’re not stepping on someone’s feet with your big black boots in the pit as the guitar solos take the song home, it might be your feet that are getting stepped on.

Peace Talks Will You Be Next?! 7″ flexi (Cruel Noise / Chaos & Chill)
Pittsburgh’s Peace Talks had a couple tracks left over from the sessions that led to their 2023 album Progress, so they contributed them to the Adult Swim Liquid Death Wild Summer Fiesta promotional YouTube channel. Wait, I have a correction: turns out they’re real punks, so they pressed them onto a one-sided flexi-disc instead, care of their friends at Cruel Noise and Chaos & Chill. These two songs clock in at around five minutes total, which is pushing it for hardcore-punk, but they never drag, much to their credit. The energy level remains high throughout, fast hardcore akin to Raw Power, Tear It Up, Look Back And Laugh and Sickoids, to name but four out of surely hundreds of like-minded units. If you need to grab some Peace Talks, Progress is probably the best bang for your buck, but flexi-discs remain a perfect vessel for aggro hardcore-punk, no matter if you’re Systematic Death, Citizens Arrest or this modern-day Pittsburgh outfit, even if the technology used to cut them from squares into circles seems to have been lost somewhere along the way.

Psychic Graveyard Wilting LP (Artoffact)
Like all of Eric Paul’s post-Arab On Radar projects, Psychic Graveyard exists in its shadow, but the ‘Graveyard fellas seem to be having a hell of a lot of fun in that shadow, cutting their own unique neo-no-wave path. Wilted is the group’s fourth full-length in five years, and while I enjoyed the other ones I’ve heard, they somehow seem to keep getting better every time. Opting for a guitar-decentralized setup with bass, drums and synths, Psychic Graveyard pound their sticky, unsanitary sounds into appealingly rhythmic grooves, some of which you might even find worthy of dancing. Once again their sound reminds of the muscular synth-work of Six Finger Satellite and Men’s Recovery Project in electro-pop format, but there’s something about the riff repetition and snappy post-punk rhythms that have me thinking of Viagra Boys more than anything else with Wilting. (Album opener “Your Smile Is A Hoax” in particular hits a peppy groove in Viagra Boys fashion, though lyrically it avoids any obvious cheap-shots and doesn’t seem to try too hard.) I’m not gonna say that Viagra Boys are stupid, but Psychic Graveyard seem a whole lot smarter than the rest of the pack in general; Paul’s lyrics offer a consistent highlight reel of funny phrases and linguistic twists that capture the details of our normalized wretched existence through his wizened yet perpetually perverse mind. Aided by charmingly robotic rhythms and an inspired array of synth sounds, Wilting delivers a wide array of reasons for all of us to feel foolish about ourselves, whether we wanna listen or not.

Pyrex Bozo 7″ (Under The Gun)
Pyrex continue to say ‘screw it’ and release seven-inch singles that few will hear and even fewer will purchase. This isn’t music for everybody, it’s only gonna connect with fans of the dirtiest garage-y noise-punk, so if you’re one of those types and you still engage in the ancient practice of buying and listening to brand-new seven-inch vinyl singles, it’s your time to shine! For what it’s worth, this is my favorite Pyrex release yet, as they continue to express themselves more uniquely each go-around. “Bozo” is the poppiest of the bunch, a deep-fried garage riff not unlike early Intelligence / Oh Sees; “Viper” pairs a dumb buzzsaw riff with a majestically floppy drum-beat; “Muscles” clears the pit of any self-respect, Drunks With Guns style. There’s a distinct Mayyors-ish quality to all three tracks, which is nice, as is the way in which they jump between tempos without sacrificing coherence. The distorted-beyond-recognition vocals are a constant here, though I can understand when the singer is yelling “muscles” and “viper” in their respective tracks – a move I respect. If Pyrex can manage to continue this streak of anti-social creativity, might I suggest they extend that to their vinyl choices? See if you can force us to buy a six-inch or an eight-inch record, simply due to the undeniable quality of your ear-bleeding punk rock music!

Rider/Horse Matted LP (Ever/Never)
Kingston, NY’s Rider/Horse debuted as a duo with Select Trials, added a third member for Feed ‘Em Salt and are now a quartet with Matted. Might I suggest that they maintain this momentum perpetually into the future, adding an additional band member for each new record? Think how sick and wild they’ll be by the time they’re on their eighth or ninth! I’ve enjoyed their first two regardless, and Matted makes a solid claim that when it comes to Rider/Horse, the more members, the better. Maybe I just love a full-blown band when it comes to mechanical post-punk grooves that brood and stalk, and Rider/Horse make good work of their available tools, from the consistently bulging bass/drums grooves ala Karp and the strange atonalities of full-time member Zoots Houston’s pedal steel. At its most enthusiastic, Matted fits in with my favorite Skin Graft and Load bands, the ones that knew how to grind out ugly, primitive noise while maintaining their own strange notions of artistry, though Rider/Horse feel less prone to paint-splattered Casios, homemade masks and intentional obnoxiousness. This band doesn’t seem to be interested in provoking reactions, they just want to settle into their Kingston studio and check names off their “band members to be added” list.

G.S. Schray Whispered Something Good LP (Last Resort)
No sooner does K. Freund release a new full-length than close conspirator and Ohio jazz-improv cohort G.S. Schray gets a new one out in the world as well. It’s like their cycles are lining up! Schray’s Whispered Something Good is a nice contrast to K. Freund’s excellent Trash Can Lamb, Schray’s music dressed up for a formal celebration while Freund’s sounds smoke cigarettes and skateboard around out back. I feel like most modern, underground-informed jazz players like to scuff their sounds up a bit one way or another, be it glitchy digital processing, sound collage, or anything that adds some curves to an otherwise straight line, but Whispered Something Good is about as untainted as you’ll get from a diaphanous jazz-guitar record in 2024. Schray pairs his tender, luxuriously soft guitar with horns, bass and the occasional synth, closer to Sam Gendel’s melodic world than anything else, but without any of Gendel’s processed effects or experimental/beat-maker touches. This music is free from sin, his guitars plucking stars from the skyline with one hand and French-pressing the perfect cup of coffee with the other. Album closer “Gone In Amber” is a highlight, Schray backed by a full band and sounding like Sam Wilkes on a late ’90s Thrill Jockey tip, gloriously in tune with the music and each other. Love the cover art, too – these Last Resort releases always look different from each other, yet they’re recognizably coming from the same crew, records you want to leave laying around because they look great and sound even better.

Skee Mask Resort 2xLP (Ilian Tape)
Skee Mask is a reliable and consistent electronic music resource: techno, breakbeat, ambient, drum n’ bass, chances are he’s got all your requests covered in his substantial and growing back catalog. I enjoy checking in from time to time, so this new double twelve-inch with an uncharacteristically gnarly skull on the cover seemed like a good time to see what he’s been up to. I wasn’t expecting any surprises, and Resort doesn’t offer any, which is fine by me. What we do get is plenty of middle-weight ambient throughout, not atmospheric drift so much as gooey, gloss-coated melodies sprinkled with cosmopolitan glitch and digital interference. Once you’re settled in, beats emerge, but without any sense of aggression or priority. This is a particularly introverted set from Skee Mask, who is more than capable of administering a jackhammering banger if he feels like it. “7AM At The Rodeo” might be my favorite of the bunch, which pairs a dusty shuffle and busy, Aphex-like synth squiggling, though the entirety of Resort is understated mastery on par with a short list of other German lifers like Shed, Ben Klock and Traumprinz.

Smooth Brain Demoted 7″ (Just Because)
Some ten years after Smooth Brain recorded the five songs that comprise Demoted, it’s finally released into the wild. I’m not sure if Smooth Brain is an ongoing concern, seeing as most of its members morphed into one of the most crucial punk posses of modern times (the Cruelster / Perverts Again / Knowso power-axis), but these songs are worthy of vinyl commemoration even if the band is merely a wistful memory. They were certainly playing things a little straighter a decade ago, with poppy, speedy down-picking in a manner that recalls their Citric Dummies pals as well as Clorox Girls and other Red Cross-inspired punk, all traceable back to The Ramones on the many-limbed tree of punk rock influence. Even though the music is less idiosyncratic than its members’ more prominent acts, their dire-yet-hilarious worldview is evident here through songs like “Part Of Me Is Dead” and “Pissed Off Forever”, the latter being my favorite cut of the bunch, sounding close to The Spits in terms of goony punk rock hooks. This sorta punk will never go out of style, so even if Smooth Brain recently recorded a new EP set for release in 2034, it’ll sound just as good then too, assuming the power-grid hasn’t fallen apart and we can still listen to it.

Solpara Melancholy Sabotage LP (Other People)
A little surprised that we’re still getting fresh “recorded during the first Covid lockdown” albums, an angle that I’m more or less neutral on. If you were able to make music then, that’s great, and if not, I totally understand! Solpara is new to me, but I take Nicolar Jaar’s role as an arbiter of cool seriously, knowing that if I check out something on his Other People label I will at the very least respect it if not love it. After a few runs with Melancholy Sabotage, Solpara’s first vinyl full-length, I’m enjoying it plenty. He integrates a few elements not commonly found together – post-punk bass and guitars, techno/trap/electro drum programming, woozy trip-hop atmospheres – into something his own. The combination of styles is so evenly spread that any single genre doesn’t feel overly represented. “Breaking Points” has kind of a Boards Of Canada swirl to it, but the guitars of “We Don’t Owe” call to mind Moin’s electronic post-hardcore minimalism, and “This Time Last Year” sounds like Jim O’Rourke playing guitar over some low-lit ambient murk; Solpara treats his influences with equal reverence and curiosity. I’ve seen a few songs that use the title “We Keep Us Safe” lately, but Solpara’s is easily the most tender, a downtempo sway of 4AD-sounding strings and lo-fi beats that works as both elegy and tranquilizer. Appropriate for the times back then, but appropriate right now too.

Sooks Moral Decay LP (Permanent Residence)
You know, now that Sooks have mentioned it, there has been some moral decay lately, hasn’t there! This hardcore-punk quartet hails from Perth – the Halifax of Australia, I’m calling it – and I can’t imagine the kids are standing still with their arms crossed when Sooks hit the stage. Their form of hardcore is direct and uncluttered, relying on vocal presence and lyrical matter to make their presence felt. No noisy feedback, no contemporary pogo parts, no reliance on style over substance. I’m certainly not opposed to some style, of course, but it’s also nice to see Sooks utilize hardcore-punk as a means to deliberately express specific frustrations and rage, with energized, cleanly-recorded tunes. I can understand a reluctance to write songs about extremely specific topics like “drag queen story hour” (“Library”), TikTok (“Content Machine”) and crypto bros (“NFT”) – you don’t want to seem dated six months after the record comes out – but I personally enjoy songs that are based in their particular realities, and Sooks aren’t afraid to get into the details. It’s a uniquely awful time, but that’s all the more reason that punks should be documenting the specifics in their art and music. Don’t worry, all you hardcore purists who require the comfort of familiarity: there’s the comfort of a big skull on the cover to help you feel right at home with Moral Decay.

SW. myDEFINITION part II 2xLP (Kalahari Oyster Cult)
German techno/house producer Stefan Wust speaks to the kids on this newest, lengthy outing for Kalahari Oyster Cult, his second full-length for the impeccable Belgian future-trance imprint. Not only does SW. offer a variety of upbeat, body-moving montages here, pulling from well-worn territory like classic house and techno as well as the flightier realms of glitch, trance and IDM, he gives them all text-speak titles like “shaCAT’selecTRON70’s” and “silverLIGHTrePHLEXTION”. Why not, right? These tracks are the perfect soundtrack to that last pill before it all goes downhill, as well as those first fresh steps out of tomorrow’s healing spa, breathing those sweet puffs of purified air with the taste of reverse-osmosis-purified water still on your lips. There’s some undeniable Drexciya love happening here – and who doesn’t love Drexciya – but SW. stays nimble and dextrous no matter what techno territory he’s flipping through here. A very nice mood throughout, and if forced to pick, opener “SKYnetOPENwindow” is probably my favorite of the pack, a fresh and energized take on the early Rephlex sound.

Al Wootton Albacete Knife 12″ (Trule)
Seems ages ago since Al Wootton was producing upbeat, poppy bass music under his Deadboy alias, as he’s firmly settled into this current musical phase under his own name and as a member of Holy Tongue. The focus has congealed around sparse, heavy, percussion-forward tracks that frequently lean on the properties of dub to conjure atmospheres both foreboding and enchanting. That’s certainly what’s happening on these four cuts, all of which are ripe for being blasted at gut-busting levels of volume on a true proper soundsystem. I’ve never been an audiophile type of guy, but I know enough about Wootton’s productions that the forward thrust and errant wind-chimes of “Midnight Paseo” are begging to be blasted through speakers that you physically feel as well as hear. You could certainly trace this sort of vibrant, acoustic-sounding percussion over creeping/pounding beats to Shackleton, and while the similarities are undeniable, Wootton always seems to approach his tracks from a more clinical perspective, locking things onto the grid while perfecting his combination of frequencies for maximum performance. He’s got a lot of these EPs floating around out there now, mostly all on the same sonic mission, and if you don’t have at least one in your possession, packing yourself an Albacete Knife isn’t a bad idea.

Workers Comp Workers Comp LP (Ever/Never)
Been hearing about this band for a little while now, and I always found it slightly off-putting in that I have personally worked in the realm of workers’ comp for something incredibly stupid, like twenty years now? Perhaps this is how waitresses felt when they first heard about a band called The Waitresses. In spite of my reservations, who can you trust if not Brooklyn’s Ever/Never, so I was up for checking out this self-titled full-length, collecting previously-released tapes, a vinyl single and an unreleased track. They’re a traditional rock trio, and they offer the basic garage-y necessities one might associate with local-level do-it-yourselfers who never even dreamed of formal record contracts. The Velvets’ “Run Run Run” is kind of the bedrock for a lot of what Workers Comp are up to here, spiced up with the twangy chutzpah of Television Personalities and a dash of Jonathan Richman’s startling self-confidence. Kinda typical, but “typical” isn’t an automatic disqualification in this realm of down-home, unpolished rock n’ roll. I wonder if any of the band members noticed or cared when someone came up with the music for “Gilt Rigs”, its “All Along The Watchtower” riff repurposed for Workers Comp’s scruffy power-pop. When it comes to this sorta stuff, I guess every riff or progression is borrowed from someone else, dumpster-dove from the annals of rock history for another wobbly joyride around the parking lot.

Zillas On Acid Mars Hum EP 12″ (Neubau)
Neubau is one of those labels I’m unabashedly simping for. It’s a sick omission that I’d rather see a newly unveiled Neubau center label than spend a weekend with my cousins, but it’s a true one, so you can imagine my excitement upon discovering this new EP from none other than Philly’s own Zillas On Acid, multiple plane rides away from Neubau’s home of Vienna but just down the street from me. As is the case with all Neubau material, though, Mars Hum fits the label’s MO to a tee: zonked-out, devilish electro-funk slowed down ’til it nearly hits dungeon-synth frequencies. “Journey To The Server Room” is mysterious and carefully paced, the perfect background track for one of those Tom Cruise Mission: Impossibles, were they directed by John Carpenter in 1983. The title track is even freakier, too tense for the dance-floor and punctuated with acid-drips sure to have your neck muscles relaxing until you’re staring at the ceiling. “Should Must” has big noxious fart-cloud bass, the sort of thing Kool Keith likes to rap over, before the EP wraps with “The Magic Of The State”, a no-prescription-necessary trip featuring the disembodied vocal chants of one Matt O’Hare. I had no idea Zillas On Acid went this deep – I thought they were feel-good party guys, but now I know that they’re extremely cool feel-good party guys, at the very least. When any innocent dance crew is introduced to the mesmerizing world of Neubau, I suppose this outcome is inevitable.

Added Dimensions Time Suck / Hellbent 7″ (Domestic Departure)
Fresh seven-inch EP here from Portland’s Domestic Departure, which of course means more cool homespun post-punk with risographed packaging. I appreciate the misleading title from Added Dimensions, as neither Time Suck nor Hellbent are song titles here. It’s a poetic little way of describing our daily trajectories, and fits these five tracks of scrappy, poppy post-punk in the vein of Tyvek and labelmates such as Collate and Divorcer. If Sweeping Promises aren’t bringing one or all of these bands on tour with them, something is wrong with society! It’s my understanding though that Added Dimensions is more or less the solo project of Richmond’s Sarah Everton (of Blowdryer and Telepathic) with Rob Garcia helping out on the recorded drums, so I’m not sure if this Added Dimensions exists in the realm of live acts or simply the recorded, uh, dimension. Either way, if I heard the catchy bop of “In The System” on a radio show like Don’t Back The Front on WPRB (which certainly seems like a possibility), I’d eager await the break between tunes to find out who it was I had just enjoyed.

Battlebeats Meet Your Maker LP (Sweet Time)
Extremely generic garage-punk coming to you straight from… Bandung, Indonesia! That certainly puts an interesting spin on what is otherwise severely paint-by-numbers “hi-octane rock n’ roll”. It’s truly a global phenomenon, this leather-jacket, black sunglasses, Stooges- / The Damned- / Dead Boys- / Back From The Grave-inspired aesthetic, now claiming Indonesia’s Andresa Nugraha and his one-man-band Battlebeats among its ranks. When performed adequately, there’s really no telling if the group is from Tampere, São Paulo or Sioux Falls, or apparently if it’s even actually a group and not just one person playing all the instruments one track at a time. Meet Your Maker is as satisfying as the previous or next traditional garage-punk record coming down the chute and as distinct as any two Twinkies in their plastic packaging, for better or worse. I can completely see the appeal – this form of music absolutely does rule, and is timelessly cooler than most other popular styles of the last two centuries – but it’s the unabashed tribute-act vibe that leaves me looking for a spark of unique inspiration, or any sort of identifiable characteristic to grasp onto. Of course, here I am in a big stupid American metropolis full of the stuff, not Bandung, a beautiful, volcano-flanked city I wish Battlebeats would’ve told me at least a little something about.

British Murder Boys Active Agents And House Boys 2×12″ (Downwards)
It’s impossible to write the story of British industrial-techno without Surgeon and Regis; among their myriad pivotal releases, the two of whom have collaborated as British Murder Boys since the early aughts. Active Agents And Murder Boys is their first studio full-length, and it confirms that if these guys actually have a prime, they certainly haven’t passed it yet. Previous British Murder Boys records were co-productions between Regis and Surgeon, whereas Regis is credited with vocals here, leaving the beats to Surgeon. Interesting choice, seeing as post-punk vocals are usually a techno rarity, but the combination of Surgeon’s overactive hardware and heavy kicks alongside Regis’s aggro, echoed sneer is a smashing success. Regis tends to chant his lines in synchronicity with the repetitive techno grooves, mantras more akin to the vocal delivery of Whitehouse or Golden Teacher than any sort of verse-chorus industrial music. It’s a sonic combination that can easily succumb to mediocrity in lesser hands, but Surgeon’s production pulses with lucid, visceral activity, clearly the work of a deft master, and Regis’s bark delivers a salty dash of human chaos to the mix. These aren’t the British Pickpocket Boys, after all: they’re here to kill you!

Candy It’s Inside You LP (Relapse)
Damn right it’s inside me! I consume Snickers and Twixes like ER nurses smoke cigarettes and I’m not shy about it. Anyway, the band called Candy have been making a name for themselves in today’s capital-H hardcore scene as brutal coremen with a taste for devious sonic exploration. Alongside Vein, Code Orange and other bands excavating Y2K alt-industrial styles, Candy are playing beatdown hardcore with a pronounced death-metal influence, but they’re clearly into nostalgic bad-kid stuff like Twisted Metal, the Judgment Night soundtrack and Cronenberg (directly referenced on album opener “eXistenZ”) as well. If he wasn’t rightfully cancelled, I’d expect to see a member of Candy sporting a vintage Marilyn Manson shirt in one of their promo pics. It could go either way for me, but this new album was clearly labored over, and I think it paid off. They’re like the “Enhanced CD” version of contemporaries such as Knocked Loose and Pain Of Truth, integrating industrial-rave electronics, breakbeats, synthetic turntable scratching, abrupt digital edits and freaky Trent Reznorisms alongside their heavy-as-lead breakdowns, grinding metallic riffing and half-time mosh-pit slugfests. They got Trapped Under Ice’s Justice Tripp to contribute vocals to a track, though I wish Al Jourgensen was on here to balance it out with his authentic industrial-metal seal of approval. Maybe Candy don’t have enough eyebrow piercings for his taste, or at least not yet.

Carrier In Spectra 12″ (Carrier)
I’m still feeling the aftershocks of Carrier’s impressive Fathom EP, so why not snag a copy of this new self-released, bare-bones twelve-inch EP while my hands are still shaking? Sometimes all you need is a black inner sleeve and a stamped white label; I suppose artist name and track titles would be nice, but Carrier rightfully assumed I had the internet access necessary to piece it all together. As expected, his productions are in the deepest darkest realms of post-dubstep ritualistic minimalism, in line with the most ominous sides from T++ and Shackleton. These three tracks reduce the overall ballistic approach of Fathom but are no less impactful from the tempo reduction. “Coastal” feels like some sort of early Burial / Raime collab, stripped of echo and vocals right down to its skeletal remains. “Wood Over Plastic” is full of bass-blows and crackle, calling to mind Emptyset on an organic macrobiotic diet, or Autechre if they were commissioned to write some WWE entrance music. “Locus” wraps it in similar fashion, rapid-fire face-slaps kept in place by rich, syrupy low-end and more of those pugilistic bass jabs. Reminds me of my favorite ’10s abstract techno cuts, foreboding and oppressive-sounding without any cheesy goth signifiers, given a fresh coat of paint and a couple scoops of creatine for added muscle. I’m sure Carrier was sitting comfortably at his computer making these tracks, yet I’m certain he must’ve been covered in sweat by the time they were completed.

Lyckle de Jong Pof / Patria 7″ (South Of North)
Lyckle de Jong’s Bij Annie Op Bezoek was reviewed in these pages back when it came out in 2020, and it was kind of the perfect record for that year: screwy, homespun synth-wave music that seemed to take umbrage with both synths and waves. Now I’m checking out this new two-song single, and it sounds totally different, and even more screwy! Goddess bless this freaky dutchman. “Pof” is a slippery little guitar-strum thing that appears on its face to be sped-up in some part. Maybe it’s the vocal that gives it that feel, a wordless staccato bop in the vein of Alvin & The Chipmunks that refuses to quit even as the music around it is melted, malformed and discarded. If Swell Maps started in 2024 instead of 1978, I suspect their debut single would sound like “Pof”. “Patria” takes an entirely different route, joining a piano on a slow walk down the esplanade as G.C. Heemskerk provides a spoken vocal with light electronic futzing, not unlike those newish spoken-word Torn Hawk tracks (the main contrast being that I do not understand the language spoken by G.C. Heemskerk). It’s playful and friendly, like a house party that ends up being a funny time even though you realized the one person you actually knew left before you arrived. Each of these tracks is six minutes too, which feels like another terrible idea for a seven-inch, yet they somehow sound great. More proof of the offbeat magic happening here!

Demdike Stare x Dolo Percussion Dolo DS 12″ (DDS)
Here are three dudes with absolutely nothing to prove in the world of electronic music. As Demdike Stare, Sean Canty and Miles Whittaker more or less defined occult techno in the ’10s before restlessly shifting through new styles; Dolo Percussion is one of Andrew Field-Pickering’s monikers, otherwise best known as Max D, lynchpin of DC’s forward-thinking dance scene and head of the Future Times label. Here they come together over three hardcore breakbeat workouts, sparring in a friendly yet aggressive manner across the Atlantic. Had they thrown in some samples of vomit noises or horror-movie screams, “DS Dolo Edit 1” could’ve found there was onto Doormouse’s Addict label in the early ’00s, such is their relentlessly cut-up break style and vitality. Lord knows there are people out there who can dance to this stuff, but I find myself overheating from the barrage of breaks, twisting like waterslides at the behest of these three gents. “Dolo DS 2” offers a chance to catch my breath, reclining into a half-step slink that could properly support some g-funk bars if it wasn’t so panicky and twitchy. Seems more like a fun exercise than a concerted new direction for Demdike and AFP, but that’s cool with me – it’s like watching a pro baller show up at a township playground court to wreck some local amateurs.

Demeters Döttrar Søndag I Spejlet LP (Discreet Music)
Discreet Music isn’t peddling underground sounds, but rather the sounds of the tiny rivulets and streams deep in the dirt below the underground. If you dig it, surely this new trio featuring Charlott Malmenholt of Treasury Of Puppies and Astrid Øster Mortensen (with someone else named Ida Skibsted Cramer) will raise a brow or two. I dug right in, and while I knew I was in for the sound of detritus’s detritus, the scarce and fragile noise of S​ø​ndag I Spejlet is particularly inconsequential. Of course, “consequential” isn’t what I expect or desire from the Gothenburg experimental scene, so much as strange arrays of crude and rustic sounds that haven’t previously existed – certain records by Neutral, Treasury Of Puppies, Arv & Miljö and Leda already feel like they’ll stand the test of time in their own unique ways. Demeters Döttrar push things further into the cracks around regular songs, those tiny, creaky spaces between floorboards where their music softly grows. Dust-covered harmonicas, voices recorded direct from the air, ancient cassette tapes and a guitar with filthy strings all settle together like an old house into its foundation. It sounds like Loren Mazzacane Connors asleep and snoring with his guitar on his lap, or the ghosts of Charalambides haunting an empty mansion. Real distant, barely-there stuff, the sort of music that won’t register as music to ninety-nine percent of the global population but will captivate the remaining one percent that can’t live without it. Don’t ask for cited sources, I’m positive my numbers are accurate.

Extortion Threats 7″ (Iron Lung)
Perth’s Extortion, now many years into the game, are still fine-tuning their sound, which leads us to Threats. It’s one of those grind-core records that makes anything less sound redundant and pointless, so precise and savage is this collection of fifteen tracks. You’d think they’re from Japan the way that they deliver such a fine-tuned selection of memorable and raging ‘core, a true commitment to quality over quantity, with any imperfections, dalliances or unnecessary steps sliced off and discarded. The manic delivery, guitar crunch and manner in which technicality does not inhibit brutality reminds me a lot of No Man’s Slave or the Manpig LP. As a listener, it’s overwhelmingly fast and full of unexpected changes, yet the group is tighter than the US’s funding of the arts, without a single shot of feedback or cymbal wash left to float in the atmosphere. Extortion’s world of sound is airtight and explosive, and I’m not sure it’s ever been better capsulated than this very EP. Also cool is the fact that they made a video for “Turn It Off”, which somehow looks totally pro without sacrificing the energy or precious hardcore cred. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Extortion are peerless in the genre (just look at who released the record, for starters), but they’re operating at the highest caliber here, nearly twenty years in the game.

Fen Fen National Threat LP (Sweet Time)
You got a singer laid out flat on the stage, mic cord across the face and a fellow band member’s Vans low-tops stepping on him… can any album with that cover image be bad? I love and respect dirtbag punk bands who fall on each other and fudge their performance in service to wild behavior, and while I haven’t seen Fen Fen live, National Threat certainly sounds like the band I’m seeing in their pics. The album has a very Total Punk energy, though it sounds more like a bad-news ’90s punk band than the more modern strains I’m used to hearing, your blown-out garage, egg-punk or pogo-core variants. Fen Fen slam n’ worm like a more garage-y Quincy Punx, or Oblivians if they covered Feederz (which they very well may have). No slow tunes, no moments of contemplation, just song after song of quick, easy-to-play progressions, adequate drumming and campy punk vocals with a brief sample of some old square worried about Satanism to kick it off. I’m not sure National Threat merits a national audience, but neither did the majority of Mutha’s discography and I love all of that stuff too. A lot of ’90s punk can be defined by its refusal to aspire to greatness, and while Fen Fen are here with us right now, I’m happy that they’re giving me a similar sensation.

K. Freund Trash Can Lamb LP (Soda Gong)
Lots of crews out there making domestic ambient music sourced from synths, horns and field recordings, as ardent readers of these pages certainly know. On one hand, I’m (still) getting a little sick of it, but then on the other I’ll fire up something like this new one from K. Freund and it’ll feel like the most fresh and appealing form of music a modern person could create. 2022’s Hunter On The Wing was a delightful transmission from Freund care of his Last Resort crew over there in Ohio, and Trash Can Lamb is right on par, the same but different, also with contributions from friends like G.S. Schray, Steve Clements and Linda Lejsovka. It feels like he’s tugged at the ends of his music here, making the noises noisier, his keys and brass more sumptuous and soothing, his edits more unexpected and rich in contrast. Check “Aire 4”, a brief piano sketch littered with the buzzing chatter of a Star Wars droid, or opener “A Tarp, Billowing”, which saunters in on some marshmallow-soft Chet Baker-styled horns only for a rising tide of Macronympha-esque tape-noise to incongruously gurgle along. It’s these simple juxtapositions that shouldn’t work but do, the sort of thing that can feel on the surface as though “anyone could do it” but in reality, no, anyone can’t. The playing is exquisite, the noise is anomalous and the tracks always find some sort of flow, not unlike my favorite material from O$VMV$M. Not a cheap record to purchase here in the States but worth every penny.

Goldblum Tears In Limbo 12″ (Bergpolder)
Fresh vinyl issue of some Goldblum material from the reliably-strange Bergpolder label over in the Netherlands. Goldblum’s Of Feathers And Bones was one of my favorite releases from 2021, a novel collage of loops molded into attention-grabbing songs; very The Quietus-friendly music if that means anything to you. Tears In Limbo collects three digital tracks from 2020 alongside three new ones, and it behaves in a similarly unruly manner. Part of the fun is not knowing if these loops are found elsewhere (probably?) or Goldblum’s own original doing (maybe?), though the final product consistently transcends its parts. Proceed directly to “Strings Attached”, which takes a pitched-down rhythm-n-blues measure through a haunted house of harmonicas, feedback and other punishing sound effects. It’s kinda like if Seymour Glass decided he wanted to fabricate a rock band through his samples, though I’d say that Goldblum’s music is very much song-based as opposed to open-ended – vocals even appear in conjunction with the songs on occasion, though those are probably samples too? It’s like if The Avalanches were a secret side-project of The 49 Americans, if you’d be willing to imagine such a thing; the music of Goldblum has clearly given me plenty to imagine.

Brezel Göring / Anton Garber Brezel Und Anton Spielen Pisse 7″ (Phantom)
Sometimes I forget just how zany some early NDW post-punk records are, your Die Tödliche Dorises and Aus Lauter Liebes, but a single like this wacky split from “Brezel und Anton” reminds me that German punks are, at their core, a deeply eccentric people. Herr Göring offers us “Fahrradsattel”, a sample-laden Casio-punk fiesta that plays with the idea of country-western motifs (complete with sampled whip-snaps). Alongside sampled screams, laser-beams and disco-punk bass/drums, it’s either Göring or guest associate Lilith Stangenberg responsible for the irritating lead vocal. Let’s flip it over for Anton Garber, who reimagines Blixa Bargeld as some sort of Austin Powers character with the loungey synth number titled “Marlboromann”. It’s a tongue-in-cheek electro-croon, the sort of track that were I to go through the full list of contacts in my phone, I could probably count on no more than two people that would allow me to play the whole thing for them from start to finish. Perpetual jokers, Göring and Garber seem to be having more fun being ridiculous musicians than the rest of the world would ever allow, wearing silly matching jackets as if they were the first to ever come up with the idea. They’re like the diametric opposite of the super-attractive personal wellness influencers out there who wake up every morning passionately hating themselves, so I say we need more Brezels among us, and maybe more Antons too.

Invertebrates Sick To Survive LP (Beach Impediment)
Who better to release the vinyl debut of Richmond hardcore unit Invertebrates than Richmond hardcore lynchpin Beach Impediment Records? Invertebrates feature at least two members of Public Acid, and they leave PA’s metallic European influences behind, crafting a front-to-back rager in Sick To Survive. Early Poison Idea is either a significant influence or a massive coincidence in sound, and there’s certainly no shame in taking notes from Pick Your King. No mosh breakdowns, no melodic harmonies or flanger effects, just full-throttle hardcore-punk with a bottle of Jameson in one hand and a Koro seven-inch in the other, like a souped-up version of how Career Suicide used to do it. Reminds me a bit of Pittsburgh’s recent-ish crop of unrelenting, snarky hardcore-punk in the way that Sick To Survive is impenetrable and devoid of extemporaneous parts. I feel like Richmond and Pittsburgh’s scenes cooperate rather than compete with each other, a couple cities where you can still stick out a little for being a spike-belted weirdo loading your gear into the back door of a working-class pub. “Bated Breath” might be my favorite cut, what with its brief Dead Kennedys-ish interlude and manic thrash akin to the last Code 13 EP, but there’s no wrong place to drop the needle on this one.

Kirkwood Uruk-Hai LP (Out Of Season / Hosianna Mantra)
Out Of Season and Hosianna Mantra set the record straight, simultaneously reissuing three full-lengths from none other than “Kirkwood”. No, he’s not a lost Meat Puppet, Jim Kirkwood was out there in the early ’90s releasing cassettes of fantasy/occult-styled synth music, what could be described as dungeon-synth decades before the term existed. I assume the loose mail-based networks were in place to form some semblance of a scene back then, but Kirkwood’s sound and aesthetic were clearly ahead of their time as far as any sort of significant underground popularity is concerned. Alongside handsome vinyl reissues of Where Shadows Lie and King Of The Golden Hall, Uruk-Hai is probably my favorite, though the quality remains impressively high throughout all three. Each full-length is packed with mist-shrouded dirges, Middle Earth synth-pop and imaginary Legend Of Zelda soundtracks as composed by John Carpenter. The full-lengths swirl with melodic and textural variation, even if the Dungeons & Dragons themes remain constant. I’m tipping my hat to Uruk-Hai for the incredible eight-minutes of “Nirnaeth Arnoediad”, a chugging epic that shifts seamlessly from harsh terrain to lush jungles. Countless music directors of VHS sleaze could’ve benefitted from one call to Mr. Kirkwood, no doubt. Maybe they did? I’m only learning about this guy now, and relieved to learn that not only does he look like The Undertaker, he’s still putting out new music, a discography as ominously deep as the Eye Of Sauron. New jacks, pay respect!

L Marilyn Monroe – All Of Us LP (Radical Documents)
Radical Documents is out here getting more and more radical by the moment, most recently having released this consistently outrageous album by Glasgow’s L. It’s like they took great care to make sure every detail is loony, unapproachable and over the top, from the barely-existent name of their group to the album title and, most certainly, the music within. Much of the material here operates closer to experimental theater than a band, with characters reciting dialogue and the music responding in manners redolent of Frank Zappa, Prehensile Monkey-Tailed Skink and The Muppet Show. Somewhere within these wacky, Shel Silverstein-esque pieces, L manages to fit in chaotic noise-punk, either as part of the show or as unrelated interludes. It leads to an intentionally jarring experience… a segment of fall-on-the-floor screamo is as likely as a pitch-altered voice talking about a visit to the dentist. While the realm of the unlistenable is generally a place I like to inhabit, L go to great lengths to test their listeners’ mettle, particularly with the constant barrage of exuberant theater-kid energy. I suppose I thought I was a freak, but I’m realizing that there are people out there who can comfortably listen to Marilyn Monroe – All Of Us end to end in a single sitting, whereas after a few minutes of this myself, I need a shot of some Sex Pistols or AC/DC to keep my eyes from fully dilating.

Okkyung Lee & Bill Orcutt Play Paris And Glasgow LP (Palilalia)
Bill Orcutt has been a record-releasing fiend over the last decade or so, mostly his own music but plenty of friends and co-conspirators, and I couldn’t be happier. This is a guy worth hearing, and in a delightfully unusual move, he recently released five new LPs for ten bucks a pop (plus shipping). If he lost his mind, I hope he never finds it! I couldn’t resist grabbing this new one featuring live sets from frequent collaborator Okkyung Lee and himself, whose cello improvisations are well suited to Orcutt’s unholy twang. I’m gonna guess the first side is Paris, and they take a full tour of their respective instruments, from piercing tone-float to mournful elegies and free-handed blowouts. There’s one point where Lee slowly descends in pitch as Orcutt picks at chord-clusters like scabs and if anyone in the crowd passed out, the recording sadly didn’t pick it up. The second side opens softly, Lee settling into some seasick tones over Orcutt’s brittle string-work, like a lone rusted pinwheel picking up wind in a dusty canyon. Of course, they never stay in one place too long; the duo are constantly in communication no matter the volume, the constant threat of harsh-noise freak-outs and full-blast drones a guaranteed yet jarring event. Two killer sets by these vets on one LP – an archival release, for sure, but these are precisely the people who need to be getting archived! Praise to Bill Orcutt for doing it himself. Kinda wishing I went wild and grabbed the other four…

Mattin Expanding Concert (Lisboa 2019 – 2023) 2xLP (Galerias Municipais / EGEAC)
The ever-restless Mattin is full of ideas, one of which being his “Expanding Concert” series of events, taking place over multiple years with various collaborators and audiences. It’s highly conceptual, of course, the sort of art event that is more about its own conception and execution than the resulting product (in this case, audio and video footage). The hefty accompanying booklet does a masterful job of explaining the concept, one that I will dumbly summarize as an extended series of interactions between Mattin, other artists and his audience, building and shifting throughout its full duration. The two LPs in this well-designed package are almost secondary, as the erratic sounds of warbling drones, footsteps, quiet conversation, electronic loops, synths and noise are not particularly compelling on their own. The point seems to be the full package, however, more in the spirit of vinyl records by Joseph Beuys and Henning Christiansen, artists for whom sound was merely one of many mediums worth engaging. At this point, can we just get an exhaustive Mattin book instead? I know I’m a record guy, but this deep into his career I’d rather have a bespoke collection of texts and images regarding his work, at least until Billy Bao puts out another punk rock record.

Military Shadow / Kuebiko split 7″ (Gonzosonic / Believe In Punk)
Tokyo’s Military Shadow meets Weymouth, MA’s Kuebiko in a metallic hardcore duel. It’s amusing to me that the one label’s name is Believe In Punk, because who is gonna buy this record that isn’t already a firm believer? You’re preaching to the choir! Anyway, I had zero familiarity with either group, though the artwork of evil army-helmeted zombies provided some reasonable context clues. Military Shadow charge forward with metallic riffing delivered in a mid-paced hardcore style, not unlike The Clay and Mobs if we’re keeping comparisons domestic. Kuebiko brings twice as many tracks to their side (four), with respectfully traditional d-beat music and vocals that take the whole “noise-not-music” thing to a whole new level. It sounds like they’re distorted, then echoed, then distorted again, coming across more like a sound-effect than actual vocalizing, which is a cool thing to do. No one can understand the words anyway, so why not blow the whole thing to smithereens? For my money, Kuebiko come out on top here, but the combination offers strong evidence that split EPs can still be an energizing force in the hardcore-punk underworld. When Bandcamp inevitably goes down for good someday, records like this will remain!

Montel Palmer Love Getaway LP (South Of North)
Killer new full-length outing from unique German quartet Montel Palmer. Their ranks are a confusing mystery – you’re telling me “TBZ”, “Tulips” and “Peter Graf York” are current members? – but this is a mystery I have no desire to unravel. Their music, a downtempo blend of post-punk, digital-debris, lo-fi house and whatever the Wah Wah Wino crew could be described as, is ripe for a lack of firm understanding or clarification. These beat-driven tracks are as active as an over-night security guard, contentedly wasting time as analog-sourced electronics provide bass, treble, kicks and effects. More often than not, someone sings, though certainly through a chain of modifications, pitching them up, down or sideways, layered or distorted. I feel like if Can got started in a Berlin loft in 2020, they might’ve produced a similar result, full of weird little ditties and warped experiments. “Talk To Me” feels like Beau Wanzer under the tutelage of Ween; “Can’t Walk Straight” is like if Jandek did an album for L.I.E.S.; “Mermaid Wolf Whistle” is Mike Cooper washing up on Blues Control’s shore. It’s unserious, sometimes funny music, but Montel Palmer’s unique style and peculiar perspective reveals a group that’s serious about their craft, unwilling to slap together anything typical, obvious or heard-before. An exceptionally strong month for the freaks at South Of North!

Multiples Two Hours Or Something 2xLP (Stoor)
Love a good techno-veteran collab – chances are, they’ve got nothing to prove, only fun to be had. Multiples is a studio pairing of Surgeon and Speedy J, two names that have been looking towards the future since the ’90s, and they struck gold here on Two Hours Or Something. This collection of unedited single-takes is adventurous and lively, flipping through various modes, from raw techno trax to pasteurized experimentalism. Usually, every cut has a little bit of both, as it seems that Surgeon and Speedy J brought out some new and unexpected sound-banks and effects for the session, trying to impress each other as much as us, the fortunate listeners. It’s too colorful to quality as industrial music, but also too fried and hostile to conform to standard techno regulations… if anything, it feels like a late ’80s Esplendor Geometrico album rendered with today’s state-of-the-art gear, though of course multiple tracks (or moments of tracks) immediately contradict that description. How does one describe “Coffee Nerd”… ants playing paintball? Is “Spirit” the sound of Regis kidnapping Kyle Hall as Gene Hunt pens the ransom note? All I know is Two Hours Or Something is one of the most engaging techno full-lengths I’ve heard this year.

Petrified Max The Cup’s Run Over / She Draws Eyes 7″ (Spacecase)
Weren’t expecting any Trotsky Icepick content this month, were you? Surprise! Petrified Max doesn’t contain any guys actually named Max, but it does contain Vitus Mataré and John Rosewall, both formerly of Trotsky Icepick (as well as late ’70s LA power-poppers The Last) and Danny Frankel of Urban Verbs. It’s a veritable summit of guys who get mentioned in passing in regional first-wave punk oral histories, and as you may have expected, they’ve calmed down quite a bit in their advanced ages. “The Cup’s Run Over” is a dandy pop-rock number, the sort of song that would sound like Death Cab For Cutie if Ben Gibbard played it, but instead sounds like Dire Straits or Traveling Wilburys, complete with Bud Light-sounding electric guitar leads, keys and touches of what their generation considers to be psych-flavored garage. “She Draws Eyes” is AARP power-pop, played by lifelong professionals who aren’t afraid to get a little bit funky over at Buffalo Wild Wings. It’s like a paisley-pop take on G.E. Smith’s SNL band, the sort of thing that your neighbors wouldn’t yell at you to turn down even if cranked, so pleasantly innocuous is its disposition. I’m not sure what any of this means except that playing in bands can be a magnificent lifelong pursuit, and Petrified Max is most certainly a band.

Bruno Pronsato Rare Normal LP (Foom)
Having come up in the style and indirect authority of Luciano and Ricardo Villalobos, American-born, Berlin-stationed minimal-techno producer Bruno Pronsato stays the course on his newest full-length, Rare Normal. For such a singles-based genre, I’ve generally really enjoyed Pronsato’s full-lengths, and as he continues to work within a style of music that is far from today’s techno tastemaker spotlight, his music has only grown more appealing. This new one is in line with what we’ve come to expect from Pronsato – skittering percussion sketching out elastic grooves in the open air – but he’s slower and sleepier than ever here, and I love it. Whereas you could usually dance to his music, Rare Normal sounds like the best part of late ’00s Villalobos cut at half-speed, slinking around the house late at night and avoiding human contact. His productions still bear the bones of Perlon-styled minimal tech-house, but they’re deployed in subtle and understated ways, barely reaching the pace of a casual strut and trading in low-end or 4/4 kicks for tiny ASMR-ish clicks and buzzes. If you’re looking for the hot new techno trend, this ain’t it, but I applaud Bruno Pronsato for following his muse regardless of marketability. Once slow-core minimalist IDM takes hold, I hope that Pronsato is rightly given his roses for Rare Normal.

Quid Quo Circle Walks In Circles LP (Glass Key Productions)
Quid Quo are a trio of Arkansas natives who relocated to Seattle, and I hate to inform them that they’re about thirty years late if they were hoping to get discovered by a major label scooping up all the grunge-adjacent rockers of the day. Circle Walk In Circles is their debut, and it’s a jumpy, chunky strain of indie-rock that would’ve been considered discordant and maybe even weird decades ago but now just sounds comforting and familiar. In a good way! Their songs move quickly; no riff outstays its welcome, though there are some particularly cool parts here and there that I wish lasted longer, which is the way to do it. Quid Quo actually sound more Chicago than Seattle to me, the sort of scrappy-yet-tight sound with feet in both post-hardcore and garage-punk that I’d associate with Touch & Go a smidge more than Sub Pop. Anyway, that era is a bittersweet memory, but Quid Quo’s spin on things feels very much alive and thriving, what with both guitarist and bassist singing their guts out over twisty, tumbling riffs. Seattle should send one of their bands to live in Arkansas, just to keep it fair – hey The Briefs, pack your bags!

The Sheaves A Salve For Institution LP (Dot Dash Sounds / SDZ)
Much like the yearly median temperature, each Sheaves album is hotter than the last! This Phoenix post-punk group came to my attention care of a fine Minimum Table Stacks vinyl release, and I’m glad to see that they’re working hard over there, offering up A Salve For Institution, their second full-length vinyl record. The quintet’s general formula remains the same: informal guitar scrum that falls in and out of traditional song-form with a Mark E. Smith-indebted vocalist who doesn’t shut up for one second. His vocals are often double (and triple?) tracked, as if the singer and his clones have cornered you in a bathroom stall, unwilling to let you pass until they say what they need to say. If it was me in there, I’d be happy to wait, as The Sheaves have a great thing going, this brittle jangle redolent of the group’s arid homeland and a vocalist with a freaky rasp. It’s desert-rock but not in the Kyuss sense of the term, which seems to glorify the sun’s scorch. The Sheaves are more like the lizards that hide under rocks until the sun goes down, and it’s in their presentation, too – the singer sounds like his face is covered in scales, evolutionarily angled so that every last drop of moisture rolls into his mouth, while the rest of the band plays as if they had already baked in the heat all day, exhausted in the evening shade. If a record could give me painful tan-lines, this might be the one.

Shop Regulars Shop Regulars LP (Merrie Melodies)
Absolutely stellar debut vinyl outing for Portland, OR’s Shop Regulars. I hadn’t heard any of their cassettes prior to this record, and now I feel it’s my duty to make sure that some (if not all!) of you loyal readers go and check out this long-player, because it absolutely rules. They basically take the extended interlocking groove formula of Natural Information Society or 75 Dollar Bill and apply it to roughed-up K Records-ish indie-pop, full of repetitive, hypnotic patterns and enough space within to fully jam out. It’s like if you took the full ten minutes of “Marquee Moon”, sent it to Columbus Discount Records for a proper lo-fi rinsing, installed a couple of oddball Beefheartian riffs and let it rip on down the road, merrily melodizing all the way. The guitar-bass-drums interplay reminds me of some of my favorite Deerhoof moments (think all of Reveille), this joyous wild bashing that is also fully under control somehow and extremely pleasant to listen to. The vocals are unusual too, the singer’s syllables extended in slow-motion over the hectic riffing, resulting in one of the most interesting and exciting new rock bands I’ve heard in a while. If it wasn’t already clear: highly recommended!

Stacks Want LP (Knekelhuis)
Knekelhuis has yet to do me wrong, so why not peep their newest, another album from Antwerp’s Stacks. They’re a duo with some cool matching names, Jan Matthé and Sis Matthé, and I’m not sure if they’re brothers or married or what but it sets the stage nicely for their subdued electronica. Immediately the sound and style of M83 come to mind, a bedroom fantasy of fleece-soft Depeche Mode synths and tear-stained notebooks, and that sense remains in place throughout the extent of Want. By coincidence or on purpose, I can’t shake the thought of M83, but Stacks kind of condenses what I enjoy most about M83 into their songs: wistful emotions, overly processed vocals, nostalgic synths that glow like frosted pastel bulbs, richly dramatic melodies that make mountains out of molehills… all of that’s in these songs. If the two Matthés didn’t hold each other’s hands for at least some portion of the writing and recording process, these songs could’ve fooled me. When they eventually remake Stranger Things into a Gen Z rom-com, Want will be an appropriate soundtrack, though it works nicely for me now, singing along to “Run Away” in my bedroom with the blinds shut in the middle of the day, A/C window unit pushed far beyond its limits.

Still House Plants If I Don’t Make It, I Love U LP (Bison)
Pass the experimental spotlight to London’s Still House Plants, their new album receiving plenty of the most precious of resources: being talked-about. Wire isn’t putting just anybody on their cover, and If I Don’t Make It, I Love U feels perfectly ripe for this moment, whatever this moment may be. The guitar/vocals/drums trio nudge Chicago-style jazzy post-rock into a modern post-R&B direction, resulting in a truly unique sound. It’s a firm handshake for Kelela and Black Midi fans, Still House Plants’ Londonized combination of stylish experimental musics into a fairly novel sound. Guitarist Finlay Clark and drummer David Kennedy are as locked-in as Orthrelm, though they sound more like Jeff Parker and Valentina Magaletti, working in odd timings, or odd transitions, or at least some element skewed from typical 4/4 behavior at all times. Vocalist Jess Hickie-Kallenbach almost seems to ignore her bandmates entirely, singing repeated phrases with a deep and earthy voice, somewhere between Sade and Mary Jane Dunphe. I read that she patterned her delivery after a sampler, and it makes sense, given the atypical way she clips and duplicates her lines. The combination of vocals and music can clash so drastically that it’s bound to upset the ears of people who seek the comfort of familiarity, but Still House Plants are so clearly dedicated to working out their own unique sound that, if it’s for you, you’ll wonder how you ever did without it.

Swan Wash Shadow Shadow LP (Sister Cylinder)
Finally, it’s here: the debut collaboration between Michael Gira and power-rock duo Pink Wash! Just kidding, Swan Wash are a death-rock group from Bloomington, but wouldn’t that be something? Shadow Shadow/ is Swan Wash’s first proper album following a few EPs, and as far as Midwestern goth goes, I find it perfectly palatable. Swan Wash’s songs are forceful and even downright energetic, but they don’t seem beholden to any musical sense of punk rock, which works to their advantage. They plunge deep into flashy, dramatic goth-rock with full commitment – guitars flailing, clear-and-present bass-guitar and a singer who drips eyeliner and cursed libido. Reminds me a whole lot of Balaclavas, if anyone remembers them, that great Texas goth unit who shaped the manic energy of At The Drive-In and the relentless churn of Public Image Ltd. into their own pained visage. The same goes for Swan Wash to a degree, though they’re a little more lace and a little less leather, if you catch my drift. Either way, Swan Wash is a formidable new entity on the scene, ripe for one of those Los Angeles fests called “Dark Tremors” or “Blue Monday Evenings” if those bookers ever decide to acknowledge the existence of what’s happening in the fly-over states.

Tramuntanas Tramuntanas LP (no label)
Lungfish is one of those bands with an extremely dedicated sect of fans, and rightfully so. We’re not talking about people who simply own all the albums, we’re talking those who follow all the side projects, interpret lyrics, gather up all the related books and writings, get prints (and tattoos!) of Dan Higgs’ art… Lungfish have inspired a decades-long devotion, the opposite of flavor-of-the-month trends. Thusly, I’m hoping that any Lungfish super-fans reading this check out Asa Osborne’s new duo with Shan Collis, Tramuntanas, who self-released their first LP. Don’t expect any immediate sonic similarities – Tramuntanas are an instrumental synth duo, for starters – but that same silver thread of devotional mysticism is evident throughout their debut. These songs are patient, cyclical and space-aged, sounding like Dopplereffekt’s electro at less than half-speed. The lightweight boom-tsch of a drum machine sputters prudently while heavenly synths layer chords and patterns over top, as if Jason Pierce reconfigured Kraftwerk’s Computer World for acid-trip meditations. At first, these songs can feel overly simplistic, but settle into them and their beauty starts to reveal itself, even as they maintain the air of passive electronic vignettes.

UF Unknown Fate LP (Kick To Kill)
Really been loving it as many of the UK’s heavyweight industrial-techno merchants start integrating the heaviness, approach and feel of hardcore, metal and doom into their productions. UF is the duo of Kerridge and Oake, two Downwards label alumni who look cool as hell shirtless, tattooed and distraught on the cover of Unknown Fate, their debut. It’s definitely not metal – I can’t rightly spot a single guitar, for starters – but I’ll be damned if it isn’t the most brutal digital music I’ve heard since that Persher record from earlier this year. Utilizing their rich pool of production knowledge, UF push their riotous grayscale techno into darker, harsher realms where the ghosts of industrial post-punk and blackened metal growl and howl. It’s similar to Ben Frost, Vessel and Emptyset (as well as their respective solo works), but the way in which they combine chest-vibrating bass, unhinged vocals, oppressive percussion and mechanical clangor feels like something exciting and fresh if not entirely without precedent. I love that they both provide vocals and seem willing to take risks – Unknown Fate really feels like a record that pushed its creators to the brink. “Dalston Bubble” is eight active minutes of pain and torture, for example, and I can imagine Prurient pinching his nose and tweaking his ears like Rumpelstiltskin while hearing it, furious that Hospital Productions didn’t get to release it.

Writhing Squares Mythology LP (Trouble In Mind)
Writing Squares have been doing their part to keep Philly weird for nearly a decade now, Mythology being their fourth full-length (and third with Trouble In Mind). Their budget space-rock has always been a good time, though I feel like I haven’t checked in recently – let’s blame Covid – so it’s nice to see where they’re currently at. To my surprise, Mythology is less of a tweaked procession into the stratosphere than I am used to from the duo, probably because they’re no longer a duo here, now with full-time drummer John Schoemaker in their ranks. It results in somewhat of a more traditional rock affair on many of these tracks, a vibe not unlike Hawkwind covering “TV Eye”. Whereas I enjoyed them untethered from human percussion in the past, I’ve already come to appreciate what they sound like in this more traditional rock trio assemblage, chooglin’ through one of Blue Öyster Cult’s geometric shapes and popping out the other end upside-down. The neon digital-clock font has me thinking of late ’80s sci-fi thrillers, even if the sounds of Mythology veer towards early ’80s dirtbag fantasy rock, songs that sound like they should be performed by the band in Stunt Rock. There are still some outsider moves, tracks that eschew rocking for freaky delay-pedal horn explorations, and while I probably prefer Writhing Squares at their weirdest, I’d say “Chromatophage” is the best of both worlds – imagine Laddio Bolocko with Bootsy Collins.