Actress Tranzkript 1 12″ (Modern Obscure Music)
Been downright intimidated by the overload of new Actress records in the past couple years, to the point where it feels like I’ve barely checked out any of them. I’d need a second life to properly devote the time and attention they deserve, but when I saw this new EP with his cool phonetic-misspelling style, I couldn’t help but peep. It seemed digestible by comparison, and while it certainly is, it’s also so damn good that I’m thinking I need to put some of my hard-earned PTO into a week where I privately listen to all the Actress records I’ve missed, just me and a decent wall to stare at. “Baby U Lar” takes me back to the Actress of the early ’10s (ala Rainy Dub, Splazsh and Xoul), wherein extremely peculiar zones are drafted, the listener is situated inside at an unusual angle and forced to float in a queasy, pleasant stasis. This cut pairs meandering piano, unevenly looped, with a twitchy electronic voice, like a microwave oven trained on AI to believe it’s Beyoncé. The lonely hi-hat of “Guardians” is dappled in British rain, paired with alternate-reality dial-tone and a distant moan… it’s truly alien music from the outer limits. “We Walk Together” sounds like reverse-techno as played through one of Alvin Lucier’s room-sound experiments, and “Kjj_” is little more than elegant, reverberant piano, looped on angel’s wings. Top-of-his-game material from start to finish care of one of modern electronic music’s most adventurous thinkers.
Artificial Go Musical Chairs LP (Feel It)
Post-punk aficionados were bowled over by Artificial Go’s debut EP last year, yours truly most certainly included. It was as if the trio were thawed from a cryogenic chamber sealed in Sheffield circa 1979, first-wave post-punks unaware that Margaret Thatcher was out of office, let alone deceased. In reality, I’m pretty sure Kurt Cobain died before the members of Artificial Go were born, and they’re proudly repping Cincinnati, one of the most robust and thriving American punk scenes (thanks in no small part to Feel It Records, both label and shop). Vocalist Angie Willcutt offered a caricature of cool style on that debut, and goes even wilder here, flaunting and fluttering her fake British accent while dressed like a high school bandleader at homecoming, complete with decorative helmet (amazingly not a sole photo shoot, but a way of life). Musical Chairs is pretty much Willcutt’s show, but her bandmates give her plenty to work with, from the charming indie-pop of “The World Is My Runway” to the no-wave-abilly of opener “Lasso” and the Flying Nun-ready “Circles”. They’re all hits, and Willcutt’s femme-clown presentation runs wild, listing breeds of dog, demanding a car and generally just chattering wildly, doing all she can to establish your undivided attention in this age of constant distraction. Hers is a full commitment, and it leads to some remarkably catchy tunes, from the spoken bits of “Tight Rope Walker” to the truly out-there way she sings the hook on “The World Is My Runway”, a bizarre Scottish(?) inflection that you’ll want to sing along with just to feel the fun of it rolling off your tongue. It was easy and it was cheap, but Artificial Go actually makes you want to go and do it, too.
Bart & The Brats Missed Hits LP (Feel It)
God bless the Shatter font, responsible for the logos of infinite striped-shirt-leather-jacket garage-punk records. No other font would fit French punker Bart De Vraantijk and his non-existent Brats so snugly, his vibe a clear descendant of the Rip Off Records turn-of-the-century heyday, one fiendishly brandishing black sunglasses, band-logo pins on lapels and, on special occasion, size-small t-shirts with skinny scarves. The recording here isn’t as budget-y as I’ve learned to not only tolerate but appreciate from the Goodbye Boozy diaspora, and this warmer, cleaner sound works too, highlighting De Vraantijk’s repetitive choruses and scoffing lyrics. Reminds me of The Unnatural Helpers in their sleekest garage mode, or Buck Biloxi after receiving his first Tinder match (there’s some swagger here). De Vraantijk’s not afraid to turn a whole song out of a couple of well-worn chords, or wear his influences proudly on his sleeve – there’s a cover of The Kids’ immortal classic “Fascist Cops” here for good measure. Missed Hits is one of those genre-specific records that devotees of the genre will savor and less-fanatical types will comfortably endure… anyone who despises sassy, simplistic punk rock should be avoided in the first place anyway. Beat on them, Brats, with a baseball bat!
Chris Brokaw Ghost Ship LP (12XU)
There’s a short list of musicians I trust to provide me with a profound sense of loneliness vis a vis their guitar, and Chris Brokaw (of Codeine, and Come, and wow, if Discogs is to be believed, also of GG Allin & The Aids Brigade) is one of them. He knows how to rock, and will surely rock once more, but Ghost Ship is him out on the end of a decrepit pier in the misty bay, his electric guitar somehow powered by the ocean of tears shed to classic 4AD records. It’s very Grouper-esque in that sense, but there’s no murk to navigate or dust to wipe – Brokaw’s guitar might be dimly lit, out of somber respect, but it’s in plain view. His tone often reminds me of Red House Painters’ Down Colorful Hill, each separate note rippling mournfully, though Brokaw is free to move about the funeral chapel. He even shakes his carafe of holy water wildly in the form of “Anything Anymore”, which opens with the bracing couplet of “Thank God I’m not in jail / Thank God I’m not on Fentanyl”. Lots of people love to throw around the evocative concept of a “ghost ship” within their art, but Brokaw’s is all too real. Give it a wide berth and hope you aren’t beckoned on board.
Bruce Belly / Burned Alive 12″ (Poorly Knit)
Bristol’s Bruce seems to have gone off the deep end, a tack I’d recommend more buttoned-up post-dubstep producers take. Why play by anyone else’s rules? In comes “Belly (Passing Squall Edit)” on this hand-stamped twelve-inch single, and it’s a riotous charge of elephants out for blood. Over a stoic gallop, an unnatural, fierce trumpeting shakes you by the collar, resulting in a violent sort of techno I could picture Stephen O’Malley cosigning. “Burned Alive (More Gauze Original Mix)” maintains that aggression over a swing out of Peverelist’s toolkit. Alarms blare, cars crash and weapons are enhanced like a Twisted Metal that wasn’t a teenager’s video game but a death-cult’s way of life, one that Objekt might consider joining. “Hot One (Chapped Lips Version)” closes it out with some semblance of peace, a lone twitching piece of hardware surrounded by spirits as it ascends to the dumpster out back behind Heaven. Bruce is uncaged here, a very DIY vinyl presentation (on “eco vinyl”, which we used to recognize as the cheap stuff that would otherwise be thrown away when United did it) with tracks too hot and undiluted to pass through a third party. I hope he’s okay, but even if not, I hope he keeps dropping new records like this.
Arianne Churchman & Benedict Drew The Tree Of The Left Hand LP (Folklore Tapes)
They didn’t have to tell me that The Tree Of The Left Hand Path was recorded in a haunted bungalow in Suffolk to know that it was recorded in a haunted bungalow in Suffolk. The duo of Arianne Churchman and Benedict Drew sparked some darkly-bucolic magic on last year’s glorious double LP May, a record as supernaturally dangerous as it is beautiful, and this follow-up whips up a similar mood, regardless of how many protective runes surround you. The first side is less overwhelmingly immersive, with acoustic strings, harmonium and synths acting in tandem more so than unison, providing some meditative breathing room for Churchman’s droning vocals, delivered with the confidence you’d want in a pastor performing a bedside exorcism. By the time you flip to the second side, the storm is upon us, elegantly put in the title “Portal Emerges To A World Reversed”. If you look deeply enough within, images of Ben Chasny, Nico and Tony Conrad might reflect back at you before it’s too late. The nymphs that lurked in the shadows of Comus’s music are recognizable here too, peeking out the edges of the track’s imposing doom (which is then parted by the lighthearted strings that beam down about six minutes in). A vocal choir (presumably all in matching white ponchos) escorts us to the other side, where time melts like mushroom chocolate. Even if they’re simply setting me up for the Wicker Man treatment at the dusky close of The Tree Of The Left Hand, I have no regrets.
Church Shuttle ESP Grifter / Junk Oracle LP (Torn Light)
You want pure authentic Midwestern junk electronics? Well Chris Durham AKA Church Shuttle set up his crap on a rickety stand in front of the boarded-up corpse of a Sears, the parking lot too cracked and decrepit to attract skaters, or even taggers, and he’s got some fresh tunes for ya. I really love this sorta thing, damaged DIY sound-art that isn’t so formless as to be filed under “noise”, but it’s too fried to be industrial either, and while it might share an ethos with post-punk, there’s nothing sonically “punk” about it… that’s a sweet-spot for me. These tracks curdle and flutter like early Esplendor Geometrico beat-mixed with that great/terrible File Under Pop single (just mainline the first dozen Rough Trade releases straight into my brain, 24/7 if you please), delivered with the freewheeling whimsy of Prick Decay or Nautical Almanac. Or rather, I ask you to envision those early Whitehouse records if the point of the group wasn’t to shock and disgust, so much as to get baked, order a big bag of garlic knots and fade out to some Andy Sidaris movies on the couch. While fitting in with the Hanson / American Tapes oeuvre, I appreciate that Durham renders these Church Shuttle tracks with some sense of intention and progress – I’m sure there’s some improvisation happening, but they still feel like some sort of structural pre-planning took place, all for the listener’s benefit. As far as I know, Sears never openly embraced the DIY electronic-noise scene… could that have been the fatal flaw to their business model?
Culture Shock EP 7″ (Youth Attack)
It feels like many of my over-forty hardcore peers have grown weary of Youth Attack’s aesthetic, which has honed in on the insular Denver hardcore scene over the past, jeez, ten years now? The bands seem to be the same basic guys in different arrangements, all with the trademark look of Mark McCoy’s aggressively black-and-white designs, more and more sounding as though they were recorded in adjoining trash cans. I suppose the repetitive sameness of it all can be tiring, but I still have an appetite for comically-angry hardcore made by scowling men in black band t-shirts, so I snagged up a couple of records from the new drop based solely on their cover art, the same purchase-criteria I followed as a teenager going to a used CD store. I love the cover art of this Culture Shock EP (I had plans to do a similar “brick letters dropped on a landscape” design for a project of my own that sadly didn’t work), and while these four quick tracks offer zero surprises, they rip hard, which is the important thing. The drums that open “Crumble” are as cavernous as they are crusty, and from this opening the EP rages forth in a manner befitting the neighborhood-wasting landslide on the cover. It’s like Men’s Interest and Sex/Vid trying to play This Is Boston Not L.A. (Culture Shock even cover SSD here!), which I greatly prefer to today’s riffless Gag/Gel/Bib/Spy clones. I chuckled at the back cover image, wherein an audience member is snarling in a Mangled State t-shirt – do any of these Denver hardcore dudes know that non-Youth Attack hardcore bands exist? I’m hoping the answer is no.
Dommer Thoughts On Unpacking / Kevin’s Speech 7″ (no label)
I’ve been considering a VIP paid tier of Yellow Green Red where you are granted exclusive access to me saying things like “Brooklyn’s Dommer should hook up with Prurient and call it Dom & Dommer”, but I can’t figure out an appropriately high enough price, so you get that one for free. This Brooklyn duo is doing things in a music-business-averse way that I find highly appealing: they’re self-releasing seven-inch singles, rather than posting daily Instagram reels and paying Spotify for boosted playlist positioning. They’re kind of an odd band too, their sound positioning itself within unlikely crevices of indie/punk at large. See “Thoughts On Unpacking”, which opens like classic Joan Of Arc with high-pitched vocals delivered over a succinct yet noodly riff. The chorus gets some fuzz on its chin, but it still behaves like the secret fourth Kinsella quadruplet. “Kev’s Speech” incorporates some dinky keys and walkie-talkie vocals to resemble the earliest No Age singles that accidentally tipped over into Gilman Street pop-punk. Not sure what to make of Dommer, which is much better than knowing exactly what to make of them. I wouldn’t mind seeing them give Eyes & Flys a run for their money on the self-released seven-inch race, at least… only eight more until they pass them!
Evinspragg The Neo Forms Of Soliloquy LP (Inscrutable)
If the two people on the cover of Evinspragg’s vinyl full-length debut The Neo Forms of Soliloquy are believed to be the band itself (which I’m not entirely sure is the case), one might anticipate music in a goth-y New Order / Cruel World festival sort of way, the duo bathed in foreboding purples, pinks and oranges, their visages obstructed by the severe shadow of a fingerless black leather glove. The label lives up to the name of Inscrutable, as Evinspragg actually play a sort of gremlin-y synth-punk, recorded in aggressively, lop-sidedly digital-sounding form. The slippery punk slime of Geza X and the trash-picked futurism of VON LMO are recognizable here, though Evinspragg’s production, mixing drum rolls and sound-effects far louder than guitar (that’s a guitar in there, right?), is uniquely their own. I’m sure they appreciate Screamers and Suicide – what righteous mortal among us doesn’t – but they’re (mercifully) not recreating the past so much as banging around with the contemporary crop of Feel It’s punk-informed, synth-centered artists and the looming, maniacal presence of Martin “Lumpy” Meyer, even if he’s publicly buried that character in the dirt. Punks have infiltrated enough Italo disco DJ nights by now to know the ropes, even if what they end up making comes out as neurotic and demented as the egg-punk bands they dissolved a couple years prior. How else to explain the gloriously dizzying budget-Grace Jones torment of “Once In A Dream I Saw A Man”?
G.I. Jinx Mind Freak LP (Celluloid Lunch / Psychic Handshake)
For better or worse, I don’t think Montreal’s G.I. Jinx had Criss Angel in mind when coming up with the title of their debut LP. There’s no glitz or glam here, not even in a darkened or theatrical manner – Mind Freak feels more suited to when your mind is actually freaking you, like when you’ve seen enough roaches running through your moldy apartment at night that the shadow of your empty cereal bowl gets a nervous double-take. It’s punked-out noise-rock in the classic late ’80s CBGBs sense, akin to Action Swingers and Drunks With Guns in particular, ready to share a weeknight bill with Unsane and Bastards attended by a sparse, morally ambiguous crowd. Mind Freak summons a variety of seedy bands that I find particularly appealing from a distance, where I don’t have to physically shake hands with any of them and wonder what else they had recently touched. G.I. Jinx exist in the here and now, however, an era where you have to be relatively thoughtful and amicable to exist as a functioning underground band, so it’s a pleasantly harmless daydream, knowing it almost certainly doesn’t apply to this group. Vocalist Anna Arrobas’s disenchanted sprechgesang is reminiscent of Kilynn Lunsford in her garage-ier days, and it certainly fits the mood, stanking punk riffs that conjure negative sensations akin to petty-thieving roommates and indoor smoking. Criss Angel could never.
Harold Holt Search Party RIP LP (Budget Brown)
Wasn’t sure if the band name was a private in-joke or something, so I looked up “Harold Holt” only to learn that he was an Australian prime minister who disappeared while in office in 1967 (hence the rest of the band name). Why can’t this happen to more leaders of first-world countries?? This Aussie quartet wield that sort of sarcastic energy alongside a fairly traditional take on screamy punk rock, working with durable riffs in the vein of The Hives, The Saints, Fucked Up… very time-tested stuff. Even if the vocalist wasn’t shirtless, hairy-chested thick and sporting a large brown beard, I’d still be reminded of those great early Fucked Up tracks, but his look drives the point home. Song topics are appealingly provincial, including a song called “Footy”, and there’s “Heroin”, which sardonically repeats the line “bring heroin back”. Could’ve gone for a lyric sheet to fully suss out the scope of their mordant humor, but alas, maybe the trick is to just sing along and see what happens. Probably not a record to get excited about from continents (or even cities) away – it’s back-to-basics punk rock, and very much basic in that regard – but if I lived in their quaint home city of Bendigo, I’d probably hang at all their shows and determine which of the two Cooney brothers who play in the band is Reece and which is Warwick. As it stands currently, I have no idea.
I Pentiti / HDPE Divided World / Il Mondo Diviso 7″ (CCP)
Some fascinating co-operation (not competition) happening here, care of new Communist punk label CCP Records (out of Sydney, Australia). For their inaugural release, CCP paired Milan’s I Pentiti with Sydney’s HDPE in a flagrant showing of unlistenable hardcore-punk, just the way I like it. I Pentiti are a wild one, opening with “I Debiti”, a scalding dirge full of reverbed-out drum rolls ala Flipper and an eventual noise-core tantrum ala Cyanamid. “Non Abbiamo Senso” is ever-so-slightly more discernible as a “real song”, with more of those echo-y drums, unhappy chord progressions and that frothing high-pitched vocalist, as if they were kidnapped from a black-metal group’s frostbitten mountain cave. It makes me wonder what is happening over there in Milan, and HDPE, a self-proclaimed “anti-hardcore” group, raise question-marks of their own on their side of the record. “A Vision” is ugly punk with a big open hi-hat sloshing around and an incessant bullhorn vocalist, re-tooling the lyrics of The Crucifucks’ “Hinckley Had A Vision” in praise of contemporary folk-hero Luigi Mangione. They squeeze all four minutes of “Anti-That” after it; there’s over seven minutes of music crammed on their side to ensure an appropriately-suffering fidelity. I’m glad they did though, as “Anti-That” recalls the sourest first-wave art-punk somewhere between Negative Trend and Slugfuckers, that spark of “grab an instrument and we’ll figure it out on the fly” that makes for a profoundly more enjoyable listening experience than one of polished, stadium-ready rock n’ rollers. I’d love to see a conservative punk label try to release an international split as evenly unhinged!
Kaleidoscope Cities Of Fear LP (La Vida Es Un Mus)
From the same community of New York buds that brought you Straw Man Army and Tower 7, Kaleidoscope hit the scene first, offering up psych-tinged hardcore-punk that, to be honest, didn’t really grab me all that much. Of course, I’ve since gone wild for those Straw Man Army (and Tower 7) records, so I peeped Cities Of Fear and boy am I glad I did. What a thrilling record of artful-yet-uncompromising hardcore-punk! I swear Kaleidoscope didn’t sound like this before, but if they did, please slap my wrist and point me to those records, as this is really excellent. Opener “Burning Alive” gallops like my favorite Aus Rotten moments, just boiling with triumphant rage, and the record twists and winds from there, calling to mind the uglier sides of various underground hardcore strains. I’m hearing the crusty, anthemic flair of Born Against at their fastest and Eucharist at their catchiest, the aforementioned Aus Rotten and the best possible Profane Existence stench, a touch of Mutha’s implied violence, and a pal of mine compared the record to Bl’ast, which I also can’t unhear. Looks like I just drafted one of the sickest mixtapes to throw in your vegetable-oil-converted van’s stereo as your punk band screens thrifted t-shirts outside of the squat, but Kaleidoscope really manifest the most riveting and catchiest elements of the other bands I’m hearing in their sound. Thoughtful, progressive, ripping crust-punk that feels especially precious in the year of our lord 2025, and it comes highly recommended.
Kirkwood Master Of Dragons LP (Out Of Season / Hosianna Mantra)
Out Of Season and Hosianna Mantra, having already released three handsome, uniformly-designed LP reissues of early ’90s material from unintentional dungeon-synth template-drafter Jim Kirkwood back in early 2024, did the sensible thing: they released three more! That’s six Kirkwood albums, all freshly remastered from the original recordings, with titles, themes and art inspired by Michael Moorcock’s richly-constructed fantasy realms. Both Souls That Dance On The Edge Of The Sword and Tales From A Melnibone Tavern feature side-long cuts – “Stormbringer” assuredly brings the storm – but if I was to point you, a weak level-one mage poseur, towards merely one of the three Kirkwood LPs that are recently out and worthy of possession, I’d go with Master Of Dragons. Broken up into nine distinct tracks, Kirkwood doesn’t shy away from dramatic flair here, or even the occult horror – a track like “The Ships Of Xerlerenes” is an atmospheric bog ready to test the courage of our unlikely hero and his elven sidekick. As always, Kirkwood’s drum programming is measured and determined, and while the synth settings vary nicely, the overall vibe is soaked in an era-gone-by, one of pre-internet mystery and direct-to-VHS mystical horror, a subculture that truly has to be searched for to be discovered, like a secret hole in the wall in the original The Legend Of Zelda. I’ll take six more, please.
Jorg Kuning Elvers Pass 12″ (Wisdom Teeth)
Nothing describes the music of Jorg Kuning as accurately as the cover art of Elvers Pass, eye-catching neon pastels in a pattern that could be an x-ray of a rare orchid or an infrared cross-section of an alien’s frontal cortex. His techno oozes unlikely colors, full of hairy purrs, cozy bleeps, drip-drop percussion and what’s that, an extended cello solo on “Mercedes”? Kuning harnesses the mid ’00s minimal-techno reverie of Luciano and Ricardo Villalobos and doses it with Matias Aguayo’s tropical fruit flavor, the resulting tracks being extremely easy to enjoy, never too hard or too soft. “Synthetic Squashies” embodies this in particular, a fully rubberized production that has the durability you’d expect from the Kompakt label with the winking eye of Melchior Productions. At six tracks, there’s plenty to enjoy, but it moves fast, too playful and sprightly to ever bog down into repetitive looping or rhythmic routine. I thought I had entered Diddy Kong’s lunar new year rave on the opening cut of the second side, but the title gently corrects me: it’s “Squidward’s Viola” that I’m hearing. Elvers Pass is the all-purpose antidote for industrial-dungeon techno, bad moods, chafing, unseasoned food, reality…
Last Bias The Sea Hates A Coward LP (Twistworthy)
Ten years ago, all the elder emo-core dudes were still on ice, but it seems they’ve thawed out at this point, reintegrated into the general population to get their old bands back together, or in the case of St. Petersburg, FL’s Last Bias, starting a new one. Last Bias feature ex-members of Light The Fuse And Run, a group I remember by name but not song, and I appreciate that their music feels both true to their past and present. That is to say, there’s a strong Ebullition feel to The Sea Hates A Coward, a gritty emo-core that has me thinking about how my Half Man and Econochrist LPs still rage pretty hard (and can be had for probably ten bucks total, even with todays staggering emo-flation rates). The songs simmer rather than boil, with notably more upbeat riffing than anything released by The Mountain Collective in the ’90s, an energy level more befitting fully-grown folks than fresh college dropouts. Someone in the band is inspired by Fugazi’s bounce, and someone else probably enjoys Page 99’s dramatic wall-of-crust guitars, and in the middle is where Last Bias comfortably meet. Try to keep up with your morning exercises, guys – only thirty years or so until you can start booking the Last Bias reunion tour!
Kilynn Lunsford Promiscuous Genes LP (Feel It)
You ever dry-hump the creature from the black lagoon in a 17th century French chateau… and like it?? Post-punk no-wave has been a formative element of the music Kilynn Lunsford has been making since she was a wee lass, but Promiscuous Genes, the second full-length under her own name, is a master-class in shaping those basic sonic elements into something uniquely wild and fun. Sophistication and trashiness don’t cancel each other out here, but rather enhance the overall experience… it’s like a high-end couture version of Spirit Halloween (wedged into the decaying skeleton of some recently-deceased business) freshly looted and set on fire. Opening on the understated groove of “Nice Quiet Horror Show”, I’m reminded of Chandra’s urban-chic grooves, but then there’s the minimalist funk of “Disney Girls” that could’ve been the best track on Beck’s Odelay, and what’s up with all those psychotic pitch-shifted voices on “Lillibilly” and the title track, straight from one of those demented Flossie & The Unicorn puppet shows and black-and-white zombie movies? If Lunsford has placed limitations on her sound, I cannot discern what exactly those parameters might be – the thread that connects all fifteen of these tracks is the maniacal brain that conjured them into reality, and it’s strongly double-stitched, full of class rage and implied smut. Cleaner and dancier than her fantastic debut, Promiscuous Genes is a constant thrill, mandatory for all seekers of slippery post-punk underbellies.
Nape Neck Nape Neck LP (Dot Dash Sounds / Red Wig / OCCII)
At least around here, it feels like another art-school closes its doors every couple months, but that doesn’t stop the art-school aesthetic’s persistence in underground music. That’s certainly what’s happening with Nape Neck out of Leeds, and while I don’t know if there are any accredited institutions providing instruction on how to be an artsy freak over there, they’ve at least got the Brudenell Social Club, which probably offers a more robust education anyway. This trio deliver post-punk in its most jaggedly melodic form, a rigid-yet-rubbery style that reaches back to Kleenex, Gang Of Four and Contortions, though Nape Neck’s sound veers closer to the turn-of-the-millennium resurgence that was guided by labels like Troubleman Unlimited, Archigramophone, Gilgongo and Thin The Herd. Careening guitar/bass interplay (or what’s the opposite of interplay, inter-fighting?), highly intentional drum patterns, and shouted vocals bounce back and forth, Huggy Bear-style… multiple genders attacking from multiple angles. While the shock of music this forked and divergent has long since worn off for me, the pleasure derived from a band talented in the genre remains, particularly on a song like “The Gate”, what with its ping-ponging vocals, low n’ funky bass and a guitar so tortured that I was certain it was a synthesizer for the first few measures.
Blone Noble Life’s New Adventure LP (Industry Standards)
Who looks like Nick Cave and sounds like David Bowie? I wish “you’re looking at him” was the answer to this riddle, but it’s actually Blone Noble, an awkwardly, anagrammically-named Los Angelean newcomer. On his debut, Life’s New Adventure, we get a taste of Noble’s fantasy world, one where the sparkle of LA illuminates its squalor and excess. The cover photo invites us into his shoebox-sized bedroom, random ripped pages of art and poetry under his bare feet, as if to insist that Blone Noble doesn’t require the basic comforts of furniture or food – he can subsist off scraps of art photography and his own scribbled diaries. These songs aim for the mystery of Low and the hip-shaking synth-pop of Let’s Dance, delivered with the aggro mindset of someone linked closer to the DIY punk scene than the major-label farm-system. Reminds me a bit of Cairo Pythian, if anyone remembers him – synth-wave music as glam-indebted as it is antagonistic – with a touch of Ric Ocasek’s vocal delivery and Kid Creole’s lunacy (check “Too Big To Fail”). In LA, the chance of stardom is an impossible toss-up, so Blone Noble winding up on one of those gross “Spotify featured artist” billboards in a year, or never being heard from again, are both in the realm of possibility. He already looks like William Basinski’s pool-boy, and that’s a smart first step – always dress for the job you want.
Evan Parker & Bill Nace Branches LP (Otoroku / Open Mouth)
You ever witness two brothers fight each other? It’s a unique human encounter, one where it’s obvious they love each other deeply, yet are also possessed by the need to fully demolish each other. There’s a specific wrestling match between Jay and Mark Briscoe that exemplifies what I’m talking about (HCW Mandatory Suicide, 6/25/2005, it’s on YouTube), and in a slightly different and non-biological sense, Branches, a live recording of Bill Nace on two-string taishōgoto and Evan Parker on soprano saxophone, carries a similar feel. Of course, Parker and Nace had barely encountered each other prior to this gig at Cafe Oto, but man, you’d think they were life-long frenemies the way this thrilling battle plays out. With Parker doing his circular-breathing goose-squawks and Nace’s fingers flying across the strings on his lap, it feels like I’m bearing witness to a violent sprint, gravel embedded in the competitors’ feet. The intensity is absolutely relentless, and seemingly exacerbated by each other – neither man wanted to be the weak link here, and we as listeners get to celebrate their sweat-soaked tie. Not a record to be played for people dealing with heart conditions, pregnancy or anxiety issues, as the constant mania of Branches could rouse a grizzly from hibernation. I just checked the vinyl after spinning both sides, and amazingly, it’s room-temp – how could these sounds have emanated from a piece of plastic that isn’t on the verge of catching fire?
Perverts Again The New Man LP (Saalepower 2)
Cleveland’s Perverts Again are so seriously un-serious that I’m constantly on guard for (and wildly amused by) their deadpan antics. Even the fact that they got the German label Saalepower 2 Records to release The New Man feels like some sort of a gag? Alongside their alternate arrangement as the more hardcore-inclined Cruelster, this is the only new punk band that Sam McPheeters has bothered to appreciate in the last couple decades, an accomplishment well-deserved. We hadn’t heard from Perverts Again in a couple years, but The New Man delivers gloriously, full of their relaxed-tempo punk riffs over floor-tom-centric drumming and a rapid-fire overdose of dry humor. This time, they seem to target society at large rather than looking inwardly, skewering the bounty of humdrum horrors encountered daily in America: the self-obsessed sociopaths, the conspiracy-seeking nincompoops, the social-media loudmouths and NIMBY racists all properly clopped. Their skill lies in the delivery, full of overlapping characters (often with pitch-shifted voices) delivering ridiculous, memorable lines; little tricks, like the background “shut-uppp”s in “Hyper With You” or the Black Flag- and Germs-appropriated riffs in “Head On My Photo”, elevate their catchy, poppy punk. I can’t get the chanted mantra of “I wish you knew my IQ it would shock you” in “Isn’t That Stupid?” out of my head, an exhaustive screed from the worst guy you went to college with ripped directly from his worst Threads post. Like Tim Robinson busting out tre flips on his skateboard, it’s razor-sharp yet inherently silly, and the finest distillation of this crew’s genius to date.
Quade The Foel Tower LP (AD 93)
The predominantly electronica-minded AD 93 is an unlikely source for fresh and exceptional guitar bands, and yet with Moin, YHWH Nailgun and Quade, they’re already possessing a mighty stable. Quade’s debut LP struck a chord with me, a heady mix of Dirty Three, Loop and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and while that’s still kind of happening here, the path of The Foel Tower feels new. As an album it’s colder and darker and bearing fewer electronic refinements, a forest without leaves soaking in interminable English countryside precipitation. These songs are brooding and guarded, less openly psychedelic or tranquil, and I’m enjoying it more with each consecutive listen. “See Unit” is unusually close to This Heat, operating on its own classified time-signature, with scary snare hits and quiet-loud dynamics to give it that authentic Cold Storage feel. That’s the only track that’s really like that here, though, as Quade cover plenty of stylistic, if not atmospheric, ground throughout. “Canada Geese” is like Fevers & Mirrors-era Bright Eyes, but don’t let that spook you – nestled alongside the swirling mouth-harp drones / turbulent post-rock strings of “Nannerth Ganol” and the crackling, violin-led beauty of “Black Kites”, the parts of The Foel Tower are great but the sum is even greater.
Schatterau Übers Jahr LP (Hands In The Dark)
German duo Schatterau have landed on a confluence of musical attributes that I personally really like: solemn, downtempo / no-tempo ambient post-punk vignettes with occasional spoken vocals (not in English) and an atmosphere at once frosty and cozy. These seventeen tracks veer closer to song than non-song, somewhere amidst the stained subway tiles of O$VMV$M (whom I swear by), the icy cobblestones of Brannten Schnüre (whom I adore), Tin Man’s cold-wave soliloquies (whom I went so far as to release a record of), the ambient-jazz noise-collage techniques of the Last Resort label (gimme) and the lonesome German post-punk synths of Matthias Schuster (solo and with Geisterfahrer). Can you tell I’m excited? Those are enough disparate “things I’m hearing” to hopefully express the point that Schatterau are firmly themselves, exploring a variety of mysterious, low-lit moods that never grow dull or played-out. I’ll single out “Die Wüste” for a moment: a woman speaks in French over aquatic bells, melodic hum and a one-two rhythm strut, as if you took a time machine to 1982 and explained trip-hop to Antena. It’s followed by “Saison”, anchored by a dusty two-note piano loop and mild chords, male German vocals oozing with a goth-noir pathos, like Philipp Otterbach as Coil’s newest member. The whole thing plays out like this, one novel and enticing idea after another, quietly waiting to be discovered in a European basement lounge, or at least one of Bandcamp’s most alluringly darkened corners.
Shrapnel Sedan Crater LP (Tenth Court)
Here’s what I propose: if you want to use a band name that has already been used by a band that features at least one member of Monster Magnet, you’ve gotta write a better song than the OG ever did. That’s a tall order for this Australian Shrapnel – “Combat Love” is an American power-pop classic – but what they lack in memorable hooks, they make up for in scope and depth. There are seventeen tracks on Sedan Crater, which of course is only five away from matching Beastie Boys’ Hello Nasty, and they deliver all sorts of indie-guitar-centric sounds, a lil’ something for everyone. They go paisley-pop jangle quite a bit, as collegiate-soft as Harpers Bizarre, but they also yuck it up like The Clean if they wanna, power up a dusty old drum machine and see what comes out, skip merrily like Of Montreal and stand up tall like Car Seat Headrest, often with a vocalist that sounds a lot like Whatever Brains’s Rich Ivey (a net positive). It feels like a ton of songs coming from related-yet-different angles, and while I applaud their ability to sprawl, I find Sedan Crater a little overwhelming (and consequently exhausting) to listen to, particularly as there isn’t any single moment that shakes me to my core (or even really nudges me towards it). If I owned like a dozen records, and this was one of them, I’d probably spend enough time with it (weeks, months) that my appreciation has no choice but to sprout and grow, but I’m too old, and Shrapnel too unremarkable, for that connection to spark.
Skee Mask Stressmanagement 12″ (Ilian Tape)
Last winter’s in-depth Resident Advisor feature really endeared me to Skee Mask, an enigmatic techno upstart revealed to be a studio-recluse who would rather spend all day and night making tracks than, you know, eating, bathing or sleeping. It would seem that he has endless reels of tracks, running the gamut of techno styles; thankfully, he also has a few solid relationships with labels that curate and release them. Take the reputable Ilian Tape label – this new EP is the eleventh release in the dedicated “Ilian Skee Series”, which is separate from Skee Mask’s other work on the label. I was excited to check it out (and, even with international shipping, it was one of the cheapest new twelve-inches I’ve purchased this year), four new songs pulled from Skee Mask’s windowless, unventilated back room, synths stacked up like Jenga blocks. These four tracks share a similar relaxed-fit mindset, dub-techno with a swinging gait; chill-out room appropriate perhaps, but active in mind and spirit. I love the volleying jolts of “Panic Button”, though “LCC Rotation” is my favorite of the four. He shape-shifts a breakbeat through careening debris, like the Millennium Falcon through an asteroid field, inexplicably ending on some melted-tape voice memos. If only we all were allotted the time and space to be as freely ourselves as Skee Mask gets to be Skee Mask.
Johnny Skin Johnny Skin LP (Inscrutable)
The Lumpy Records extended cinematic universe was always filled with weird, larger-than-life characters, some heroic (The Wad) and some villainous (Black Panties). Inscrutable Records might be the less-disgusting, post-graduate rebrand, but they still can’t resist weirdoes like Johnny Skin – if that’s him on the cover, he looks like a human Charles Burns character, a hundred pounds soaking wet in relaxed-fit leather dungarees and opaque shades, a hammer wielded for unclear purposes (it doesn’t seem like he’s here to lay drywall). His music jumps all over the place, like a fashion-makeover movie montage where a character pops out of a designer closet over and over in repeatedly outlandish outfits. The a-side has plenty of Suicide-derived electro-billy, an obsessive reaction to Alan Vega’s Elvis obsession. I half-expected Mr. Skin to continue in this one-dimensional mode, but then there’s the kitten-squeaky indie-pop of “Misery”, the aggro chop of “It’s All Too Much” reeking of wet pennies, and what is probably my favorite, “Fixing A Hole”, which operates in a theatric stop-start manner that recalls the more unclassifiable end of early no-wave outliers like Beth Anderson and Boris Policeband. I could go for less of the silly high-pitched singing over air-fried doo-wop and more discordant klang ala “I Need You Pt. 2”, but they couldn’t even get Johnny Skin to put on a shirt for his photo shoot – why would he ever consider my suggestions?
Sleep D Big Sky, Liquid Sun 12″ (Butter Sessions)
If I wanted to treat global electronic music like ESPN’s Sportscenter, I’d say that Melbourne has been a real up-and-coming force on the scene, an unexpected upstart who quickly found their way into the thick of the pack. There’s a variety of quality Aussie producers to choose from, including the duo Sleep D, whose trance-inflected, new-age-indebted house feels particularly contemporary in a non-pejorative way. They open their new EP with “Green Thumbs”, which hovers on the edges of ’80s new-age cheese without ever dipping in completely… a pleasant vibe-setter ready to soundtrack a boutique that only sells organic-cotton totes and Aperol spritzes. They get the party kicking with “Mountain Ash”, which sparkles and throbs in a very Kalahari Oyster Cult sort of way, hipster-trance close to Avalon Emerson and a few blocks away from The Postal Service. “Acheron Cauldron” moves similarly, with the shades pulled down and a selection of variously-colored pills arranged on a mirrored tray. Lightweight and punchy, but still with some cool bass moving underneath it all, one of those tracks that is complex in its creation but simple to enjoy. “Magma Flow” wraps the record and reclines into a dubbier mode (there’s even a sporadic vocal), like Rod Modell trapped inside of Ecco the Dolphin‘s glistening pools. The cover’s psychotically pixelated appearance is well-suited, conjuring half-remembered dreams of ’80s nostalgia reconfigured for today’s yassified art-design style.
Star House / Vedic Dread Chapter One: Into Misty Visions 12″ (Hydrate The Channel)
A little Discogs sleuthing led me to conclude that Star House is the work of Steve Peffer (see last month’s reviews for his full CV), and it seems he already knows the proper way to release left-field ambient-techno music: with barely any info at all on the record! He shares this stamped white-label twelve-inch with Vedic Dread, who is apparently James Donadio AKA Prostitutes (whose electronic music has graced high-quality labels like Diagonal, Night School and Opal Tapes). Let’s get back to Star House though, which finds Peffer in a cramped back room, two or three synths close at hand. His music here is more ambient than not, kraut-y pulses that cut through the cosmic butter like a warm knife. Reminds me of J.D. Emmanuel’s Wizards if Graham Lambkin mixed it into a guest NTS spot for the after-after-hours crew. How’s that for a nicher-than-niche description? Vedic Dread resumes Star House’s basement-ambient vibe comfortably, opening his side with overactive wind chimes. It moves fast, however… various spongy beats arrive and disperse, quickly replaced by other active combinations of kicks, bells, toms and waterlogged synths. My techno training has brought me to the point where I can appreciate unwavering beats that last as long as Seinfeld episodes, but Vedic Dread keeps it moving, eager to showcase his various pads, swells, loops and frog calls. For the big personalities involved, kind of a personality-deprived split, but perhaps calm anonymity amidst various synths was the point of this inaugural chapter.
Ultra Pulverize Gorillas In The Fist LP (Sophomore Lounge)
In a bold display of doing whatever the hell they want, Sophomore Lounge gently set aside their family-heirloom Martin acoustic guitars and reissued a damn CD by Ultra Pulverize, a mid ’00s aggro synth-punk outfit from Louisville, on twelve-inch vinyl. Ultra Pulverize existed in that micro-era of ironic frat-boy avant-gardism, that underground moment where Wolf Eyes audiences insisted on moshing, Hair Police would wear football helmets and, well, just type “Muscle Factory [Live Music] Trocadero, 11.13.10” into YouTube’s search browser and see what I mean. The thoughtful (and kinda touching) liner notes here quote an anonymous description of Ultra Pulverize thusly: “they have a bodybuilder guy rapping over a drum machine and a synthesizer”, and while that’s not inaccurate, there’s a surprisingly thoughtful touch at the heart of these songs, even with titles like “Don Knotts Looks Like A Sock Puppet” and “That Book Was Written By A Maniac”. The cheapo synths and pre-set drum-machine sounds (always at maniacal tempos) work well together, akin to Danse Asshole and Sewn Leather, made distinctive by Andrew Vititoe’s near-constant flow of lyrics, sounding like the love-child of Screaming Mad George and Twista. Even with all that’s against it – time, taste, visibility – Ultra Pulverize are pretty great, certainly greater than they had any right to be, one of those forgotten MySpace pages that had to be seen to be believed. Can’t imagine Sophomore Lounge will sell many copies of Gorillas In The Fist, just knowing the world we currently live in, but what are we as respectable underground artists and curators of artists supposed to do, give the public what it thinks it wants, or what it doesn’t know it needs?
Tornado Wallace Bitter Suite 12″ (Test Pressing)
Residing in Berlin by way of Australia, Tornado Wallace has had a hand in many a fine dance track across a fairly broad spectrum of styles. If he’s ever tried out something ill-fitting, I haven’t heard it, from quirky, shuffling house ala Pépé Bradock to downtempo and acid, and now, with the cleverly-titled Bitter Suite, some of the most sumptuous Balearic guitar this side of Chris Rea. “Bitter Suite” opens with a good four minutes of MIDI-controlled acoustic guitar, exquisite and tasteful… it’s like a dog whistle for people who’ve literally had sex on the beach while drinking a Sex On The Beach. I wish he filled the whole a-side with this steamy guitar diversion, but it slowly shifts into neon-lit club mode, a pumping acid valve that lends itself to night-drives on dangerous cliffs and VIP lounges cloaked in native palm trees. A beautiful rush from start to finish. The b-side splashes in the a-side’s wake, offering the even more cleverly titled “Bitter Suite (Symphony)”, five minutes of pensive Italo programming in a delectable Transfer Station Blue mode of high-caliber ’80s cheese. I could sit in this one forever too, like a hot-tub without potential health consequences, but it skips over to “Bitter Beats”, whose self-descriptive title offers some transitional thump for any DJ looking to demonstrate not only class, but style. I know it’s almost 4:00 AM, but we’ve got time for another “Bitter Suite”, don’t you think?
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