City Dragon Smokes And Mirrors LP (Bruit Direct)
Parisian trickster Max Kaario empties out his junk drawer as City Dragon, offering thirty tracks in thirty-four minutes with Smokes And Mirrors. Or, if not an actual junk drawer, at least a pile of unlabeled USB sticks, full of half-remembered ditties, acoustic noise-improv, cheap keyboards mixed liked rocket engines, incomprehensible off-key singing, domestic clatter and layers of itchy effects dropped like water balloons on essentially every track. It seems City Dragon has tried every method of ruffling the good taste of middlebrow society he could conceive of here, if sometimes only for a minute or so. I prefer the jarring flurries of unfamiliar and unexpected noise to the purposely-bad singing, though much like a bag of kitchen trash, there’s no separating the individual pieces that inhabit Smokes And Mirrors from each other: your hand is going to get sticky no matter what you’re trying to pull from it. Reminds me of something Yamatsuka Eye would randomly release on a street-corner without warning… preposterous music from the margins. I’m not sure it even makes sense to its creator, but who said anything about making sense anyway? This is a Bruit Direct joint.
The Drags Set Right Fit To Blow Clean Up LP (Total Punk)
Total Punk continue their self-appointed mission to dredge up all the Drags albums for reassessment, and I for one am glad they did. The Drags weren’t a group I really thought about in their heyday or since, but I’m kicking myself for having missed out on Set Right Fit To Blow Clean Up until now. Their third and final full-length is an absolutely wicked brew, starting in trashed-out garage-punk but boiling over into a variety of dangerous directions, clearly too combustible to sustain. It sounds like someone is accidentally sitting on a theremin for the duration of this album, which would be a wild enough distraction on its own, but it competes with a constant stream of sweat-soaked guitar solos and amp-scalding riffs. It’s bonkers, especially when considering the dark period of underground rock in which it arrived (1999). Imagine Nebula, Mudhoney and The Hospitals all crammed into a station wagon with their gear and a bag of Comets On Fire’s speed – even with four dudes stuffed in the windowless trailer, someone has to ride on the roof. Really, truly blows my mind how great this record is, so far beyond the typically conservative retro-garage moves of its time. “Modern Man” goes so hard on the harmonica that I can only assume C.J. Stritzel accidentally swallowed it following that take. I wonder if you can still hear it in his esophagus when he laughs.
Eddy Current Suppression Ring In Light Of Recent Events LP (Suppression)
As proof that the world isn’t all bad, Eddy Current Suppression Ring have shaken off the dust of the 2010s and the early 2020s, now playing shows with increasing frequency and offering up their fifth full-length album, released on the band’s own Suppression Records. It’s like the reassuring hand of a loved one on your shoulder, this gentlemanly garage-rock band that has more of a trademarked sound than pretty much any of their peers, thanks to the inventively-colloquial riffs of guitarist Mikey Young and the guileless lyrics and vocals of Brendan Huntley. I don’t think they’ll ever top Primary Colours as far as pound-for-pound hook-laden glory is concerned, but this is a band that has never been engaged in competition, even with themselves. These new songs are as disarming and tender as newborn babies, with Huntley going misty and nostalgic (“Turtle”, “Swimming Hole”, “Past And Future”) while crowdsurfing like he’s still in his twenties. “Swimming Hole” is the insta-classic – you just know The Chats looked up to Eddy Current because of songs like this – but my favorite is “Empathetic”, thanks to Huntley’s stupefying vocal performance. He repeats single words over and over like Tom Green doing an impression of Axl Rose covering Flipper’s “Ha Ha Ha”. I’m filing it away in my “exuberant Eddy Current moments” folder, which was already bursting at its seam.
Fake Dust Decrepitizing Din Of The Cerebral Psyopticon LP (Iron Lung)
Oh a decrepitizing din indeed! Precisely when I assumed grind-core had given me all it could give (which, for the record, is already a life-affirming abundance), Iron Lung went and released what is in serious contention for best grind-core album of the 2020s, Fake Dust’s Decrepitizing Din Of The Cerebral Psyopticon. It’s a masterclass, really: this relatively new Portland band read the grind-core playbook from cover to cover and didn’t simply memorize it, they had each word trepanned into their skulls. The father, son and holy spirit (Discordance Axis, Arsedestroyer and AC) are communally summoned to perfection, with a whirlwind of immaculate blast-beats, technical riffs that are too down-tuned and muddy to tell what’s happening, and a vocalist with two settings: acid shrieks and guttural barks. Truly the definition of sonic brutality! Drummer Brennan Butler is just too good – at this level of talent, he probably has his own popular YouTube or TikTok “drum channel” – but rather than fall into anything lofty, divergent, gimmicky or (gasp) musical, Fake Dust are devoted to true underground grind-core as an ethos and practice, bringing a single tear to the eye of every last member of Napalm Death, all three hundred of them. It’s enough to scare the carbonation right out of a case of Liquid Death (Grimm Thrashberry flavor).
Googoosh Dolls A1000 LP (Drifting Boat)
For a cheap laugh, Ariyan Basu and Ramin Rahni referenced the immortal Iranian pop-star Googoosh in the name of their intermittent dance-music project, and that same cheeky-yet-benevolent attitude is present in their music, which celebrates Y2K Iranian banquet tunes by retooling them for today’s metropolitan cognoscenti. Rendered almost entirely on the Yamaha PSR-A1000 workstation, Googoosh Dolls craft high-energy party music with distinctly Middle Eastern melodies and syncopations, ready to electrify any given family reunion or wedding reception in Tehran or its global diaspora. One gets the sense from A1000‘s rigorous, meticulous design that Basu and Rahni could be making Autechre tracks if they wanted to, but they apply that precision to gaudy pads and ostentatious thrills, the sort of full-throttle, keyboard-controlled jams that might inspire Legowelt to dunk his head in the punchbowl. As a bonus, they share their process via “keyboard playthrough” videos on Instagram, textured in the style of ’80s VHS music lessons with a similar A/V sensibility to my beloved Torn Hawk. At six tracks and over thirty minutes, you’ll break a sweat just sitting in place with A1000 cranked, not only because the air conditioning has been on the fritz, but also from those last few dazzling minutes of “Movement”, where the music transcends higher than any of us could have thought possible.
Iceage For Love Of Grace & The Hereafter LP (Mexican Summer / Escho)
Post-punk princes Iceage have hit album number six, once a nearly inconceivable feat considering the feral recklessness with which they first appeared. For those of us who first fell in love with New Brigade and the scowling youths that made it, that image of Iceage is an everlasting one, akin to Jonathan Taylor Thomas – sure, we logically understand that he’s a grown-up now, even if the idea of that doesn’t make any sense. I’ve enjoyed all the Iceage records I’ve heard (though admittedly spent the least amount of time with 2021’s gospel-choir-enhanced Seek Shelter), and appreciate that they’re still self-serious enough to agree on For Love Of Grace & The Hereafter as an album title. They’ve long since aged out of their youth-center flailing fury and into the Bad Seeds-esque sport-coat-sex-god whiskey bar (it suits them too!), and with this new one they settle into what might be their easiest listening yet, tailored closer towards American indie-rock of all things (not that you’d ever catch them wearing sneakers on stage). While I’ve seen this album’s similarities to Pavement suggested and concurred with, I’m hearing it as their timely spin on the newish crop of Madchester-genuflecting indie ala Fontaines DC and Shame (and to a lesser extent, Dazy and Geese?) alongside the secret-weapon influence of Sort Sol’s jangly cow-punk (whose songs they’ve covered and ex-members they continue to work alongside). Disco beats and snare-rolls used as rhythms (not accents), manic “do do do”s, post-punk funky guitars… it’s all that Elias Rønnenfelt needs in order to shine like the too-sexy stepson of Conor Oberst and Tim Armstrong. These sly devils are going to age like Keith Richards, aren’t they?
Ruth Mascelli & Mary Hanson Scott Esoteric Lounge Music Now LP (Disciples)
I appreciate the urgency here: who wants to wait around for esoteric lounge music?? You might recognize Ruth Mascelli as one of the more mild-mannered members of Special Interest, and their ketamine-flavored sensuality is a perfect match for the soothing reeds of Mary Hanson Scott. Together they make narcoleptic, fiendish trip-hop in that Coil sorta way, a calming resort getaway with champagne sweating in the ice bucket, satin sheets on the bed and, if you pan out a little further, a gimp in heavy rubber bondage quietly laying on a nearby tarp. Certain songs, like “Vaseline Lens” and “The Fool”, go down so smoothly that their intoxicating properties can sneak up on you, like that gummy you forgot you ate an hour ago. Hanson Scott’s horns are the guiltiest culprit, as she adds a new-age jazz flair to Mascelli’s low-lit synths and nonchalant drum loops to makes the affair irresistible. In its own way, Esoteric Lounge Music Now subtly queers up Air’s Virgin Suicides score, Thievery Corporation and some Badalamenti, freeing those gloomy dream-sounds from a humdrum heterosexuality. Kinda surprised they didn’t throw in at least one downtempo dance-floor banger here, but I get it: dancing is a vertical practice, whereas Esoteric Lounge Music Now is primed for horizontal behavior.
Nirosta Steel My Skyscraper 2xLP (ULYSSA)
Truly fascinating document here from Mexico’s ULYSSA label: a definitive (at least for the moment) collection from one Steven Hall AKA Nirosta Steel. Let’s get the record nerd bat-signal out of the way first – Nirosta Steel was a long-time friend and collaborator of Arthur Russell (who appears both physically and spiritually throughout this collection), and if you’ve been longing for more of Russell’s non-discriminatory technicolor approach to art and life in general, this collection offers a shockingly fresh abundance. Nirosta Steel’s range is as varied and omnivorous as Russell’s, as you’ll encounter downtown mutant funk, low-lit acoustic balladry, red-wine pop-rock, avant glam and party sleaze here, and if you’re like me, you’ll be shook on two fronts: how it’s so good and how you haven’t heard it before. I can’t speak to the lack of Nirosta Steel’s recorded output, as he’s only been commercially releasing music in tiny editions since the 2010s; not sure what took him four decades, but regardless, My Skyscraper is far better late than never. I go crazy for the glam-funk of “Lost In Music” and shed a tear for “Go For The Night” (co-written by Russell), with images of pop’s fallen, forgotten and beloved superstars racing through my mind, from Patrick Cowley to Ariel Pink to Bruno Mars to Steve Hiett to Tatsuro Yamashita. And I haven’t even discussed the two extra-long acoustic strummers on side C; the label throws the term “Buddhist bubblegum” at them and I’d say it sticks. What a talent – I feel like I’ve been listening to this non-stop for days and have yet to appreciate the full depth of My Skyscraper.
No Peeling EP2 7″ (Feel It / Wrong Speed)
No Peeling wrote seven songs for their debut seven-inch EP and have now written seven more for this follow-up – you cannot deny their commitment to value. One could comfortably file this Nottingham group under the ever-expanding tent that is egg-punk, though connoisseurs like you and I could pick them out in a lineup of lanky guys with mullet-mustache combos and women in homemade miniskirts and day-glo tights (nerdy glasses and dangly earrings on the lot of them). No Peeling offer a distinctive approach, writing songs with rhythms that can’t be casually bopped along with, almost Melt Banana-esque in nature: riffs change abruptly, drum patterns rarely last more than a bar and the songs themselves seem eager to crack up with an abundance of energy, all signs of today’s baseline attention-deficit. If they weren’t so tight, their songs might be harder to cling onto, but No Peeling perform as a single-celled germ and are equally contagious. Each snare hit is perfectly matched by the strings; same goes for the vocal melodies with the synths. The debut EP had a bit more squeal to it, whereas these songs tend to lean ever so slightly towards a more digestible pop polish, due in no small part to vocalist Sophie Diver. She sounds effortlessly chic and in control no matter how nutty her bandmates get – when they tie her shoelaces together, she slips them off without looking down or missing a step.
Patois Counselors Protection Racket LP (Ever/Never)
The Patois Counselors in my mind are perpetually locked in the raucous jangle of “Repeat Offender”, “Terrible Likeness” and “Probably No One”. That can happen with bands we love; we unintentionally freeze them in an old moment that continues to resonate. Of course, the real Patois Counselors have continued to evolve into something more tender, less upbeat… they’ve always been mature for their age, but that maturity is even more outwardly visible in Protection Racket, their fourth full-length. I’m almost tempted to describe it as sounding “defeated”, but that implies a hopelessness that I’m not necessarily hearing – let’s just say that Patois Counselors have expertly assessed our current situation, and their conclusions are less than desirable. Across slower tempos and smoother melodies, they tackle modernity’s most pressing concerns with wit and acuity, both overt (“Cop City”) and nuanced (“Generational Riffs”). I still love their earliest material (a provocative Men’s Recovery Project sticker on a Parquet Courts guitar), but I’m settling into the subtleties and refinements of Protection Racket easily, something closer to Protomartyr spending a late night at Pere Ubu’s loft (and look, label-mate Richard Papiercuts just arrived with some top-shelf gin). Patois Counselors still have poison in their veins, it’s just that they’ve come up with some new life-hacks to keep from visibly frothing at the mouth.
Poguba Noč 7″ (Autsajder Produkcija)
There tends to be a manic chill inherent to Central European strains of hardcore-punk; it can often sound like music made by people locked in an industrial freezer who scrape the metal walls with their fingernails to escape. It’s an alluring vibe (and an undoubtedly authentic one), and Slovenia’s Paguba channel it here and now with Noč, their vinyl debut following two cassettes from last year. None of these six songs hit the two-minute mark, but their brevity does not translate to formlessness – a lot happens within these songs, the work of a band that can portray their strained, wit’s-end emotions through a few different hardcore-punk tactics. Much of it sounds like Die Kreuzen’s self-titled album hosed down with that Central European iciness, no doubt. The opening title track, “Tank” and “Darila” bring a merciless, herky-jerk speed to their frustrated grumble, like a pestilent creature freshly awoken from hibernation, and there’s no going wrong with that. “Hočm Bit Str” wrings some melody out of their blacks and greys, not unlike their Croatian pals Indikator B, whereas the false-start, false-stop of “Maximum Rokenrol” is outlandish in the way that early hardcore bands used to be – I’m reminded of Pillsbury Hardcore’s “Hey Bob What’s Up?” or Nihilistics’ “Appreciation” for how punk freaks did it before the rulebook was decreed. My sense is that this all deeply means something to Poguba, and like the basement mattresses in a Slovenian punk squat, that feeling is infectious.
Profligate Chewed Up 12″ (no label)
Profilgate left us much to chew on with his last two LPs, 2018’s Somewhere Else and 2020’s Too Numb To Know, genre-defying works of unsettling textures and emotions both raw and guarded. Now he’s chewing us up with this new self-released EP, going back to the project’s roots of bludgeoning techno and EBM. Chewed Up offers six different ways to die (all at the scene of the dance-floor), and I’m glad I’m not forced to choose only one. “Bin Men” doesn’t introduce itself politely, it immediately lands in a tumbling scuffle, rubber meeting steel like Phase Fatale remixing Portion Control (and apropos of Meredith Sellers’ gorgeous cover painting). “Hook And Pull Gang” is hyperactive ala drill n’ bass but punched down to industrial tempo, homemade Foley sound effects spronging against the bars of its cage. Noah Anthony (that’s the name on Profligate’s passport) has always demonstrated a novel approach to aggressive electronics (let’s not forget the crucial electro-crunch he added to the Disintegration album that topped this very blog’s 2024 best-of list), and though I haven’t heard much club-oriented material from him in a few years, he hasn’t lost a step, demonstrating the nimble movements of Objekt, the dark mischief of Peder Mannerfelt and the cyborgian gristle of Blawan. “Wrecked Exotic” isn’t just the name of one of this EP’s most slamming cuts, it’s a fitting shorthand for his musical ethos, too.
Sa Pa Girls On Tour EP 12″ (Dub Techno For Life)
Sa Pa’s recent releases on Short Span revealed a desire to redact techno down to its most cast-off frequencies: a clipping buzz or airy knock becomes the hypnotic centerpiece, not a rough edge to sand down. I love it! With his recent recordings veering far from the club network, the Australian producer wanted to remind us that he initially found his artistic footing via minimal techno, and has now inaugurated his own label, the cornily-named (on purpose or not?) Dub Techno For Life, with this four-track EP. It comes with its own rough title, the (presumably unintentionally) bro-ish Girls On Tour, and well, I’m fairly certain I didn’t need it. “Mokira Ultra Dub” opens the EP and is its finest offering, a 2016 rework of Mokira’s “Manipulation Musik” that pulls and sloshes like tide pools filled with amphibious creatures. Alongside a soothing chug, it flows like light filtered through cloudy water for nearly ten gratifying minutes. The rest of Girls On Tour leaves me underwhelmed. “Waiting For You” was slated for a Giegling release years ago but never left Sa Pa’s hard-drive, and I’m not surprised – it’s a bit undercooked compared to his 2015 FORUM debut. “Modular System” is a one-take jam that sounds like a one-take jam – far more fun to make than listen to, and “World Saving Banger” is more nonspecific dub techno; like “Waiting For You”, perfectly passable genre fare for the sake of genre fare. As Sa Pa has proclaimed that dub techno is for life, I’m hoping he’ll take the next opportunity to spice it up a bit.
Snailgun Glass Walls LP (UnDunn)
The proliferation of new Aussie rock bands leaving their stickers in dive-bar bathrooms is as consistent as the odor, and Melbourne’s Snailgun are here to claim their rightful spot. With the vast history of underground rock music to pull from, they deliver their own specific formula, one that gets more interesting the longer you return its glare. From a wide lens, Glass Walls sits comfortably among the many loud rock records that took inspiration from early ’90s grunge-adjacent indie, but dig in a little deeper and its idiosyncrasies start to become apparent. I’d point first to “Labyrinth”, a bouncy groove ala Deaf Wish-meet-Pixies that just keeps on going and going, a simple idea that manages to gain power, or at least a manic momentum, through its nearly six-minute runtime. “Midway I” sounds like Shellac wearing Dischord t-shirts, leading into “Midway II”, which sounds like something Dischord would’ve actually distributed (say, Maximilian Colby or 400 Years): hand-stamped, local-scene emo-core. And opener “SD” offers an alternate history where John Lydon forms Soul Asylum instead of PiL. Glass Walls reminds me how arbitrary and illusory all those critical genre distinctions of the ’90s underground were, that the difference between one band selling 100,000 CDs and another selling 500 seven-inch EPs was driven by marketing, aesthetics and personal values more than overt sonic differences. Luckily for Snailgun, they exist in an era where no rock bands really sell any records at all – the pressure is off!
United Stare Voice Of Change 7″ (Kill Enemy)
Anti-social punk and hardcore is a fact of life in Pittsburgh, with new bands (and new configurations of old punks) popping up like warts on toe. United Stare is one of the newer offerings from Pennsylvania’s second-best city, formed by Justin Danylko (of the very raging Speed Plans), and they refuse to be pinned down. Following last year’s tape of swaggery punk, this Voice Of Change single offers three unrelated songs that showcase the various ways they might stick you in the ribs – the EP’s sonic incongruity is reiterated with a picture of Stonehenge(?) on the cover. “Voice Of Change” is my kinda punk rock, chunky and Dead Boys-y but also with the street-punk mindset of those essential early Fucked Up singles or even a touch of the trendy Oi influence currently running rampant through La Vida Es Un Mus’s recent catalog. “Burning The City” slides even further from hardcore and into some of Johnny Thunders’ disgusting trousers – kinda makes me want to get the Chiswick logo tattooed above my bellybutton, but only if I’m the first guy to do it. Neither of these tunes prepare us for “Moon Landing II”: it’s nearly seven minutes of kraut-y proto-punk determination, incriminating evidence that they got into their older sister’s weed stash and forgot to put away her copy of Here Come The Warm Jets. No vocals on that one, proof positive they were zoned out in a, you guessed it… United Stare.
Traditionally, the covers album that arrives at the end of a band’s life cycle isn’t their finest moment. I suppose The Spaghetti Incident? is probably someone’s favorite GnR album (and I hope to meet that person someday), but in Birth (Defects) case, the band seems both at ease and inspired by delving into some of their direct influences on Fictional Days, touted as their final record. Here, four original songs share space with five covers: Sonic Youth, The New Flesh, The Comsat Angels, Nirvana and SSD. One could easily suss out the group’s interest in cloudy post-punk, seminal hardcore, self-destructive noise-rock and 1992: The Year Punk Broke from their original material, but there’s something freeing about taking a song you already love and splattering it with your own paint. I still don’t need to hear another Nirvana cover for the rest of my life (I’ve got eleven words why: “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (Cinematic Version)” by Tommee Profitt featuring Fleurie), though while I thought the same for SSD, Birth (Defects)’ extended take on “How Much Art” closes in on the divine, like Clockcleaner’s rendition of “Ready To Fight” had they thought it through for more than two seconds. With that sentiment in mind, I’m having fun imagining their originals as covers: in another reality, Laughing Hyenas could’ve written “Youth” in a stained-carpet practice room; “Deceiver” could’ve fired up Rein Sanction’s debut EP. 
The music of Callahan & Witscher allows itself to be approached from a couple of different perspectives. You can crack open a Super Lyte by the above-ground pool and blast them on a digital-streaming playlist full of Sublime, Lit and Sum 41 (free tier, full of loud ads), your tropical-bubblegum vape on hand to quell any remaining brain activity, or you can get situated in your friendless, meticulously-curated apartment next to your rare noise-tape collection with their lyric sheet in hand, mulling over the multitude of insider quips, sarcastic jabs, experimental Easter eggs and ironic mockery that fuels these songs. That’s the mix: extreme low-brow pop meets extreme high-brow conception, both ends of the spectrum delivered with such fluency, potency and self-disgust that the whole thing bewilders wildly; even the duo themselves seem disoriented by what they’ve created. My personal approach to their music has been closer to the former scenario – I love a good sticky-sweet pop song, the more unabashed and shameless the better, and for as non-musical as the majority of Callahan and Witscher’s respective discographies are, they sure know their way around bawdy, major-chord hooks, delivering them in an overloaded, internet-native manner. For as deep as I am in our shared underground space, a significant portion of their references or call-backs fly over my head, and as their intentions often seem to be rooted in some sense of negativity (what the internet used to call “butthurt”), I am content to not dig too deeply, if only for my own safety. You don’t create your own personalized Funkopops and Airbnb-aesthetic fake neon wall decor if there isn’t some serious loathing going on, be it inward or outward. 
Hightail it from Atlanta to New York City, grow your black-dyed bangs out over your eyes, record your debut album with Martin Bisi in Gowanus. Genre Is Death recognized a successful life trajectory when they saw one, and have been rewarded with an In The Red full-length debut as a result. Don’t let the confusing band name confuse you – this duo (with uncredited drummer?) plays music steeped in the tradition of early no-wave noise-rock graveyard blues. Cramps bootlegs, Teenage Jesus’s twelve-minute discography, Live Skull, Boys Next Door before they became The Birthday Party, there’s a rich history of skinny, black-clad outlaw artistes that Genre Is Death undeniably draw inspiration from. Nothing wrong with that! Their songs are methodical and repetitive, often without any sort of payoff – imagine Kilynn Lunsford covering all of those noisy, two-note Lamps songs with half of either’s intensity. The lyrics are repetitive as well, with song titles doubling as choruses and oft repeated for two, three, four minutes. In that way, it can kinda drag, but I’ll cop to spinning Attractive People stone sober in my tidy little room, a sub-optimal experience for their brand of noise-rock sleaze. “I See Red” should be experienced in the bowels of CBGB, Lydia Lunch walking masked boys on leashes as Jayne County and Bob Bert toss GG Allin out on his ass for the fifth time that night.
Slovenly Records, punk rock diplomats to the world at large, snag a winner here with Gentilesky’s sophomore album. The group is based out of Sardinia and Turkey (wish I could say the same), and they take a familiar punk style and deliver a fresh kick to its keister. Theirs is a tensely charged post-punk aesthetic, similar to legends like Wire, Mission Of Burma and Gang Of Four (“One Way Out” and “Dreamland” really bring the GOF vibes), though future legends like Sweeping Promises bear a similar resemblance to much of the material here as well; maybe even a lil’ Sleater-Kinney and Nape Neck managed to sneak in there too. Gentilesky present with an urgency that makes the music feel important, particularly evident in “Chasing The Light” and “Money Making”, the one-two punch that opens the album. It’s a winning formula: you tether some athletic bass-lines to a shrewd drummer, send the guitar darting wildly around it, and find a singer who belts it out like it’s their last chance on Earth to sing. And it’s garage-y enough that your small-minded leather-jacket crowd won’t have any complaints either (not that we’re concerned with their pleasure). Here in my large American city, I am privileged to witness exceptional post-punk bands rolling through town on a constant basis, yet the urge to trade it in for Gentilesky and a stone Sardinian farmhouse is undeniable.
Amsterdam’s Jasmín offers a fresh perspective on the concept of “girls night” with this quick new EP from the fabric Originals label. Her “It’s Girls Night” isn’t suited to pomme frites, Caesar salad and chardonnay at a posh restaurant with a selfie wall – it’s gurgling, hyperactive techno ready to ruin your outfit like you’re at a GWAR show. The track has that propulsive feel of early ’20s Blawan, and while the grid is firmly shibaried in place, there are all sorts of additives popping off, not least the escalating four-note melody, deployed like a poison-dart. At a brief five minute runtime, there’s no need to bring it all down to the kick, but Jasmín does precisely that three minutes in. Stuff your rules! “Longhair” also eschews any obvious correlation to its title. This one lurks menacingly – if it were a member of the mob, it’d be the young guy with face tattoos and sunglasses who guards the door, his eccentricity tolerated by the old-school bosses due to his loyalty and unflinching viciousness. Are people really dancing to “Longhair” at fabric London, and if so, how? Slow-motion simulated knife fights? Gratuitous PDAs with untrustworthy exes? With more questions than answers, this two-track EP makes for an alluring tease. 
You’d think that after something like thirty full-length recordings, Simon Joyner might’ve run out of songs to write, but this here is an authentic, rare-breed singer-songwriter. If anything, his wits continue to sharpen and the lens through which he views the world grows clearer, to the point where he might just non-consensually steal your heart if given access to six strings and a microphone. The forebears to his artistic form of choice jump from the music immediately – Lou Reed, Townes Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen – and while there probably isn’t room left on the pedestal of seminal rock legends for anyone born after World War 2, Joyner’s body of work speaks for itself. A real “hidden gem” of a singer, and nowhere is that gem-status more clear than on Tough Love – with guitar in hand and understated rock-band accompaniment when necessary, he peers into the heart of life with tenderness and wonder. His lyrics are a treat (Sophomore Lounge’s Ryan Davis releasing this record is a clear-cut case of “real recognize real”) and easy to follow, even if the paths they take are unexpected, funny and bittersweet. Lemme pass you the tissue box if you’re queuing up “Last Call For Karaoke”! And in an inventive conclusion, all of side D is dedicated to the title track, a deep rumination of family and love so potent I’ve been avoiding listening to it, lest I turn into a teary wreck right before dinner. Joyner’s music works like an emotional fracking pump when you least expect it, dislodging your deepest buried feelings. He must get a perverse thrill from it, the sicko.
I hope to someday live in a world where L.O.T.I.O.N. is no longer needed, but unfortunately it seems their presence is more essential than ever. They recognized that big-tech was burrowing into our brains well before this whole nonsensical AI Ponzi scheme appeared like a herpes sore on the chapped lips of American capitalism. Our digital-surveillance hellscape might not have bloody eyeballs popping out of uzi-wielding robots, but it’s a hellscape all the same. L.O.T.I.O.N. cover all of this in grisly detail on Machine Hallucinations, which is almost too fun for its own good – how can I turn my rage into action when I’m too busy headbanging to these exhilarating blasts of digital metal? It might be their catchiest album yet, with any fraying elements of hardcore giving way to a brash, no-nonsense take on the industrial groove-metal of greats like Ministry, Rob Zombie and KMFDM, alongside gabber techno, cyberpunk aesthetics and that Spawn (The Album) soundtrack (Slayer and Atari Teenage Riot’s collaboration in particular). It’s really banger after banger here (with an unexpected electro-twee ending!), this frantic concoction of speed-metal guitar riffs, vocals indebted to the acid froth of Japanese noise-core, and the hook-laden industrial style that Ministry pioneered. When I pull up Instagram, I should be fed grainy clips of “Absolute Insanity” performed on an outdoor festival stage to 60,000 Brazilians waving anarchist flags and going nuts, but L.O.T.I.O.N. remain an underground organism, probably forever. How long until my phone can predict and fabricate my wildest dreams? 
Malaphor goes hard in the paint, and by paint I mean “funky, piano-forward alt-pop”. There was a time when I couldn’t turn on MTV without being accosted by some new spastic, smirking Poindexter – Harvey Danger, Barenaked Ladies, Fastball, it goes on – and now that we’re so far removed from this era, I’m kind of starting to miss it, even if that notion fills me with shame. Enter Oakland’s Malaphor: their song “Frogs In The Pot” is an absolute romp that nods in that general direction, a ’90s coffeehouse sound with the zing of three espressos. With all hands on deck, they sound like Ben Folds Five after sitting on a bee, the music bouncing good-naturedly as vocalist Brendan Casey offers a tidy metaphor for the state we’re in. “In The Waves” calms things down with a tender waltz, recalling John Grant’s commanding, sardonic croon. If this Malaphor single completed one of those “what TV show are you?” internet questionnaires, it’d be Party Down for sure: lovable underachievers too smart for their own good, suffering as they serve all sorts of unreasonable twits who inexplicably have all the money and none of the sophistication. They’d deliver a silky-smooth rendition of “In The Waves” and you just know some jerk would come up and request Billy Joel, without tipping no less!
Tokyo dub scientist Mermaid charmed my pants off with his debut album Dubmaid last year and does it all over again with Dub Forever, his second proper album for the exquisitely-named Beer & Records label. His music will pull a smile out of the sourest faces, linking ’90s digital-dub soundsystems with the cutesy vibe of cat cafes and the wonderment of a record shop’s well-stocked dollar bin. Typical dub conventions are folded into paper planes and tossed off the balcony, with big sine-wave bleeps, dazzling dub effects and a big yellow sun with a smiley and black sunglasses looking down from above. It’s inherently fun music in the spirit of the Jahtari camp, with the firm belief that anything can become a dub if you have enough love in your heart. Check “Money”, which gleefully swipes from Sam Smith’s “I’m Not The Only One”, or “Gavotte”, which flips a late 18th century François-Joseph Gossec composition into a cuddly Pokémon lullaby. The amount of fun being had here is outrageous, as Mermaid casually showcases the borderless joys and omnivorous appetite inherent to dub music. Try napping to “A Nap” and you might float away entirely if you neglect to use a weighted blanket. 
If purple smoke arises from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney during the papal conclave, it means that they are currently listening to Octonomy’s Saturnalian Rites. Catholicism is just one big creepy cult anyway, right? Heidi Lorenz’s Octonomy project delves deep into such scenes of occult intrigue with her mood-darkening electronic music. Saturnalian Rites is her vinyl debut (her discography began with the most ominous of formats, FLACs), and it delivers a cohesive mix of varied-yet-connected styles. The (pre-)industrial rhythms of Test Dept, the shadowy spelunking of Lustmord, wordless chants from unholy choirs, gleaming new-age synths that beam like light through the cracks of a prison tower’s stones: they all conspire to form a steady-flowing suite of dark-ambient electronics. It would take years of research to grasp the topics that Octonomy is delving into through the album’s imagery and its accompanying instrumentals (a brief scan of Wikipedia wouldn’t suffice) – Saturnalian Rites demands cracking open ancient dust-covered texts that might accidentally release a demon, straight from Giles’s library (RIP). It’s precisely the wrong time of year for me to be blasting “Winter Solstice”, but by the time I’ve reached “Ruined Abbey of Thelema”, the cold, musty air of a freshly unsealed crypt envelops me…
“Getting old” is a universally unappealing (and generally avoided) topic for popular music of any strain (brief exceptions granted to Leonard Cohen and Johnny Cash), which is probably why the contrarian in me finds it appealing. Philly’s Puriden cut straight to that point by titling their debut album Public Aging, and they kicked it off with a song called “My Body Is A Machine That Hurts” for good measure. And the irony is, when compared with today’s headlining emo pop-punk acts, they’re not even that old! While some of their grey-bearded peers are still singing about first kisses, dumb jocks and prom night, Puriden take a more age-appropriate path, writing about overdraft fees, religious hypocrites and the ways that love can devolve into complacency and isolation. Musically, Puriden are rooted in that late ’90s emo-infused pop-punk era, and they mix it up quite a bit within the vicinity: I’m hearing The Anniversary, Grade, Braid, The Jazz June, Knapsack and Hot Rod Circuit if I want to leave room for two friends in my MySpace top eight (whose Vagrant Records sampler CDs I’m currently borrowing). There are poppy guitar leads, introspective swells of emotion enhanced by guest violin, vowels pronounced like Tom DeLonge, jazzy chord changes and upbeat “do do do” Third Eye Blindisms; Puriden keep things lively and engaging, balancing out the often dreary, reality-stricken subject matter. Might be tricky to get noticed within such a corporatized, well-trodden, social-media-gamed genre, but hey, at least they’re old!
Much like an actual prince in your dreams, Traumprinz arrives unexpectedly and breathtakingly. This German ambient-techno producer is arguably the German ambient-techno producer, having refined his techniques through numerous releases on the still-killing-it Giegling label before moving to his own All Possible Worlds imprint. Under a handful of aliases, he continually goes big in ways no one else thinks or cares to do, ways that seem designed to tantalize the home listener (and frustrate the second-hand vinyl market). He casually released an eight-LP set as Prince Of Denmark ten years ago (with different mixes appearing on different records, distributed at random!), and now under his trusty Traumprinz moniker we get Life, a Soundcloud dump from a few years ago available on limited triple LP vinyl. If you were lucky enough to order one in the hour-long window they were available, you know that he also included an additional, exclusive LP in the package for free, just because. What a mensch! The music here is vast, over ninety minutes (not including the untitled fourth LP); these tracks spread their wings with grace and confidence, locating the pleasure zone through patient repetition, subtle variation and a deep sense of heart and soul, blatantly contradicting the idea of techno as the music of unfeeling electronic machines. Singling out any one track feels shortsighted here, but if you want a taste, jump right to “Trippyaf”, where he combines a robotic pulse and outer-space zaps with a wordless vocal(?) that travels for minutes without interruption. 
Last month’s Storm On Earth EP from the endlessly-monikered René Pawlowitz inspired me to peep a new one from another highly-regarded polyonymous techno producer, Mammo. He’s apparently so good at aliases that his legal name remains a mystery, putting him a step above Buckethead. He’ll occasionally release music under his first name (Fabiano), but he consistently changes project names between releases. Alongside Mammo and Fabiano, you can find his records credited to glorified matrix numbers: EPs from 2301, 2302, 2401, 2501 and now 2601 (all of which correlate to the year of production). Unlike his more abstracted Mammo material, 2601 offers two cuts of effervescent tech-house, as clinical and unidentifiable as their name. The a-side establishes a choppy beat upon which a dub effect is stretched like taffy for a good seven minutes. The flip is less club-friendly, working a Detroit-style subterranean feel with a bank of sonar sound-effects you’d expect to hear from mission command in some ’90s military submarine movie. Nothing wrong with either, though there are dozens if not hundreds of dollar-bin techno singles from the last thirty years that offer precisely the same sensations and, in many cases, feel far more genuinely anonymous. Dig in the beat-up dance boxes on the floor and the shop clerk will hand you change if you pay for Snow Bones’s Remote Viewer EP and Snookerboy’s My Lovely Pixel with a ten-dollar bill. Or, play the long game and wait to see if Untitled ends up alongside other under-appreciated gems in twenty years. 
Researchers have failed to genetically fuse ambient electronics and twee… until now. The Australian duo of Julia McFarlane and Thomas Kernot are blissed out and taking us with them, as these four songs (released earlier in the year on CD) have hit vinyl for your favorite after-hours spot. These delightful tunes all rest in the folds of trance-y electronica, with McFarlane’s voice guiding us safely through the softest trip possible. “Two Great Lamps” sets the tone early, spaced-out arpeggios pacing back and forth as McFarlane’s clipped syllables breathe some humanity into the music’s shiny plastic shell. “Beautiful Hats” features the most direct vocal from McFarlane, singing like she’s in Dolly Mixture or Girls At Our Best over cosmic squiggles, and it’s a dazzler – I can already picture NTS’s phone-lines lighting up when the resident ambient DJs spin this one on a quiet Wednesday evening. “Your Humble Servant” is the first track to bring in a hi-hat pace – there are no kicks or traditional-techno rhythmic elements to be found here – and it captivates with an odd violin(?) loop and some hushed chords. They end with “Uriel’s Bath”, a playfully-creepy lullaby that doses the bizarre synth-led storytelling of Call Back The Giants with the wave-pop sensibility of Australia’s early pioneers (Essendon Airport come to mind). “Ingenious” feels like too strong a word, but how else might I explain that I just ordered a copy of Sarah McLachlan’s “Fallen (Gabriel & Dresden Anti-Gravity Mix)” single in a misguided attempt to replicate the pleasure of Uriel’s Bath?
My favorite scrotally-inspired hardcore band fires up another eight blasts of high-velocity hardcore-punk, once again care of Convulse Records. The formula hasn’t changed here: the Cleveland group favor a fast-core sound not unlike the turn-of-the-century action on 625 Productions and Six Weeks, that moment where the relentless speed and sudden time-changes of power-violence met the cascading riffs and circle-pitting rhythms of old-school thrash-core. Yambag never rest on any particular part for long, but the ferocity of these eight songs is pretty unwavering, often sounding like No Comment covering Circle Jerks songs at four times the speed. Every element is delivered in a rapid-fire style, which means that sure, the drummer is blasting away, but the bassist is also breaking his wrist to keep up and the vocalist is spouting off full lines of lyrics in the time it takes to cough. A seven-inch is the perfect format for this style (and, honestly, the perfect format period), and eight songs is neither too much nor too little. And while I’d expect the requisite live shot on the cover to display a singer jump-kicking twenty feet in the air for this sort of aggro hardcore style, Yambag takes the moment to remind us of their freaky Cleveland heritage: I’m not certain if the band on the cover even is Yambag, and the singer is wearing a huge papier-mâché mask that nearly doubles his height, enough to make Snooper green with envy. 
Back to top