Paul Arambula Still’s Keep LP (Gilgongo)
In Gilgongo’s art-damaged universe, Paul Arambula is its lonely yet contented troubadour. He’s played in raucous post-punk bands like Vegetable and Soft Shoulder (and probably still does), but cutting out on his own, his songs are lightly baked and charming, propelled by lush chords, sputtering drum machines and classic melodic interplay. You could take the form all the way back to Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson, but I’m most significantly picking up the echoes of Blanche Blanche Blanche’s bedroom pop, the inscrutable contemporary art-rock of guys like David West and Thomas Bush, and the junk-store nostalgia of pre-MAGA Ariel Pink. Arambula doesn’t have a singer’s voice, but that hasn’t stopped lesser men; I’m reminded here of Doc Dart’s Patricia at times, in the way that Arambula strains through his nose over college-rock jangle and animated bass-lines. Still’s Keep could be reasonably filed within those (micro-)scenes, but it’s not a cookie-cutter affair – however you care to categorize the brooding, bass-driven bop of “Had They Heard”, it’s the only song I can think of that sounds like Death In June covering Red Hot Chili Peppers. If no one else is exploring these unlikely sonic corridors, you can rest assured that Paul Arambula is having a ball out there on his own.

Michael Beach The Sea / De Facto Blues (Demo) 7″ (25 Diamonds)
Who better to tell us about the sea than a man named Michael Beach? This single was released in support of his 2024 tour with Tropical Fuck Storm, and if he managed to bring along the lineup that performed “The Sea” – Mick Turner on guitar, Joe Talia on drums, Maddy Macfarlane on sax and Beach himself on piano and vocals – I’ll be extra steamed that I missed the Philly date. What a beautiful song “The Sea” is – its loose and lithe form intertwines the styles of Steve Reich, Kurt Vile, The Necks and Bob Dylan like braids on a hippie’s noggin. It’s engrossing and majestic in a manner befitting its titular subject, sounding gorgeous at low volume and downright transcendent blasted on ten. “De Facto Blues (Demo)” also lives us to its title, just Beach and his acoustic guitar in front of two microphones at best, working out a rocking strummer that could easily be transformed into a rock explosion that might finally grow some hair on The War On Drugs’ chests. Being familiar with Beach’s work, I could also see him slowing it down to half-time, a simmering torch song, or ripping it even faster ala The Sonics – Beach has performed at Gonerfest, after all. As for me, I’m going to slowly dip myself into “The Sea” one more time before bed…

Blacksea Não Maya Despertar LP (Principe)
If there’s a lousy record on Principe, I’ve yet to encounter it – it’s like Lisbon’s dance-oriented answer to Dischord, a locals-only labor-of-love imprint that acts as both a showcase and farm system for local talent worthy of worldwide exposure (though to be fair, we all have at least one or two Dischord records we absolutely hate, which is also part of the fun). Blacksea Não Maya was the trio of DJ Kolt, DJ Noronha and DJ Perigoso (DJ Kolt is now in full control), and Despertar arrives hot on the heels of his excellent Verdadeiro (also on Principe). Under the Blacksea Não Maya moniker, DJ Kolt blends strange samples and textures and smacks the resulting mixture into party-friendly forms. There’s a fearlessness at play here that comes with DJ Kolt’s relatively young age, working to impress both his peers as well as any Lisbon crowd that wants to grind up on each other in less-than-sober atmospheres. I saw Aaron Dilloway posting excitedly about picking up Despertar on social media, if that’s any indication as to the vibrant and bizarre sounds that Blacksea Não Maya are working with. Honestly, it’s not a total stretch to say that opener “Reborda” could’ve appeared on that great Aaron Dilloway / Lucrecia Dalt collab LP, but it could’ve just as easily emanated from the cracked window of a Bristol experimental dubstep party, too. The word “polyrhythms” can conjure images of bespectacled professors shuffling through sheet music, but Blacksea Não Maya’s Principe logic ensures that the paths of avant creativity and sweaty club beats can (and should) comfortably overlap.

Blawan BouQ 12″ (XL Recordings)
The master of madcap forward-minded techno is at it again with this new four-song EP, continuing the livestock design-theme of 2023’s Dismantled Into Juice. You’d think the ability to consistently push sound design forward without obliterating it into failed-experimental territory would be a fleeting one, and yet Blawan continues a years-long hot streak here. As XL singles sometimes cross over into the mainstream (his labelmates include Thom Yorke and the one and only Adele, after all), Blawan somehow manages to finagle his jarringly aggressive textures into the good graces of big-tent crowds. The pop vocals help, though I have no idea what is actually happening with the voice on the hair-raising “Fire” – could be (probably is?) some sort of AI-generated diva-bot, but whatever process he subjected it to here comes across like Rihanna if she was the animatronic Lou Reed in his “No Money Down” video. “Done Eclipse” twitches and shudders like my favorite Powell tracks, the spotlight snaked by yet another voice subjected to ghastly digital degradation, a trick that Blawan continues to sharpen. I know Blawan is out there influencing new (and old) generations of boundary-pushing techno producers, and yet his musical personality is so unique that no one has successfully cloned it yet. In that way, I’d place him in league with Burial, though in the case of Blawan, his best work is continually the most recent thing he’s done.

Bruce The Price / Mimicry 7″ (Poorly Knit)
Bruce first entered the electronic underground as a Hessle Audio-approved post-dubstep bass linguist. He rode that all the way to a slightly underwhelming full-length (as much of the Hessle Audio crowd is wont to do), then switched gears in 2023 for the digital/cassette release of Not Ready For Love, his first production based around his own pop-minded vocals. As any new piece of music, particularly electronic music, struggles harder for the masses to notice, it doesn’t seem like much of anyone gave it a proper listen – I’ll cop to listening a couple times on my laptop before deciding it wasn’t for me – and now he’s making another turn with this stamped seven-inch single. I hate to break it to him that seven-inches aren’t exactly the path to success in 2025 (present company excluded – we still love these things), but if there’s any semblance of a meritocracy, these tunes should shoot him back into the underground spotlight. “The Price” is an oddly jovial bop, full of on-the-fly melodic leads, laser blasts, angry voices in the ether, just a raucous circus of a lopping techno track that doesn’t sound like anything else. The melody is nightmarish enough that I can picture Coil grinning along wherever their spirits currently reside. “Mimicry” is equally strange, full of AutoTuned yawns that eventually give way to a spacious, Hessle Audio-friendly soundscape, futuristic but for an unforeseen future. Recommended!

CPC Gangbangs Roadhouse 7″ (Slovenly)
I thought Montreal’s CPC Gangbangs had banged their last gang years ago, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last few years, it’s that no band will ever actually stay dead. In this case, it’s fine by me, as Montreal’s scene seems so friendly and cooperative and thriving, what with all those friendly Celluloid Lunch folks, that they could use the bad stinking attitude of these old guys ruining what was an otherwise pleasant evening every once in a while. It’ll keep ’em humble! “Rock’n’Roll Enemy No.1” has a title befitting a classic Killed By Death cut and it sounds like one too, trashy punk rock in league with the modern sounds of Sick Thoughts and the classic sounds of Viletones. The title track goes further back in time, a Stones-y blues jamboree that refuses to honor your sober wishes, followed by another up-tempo garage-punk stomper, “Going Back To Philly”, their rendition of a Bobby James original. If any of you have personal insight and are thinking about sending me a message to confirm that CPC Gangbangs are actually nice folks and friendly with everyone else in Montreal, let me ask you – do you get off on ruining the rock n’ roll fantasies of a kindly old man? Is that how you get your jollies?

De Nooit Moede RIP 7″ (Kontakt Group)
I’ve said it before, but why is it so much better when techno peeps pick up guitars than when rockers start making electronic dance music? Maybe it’s because I listen to so much rock music made by rockers, but the bands formed by otherwise electronic artists often feel off in a delightful way… see: Moin, Persher, Milan W., Mount Kimbie, etc. I’m offering a lot of conjecture here, particularly under the guise of a review of De Nooit Moede, a Brussels-based sextet who managed to get out these last four tracks before calling it quits. They feature Victor De Roo in their ranks, an inspired (and Stroom-related) synth/ambient artist. The music of De Nooit Moede invents a history where the cold-hearted new-wave of Microdisney, Echo & The Bunnymen and The Teardrop Explodes collides head-on into the moodier end of the ’90s alt-rock explosion (somewhere in the midst of Belly, Sponge and Medicine). Bass-lines are prominently (Peter) Hook-y over artificial drums, with a host of hushed and/or spectral vocals and a guitarist that prefers picking single strings over strumming. One can’t deny the primacy of Sonic Youth on this sort of simmering, divergent, post-punk-revenant approach, but De Nooit Moede sound European even setting aside the Dutch vocals (which are front and center), as though they’re freezing through colder, damper winters in their threadbare cardigans and vintage army trenchcoats. They somehow fit like thirteen(!) minutes of music on this seven-inch record, yet the fidelity is as clear as one’s reflection in a puddle amidst the cobblestones of a lonely town square.

Doc Sleep & Delta Rain Dance Beats Unlimited 2 7″ (Hypno Discs)
As part of the more under-the-radar, trend-agnostic gathering of German techno heads that orbits the Tax Free and Hypno Discs labels and the like, Delta Rain Dance maintains a relatively low profile. This is funny, since Delta Rain Dance certainly has the highest profile among his many other aliases like Eye Soul8r and DJ 1999, info that I am able to gather solely through the generosity of intrepid Discogs contributors. He also tends to release seven-inch singles, one of the more cost-prohibitive ways of ensuring your music is ignored by the masses, but that just means a new single like Beats Unlimited 2 is a special treat for folks like you and me. Alongside Doc Sleep, this new seven-inch follows that same inconspicuous trajectory, though that’s not to say the tunes are difficult, demanding listens. Opener “Virta Chords” is smoothly sculpted dub-techno with lively drum programming and soothing chords, not unlike something off Hessle Audio’s shelf in the mid 2010s. “Speed Dub” lives up to its title, a 33-at-45 sprint that recalls Sasu Ripatti’s Ripatti EPs, glistening like two freshly-washed passenger trains whizzing past each other. Closing b-side cut “Transition Env” parks us in a lush and vibrant ecosystem, insects and birds calling to each other just past the waterfall of synths, only lacking Gas’s 4/4 heartbeat to pass as, uh, Gas. I can only hope the unlimited nature of their beats is more than just a snappy title.

Evicshen Cistern Screw / 2Raw 10″ (Ballast)
Evicshen is one of the pivotal fixtures of contemporary American noise, though that doesn’t seem to be reflected by her fairly sparse discography. I suppose that when so much of one’s art is based in the physical space of live performance, recorded documentation can fall back as a secondary concern. I’m such a fan of her inventive and confrontational style, where unexpected aspects of her body are weaponized, from acrylic fingernail styluses to contact-mic’d combs in her tangled hair to, well, a big-ole’ bullwhip that could probably decapitate your typically emaciated noise fan. I’m so much a fan (and for the record, I’m working on putting on a little muscle) that I shelled out for this new and limited lathe-cut ten-inch record, knowing full well the pleasure it would bring me is as much as an objet d’art than something to gather around with friends and listen to. It’s a cool entry in the traditional sense of handcrafted, low-edition noise releases, as the b-side features a literally chopped-up n’ re-glued flexi disc affixed to it, a form of cruel and unusual punishment for any innocent stylus. The Haters would be proud. The a-side features some traditionally playable recordings, opening with a surprisingly sparse series of horns(?) before entering a hissing tornado of greyscale noise and ending on a segment of serrated, glitching loops. On a purely sonic level, no new noise revelation is revealed through this recording, but Evicshen’s deal is far more than pure sound alone – the Evicshen experience is more about the body’s control (or lack thereof) over it. It’s nice to commemorate that with a cool record once in a while.

Fish Narc Frog Song LP (K)
The Pac Northwest-based Fish Narc blew up as a Soundcloud beatmaker (gaining fame for his work with Lil Peep), but he’s a punk rocker at heart who likes Germs and reps Vomir while also playing unabashedly emo sing-along pop-punk. And while the instrumentation can vary greatly, from Ableton presets to beat-up guitar amps in a garage, the signature of Fish Narc’s songwriting – uber-catchy melodies with soft, wounded vocals, the perpetual tenets of emo – remains indelible. For my money, it’s hard to top 2021’s Wildfire, modern poppy punk that should’ve made Fall Out Boy immediately seppuku themselves, but Frog Song is full of pillowy, heart-on-sleeve pop on par with the best that Jade Tree and Doghouse had to offer in the late ’90s. “My Ceiling” comes first and it’s the album’s catchiest cut, a major-key sing-along powerhouse that should be blasting on repeat on MTV2 in every dorm if MTV2 (or TVs in dorm rooms) still existed. Most of Frog Song centers acoustic guitars in all their layered, melancholic beauty, giving things a Pedro The Lion or, stick with me, Dashboard Confessional feel that scratches those itches of which I feel no guilt in admitting. A little alt-shoegaze in there too, as is the way of the times – “Old Band” could be a Narrow Head tune, though the focus is on the melodic invention and songwriting, not the flawless chain of arena-ready effects pedals. It’s on K Records after all, where imaginative pop music reflexively dismissed by the punk rock cognoscenti has flourished for decades.

France Destino Scifosi LP (Standard In-Fi / L’Amour Aux 1000 Parfums)
Wimps and poseurs, leave the hall – France is back! The secretly-legendary trio (from the French city of Valence) is celebrating their twentieth year of existence of doing basically the same thing they’ve always done, which is hypnotic, minimalist drone-rock care of bass, drums and hurdy-gurdy, directly descended from the Tony Conrad with Faust school. France go deep, then deeper, then beyond whatever you thought was deepest, one-note bass-guitar and kick / floor tom / snare drum firmly locked in place as the hurdy-gurdy blasts straight through the clouds and into the heavens, the opposite of doom-spiraling. Like most (all?) of their releases, Destino Scifosi is recorded live, these two side-long pieces coming from an outdoor amphitheater performance in France back in 2022. It might as well be from 1822, or 2022 BC, so eternal and Lindy is their primordial sound. For a live recording, the mix is loud and robust, and seeing as the essence of their communal presentation wouldn’t make sense as a multi-take studio project, their commitment to live recordings ensures we are as close to their divine source as a vinyl record makes possible. There’s some sort of explosion that pops off halfway through the a-side, which I can only assume is the sound of an audience member’s head spontaneously exploding. As it comes to a close, the remaining members of the crowd hoot and holler as things wind down, because how can you not? Music this spiritually enriching demands all the “woo!”s you can muster in return.

Great Area Light Decline 12″ (Relaxin)
Lolina generally uses her Relaxin imprint to release her own projects, so when she brings someone else into that inner circle, I take notice. She released the aggressively weird / gloriously performative Rap Star album by New York last year, and has released a number of things from London’s Great Area, including this new one-sided twelve-inch. I’m always ready to be pranked by her – this is what it must feel like to get lunch with Nathan Fielder – but Great Area are, at least from what I can surmise, a pretty normal-ish electronic indie group. Featuring pre-set drum programming, live guitar/bass/keys and doleful British vocals, Great Area offer a laptop-driven corollary to Alison Statton’s time spent with both Young Marble Giants and Weekend, Virginia Astley, Broadcast’s gloomier moments and the modern monarch of sedated post-punk that de-centers the guitar, Carla dal Forno. At thrice the speed, “100% Enthusiastic” might sound like Madness, but its lite-reggae bounce is brought to a crawl with plenty of space between notes and hits. In vibe and presentation, Light Decline is not unlike another London-based group who favor all-lowercase fonts and an art-wavey social distance, Bar Italia (often stylized as bar italia), and I have to wonder what happens when they encounter each other at a pub. Let’s hope they’re chums, as a battle of aloofness between the two could be powerful enough to crack drywall.

Guiding Light Guiding Light 12″ (Tall Texan)
Couldn’t be happier that Guiding Light’s fantastic debut cassette from Down South Tapes last year is now preserved on solid black vinyl for generations to come care of Tall Texan. These five songs were, and remain, a frenzied jangle-punk revelation. Sometimes guys even older than me (if you can believe it) wax poetic about the glory days of Meat Puppets and Minutemen, and then you pull out the records to verify and they don’t fit your modern-grown tastes – Guiding Light’s five songs here are the perfect solution to those moments of generational disconnect. The no-fuzz-pedals guitar jangles with the freedom of those aforementioned bands (quite nearly entering early Red Hot Chili Peppers territory on “Lost In Voices”, if we want to be real), played unreasonably fast ala CCTV and dripping with those staunch post-punk qualities shared by the Sara Goes Pop double EP and The Embarrassment’s first couple of records. Or how about a desert-fried combination of Saccharine Trust and Nixe? I’m throwing out all sorts of names, which often happens when I get this excited about a new band who pulls so many great and varied sounds together for something so unexpected and exciting. Recommended!

Hardware Untitled LP, 1979 LP (Dirty Knobby)
If you’re running out of ways to shame that one guy at the record shop who’s obsessed with The Fall, I have an easy suggestion – casually mock him for not knowing that Mark E. Smith once played bass in a band called Hardware! Seattle’s Dirty Knobby crossed all of North America as well as the Atlantic for this group’s well-designed LP collection, clearly a sign that the compulsive desire to reissue unheralded/unknown UK DIY is a globe-spanning sickness. Untitled LP, 1979 collects the Cheltenham group’s two 1979 EPs alongside two previously-unreleased tracks, and what stands out to me most is how decidedly American this British group sounds. Rather than strum n’ pout like Joy Division or Wire or even Desperate Bicycles, Hardware found a way to finagle a proper pop-rock musicianship into the nascent post-punk forum. I’m hearing a lot of Talking Heads and Television, thanks in large part to vocalist John Danylyszyn’s unwieldy squawk, a voice I assume sounded like at least half of the dudes in The Mudd Club on any given evening in the year of this recording. Interesting! And yes, that’s the legendary MES on bass on a few of these songs, who amazingly must’ve been told what to do by the other band members at some point. Can we follow this with a reissue of some old practice tapes? If footage of Mark E. Smith following someone else’s instructions exists, we deserve to experience it.

Impotentie Zonder Titel Deze Keer LP (Roachleg)
A pal of mine recently said “I never need to hear another band ‘for fans of Camera Silens’ for the rest of my life”, and if you’re as cantankerous of an old punk as he, perhaps this new LP from Montréal’s Impotentie might not be for you. I’ll cop to this increasingly ubiquitous sound not being my top-favorite either, one where plodding mid-tempo rhythms and brittle guitar melodies meet gruff vocals, a dour and European-sounding strain of Oi-inspired anti-fascist punk rock that toes the line between Blitz’s Voice Of A Generation and, uhh, Blitz’s Second Empire Justice. To Impotentie’s credit, they manage to inject some energy into their street-punk cadence, always sure to wedge a fist-pumping, upbeat sing-along chorus where they can, even if my non-existent Dutch keeps me from properly mouthing the words to “Wijken” and “Sloop De Grens”. I can raise my pint glass in solidarity, at least! It surely helps my experience to know that the members of Impotentie play(ed) in hardcore bands as diverse as Justice, Secretors and S.H.I.T., so even if the premise of a lot of street-punk is more or less “hardcore-punk but make it long and boring”, the members of Impotentie are too amped up and knowledgeable to succumb to any such temptation completely. Still not my favorite sound from these guys or otherwise (gimme a new Secretors record ASAP, please!), but the legions of Rixe and Home Front fans will surely disagree.

Kop-Z A Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamic System 12″ (Second Born)
Industrial-techno is given a futuristic mechanical upgrade here on Kop-Z’s debut vinyl EP. He’s been a lively party-starter in his local Salford-Manchester stomping grounds for a few years now, but A Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamic System takes his state-of-the-art ballistics worldwide. He tends to favor a combination of high-speed processes alongside eerie tone-float, simultaneously pummeling and soothing the listener in a manner I find deeply enriching; the resulting sensation is like sparring in a Muay Thai gym while slathered in Icy Hot. Both “Ape-Essence” and “Revision” are shining examples, the propulsive machinery I’d associate with Carrier, T++ or Nkisi delivered with a post-jungle, post-industrial mindset. It’s like twice the speed of hardcore gabber, yet you can somehow groove to it (or, if conditions are right, mosh to it). “Remote Actions On A Non-Linear Path” shifts the atmosphere to a ghostly tube station, invoking the grit of classic Huren, whereas closer “Eat Go Shop” refracts a jungle break through enough hacker VPNs to fully obscure its origins. Kop-Z’s music feels very much in the spirit of Sandwell District, though not as beholden to its rhythmic framework. The aggressive, sinister nature of this music is designed to hurt you, and that’s a large part of the appeal.

Suzanne Kraft What You Do To Me 7″ (Soft Rock For Hard Times)
The Universal Cave DJ crew / record-label is always buzzing with something new, often from extensive crate-digs or the furthest reaches of a file-sharing K-hole. Their Soft Rock For Hard Times compilations are already legendary – the bar by which all other private-press soft-rock excavations should be measured – and now they’re cutting wax of their own with a new series of seven-inch singles highlighting some of those signature cuts. This is the first of the series, a faithful adaptation of Sugarcane’s dark-soul rarity, “What You Do To Me”, as performed by digi-ambient new-age stepper Suzanne Kraft. Rather than reinterpret the buttery keys and single-teardrop vocals of the original, Kraft shines up a strikingly true-to-form rendition, no detail left behind. It’s like the original’s dirty antique mirror is given a fresh, professional buffing, right down to the dead-on synth solo, performed here by producer Jordan Czamanski on appropriately vintage gear. Incredible earworm of a song… there’s no getting that melody out of your head once it’s in there! Secret Circuit dubs it out on the flip with supple bass, ample space and, hmm, rhythmic grace? I had to finish the rhyme. Most intriguingly, the record comes with a postcard listing all eight prior Soft Rock For Hard Times mixes and a (what appears to be very real) submission request for cover versions of these songs for possible future release. Who wants to work on a rendition of Uncle Rainbow’s “Kingdom Come” with me? We could hit it big!

Willie Lane Bobcat Turnaround LP (Cord-Art)
Exclusively fond memories of seeing Willie Lane around town back when Philly’s underground guitar/folk/freak scene was peaking in the late ’00s: Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore still lived here, Jack Rose wandered among us mortals, Kurt Vile was dubbing CD-rs in between forklift shifts, Watery Love were dominating every fifty-cap room in the city, and Willie was hanging around, the first dude in that crew that I can recall as having a serious girlfriend, at least from my particular vantage point. It’s been a while since he trucked up north, but his infrequent solo albums continue to receive a warm welcome in Philadelphia and worldwide, Bobcat Turnaround being no exception. What’s new this time around is that Lane has decided to unzip his lips and sing over his relaxed-fit folk-rock, backed by Rob Thomas (no not that Rob Thomas – this one’s from Sunburned Hand Of The Man) on bass and Ryan Jewell on drums. Neither player invades Lane’s space, the perfect approach to supplement his inspired country-blues licks. Steve Gunn is an obvious comparison, another skilled underground guitar slinger whose Grateful Dead obsession results in tunes both traditional and fresh, but Lane’s music consistently takes the long way home, a touch of Agitation Free’s precise mellowness and Frigate’s blissful narcolepsy alongside his rootsy fingerpicking and unobtrusive singing voice. A wise ketchup once said that good things come to those who wait, which continues to be the case for the music of Willie Lane, shared at the artist’s leisure not the music industry’s demanding impatience. Priced at barely over twenty bucks, it seems Cord-Art is still operating on 2008’s pricing models, so don’t delay!

The Lights Beautiful Bird LP (Wäntage USA / The Swingline)
As I sit here trying to understand Wäntage’s rationale for pressing up an old unheralded album such as this, the answer becomes quite clear: it’s just really good music! I can’t imagine there’s any more intricate reasoning – it certainly can’t be about turning a profit – but as I sit here spinning The Lights’ 2003 full-length debut (originally issued on compact disc by Bop Tart Records), I’m so glad they got it out there for another go-around. This Seattle trio played stripped-down yet quirky rock, kind of right there in the immediate post-White Stripes explosion, but I’m also reminded of MOTO’s goofy garage genius and The Starlite Desperation’s sassy infiltration of underground punk. It’s anything but straight-ahead Ramones-derived pounders – The Lights allow each other plenty of space, with the guitar, drums or bass equally at risk of simply cutting out to let the others have at it. A song like “Victims Of The Pleasures Of The Sense Of Hearing” would’ve been an indie hit had Spoon or Pavement written it, a cool (but not too cool) pop jangle broken down into pieces small enough to fit in the backseat of a sedan, but instead it’s a secret nugget awaiting the few who come to learn what The Lights were all about. (Final note: I’ve long since ceased to be any sort of colored vinyl lover but I have to say, the “bird-shit splatter” that they put together here couldn’t be better.)

The Massacred Nightmare Agitators LP (Active-8)
There’s meat-and-potatoes hardcore, and then there’s Nightmare Agitators by The Massacred, which is akin to a container truck unloading pallets of frozen beef and industrial-canned mashed potatoes directly onto your skull. This Boston group is comprised of lifer punks (with a resume to include stints in Bloodkrow Butcher, Scapegoat, Koward, 2×4, etc.) and rather than settle into routine or the mundane pleasure of going through the hardcore motions, Nightmare Agitators levels all buildings within a healthy radius. Produced by Chris Corry, the overall sound here is burly and explosive, from the extra-thick guitars to the front-and-center drums, replete with a deeper snare sound than most other punk bands’ floor toms. These songs aren’t overtly American-sounding, perhaps looking more towards The Varukers, early GBH and Discharge (especially in the vocals), the Ultra Violent seven-inch and Anti-Cimex’s first two EPs for inspiration, but they never fall into tribute territory. The power behind these songs (as opposed to the actual songs themselves) reminds me of first hearing Talk Is Poison in the late ’90s, back when I still had a wig that could get blown back by the sheer ferocity of modern, expertly-produced violent hardcore music. My only question (it’s really more of a comment) is that it would’ve made more sense to switch the band name and album titles – this record sounds like music made by fearsome subversives, not the already-slain.

Dan Melchior Hill Country Piano LP (Penultimate Press)
To my knowledge, Dan Melchior has never made a piano record before, not even once in his impressively vast discography across decades and various solo and group endeavors. Establishing Hill Country Piano as his first then, what I find most striking is how, even through this unfamiliar configuration, it still sounds like Dan Melchior. That’s kind of what all artists want to achieve, right? To appear as themselves and only themselves regardless of the medium, so kudos to Melchior for casually achieving it. It’s in the weird melodic twists, the way the last note rolls down a cliff or turns sour, that vague inebriation pretending to be sober, that I believe defines his melody sensibility here and elsewhere. I happen to like it a lot in this formulation, too – he loops simplistic melodies on the piano with banjo, domestic percussion and various other digital frequencies, almost like Blues Control sans tape noise (and I miss Blues Control now more than ever). These four, leisurely tracks are ruminative in their own way, and certainly in line with the adventurous avant sounds I’d associate with the Penultimate Press label. Can we get a Dan Melchior acid-house record next? Is that too much to ask?

Mob 47 Tills Du Dör LP (D-Takt & Råpunk / Beach Impediment)
Now that Gauze have called it quits (a reality I’m still coming to terms with), are Mob 47 the eldest truest hardcore band on the planet? They got started in the earliest of the ’80s, and while they spent a couple decades more or less inactive (I believe all Swedes are provided with generous paid vacation time), they’ve been an active force for most of this century. After all these years, one could expect Mob 47’s sound to evolve, or even (gulp) mature, and if it did, we as a sympathetic audience would surely understand. Amazingly, Mob 47 have shown zero interest in softening their edges or reducing their speeds by even the slightest of increments, instead playing the same ripping, quick-riff Swedish “mangel” hardcore style they more or less helped create. The clarity of a digital recording is the only clue that these songs were recorded after cell phones were invented – they don’t even look that old in the (admittedly high-contrast) live shots on the back! Still, if you told me Tills Du Dör was written in 1984 in a squat after gigging with Indigesti and Headcleaners, I wouldn’t doubt you – even the large spike-haired skull on the insert could’ve been drawn in the Reagan era and preserved until now. It’s sad that so many of hardcore’s great characters have died at this point, and while their legacies have the luxury of being frozen in time, I’m interested in seeing what becomes of those who continue to live, and live in communion with an actual hardcore ethos, not just some embarrassing nostalgic retail version. Why is it apparently so hard to stay true, when Mob 47 makes it look so easy?

Pissgrave Malignant Worthlessness LP (Profound Lore)
Philly’s exquisite death-metal merchants return with their third (and possibly final?) full-length, Malignant Worthlessness. Props to them for continuing to release albums with cover images too disturbingly grisly to be shared on social media – kvlt metalheads take note, you don’t have to flirt with bigoted views and imagery to maintain an unmarketable existence on the explicit fringe of society! Pissgrave are highly regarded in snobbish death-metal circles, and rightfully so, as they continue to demonstrate a slavish attention to detail as well as a commitment to total and utter filth. One might think those two strategies would clash, but death-metal is one of those rare forms of art where precision and savagery go hand in hand, alongside competitive eating and knife throwing. These songs are relentless, full-throttle blasts, double bass-drum rolling on a constant boil (even through the occasional breakdowns), guitars speed-picked to the point of inevitable Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and Tim Mellon’s incomprehensibly guttural vocals scaring children and the elderly. I’m old enough to remember when accusations of studio-altered vocals haunted extreme metal’s headlining acts, but here in 2025 digitally-altered vocals are par for the course of anything from dance-pop to porno-grind. Unlike the comical pig-squeals of Gutalax, Mellon’s vocals aren’t amusing, nor are they distanced from the brutal immediacy of the music. Rather, they conjure the cover image’s wretched, maggot-riddled pustulence come to life, the anguish of a corpse caught in a storm drain conjured in voice and song. There’s a lot of Liquid Death-caliber death-metal out there these days; Pissgrave are a bottle of virulent pus by comparison. Consume at your own risk!

Seudo Youth Nobody Gets Down Like… LP (Going Underground)
As hardcore-punk runs out of classic elements that haven’t already been stolen a thousand times over, LA’s Seudo Youth crept up and lifted the guitar sound from Zero Boys’ classic Vicious Circle album when no one was looking. Someone had to eventually, and I’m glad it was this new group, featuring members of G.U.N.N. and People’s Temple (the latter of which being responsible for one of the rippingest modern hardcore seven-inches of the last decade). I hope People’s Temple are still an active concern (though I fear they aren’t), but thankfully Seudo Youth gives me plenty to chew on with Nobody Gets Down Like…. That guitar sound deserves a proper rhythm section, and thankfully the bassist and drummer (especially the drummer) are up to the task, absolutely shredding through these frantic and tumultuous hardcore-punk tunes with exquisite detail, a performance on par with the generally peerless Vicious Circle. Seudo Youth exist in a hardcore landscape dominated by the metallic beatdown variety, and while the band might appear in tagger-font show flyers (and the singer wore a track jacket over a Youth Of Today shirt in some live pics), this record rips with unabashed first-wave velocity (ie. the first Jerry’s Kids and Suicidal Tendencies albums), only teasing a mosh-em-up moment on the tenth track, “Punishers”, which takes ignorant dudes to task. I might not be able to get down like Seudo Youth, but I can certainly get down with them.

Top Sinnaz Sink Water & Wonder Bread 12″ (Almost Ready)
How about some Jadakiss-cosigned New York metro-area rap from… Almost Ready Records?? Throw whatever rulebook you thought existed out the window – anything goes in 2025, all formal avenues of music distribution are broken and annoying, and garage-punk labels are out here releasing top-shelf hip-hop in plain black DJ sleeves. Sink Water & Wonder Bread looks like a record that would be sold from behind the counter at a center-city stereo shop, and while hip-hop dreams are as easily faded as any other artistic aspirations, Top Sinnaz are a wonderful new mystery to me. With Jadakiss offering his seal of approval between songs (complete with his signature chirpy “ha-haa!”), the East Orange, NJ duo flip funk/soul loops into smooth yet street-conditioned beats, very much in line with the classic late ’90s New York school. The title track pairs a powerful Clipse-like flow with a silky chorus I’d expect to hear on a Do Or Die album. The wordplay is colorful and passionate, weaving tails of slum-life and the hopes of leaving it behind without pulling any punches, right down to the titles: “Peasants”, “Poverty” and the memorable title-track. It appears these songs hit Spotify back in 2023 (with nothing since…?), so while this may be the first and final testament of Top Sinnaz, Almost Ready did us all a solid by preserving these cuts in a non-cloud-based format.

Torn Hawk Flip To Raw 12″ (Fixed Rhythms)
If you aren’t following Torn Hawk online, you’re doing your feed a disservice! I can think of few modern electronic artists (or artists in general, really) with such distinctive personalities, that inherent star power that can never be taught, only unleashed. Or at least, if there are other conventionally-handsome electronic producers/DJs with Joe Pesci accents and a penchant for dress suits and comedic chopped-up spoken-word, please tell me who they are so I can follow them too. Torn Hawk’s style has progressed and shifted through the years, first entering my consciousness via his L.I.E.S. EPs over a decade ago, which melded lo-fi house rhythms to nostalgic new-wave guitars. His most recent work has leaned into his edge-of-coherence ramblings (it’s a crime how overlooked (and unfortunately digital-only) his Power Without Guilt, Love Without Doubt album from last December is), but Flip To Raw goes back to his dance roots, an unfussy six-track session of vaporwave- and trip-hop-induced techno, and in the case of “Oh Yeah (Cop Collab)”, gratuitous electric guitar soloing. I get the impression Torn Hawk didn’t overthink these cuts – the Flip To Raw title rings true, yanking some immediate and inspired tracks direct from his hard-drive and sharing them with us, because why not. Please, I implore you to check out any of his recent vocal-based offerings (2023’s Ramada Thoughts is unheralded genius on par with The Gerogerigegege), and once your head stops spinning, you can cool off with Flip To Raw.

Tunnel Dancers Energy Is Residual LP (Mad Habitat Recordings)
The collective retreat into cozy womb-like hibernation continues! The stock in instrumental electronic contemporary-new-age ambient rises by the day, and if you are one of the few remaining hip adults who hasn’t ordered a personal relaxation chamber off Temu (or simply want something new to add to your meditation pod’s built-in playlist), Sydney’s Tunnel Dancers submit their debut full-length Energy Is Residual for your approval. The duo wields a modular synth and a Jazzmaster guitar in their fight for total relaxation, zero friction for our frictionless times. Vaporous atmospheres preside over the synth’s round-edged burbles, and the guitar chimes cautiously, never to wake the baby. On one hand, Energy Is Residual is a beautifully-formed piece of ambient driftwood, and on the other, I’m kinda getting sick of this prevailing trend. I realized I just typed that last line moments before heading out the door to go watch ambient artists perform alongside a trippy light-show inside an old church later this evening, so maybe it’s actually just myself that I’m getting sick of.

U.e. Hometown Girl LP (28912)
Ulla Straus has put together a body of work as beautiful as it is obfuscated, and this newest album continues that intentionally-mysterious trajectory. She’s going by “U.e.” here, as if the mononymous “Ulla” wasn’t already the bare minimum – how long until any of her monikers fade away entirely, just an empty puff of air where the artist’s name usually goes? Still, I love her music, and the way that she consistently refuses to provide any sort of context or information for it, nary a song title or musical credit to be found on the physical product. Hometown Girl ventures into her various comfort zones, from jazzy, piano-led slow-core to up-close tape-warble ASMR to Perfect Fit Content-adjacent chill-zones to experimental musique-concréte. Some of these tracks definitely feature multiple players, the ones that resemble a somber ensemble patiently grooving together in a dusty attic in particular, or is my mind playing tricks on me? The sounds throughout this album are more organic in nature than her earliest works, in the way that ink smudges and steamy saunas are organic, though Straus’s production always retains a light (or heavy) electronic touch, offering a slightly less depressing version of the feeling you get when you realize it was an AI chat-bot and not a live person who helped resolve your online banking issue. Fennesz’s Endless Summer has always loomed large over Straus’s work, and while it remains a reasonable touchpoint for many of the tracks on Hometown Girl, her own sonic lexicon has never been clearer (and by “clearer”, I also mean “foggier”).

USA/Mexico Live In Paris LP (12XU)
Esteemed Texan sludge trio USA/Mexico deliver us their own personal Earth 2 care of this Parisian live set. Glacial, crushing drone-rock such as this is a test of both body and mind, and the fact that Nate Cross (of Water Damage), King Coffey (of Butthole Surfers) and Craig Clouse (of Shit & Shine) decided to unleash this on a live audience is proof of their commitment to the form. Previous USA/Mexico records contained songs, albeit uneasily digestible ones, but Live In Paris is one big cavernous slog through detuned chords, the meter carried through Coffey’s drums, of which only the kick and crash cymbals really cut through the mix. (Maybe that’d all he played?) I think I hear some occasional vocals as well, delivered with the unnaturally-deepened pitch of gore-grind, though the ringing-out power-sludge riffs leave little room for anything else. I’m reminded of Black Mayonnaise’s filth-encrusted doom, but again, USA/Mexico were out there vibrating plates of Brie and baguette off this audience’s tables, not safely recording their music in a cozy studio setting. I’d suggest that USA/Mexico ignore traditional safety codes and padlock their crowds in the venues, unable to flee the brutality of their unrelenting sound, but even with viable escape routes Live In Paris is exquisitely stifling. As an oxygen-breather, I found it an anti-oxygen record…

Voice Actor & Squu Lust (1) LP (Stroom)
Much like Cindy Lee and their Diamond Jubilee, Voice Actor got a recent underground buzz going from their exorbitantly-long Sent From My Telephone release back in 2022: a hundred and twelve digital tracks in alphabetical order! Now down to solely vocalist/lyricist/producer Noa Kurzweil using the Voice Actor moniker, she’s enlisted her Soundcloud buddy Squu to share his fractured chill-wave beats for Lust (1), her (and his) first intended-for-LP release. Voice Actor did an interview with the great First Floor newsletter recently, wherein Kurzweil seemed disinterested in providing any real insight (or even talking about the project at all), but managed to explain that she would pick from Squu’s various tracks, send him vocals, sing over parts and cut-and-paste others. It’s interesting listening to Lust (1) with that understanding, then, as Kurzweil’s vocals are only occasionally prominent; perhaps they’re smeared to a fine translucent layer, or on some tracks, they’re probably absent entirely. Instead, Squu’s reduced-fat elements of techno are granted their own private space to roam – a fluttering rave loop here, kicks with sweltering reverb there – with Voice Actor’s vocals playing a game of left-field ambient-techno Where’s Waldo?. It’s cool enough, but the whole thing depends on being a vibe, the way in which we are all slowly being trained to engage with music (read Liz Pelly’s excellent new sci-fi horror book Mood Machine for a better explanation). Saturn is a gorgeous planet from afar, but it’s all gas, and that’s kind of how I feel about Lust (1): pretty and moody atmospherics, but no solid footing to be found.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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