DDP 1971.019 v/a ‘Tired and Emotional‘ C60
Ed. of 100. Perhaps an audio document of what scorching tropical heat and prolonged periods of rainfall can do to the (perhaps, tweaked) artistic mind, Tired and Emotional provides a glimpse into the strange world of the New Zealand underground. From gauzy indie-rock and female-fronted noise-punk to damaged folk, primitive psych-noise and bizarre field recordings amidst meandering acoustic folk, this tape covers a lot of strange, strange ground. In fact, chances are you have never heard anything quite like this. Take the last 30 years of underground music and leave it on the dashboard of your step Dad’s Ford Colt during a heatwave, then try to play that gooey mess in your little sister’s toy boom box while you’re freaking out on shitty drugs and you might be getting close to what’s going on here. But probably not. Do you pride yourself on how “weird” and “eclectic” your musical tastes are? This tape is guaranteed to make the last thing you downloaded off a blog on your lunch break sound like whoever is performing on Letterman tonight.
DDP 1971.020 Shearing Pinx – ‘Storm Majorities & Magnetic Tremors’ C90
Ed. of 100. Compiled from 7″s, splits and compilations released since the band’s inception in 2007, this anthology serves as an introduction to the breadth, depth and sheer velocity of Vancouver’s Shearing Pinx. White-hot cymbals sizzle and shimmer atop a smoldering garbage heap of buzzsaw guitars, molten bass lines, neanderthal kick-drum abuse and frantic vocals. Yet amidst the chaos lurk actual songs: guitar skree sculpted into impossible hooks, deranged, intersecting melodies and low-end thrum all aimed at total dance floor annihilation. At once unrestrained and tightly wound, Storm Majorities… illustrates a band with uncomprimising vision, a band positively possessed by their instruments who destroy the lines between no-wave, punk and noise in once fell swoop.