Batu & Donato Dozzy Exhale 2xLP (!K7)
Strikingly similar to the techno fantasy draft that exists only in my mind, !K7 brings us the unexpected alliance of Italian techno maverick Donato Dozzy and British bass specialist Batu. Their individual stylistic preferences differ greatly, but I’m not shocked that Exhale is such a fruitful collaboration – both artists are seekers of the unknown and eager to tease out any intriguing possibilities, not stubborn closed-circuit conservatives stuck in their respective ruts. Dozzy is known for a steely, methodical approach to formalized electronic dance genres – acid-, dub-, minimal-, industrial-techno forms and beyond – whereas Batu’s practice has helped push dubstep into dexterous new forms far beyond stereotypical bass wubs. I can’t claim to know precisely who did what here, but Exhale certainly bears evidence of Batu’s thrilling bass pressure mixed up with the relentless locomotion of Donato Dozzy. Within this consistently uptempo album lies a controlled frenzy, grid-based techno sequences bursting at their seams from Crossfit pacing and dynamic hydraulics. I can attest from personal experience that Exhale is one of those albums that will have you driving well beyond the highway speed limit without realizing it. Batu and Dozzy transformed my Obama-era Rav4 (Sport edition) into a Bugatti Chiron, if only for all of “Drift”.

Holt Bodish Gorgeous LP (Celluloid Lunch)
Let’s hope that Holt Bodish’s Mordecai bandmates are safe and accounted for – most likely, they were passed out on the couch a few feet away while he recorded Gorgeous in the driest corner of the basement. Mordecai’s music has progressively unraveled with each subsequent album, and while Bodish’s solo material is new to me, a similar form of puzzle logic is on display here. Bodish’s multitracked guitars all kind of resemble each other – rough-housing siblings, let’s say – their half-licks and rhythmic strums fashioning a rickety ship to carry Bodish’s lyrics to the other side. It’s a lo-fi affair of course, so even though Bodish opts for casual plain-speak over a more traditional singing voice, you might miss out on lines like “precariously timid flashes of your hearts cock / opulent meanderings may you fly far in association”, the sort of cuckoo wordplay that blurs the line between stoned nonsense and scholarly erudition. That’s the sweet spot, isn’t it? The overgrown path back to The Velvet Underground is clearly visible (which I guess could be said for at least a third of all guitar bands that pass through these pages), but with plenty of hairy detours along the way, to include poetic hippie pranksters like The Fugs, early ’80s New Zealand bedroom recordings, all those Homosexuals side-projects and the questionable “shit-gaze” moment of the mid ’00s. I don’t know how Bodish figured out when these songs were finished and complete, what with their inherently confusing layers of guitars and unconventional arrangements, but he did, and he was right.

Morgan Buckley & Ben Donohoe Sworx LP (Wah Wah Wino)
I hope that some intrepid music journalist eventually untangles the knotty web of Dublin’s Wah Wah Wino crew, but until that investigative report drops, I’m content to just go with their flow, buying on sight (“site” actually, usually Boomkat or Phonica) and enjoying the tunes for the tunes’ sake. No matter how you slice it, Morgan Buckley has been central to Wah Wah Wino, producing, guesting, editing and encouraging, most recently under unattributed aliases (or so I’m led to believe). For added confusion, Sworx is attributed to Buckley and Ben Donohoe, a duo previously (or concurrently?) known as Little Movies, whose prior LP of experimental noise provides few clues. (There I go again, trying to shoehorn their disregard of convention into some legible sense of order!) Sworx acts as a compendium of forward-thinking electronic styles, never quite on the dance-floor but occasionally sliding across it en route to somewhere more interesting. Imagine Aphex Twin and Kraftwerk kidnapping Alva Noto and Edgar Froese for the first night of actual fun in their entire lives: I’m talking paintball, Jägerbombs, those straight-down water slides where you get dropped through a trap-door, selfies with dangerous wildlife, the whole shebang. The funny robot voices are a nice touch throughout, though it’s those bass-/guitar-centered tracks (“statecellar [ 641Amix ]”, “Mastering The Internet” and maybe “sWORxism_noclocks_notimekept”) that scramble my brain in the way that only Morgan Buckley can. No need to answer any questions when you’re dropping gems like this!

emer feat. Ugnė Uma You And Me LP (Stroom)
You And Me very well might be the Stroomiest album that ever Stroomed. The Belgian label is responsible for an ever-growing stack of left-field prizes both new and old, and while part of the label’s appeal is its defiance against clean-cut categorization, this new collaboration between Marija Rasa (AKA emer) and Ugnė Uma ticks most of the label’s aesthetic boxes. The songs are miniature and personal, little whispered secrets between two artist-friends materialized into song-form. The moodiness of Euro trip-hop is ever present in both rhythm (fractured) and voice (sultry), with jazzy keys, electronic squiggles popping like carbonation, samples of voices over voices and of course plenty of dub-inspired processing to smear any fine lines. You And Me carries itself like the sophisticated endpoint of a young adulthood listening arc starting with The Weeknd and Drake, then Burial and The Xx, and now NTS radio. It’s starting to feel a little codified, this modern deconstructed arthouse R&B trip-hop style, but it hasn’t gotten stale quite yet, at least not with folks like emer and Ugnė Uma at the helm. Their tracks drift in and out like nighttime daydreams, a stylish haze of smoke illuminated by the flicker of neon club lights.

Katie Alice Greer Perfect Woman Sound Machine Vol. 1 LP (GAK)
Now firmly ensconced in Los Angeles, Katie Alice Greer continues to forge her solo calling with Perfect Woman Sound Machine Vol. 1, released on her newly-christened GAK Records imprint (coincidentally also one of the Nickelodeon network’s most successful toy products). The enumeration helps ensure that we haven’t missed any prior Perfect Woman Sound Machines, and offers hope for future installments, as the songs here explore a variety of easy-to-enjoy arty styles. Opener “Expo ’70” might be the hit of the lot, delivering a ghostly girl-group phenomena similar to Cindy Lee, but then “Unglued” stage-dives in a babydoll dress like vintage Hole, stinky Doc Martens leaving their print on someone’s forehead. And how about the glossy trip-hop sheen of “Talk To Leslie”, which sounds like an alt-radio chart sensation that DJ Food coulda-shoulda produced in 1999? Whereas much of Greer’s solo debut Barbarism felt like it was being figured out in real time (with so much magic uncovered in that trial-and-error sensation), these songs display that same level of who-but-KAG artistry, those strange rich ideas no one else has, with the added muscle of streamlined songwriting and pop-friendly production. Much like covering Leonard Cohen (which she does here in a retro-synth-styled “I’m Your Man”), it takes an unshakeable confidence (or at least some insouciant bravery) to bare one’s teeth for up-close inspection. The cover’s dentist’s-eye view of her chompers is well suited to the beautifully weird, beautifully vulnerable music of Perfect Woman Sound Machine Vol. 1.

Inweys Inweys 12″ (Absolutely Loud)
Cover Mom’s ears: Conal Blake and Murray Collier dragged their gear into the studio! Inweys is the first formal appointment of these two Glaswegian chaps, and it’s a prickly affair, full of sparring electronics, rhythms disjointed until no longer classifiable as rhythms, and live-action energy. These four tracks, titled in the standard “A” “C” “A” “B” formation, offer a sweaty handshake between the hand-soldered tone-creep of classic Wolf Eyes and the hyperactive, hostile beats of Powell’s early run. The opening “A” track creaks like one of those resin-embalmed American Tapes releases from the mid ’00s, before “C” tortures an 808 with cattle-prods – the beat is so disfigured, you’ll want to hide any nearby mirrors lest it catch sight of its own ghastly reflection. By the b-side “A”, a groove somehow emerges, marrying the crispy static of Cotton Museum to Jamal Moss at his most crowd-antagonizing. “B” is probably the most Wolf Eyes-esque of the lot, a meager rhythm lurching with a limp as the airplane’s black box blinks itself alive amidst its wreckage in the tundra. I appreciate that Inweys sounds live, DIY and punk, that you can hear Blake and Collier developing bad posture over their respective electronics as opposed to comfortably reclined with laptop in hand. A fitting maiden release for a label calling itself Absolutely Loud.

Jazz Der Irrtum Hat Mal Wieder Gewonn! LP (Turbo Discos)
Naming your punk band “Jazz” is a purposely self-inflicted handicap. It’s a joke where there’s nothing to “get” besides inconvenience, which they extend to the vinyl itself – this is one of those inside-out-pressed records, where you have to drop the needle near the center sticker instead of the outer edge, and you have to figure it out on your own. Does Jazz want anyone to hear them at all? Perhaps the revolution against our algorithmic passivity needs to start with a jolt, so if you’re willing to jump through this German group’s hoops, you’ll be rewarded with their gaudy and chaotic post-punk. It’s like a self-poured Slurpee where all three flavors are mixed into a brownish mauve: post-punk, egg-punk and no-wave. Like many modern-day punk acts, Jazz doesn’t sound like a band in a room so much as a wild confluence of WAV files overlaid on each other. A toy keyboard here, some freeware sound-effects there, noisy guitars at every angle, and not a single moment of space that isn’t inhabited by at least three conflicting sonic elements. It’s a clear sign of our times, this overabundance of cheap-everything resulting in collective dissatisfaction, and Jazz are here to ringlead the madness, a messy conga line of The Mummies, Vintage Crop, Parquet Courts and Geza X. With “Schmerz”, they distill this perception to its essence, a catchy lil’ synth-punk zinger that doubles as a commercial jingle for pain.

Jake Muir Pareidolia LP (enmossed)
Sound artist Jake Muir tends to start with a concept and work outward from there, which shakes out nicely thanks to his keen conceptual vision. His prominence extended beyond the ambient tape-label underground with 2023’s Bathhouse Blues, a musique-concrète queer-cruising tribute assembled from musical and field-recorded sources, and the premise of Pareidolia is sure to excite a different (though not without overlap) segment of listeners: metalheads. Muir constructed Pareidolia from a rich sound-bank of death-metal and black-metal intros, outros, instrumental interludes, ambient passages and dungeon keys (both kinds: synth keyboards and crusty keys clanking on an iron ring). He warps, elongates, distorts and layers these samples, though their inherent spirit remains: frostbitten, God-hating, isolated and mournful. With today’s DAW technology, Muir probably could’ve fashioned the exact same sonics out of field recordings from Denny’s and Waffle House, but a good part of the fun is knowing that he immersed himself in kvlt metal to extract the dozens (hundreds?) of samples that comprise this album, rendered unrecognizable even to the Fenrizes and Mortiises that originally birthed them. It’s true to the originators intent, at least: Pareidolia makes for a cold day in Hell.

Raya 13 Bardo Rafting LP (Protopost)
Nina Harker, Ssabae, France, City Dragon, Troubadours… the list of truly out-there French artists actively releasing records continues to grow like a mysterious vine no one recalls planting. My newest infatuation from this fine country is Raya 13, a fresh trio with some electronic affiliations: member Alan Briand releases new-age ambient as Shelter; the other two contribute to the electro-acoustic collective MOAB. Raya 13 is a guitar and bass-guitar band though, and their trip is one of a kind. Operating percussion-free, Raya 13 take their sweet time winding through mystical-yet-approachable riffs and melodies alongside vocals muttered (and effected) beyond comprehension. I’m reminded of that recent Cancer House album in its similarly mysterious, bare-bones presentation, though Bardo Rafting never raises its temper or shows any sign of stress… this music is deeply subdued, unconcerned with our earthly squabbles. How about this: imagine the surprise eighth Wooden Shjips album from the distant future (recorded on Mars), some sort of secret slow-core Clikatat Ikatowi session that they didn’t invite Mario Rubalcaba to, Shinji Shibayama attempting and failing to make an emo record, and Moin fully supine after digging into the bag of downers that produced Frigate’s Dreams Of The Deep. My mind would be spinning with questions if Bardo Rafting didn’t coat me in its thick, viscous syrup, a bizarre yet calming presence to which I keep returning. Highly recommended!

Reckonwrong How Long Has It Been? LP (New Year)
We must protect Reckonwrong at all costs! This charming man blew me away with the brow-raising mix of left-field house and heartfelt vocals that appeared on his twelve-inch EPs – the last two Whities releases are particularly stunning – before disappearing like an early-morning dream. Did he wander off into a maze of cosmopolitan skyscrapers, or perhaps a remote cabin in the lowland forests? Whatever sojourn or lack thereof, Reckonwrong has returned to christen his label New Year with his first full-length, How Long Has It Been?, and he turns the tenderness up to eleven. Eschewing techno and house moves entirely, the music here is low-key singer-songwriter pop performed on Rhodes-like keys that twinkle with the warmth of Edison bulbs. Singing to friends and lovers (and, in my best guess for “Winter Visitor”, perhaps a beloved cat?), Reckonwrong’s miniatures cut straight to the heart of the matter, an effortless exhibition of low-lit torch songs. A stylistic heritage can be found in the softer side of Christopher Cross and Michael McDonald (two notoriously aggro tough guys), but there’s no layer of fancy studio bloat or radio-chart aspirations here, no name in lights on the marquee. From start to finish, these songs burst with the unguarded emotional sincerity of private correspondence between beloveds, what must’ve been cathartic to write and perform even if artistic liberties were taken to protect the innocent. The title track is particularly naked and yearning, but I’m not going to look away – Reckonwrong guides us through this tour of his heart with confidence and grace.

The Sleeves The Sleeves LP (12XU)
The experimental tide seems to have turned – rather than seeking to push away timid audiences through shock-based aesthetics, confrontational sounds and violent affects, the current underground vanguard is more interested in the ways that vulnerability, serenity and compassion can be innovatively wielded. Alongside the rise and dominance of neo-new-age ambient, I’m thinking of groups like Still House Plants, Chronophage, Schatterau, Tara Clerkin Trio, A Happy Return and now The Sleeves as well, the quietly charming London-based duo of Jack Cooper and Tara Cunningham. The Sleeves’ dual-guitar / dual-vocal style seems to reduce Chicago’s ’90s post-rock scene to its emotional and melodic core, kind of like what Young Marble Giants did to post-punk. The Sleeves’ guitar phrases are as pleasant to listen to as they are atypical – I can’t help but picture the soft rise and fall of sleeping cats’ bellies during “You, Now, Again”, or Sam Prekop tucking Tim Kinsella under the covers in the Goodnight Moon bedroom during “Procedure”. The comfort and familiarity Cooper and Cunningham show towards each other through their music isn’t something that can be forced or faked or shortcutted; it’s a large part of why their music together is so remarkable and unique. Maybe we should force Bill Orcutt and Chris Corsano to cover “Rip It Up” – the essence of their performance will reveal once and for all if they genuinely love each other or have been faking it all along.

Smog Marines Opus LP (Obsolete Universe)
Seems like every month I’m beside myself with surprise at the latest instance of an unknown punk rock gem brought to light, and at this point, I’m going to have to apologize for my naivete. This is simply the world we live in now, this endless bounty of incredible undiscovered-until-now punk and hardcore artifacts, and I am simply going to revel in it. Even considering the high quality of other recent discoveries, Opus by Smog Marines is the finest punk relic in a while. Formed from the ashes of the band called Opus (check the Discogs price history of their sole seven-inch and weep softly to yourself), Smog Marines are first-stringers who somehow failed to make the team. Recorded in 1980, Opus is the missing link between the classic Dangerhouse sound, the earliest Dead Kennedys material and the formative death-rock style (meaning a more theatrical spin on brooding post-punk). I really can’t believe songs this good sat around gathering dust all this time: “Neon Full Of Fear” (what a title!) calls to mind the greatness of The Cheifs (sic), feeling like some punk classic I’ve known my whole life (but only heard for the first time like a week ago). Even when they get a little new-wavey, it works: “Between A Dream” and “Bright” are darkened power-pop ala The Sound’s early work, deserving of its own sleeveless Ork release. I hate that I had to wait ’til middle age to hear the Los Angelean punk song “Dilated Bullshit”, but I guess that’s why we bother to keep living, right?

Team Work Somebody’s Gotta Do It LP (Feel It)
Odds are strong that any given Feel It debut might very well knock your socks off – it’s happened to me before and I’m sure it’ll happen again with this stalwart punk label. The latest incidence comes care of Team Work, which is not a recontextualization of the New Jersey youth-crew hardcore label of the same name (where is their Numero boxset??) but an intercontinental collaboration between Maraudeur’s Lise Sutter (in Leipzig) and Spllit’s Ronni Bourgeois (in Baton Rouge). Both of their ‘main’ groups are responsible for some of the most authentically-cool dance-y post-punk of recent years, and while evidence of their shared appreciation for Lizzy Mercier-Descloux and Y Pants can be found within Somebody’s Gotta Do It, Team Work’s sonic boundaries are pushed far beyond, maybe even dissolved entirely. They deconstruct the genre with curiosity and glee, each subsequent move less obvious than the next. In that way it’s similar to Lavender Hex and This Heat, as the duo utilize their absolute freedom to create something intentional, not aimless. Tricky musicality appears out of nowhere and cuts off abruptly; minimalist dance grooves U-turn into quiet acoustic-guitar emo(?) or Lolina-esque studio chicanery; clipped samples and cut-and-paste keys slap up against live instruments like a wet kiss. I don’t care if Somebody’s Gotta Do It will be toured live or banished to the hard-drive on which it was conceived – it’s one of this year’s brightest post-punk offerings.

Twisted Teens Florida Water Blues LP (Going Underground)
My sources are reporting that Twisted Teens are on schedule to release three albums in twelve months, this being the second. With more than a little hype behind them and plenty of good-natured wind in their sails, this New Orleans group are simultaneously on a roll and in the zone. I still can’t get enough of their prior full-length, Blame The Clown (how long do you have to wait before you can describe an album as “timeless”?), and now I’m quickly settling into Florida Water Blues as well. If you’ve somehow managed to avoid Twisted Teens Fever thus far, I can briefly explain that they play an extremely palatable form of swampy, Southern-fried blues from a DIY punk frame of mind. It’s not a style or aesthetic I find myself typically drawn to, but guitarist / vocalist / captain Caspian Hollywell is downright captivating in both tone and lyric (raspy and quick-witted like a true son of a gun). The man is drowning in casual rizz to the point where his songs won’t simply take your mind off the disgusting soles of his feet when he kicks them up, they’ll make you want to lose your shoes too. The songs here wander a bit further outward than Punch The Clown – imagine discovering Swell Maps and Neu! records in George Thorogood’s personal collection – but they maintain the same high caliber of songwriting finesse and unpretentious grit. “Florida Water Blues” is gorgeous (and has the most vibe-establishing music video I’ve seen for a band in years). “Javelina” is a tender swine-riding fantasy, whereas “Business” is a righteous screw-you delivered to a deserving target. It’s more grade-A material from this unique group, almost enough to warrant a reassessment of the crusty oogle train-hopper lifestyle – let’s just be sure to stop before anyone brings up the possibility of a Soophie Nun Squad retrospective boxset.

Franck Vigroux Sonnailles 2xLP (Raster)
We call him Big Franck around these parts: master electrician Franck Vigroux has been pumping heavy weights for years now, each new release seemingly more robust and domineering than the last. His 2015 collaboration with the late-great Mika Vainio brought him to my attention and I’ve tried to check up with his busy release schedule at least once a year ever since – it’s like going to see a doctor who punches you in the arm instead of checking your blood pressure. Good thing I did, as Sonnailles is absolutely monstrous! I expect the lights to flicker and dim as opener “Mordor” hits, as vigorous (Vigrouxous) as Ben Frost at his angriest but a deadly rave weapon for club DJs. Vigroux somehow manages to maintain a dynamic field of sound while absolutely bludgeoning at near-gabber speeds, with all the exquisite sound-detail one comes to expect from a Raster release (and friend / former collaborator of Phil Niblock). It’s too industrial in a ’90s dance sense to be considered techno, too meticulously designed to fit cleanly under the industrial tag, and far too physical to be filed next to all those bespectacled professors in the “modern electronic composition” section. Vigroux’s path is his own! I’m reminded of that great Merzbow quote about his practice which I’ll paraphrase as “trying to create a continuous Jimi Hendrix guitar solo” and imagine the same sort of approach for Vigroux, if you substitute the moment when “March Of The Pigs” kicks in for Hendrix. Across two LPs, the IMAX helicopter-chop and midnight-metallic sheen of Sonnailles is enough to windburn your face, cinematic yet unfit for film – his music is so striking that the visual component wouldn’t stand a chance.

Wilkes Barre (which, in my personal experience, is pronounced “Wilkes Berry”, “Wilkes Bear” or “Wilkes Bar” with equal frequency (and “Berry” is allegedly the correct one)) is a small Pennsylvanian town nestled in the shadow of Scranton, one of the Keystone State’s particularly dismal offerings. Beyond reason, this humble burg is responsible for some of modern hardcore’s sea-change moments, delivering styles and aesthetics that have been emulated and adopted the world over – more bands are ripping off Cold World now than ever, for example. Eventually the Wilkes Barre hardcore story will be written (and I’m willing to be interviewed for the Home Base and Ed Gieda chapters), in which Ned Russin will undoubtedly be a key figure.

Now based out of another ground-zero for hardcore, Washington DC, Russin plays bass and sings in Glitterer, though he most famously did the same for Title Fight, a group’s whose stylistic evolution continues to reverberate with hardcore obsessives and dabblers alike. They’re one of those rarified bands whose legacy has consistently expanded through their absence, having played their last show nearly nine years ago. Never say never, but Russin has always focused on the present rather than the past, and he does so with candor and contemplation, coming from a self-evident love of hardcore and its underground community. When it’s in your blood, it’s in your blood, and it wouldn’t make sense any other way.

His takes in the Joint Custody record-shop newsletter (go subscribe now!) offer valuable insight into the way his mind perceives, wrestles with and falls in love with music – that whole crew is deeply thoughtful without being pretentious about it, but Russin’s writing goes especially deep, his passion undeniable. As he confirms below, his sights remain on what’s next, so I’m extra thankful he was willing to think back for a moment and share his worst song with us, which you can listen to here.

(photo by Spencer Leeissburg)

NR: Okay, I’ve been writing and releasing music since I was twelve years-old but it feels a little unfair to pick on those songs. It’s tough to flat out say “worst” but the song I wish we either left off the record or worked on more is a Title Fight song called “Calloused” off Floral Green. It’s on the B-side of the record when things start to wind down and it’s supposed to be this anthemic moody alt-rock kind of thing but I have a few qualms with it.

One: I used a distortion pedal on the bass. I never used pedals, partially on my Ian shit, but also because I know I would destroy them if I brought them on tour. I wanted to expand my tonal palette by adding some different sounds and threw a random pedal in front of the amp. At the time I wasn’t very interested in or knowledgeable about pedals, or gear at large for that matter, and not that I really am now but I know enough at this point to know that the cheap Tube Screamer clone was a bad choice. Not my best tone moment.

Two: I think the chorus is lacking. The hook really became Jamie’s response vocals, and more specifically the “baby” was what made me most interested, and the little guitar lead, but what stands as the chorus right now is really a pre-chorus in my mind and nothing comes to back it up.

Three: In terms of sequencing I think this screws up the flow, shifting the momentum laterally rather than moving forward. I also dislike records with an odd number of tracks because it makes the sides uneven, but that’s not reason enough to dislike this song, just another reason in my mind to make an excuse why it’s a potential contender for the chopping block.

YGR: I get the impression that you’re someone who really appreciates the album format, and the fact that you’re bothered by the placement of this song relative to the rest of the album seems to back that up. Do you write music with a sense of where you’d like it to end up – say, album opener, interlude, side two breather, etc. – or do you just write song after song and then figure out how to best fit them together after the fact?

NR: It’s a little of both. Starting out, it’s always just writing songs. There are definitely some ideas whose placement is pretty easy to see early on, but it’s just a very rough sketch. Then, once we hit a certain point where a record starts to take shape, I just try to take stock of where we’re at. You don’t want to have too many songs that have the same kind of components, so I’m always trying to just make sure it’s varied yet cohesive, and then later once we start to sequence it, that it has some sort of propulsion.

YGR: What’s your relationship like with pedals now?

NR: I’ve got a drawer full of them. I use them for demoing at home but mostly just offer them to friends when they’re playing a show or are recording. I don’t really know why I have them to be honest. I play in one band in DC where I use an octave pedal, but that’s it.

YGR: Your “worst song” pick strikes me as a rational one, based more in logical reasoning than any sort of emotional gut reaction. Is that fair to say? What’s your relationship like with your songs once you’ve shared them with the world – do you view them more as your precious babies, or your quality goods, or not remotely either?

NR: Yeah, I think that’s a fair assessment. I mostly feel like when a song is done and recorded, it’s done and I don’t want to go back to it. More like a kid I’m sending off to college than a precious baby. You’ve put in the work and you got it as figured out as you can, and then you just let go and cede control hoping you got it right. I obviously try to reflect but I try not to stew. I want to keep moving forward instead of focusing on the past.