Harry Merry – ‘The Life I Lived’ C48
“I didn’t know that Papa Smurf had a hardcore band back when he was just an ordinary smurf!?” — V.N., head honcho of the Beograd Art&Culture Control Committee Nema Tog Podruma presents a crypto-surreal c48 by Rotterdam’s dottiest in- and outsider slash real-life rock ‘n’ roll postman, Harry Merry. Although trying to hit the Top of the Pops charts as a self-declared “performing composer/composing performer” for almost 20 years now, this drive-in-disco-king mainly got recognised in art circles as an avantgardistic take on/exuberant exponent of a typical but also vanishing Dutch folklore, street organ music. Voraciously slamming richly ornamented arrangements out of his most pickeled ‘barrel organ’ and ‘harpsichord’ keyboard presets and squeezing his thick Rotown tongue in every possible sound hole, Harry injects this street folk with blowtorch boogaloo, exposing snarky labyrinths of merry-go-round punk, psychobilin-pop/truffle rock ‘n’ roll and elektro-schlager opera. An accompanying dancing monkey is made completely irrelevant because this grinder knows how to attract absurd attention with his moptop/Ramones hair ball and linen sailor suit. Count in that inspiration always gets culled from daily-life obsessions like Dutch 70s and 80s teevee trivia, pop poets, credit card devouring Beatles paraphernalia, listening to his huge archive of vintage pirate radio station recordings and an audiophile amalgam of Euro glam/litter rock, Nederbeat, French chansons and Balkan pop, plus fondling the residues of his own fingernails -carefully stored in a jar because “you wouldn’t throw your children down the drain either!”, and you’ll start to get why R. Stevie Moore, Dino Felipe, Ariel Pink and John Maus are all fervent Harry-hailers. This Rudy Schwartz-smoking-the-whole-Q65 demo debris is served tartare-raw and could be sniffed upon as the placenta of his classic/rare “First Contact” elpee on Olé. These early youth sins were formed by recording every song on two cassettes (each tape had initially both the music and the vocals on a different channel ’til both versions where brought together on one channel) and then melting them klutzy together on one analogue artefact by synchronizing the pair through a cassette player with pitch-control. The hyper-caffeinated and cacaphonic results of these tape deck experiments contain the first songs Harry Merry ever recorded and where you can hear a teenage Hairy scraping the brain brie together to remember the lyrics, often revealed to him in a dream or whispered in his ears by fellow barflies (“Vive Le High Societas”, “Yes Or No”, “Village Redfood”); blistering attempts to recreate Little Richard tunes like “Heebie Jeebies” and “Long Tall Sally” (“Sweet Slush Puppy”, “Fool Number One”); Bay City Rollers-esque syrup to smear on our beards (“Panegyric Goshawk”); phonetic probes that needed to lead to a lesser exhausting singing style but eventually took the opposite lane (“Let It Lean”, “Toothpaste Foam); and even his first more ‘serious’ composition, the Bhaghavad Gita wizzzzdom of ” Eternal Blizzzzzz”. Wesley Willis, Mambo Kurt and Quintron & Miss Pussycat might be some names popping in the heads of google-intellectualists but this sonic sailor just offers an intense one-of-a-kind experience, where the appetite gets satisfied with each bite. Ltd. to 101 copies. Feat. tracks hand-picked by Vladimir Lenhart and NBIDE. Comes in a hand-sown secret garden with a HM portrait by Ilan Manouach, screenprinted by Drugarica Johanna and Bojana Petkovic. pSS for the real dirt diggers : another cassette and 7″ will be out soon on Neen Records and Meeuw Muzak.
B.R. GARM – ‘GarmSquirm2012’ C40
“My previous releases have all been ‘unheard except by a few’; this tape will be very seldom heard as well. Get it now! The human animal bag is foul. It squirms n’ offers, plus, drips creams and salves. One drop “made my baby”, another “made this tape”. The baby came out just in time for spring, the tape comes out just in time for halloween. The tape haunts in your headphones like the ghost of the music you used to put in and dislike but now shames you in your search for shit sounds has lead you to this goop. these songs are about things squirming out of you whether you like them to or not. I’d be embarrassed to sing these songs to you. They are the grossest jokes that I know, this tape is the sonic equivalent of a foul odor. (for fans of Worms, Flies, Crusts, Babies, Bristles, Snaps, and the Doctor’s Dumpster)” — from b.r.garm. This dweller on the treshold of chromosome damage – né Brendan Evans- prefers to not trim the matriarchal mould growing savagely in his kitchenette. After all,the petri dish population invented punk rock, not England. Instead of gardening his fridge, proud dad and tender lover Tomy G. rather likes to wander through the borderless province of the mellow mind by taking a naughty nap in his recently inherited orgone accumulator, massaging the pineal glands of his fellow faux xian soul trippers in Visitations, riding the magnetic Suicide dwarf AM Frank, or recollecting our wisdom teeth in his Strange Maine wunderkammer. This satanic audio cookbook for squeamish children and their moms can be caught by the horns right after you tamed “This Eros”, the epilectic goat sister of his dystopian punk-folk opus “The 78th Morning Tide”. And although the cerebrum-wrenching liason between deep-fried inseminations, psychotic digressions and misinterpreted girl feelings should have ended up being animal-friendly, you will still keep on hearing the birds of passage clang and bang against the copper dome of your free will. These raw animals were killed, skinned, butchered, cooked and redressed by Vladimir Lenhart to get good seats in this steaming sonic stew. Ltd. to 54 copies and comes in unclean fish-scale panties to satisfy the flexitarian fetishists among you.
Fast Deadboy – ‘Predragons keep your beauty/Nek ad prodre’ C20/C30
Neonromantic go-go dancers and pulsating laser beams on the rider, a low-fat papier- mask plus a pint full of spazz dance isinglass and accompanying empty elastic gargles on stage. Fast Deadboy’s performance at this year’s edition of the Serbian underground comixxx fest “Novo Doba” -in front of a crowd that definitely sabotaged the main water supplies to get their greedy throats gulped with more paralyzing plonk- could be best compared to a semi-conscious kobasica : the offal of automythologisation spiced-up with pure glitch-reductionism, squeezed into a too tight tunnel through reality. Without the elaborate efforts of A Hogon’s Industrial Guide and NAUK.rs to let a couple of nonrationalists featured on “Crni Pek” -the latter’s magnificent audiophile mapping of the raunchiest rhizomes of Serbian 90s skronk, wade through the lo-fi morass that the glue-sniffing gig circuit of Pancevo/Srbija is, FD’s first steps ever into a poorly lit noisenik ring would probably never been made. Cuz although stirring the stinkpot of ex-YU hometaping, punk, industrial and mail art since the early 80s, this Kragujevac cenobite is mainly grabbable through impossible to find issues of his underground rawk fanzines “Instant gladna igra x”/”Agona perpetua”/”Phantom”; a couple of bootleg dvd-r’s feat. scans of not even 0,9 percent of his “punk art” paintings/drawings, contributions to Pascal Lenoir’s MANI ART and approx. 2300 collaged post cards/”artist trading cards” -Dobrica Kamperelic and Ray Johnson lurk around the not so cosy corner- ; a rare fleamarket find of his atonal hymns in the form of a taped version of one of his id-ego’s FD, Phantom or Gavrilov Princip; and some random sonic sputter and blubber in the virtual abyss. Since this future NZ fish monger destroyed more than half of his own work : non-time for two resurrections of his schizo-dada output. “Predragons Keep Your Beauty” aka ‘the pastoral 1987 album’ was the first cassette released on his own 80s “Phantom” label that didn’t feature any circuitbended claptrap. Instead your ears will bleed by the abuse of vox, simple housewife needs and an occasional faux gong being drewled upon, interweaving Serbian and Japanese folk (luckily not called ‘world music’ back then) to create an alternative soundtrack to numerous documentaries on Pacific Ocean pearl divers. Although it hops along on similar hermetic haunches, 1998’s self-released ‘”Nek ad proždre” is sonically quite the opposite : one of the best known verses from the epic folk poem/play “Gorski vijenac” (“The Mountain Wreath”, 1847) turned into an ugly contructivist corpse. By literature specialists analysed as a tale of a long-gone heroic tribal society injected with a dark dose of pan-Slavism, you’ll hear the contemporary knibbling on the tail of Njegos’s book : the diametrically opposed Balkan right-wingers steering these highly romantic ideas into slick sharkwaters, trying to justify their own (territorial) agenda, in a shallow attempt to defend themselves from IMF-, NATO- and other aggressors. But, the quasi war crimes audio play aside, this instant headache probably more licks the molten mass of suicidal breakcore artists who give it one last epic shot to connect the rusty cables and glow-in-the-dark metal scraps that grow out of their wretched healths to a malfunctioning LCD screen, and that in a 0.2 percent philosophical conversation with the Old Ones. Utterly annoying, but also effective ear smear to give hypochondrical backpack tourists arriving at Belgrade’s seedy railway area a good scare. FD himself still refuses any other description than “simply pop music”. Ltd. to 33 copies. Comes in a talisman of the Ex-Extincted that requires hamer and chisel to find the tapes wrapped in a repro of the original covers (screenprinted by Drugarica Johanna and Bojana Petkovic).
Kreamy – ‘Lectric Santa/Asian Women on the Telephone’ C50
“Diogenes (old greek wise guy) jacked off in the middle of the marketplace, to show his independence. Maybe not your cup of tea. I dig Diogenes.” — C.B. Vaandrager. Episode 90210666, with a vile version of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” by the Mixed Crematorium Choir of Asheville, North Carolina as intro. 90s flashback decor beyond the realm of comprehension aka “Churchill’s Hideaway”, Miami’s premier glory hole where Mordbid Opera, Trash Monkeys, Harry Pussy, Rat Bastard, et al. regularly tapped the skronk udder. Flesh-shredding scene outside the abbreviation amphora when the Creamy Electric Shit Sock fails to shy away from a scorching reality tv sun and lets it’s large drug-filled lumps melt into noisy non-genre grit, while mixing-up ‘defacing the currency of civilised conventions’ with ‘defecating in the percolator of urban life’s theatre’. Two full-lenghts, a couple of 7″s, Cursed City injuries and some Frisco sprawl later (all commercials and plucked chicken conversations cut out): no Parian marble escape-dog left to ride since ex-Tintin fraud Bobette became a proud but obviously lesser hung member of the black-catholic segment of the “Bank of Blue Beans ‘n’ Balls”, eagerly shoving the bones of parrhesian slave Foucault in between his/her unhinged, lipstick-smeared jaws. Counterfeit Inc. aside, the KLS are still here after 20+ years to provide enough nicoteen-morphed bleep concrète, post-dirgy psyche-punk spazz and deliberate Herculean rejection of material comfort in the form of the Mad Sci’s Bistro to satisfy uninformed parents and the rather mummificated but still poco-loco-in-the-coco part of the progressive population, all imaginary neo-marxist marijuana millionaires residing in retirement home “Color Deaf”. If this A-side -feat. Maher Shalal Hash Baz’s Tori Kudo and more punctual indiscrete guests- wasn’t called “Kreamy ‘Lectric Santa’s sample library vol. 1”, it would have definitely rung some sanctum bells as “Purpose + Rebellion = Diogenes’s Distinction”. (skipping another round of highly irrelevant infotainement messages, Russia’s fiercest Dada-purists AWOTT where supposed to provide a parallel xprmntl improv-dub-punk-‘n’-noise-roll fairytale, set 15 years later on top of Moskva’s only junkyard where the rats come candy-colored and marinated in pussy raijot acid. No well-soaped but hardly rinsed-out Futurist cliffhanger before the final cassette click though, since the subtitles didn’t make it past the Lubyanka building – “Did you inhale Mother Putin’s Paranoia Post ???!!” (barked). Since AWOTT refuses further future-past comments, this shabby insider telex is the only artefact that got inscribed how these fluo-masked/costumed women lovers still walk the media mogul sponsored market place with a lamp during day-time, searching for an honest vodka-soaked man. Ltd. to 113 copies. Comes in a silver-black contextualization of polyester’s position in a smoothie bar society.
Egg, Eggs – ‘Zygotic Crack’ C42
“dura cura pleura caesura natura purpura bravura coloratura tempura ampulla junta vulva babushka poorer fora juror surer aurora torah horror flora purer borer angora insurer usurer menorah explorer restorer cola fuller caller sola lawyer solar polar roller taller cupola bowler viola sawyer smaller trawler granola ayatollah bipolar stroller controller comptroller unipolar arteriolar aura coma causa cobra coca coda cooker copra cosa ora corner sugar soda aorta fauna quota sofa aroma bona butcher coarser forma yoga corona notre oa ova dopa iota kosher lona nova otra sauna soma toga zona boa coffer gopher hooker okra pusher conga mocha gofer woofer noah jonah over order water former lower author daughter offer border closer motor owner quarter shorter closure donor sober torture trauma mortar odor rotor voter warmer autre clover colder oder poker porter proto grocer grower knower moder ochre ordre pauper saucer talker walker auger coaster glioma grosser kimono loader mourner mower nostra ogre pagoda stoma torpor warder augur boarder dormer hawser joker loafer loner polka pulsar salsa balsa cloture homer poser ricotta boater choker boner loaner scrota longer older shoulder altar alter broader soldier ammonia holder slaughter slower broker folder mucosa persona recorder vigour boulder glaucoma nobler poster bolder nervosa rigour smoker stroma alder blower decoder encoder falter halter nodosa consortia mimosa reorder saunter toaster warbler clothier cocksure drover launder molder psalter aloha begonia coleslaw maunder october jehovah disorder exposure stronger moreover composer pneumonia reporter enclosure lymphoma performer supporter bolster composure diploma reformer sarcoma absorber adenoma exporter importer informer myeloma pneumoniae holster inclosure indorser remoter ambrosia cinchona tapioca pollster songster smolder carcinoma disclosure promoter mediocre melanoma beholder foreclosure granuloma hematoma impostor belladonna granulosa imposture levodopa locomotor misnomer papilloma psychomotor submucosa magnolia supernova upholster underwater protozoa vasomotor aeruginosa reinforcer interloper pawnbroker greengrocer transformer transporter oculomotor officeholder overexposure spermatozoa sensorimotor flamethrower neuroblastoma policyholder adenocarcinoma pheochromocytoma” — David Russell. Rarely trust a mayo-less hard-boiled egg : too self-assured, too compressed, too dry. Since we like our yolk wheezing, gargling and yodeling, we tried our luck at the doorstep of a Western Mass funk ‘n’ fluxus folly, where betamax copies of both Cocktail and Yan Can Cook didn’t get burped out properly by the vhs player. Count in that the residing mythmothers – vaguely connected to Zebu!, Fat Worm Of Error, Sunburned Hand of The Man, The Frothy Shakes, Radioactive Prostitute, Barn Owl, et al.- don’t follow the clay path straight to the marketplace but still misbelieve that a century egg should be preserved in horse piss, and a frothy PÃdà n Colada on-the-house tickles our pickle. A bit of a bite, those unsquashed baby chicken eyes, but no worries, future visitors : straws and dentures can still be left at the foyer. Ltd. to 49 copies. Comes in a concretized version of the above-mentioned alkaline shake.