Category Archives: REVIEW

Mind Flare continue their run of harsh digital bop-gundowns with ‘Die Yuppie Scum’ from Lea Cummings’ Kylie Minoise.  A pop-collision surpassing the misnomered Masonna himself, Kylie Minoise brings the filthy transduction of digital processes to the doxa of dance beats, matured at this point to really a foregone conclusion coming not just from so many discs reviewed by so many folks committed to keeping harsh noise always at hand, but a cultural soundscape wholly rezoned for the likes of Skrillex or if that’s too real for you, Shabazz Palaces.  Yet the bright, belligerent intellectualisms of Paper Rad imagery (art by Cummings) and black-eyed Psychic TV “X”-cesses pale, and do not contend, with the truly-turned pathos of these rhythms: intensely authentic and engaging at that most “primitive” of levels, these eternal musics do not quote, do not cite, do not consort, but stay their respective courses, refracting the keynote introduction of 80 seconds of ear-splitting noise into twelve tracks of significant drum and bass.  “Sick Serpent Secrets” [transcribed lisp and exclamations omitted] like an early Coil or late NIN outtake; “Earlobes of Shame Buckets of Bile” a sci-funk akin to Justin Trosper’s Replicants project or a really distorted Add N to X; “Metal Mafia v. Feedback Ninja” suggests a technician’s inside joke, but more so, performs the transcendence of every soundtrack pablum of the technophilic 1996s, from Virtuosity to The Saint.  “And the Dead Bugs[…]” and “Paradise on Telepathy Island” [I realize I’ve been had even repeating these things] do Kid606 and Squarepusher, respectively, reframing the disc as a jewelbox of sonic readymades, grafted/lifted and just slightly dusted with the gold-dust of mythic distortion.  It’s a bit anti-climactic to realize we’ve made it to that foretold land of rhythm and noise, but I’m not too big to admit (assuming I haven’t merely dropped my guard from wear), it’s good!  In a jewel-case, Mind Flare really committing to this CD thing.

Mind Flare Media CD
$10
HERE

This little black metal gem was released a little too subtly by Husk, drafting on the kick of their recent Swamp Horse 7”, and muddled by a curious similarity to ‘Hater of Life’ by Husk’s Josh Lay.  Harassor is a Los Angeles three-piece with an LP repress to their fame.  They play chunky death metal hooks like Howl to a thrash like Bone Awl.  Hardly esoteric Euro shit, this is staunchly an American problem: the 8 songs on ‘Hater of Man’ were recorded about six years ago – surely there’s a story there, not least of which is how Lay wound-up with them – and the verve of their malaise has turned a bit to irony where time gnaws away at the evocative assault in titles like “Killed by Inanity,” “Ripping Hammer,” and “The End of Your World”, or the liner notes proclamation that “Harassor grimly demands the complete extermination of mankind”.  Not that the genre abhors a vacuum.  This aesthetic is scorched to the sound and abnegating imagery, most comparable to Akitsa (with all the stylistic adjustments that a thicker mother-tongue will bring), as the band cleanses the bright overtones of live recording through a lo-fi dub, plying the blackened depth not in symbolic production ala Burzum et al, but in the distance between this raw performance and its cynical dispersal, like white poison in the L.A. water supply.  Heavy cards and labeled tapes.

Husk cassette
$6
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It’s fitting that the latest from Detective Instinct, ‘The History of Headaches/American Novels’, should find a home at Third Uncle, who have been so good to preserve the Midwestern outsider weird-rock from which Trevor Pennsylvania and Human Adult Band evolved out of (as documented in their Third Uncle split with Jad Fair).  In fact, Jad Fair is one of the many contributors to this collaborative collection, along with Truman’s Water (!!), members of Radar Brothers, the Ex, and led by Oli Heffernan.  Coming out of central UK, Heffernan’s music distills the heart of Anglo low-fidelity, in like company with The Doozer and Pumice, as well as inspirational Americans like Eddie Callahan and King Missile, while taking this essential song-writing out of the bedroom and into as broad a field of musics as conceivable in rock music.  Heffernan has an embarrassing wealth of painlessly clever Vini Reilly pocket-melodies made from subtle synthesis, and highlights include the percolating pop and crackle of “Breakfast Rainbow”, the Slint-with-strings  “I Thought I Was Pregnant”, the devastating “I Will Try” (Gram Parsons x Baby Dee), and they’re pretty much all remarkable, particularly considering the essentially solo authorship of the project.  My personal favorite is the punky children’s story “Lore of the Lamb”, a brilliant tale of hegemony and pants-shitting, plowing an unknown strait from the post-punk of The Fall to the cyber-crunk of Die Antwoord.  On black vinyl with a heavy sleeve and download card.  Limited to just 200 copies.  Highest recommendation.

In a similar citation-heavy mode of album making, Human Adult Band fork over their first LP after celebrating a decade of existence.  “Influence” may be too deliberate a term for what’s demonstrated here as one doesn’t necessarily need to study the catalogs of the Buttholes to draw the same conclusions; yet the comparisons still hold and suggest if nothing else a kindred interest in sweating the same structural assumptions.  An inevitable reference for the band, “Off” is like the best of Hammerhead’s ‘Ethereal Killer’, and “Silver Violence” and “Econo Praxia” both fake a brooding stew before breaking into the fuzzed-over vocals and hypnotic buzz of Nirvana’s ‘Bleach’, with traces of Mudhoney, Shellac, Unsane.  These moments are many, and capture the band at their best – part revivalists, part stalwarts – but they attest to their cognizance through relatively odd-ball tracks like the roadhouse psychedelia of “The Shaker Pt. 1,” the Truman’s Water thrash of “Sixth Sense Incense on X-Mess,” or the Shimmy Disc fodder  “A Hole”.  Half-between these world, “Byron Lives” is like a mad-mash of discordant jangle, swirling noise, and workhorse percussion stifling a Chicagoan Pegboy/Vic Bondi non-sing (if I bothered to squint at the lyrics, I’d likely find it in tribute to Coley, or more likely Gysin, but surely not the Lord dandy).  There’s a coldness to the ‘Hearing Damage Sessions’ – marked by the tinny, trebly percussion and sagging wah of rhythm section –  comparable to the emergence of Unwound’s ‘New Plastic Ideas’, sounding like they switched drugs or gave them up altogether.  Here’s to another 10 years of keeping us guessing.  Recommended.  Edition of 500.  A co-release with Heat Retention records.

Third Uncle LPs
$15/$12
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Josh Lay and Morgan Rankin drop the latest from their Swamp Horse collaboration, recorded for their co-operated Husk Records.  The first of the Horse to appear on vinyl, ‘Subtle Dementia’ is an apt title for a record defining artistic autonomy.  From the cartoonish Rankin drawing on the cover – Crumb-edelic, doubling the absurdist vibe of the titling scheme – to the general absentee nature of this pair of dark ambient excerpts, these two are clearly their own closed circle.   Side B is familiar to previous works, with a scuzzy backdrop of well-turned murk and a shrieking, mechanistic wobble overneath.  But for the centerpiece and namesake, there’s an expansion to full-on horror, almost-schlock baroque slither; an Omen-era stalker of howling pseudo-choir and psychotic, three-chord repetition, the subtleties of this small sketch would be lost without the looking-glass frame of the 7” like a staring into a giant eyeball.  Yet in spite of the short run of just 100 copies, the disc is a sincere invitation to the likeminded.  The back cover holds endearing portrait: Lay a boss in his beard and Etnies, Rankin glowering from behind, unfortunately not showing off his Husk tattoo.  Bundled with a sticker and a punk patch, the guys definitely welcome initiates.  For all the idiosyncrasy and bleakness of their sound, there’s a real story here and real storytellers, making it easy to imagine the community is there for these guys.  On brown vinyl.

Husk 7”
$8
HERE

I know this is backwards, but it’s odd to name a project of music so media-heavy as Noise-anything after a central, sound-making component of that field, without being wholly constituted by that medium.  It’s comparable to bands like the Drums or the Microphones, neither of which hold these tools anywhere near central to their manifestation.  It would be very plausible to find a Noise project which is entirely made of melted cassettes – I think Lucas Crane has this angle pretty well hammered-down – yet Melted Cassettes are far more than that.  In fact, if there are melted cassettes anywhere to be found here, I’m at a loss to hear it.  Anyhow: no slight to Crane, and probably no slight to anyone else who makes a living recording the sound of melted tapes, but thank goodness these guys don’t because that seems like it would be real shitty.  Instead, ‘The Real Sounds From Hell Recordings’, the duo’s first full-length after a spate of (presumably intact) tapes, is a punchy, bent-over noise grind of 13 tracks in just over half an hour.  Think Twodeadsluts with clothes and a beat.  Comfortable with their own sense of rhythm, the pair of Warden and Turner borrow much from early Industrial music before the arrows marking the lane of the Noise fork were dried.  Electing for the bright colors of SPK sprayed atop the bray and clatter of Test Dept, they edit (and dress) like the Locust into an overly-mediated blast of hi-definition distortion, electronic confetti, and ennui.  The sounds are bold so the edges quaver, sharp that they blind, sizzling so the skin cracks.  Titles – “Retro Puppet Master,” “Shining Figures,” “Lor,” “Xzrzrz” – are merely placeholders and don’t mean a thing, despite the verbosity of the tracks and nearly decipherable lyrics.  The fact that they are so intent on singing provides just another layer of stress to these tantrums, which pretend to want to say something but refuse the civility to do it.  It’s an electrical fire, but a controlled burn.

Mind Flare Media CD
$10
HERE

Vast and meditative, the sequel to last year’s ‘Gremorian Chants’ makes good on what you figured Avgrunden was all into – Sunn, Sleep, Popol Vuh, Faust – while pushing this canon in additional (if hardly shocking) directions to swallow up some neighboring territories with smarts and aplomb.  Showing a progressive knack for krautisms which motivate the sound of ‘Den Fördömda Jorden’ to be tall as it is wide, the title track and “I De Förtorkade Benens Dal” (together totaling 30 minutes) both feature the band’s incarnation as a quartet in full-effect, making overt comparisons while blending twangy Earth drones into iron-clad Hawkwind stadium bangers.  Mainstay riffs ebb and flow with a deep tonic, percussion surges like a man in a box, leaving tiny dents on every surface, vibraphone tags along in a perpetual drizzle.  This is the spiritual core of the disc.  Yet there remains so much more the band wants to explore, and the composition of the album suggests all the ambition Victor Granat has to move this project further.  The first quarter-hour (“Norrsken”) reprises the celestial-sick doom riff of ‘Chants’: over an echo of nodding electrics, the rich saw like cello evokes Gareth Davis, DAAU, and the ubiquitous melodrama of a black metal “prologue”.  Conversely, the closing pairing of “Dödens Väntrum/Järtecken” amplifies a single, 20-minute storm of a riff into a bloozy ballad with a clean-strum waltz  around a saloon piano.  This construction of the tracks seems to fortify the central premise which the band guard from the listener like a gem or a spell, that is the brief (by comparison) central track, a dedication to Crazy Horse (both of them), a rare intersection of native-Americana as a simple chant/shanty, swirled in a heavy haze of sooty black drones in the foreground, and the cool cry of metal figures beyond the clearing.  Nestled within the intense repetition of the psych-stoner rock link, this vision of clarity re-grounds the entire enterprise in a tragic cry for ethics in song amidst the appeal of aesthetics, inversion, and dissociation.  The feud is hard fought, and has been for years.  For the historians, ‘Den Fördömda Jorden’ should be a notable campaign.  CDr comes in a water-colored paper sleeve.  Recommended.

self-released CDr
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“It’s better to burn out, then to fade away.” – Neil Young

I open this review of live cassette from a punk band, with a quote from my favorite hippie (and current spiritual guide) Neil Young. Why? It’s not just because Cobain’s suicide note (in which he quoted this line) looms large with the Nirvana anniversary bullshit taking over every record store on the planet, but rather because the song this lyrics is from (“My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue)”) is about punk, getting old, and the quality of rock and roll in a more general sense. Neil sings “The King is gone but not forgotten/This is a song about Johnny Rotten\It’s better to burn out then to rust” Now for a full explanation you gotta really understand, what Neil means about rust. In 1979 Neil told Mary Turner about Rust “ I can relate to ‘Rust Never Sleeps.’ [the album this tune is off of]…The longer I keep going, the longer I have to fight this corrosion” So while most have emphasized the spirit that neil speaks to in they lyric “it’s better to burn out than to fade away”, most forget about the song.  The song is ultimately about the subtle glacial drift of our spirit that comes inevitably with aging. The point for punks and about Cobain means this – there’s rust encroaching our youthful spirits, and we may fight it. Neil’s called this spirit “the burn”, and Neil would say about Cobain years later “When you see the way he [Cobain] was in those two performances, there’s no way he could ever get through the other end of it. Because there was no control to the burn. That’s why it was so intense… For me it works, because I’m different. It worked for me to stop playing really hard music and go the other way while I get my strength together, get my head back. Because if you run out of fuel – spirit and inspiration – then you’re just going’ through the motions. I think maybe that when he ran out of fuel, he through he was dead.” Punk has since it’s inception been about the burn, and we may choose to read Cobain’s death as ultimately one punk’s refusal to rust. Yet, while we may look at Cobain as punk’s last haunting cry of the futility of music, life, and ultimately punk I think Sudor (and some of the best bands in hardcore today) have rebuffed that story.

The point here is not that Sudor is not some harbinger of a “new wave” of “real punk” or that punk ever died (in fact there have alway been, and will always be punk band’s who either get it right, or get close to getting it right), but rather that the sonic quality of this tape points to what it was all about to begin with, and what happens once we give up on giving up.  The tape (I know… Finally) is a gritty recording of a live show. The tape opens with some glasses clanging, and some stuff in spanish that sounds like it’s about anarchy. The fuzz overtakes you soon, and you’re left with some pretty great classic d-beat (i.e. Discharge). This is straight up fast 1-2 punk, with an occasional plodding ripper that is more Grand Funk riffage, than Tragedy’s crust bird soaring. How is it musically? To be honest, it’s nothing particularly amazing. Yet, at their better moments, the band devolves – falling apart, through sheets of guitar solo noise, screaming, and pounding drums – and reflect something greater than just the chords. These moments occur more often, and better than most of the fucking garbage calling itself punk these days, but they are still fewer and farther between than I would like. To me, these moments have always been what Neil would call “the burn”.

As my introduction hinted at, the answer to the question of “Is it better to burn up than to fade away?”  is “Not really… its about controlling the burn.” Since Cobain, and Sid Vicious before him, people have always wondered about the longevity of punk. As a movement designed around a model of constant revolution that Jefferson would be proud of, it leaves little to hold onto. Some have chosen to live inside the burn (i.e. GG Allin, Cobain) and be consumed by it, while other’s have rejected that it can be maintained (i.e. Those who claim that “punk’s dead”).  This live tape, shows that burn can still be courted, and showcases it in its natural habitat – a live show. At moment’s you can feel utter abandon that comes from smashing a whole in your wall when you’re 15, or from punching your boss in the face. It’s that feeling, that burn that’s so dangerous and that ultimately appears from time to time. Yet, while Sudor have courted the fire, they have yet to live inside of it and musically integrate it.  Musically (what lies beneath the layer of fuzz) it plays pretty tried and true, for those who like classic UK 80‘s hardcore you’ll love this (myself included). But the tape showcases something that exists beyond the actual notation of the tunes – the moments of chaos the band hits are indicative of a dance with the devil. Unfortunately, the devil is still in control. He has been courted, but not mastered into submission. In short, he’s here to fuck you, and lose your number.

What makes this tape worth the buy, is that ultimately the burn is there at times. Considering that most people who involve themselves with punk (and noise for that matter) forgot (or never knew) what the burn sounded and felt like, this thing is probably one the best recordings to come out in recent years, and should serve as a reminder to both punks and noise kids alike. The intensity in musical choices both scenes focus on often make it so that we expect the burn, but for both scenes what I’ve called “the burn” is often confused with the more obvious qualities of “loud” and “offensive”. This tape provides an excellent reminder that neither of these are the same, or stable properties. The burn is often quick, catch it when you can. 

Review by Larry Funkhauser

Afeite Al Perro one-sided cassette
sold out
HERE

AWOL Dolby-droid Rex Marshall (Mattress) is back at it with half a platter for the very fine Field Hymns label, following his 2008 LP debut (which apparently passed us by), and in time for the vinyl reissue of his ‘Eldorado’ EP from way back when Animal Psi was still feral.  Very amenable to those six tracks are the six tracks of ‘Lonely Souls’: comparisons stand to the delivery of Ian Curtis (now a little lower and a lot slower) and Suicide (the soundscape all electronic and slightly screwed), now with more emphasis on beats and precision layers of textured low-end.  A pulsing rotary complements the quavering layer of woahwoahwoahwoooaah on “Lied Again.”  “Shake Me” is not some Happy Days barn-burner, but a blackened church-burner of Danzigian defiance (“you can’t shake shake shake/you can’t shake shake shake/you can’t shake shake shake/shake me loose”) with a sequence of jerky dollops.  Live drumming from Ethan Jayne on “Dead Ends” cribs the flakaflak intro to Faith No More’s “Midlife Crisis”, sounding something like a MIDI-fied Black Keys with its organ rhythms and laundry list of bellyachin.  Closer “Only Lonely Souls” loops us back around to Joy Division’s “Dead Souls”, though shot-through with a cosmic beams, souding more like “Transmission” with a half-rusted pogo-coil.  Worth its weight in Alternative radio references, Marshall’s obvious contribution to the broadcast will be “Forget My Name”: made of the same 4 or five layers of choice vibe, the harmonics align and the groove locks, forcing even Marshall into the upper registers, harmonizing with second vocal tracks, punctuated by little rivets of electronic foible and stomping percussion.  On imprinted red cassettes with glossy inserts, hand-numbered with a DL code.  Recommended! 

Field Hymns cassette
$6
HERE

Nick Hoffman and Stephen Holliger present their fourth release of “basement electronics” as Veyou.  Continuing their concréte method of recording live to tape, the pair capture as much lucky sympathy as cluttered garble in this processual image.  At 30 minutes, the single track of ‘Swamp Hag’ is thrice the length of their last release, and unlike the parsimony of ‘Carcass in the Mist’, ‘Hag’ takes a mud/wall approach: in the cavernous howl of the recording space, we can feel the movement of the players as they grope from source to source evoking musty calliopes, spaceships, and early Robedoorian clouds, hanging low in the dark tombs.  Even without skipping the breaks along this sound spectrum are obvious, arguing a bit of editorial snipping is in order to emphasis the 5ish minute stretches of real greatness (circa 3:20, 11:11, 20:05).  Self-contained in basement, yet unbottled as noise, the pair fill the sonic room with great resonance and casual movement like there’s just the right draft breathing through.  But if they desire more than to repeat the life of Buried Valley, Veyou will need to show us what’s outside the basement – even if they keep us locked inside.  50 copies pegged to paper inserts with glitter paint.

Pilgrim Talk CDr
$6
HERE

Christopher Payne’s latest LP ‘Dog Rose Gall’ takes his achy act as Whitman to a number of new places in the old suburban ghost-towns he’s mythologized over the years.  Following the last long-former ‘White Sunrise’, Payne has moved away from those structural coordinates which tethered him to “folk” as either prefix or postfix, rather following the media of instrumental diversity to define the airy ennui of his weightless song style.  With support from local veterans of Gowns, Clark 8, XBXRX, Evangelista, and more, the disc is populated by trumpet, dulcimer, and Carla Bozulich, as much as Payne.  “Economy Inn” would all but disappear without the stalking step of cello and buzz of viola around the crumbling ceiling; “Exactly What We Wanted,” Payne’s reminiscence of coupling would settle like a stone into depression were it not for the buoyant plumb of double bass; and “Give Up” is merely nervous rambling in anticipation of the electrified crests of strings which crack the surface of the recording like a multi-hued burst of light.  That is of course willfully ignoring the austere wonder of Payne’s stories (and even more egregiously, the tremendous punctuation to end the album, the tragic “For Lisa, 1998”), his humble voice and guitar which duck past so much pomp and circumstance to just speak without need or want.  With numerous similarities to the brilliance of Hannah Marcus (locally, textually, thematically, collaboratively), it seems Payne has really located himself – and this is nothing but complimentary – as a poet with musician friends.  Pro discs come in chipboard folders.  Recommended.

Folktale CD/LP
$12/14
HERE