SEPTEMBER 2020

Cyanide Tooth - Midnight Climax Operation [Ever/Never]
You’ve been living through a nightmare all year long but if you’re still thirsty for more, cue up Cyanide Tooth’s long-awaited follow up to 2014’s The Whole Tooth & Nothing But... CT might share Holy Molar’s taste in puns but this is no early 00s San Diego spazz-core revival. This is dense, conscience-collapsing gloom. The central reference point is industrial music—back when it was industrial music and not the Industrial Music Complex. There’s grisly throbs and surely a buddy-buddy relationship with Dada. Employing decimated drum machines, constant signal overload and just generally plugging things into the wrong holes, Midnight Climax Operation is an ugly piece of work. A tape only a deeply psychotic mother could love.

Approaches run the gamut from jackhammer on the eardrum (“Press the Mesh”), extended musique concrète composition (the title track), fucked-in-the-head poetry (“Headline/Heartline”) and magnetic and electronic signal manipulation that will literally teach you a thing or two about heartburn (“Heartburn”). The title track fills the b-side for a 25 minute long and surprisingly gentle punch in the stomach and that’s where Cyanide Tooth sounds most at home without betraying the claustrophobia embedded in the oxide. It’s a truly tweaked and kaleidoscopic journey of audio grit and grime. 

Just when you think you’ve hit the noise floor, Midnight Climax Operation reminds you there’s no bottom.

Embarker - Jetta and the Mountain [Send Help]
When the handsomely wrapped Jetta and the Mountain arrived I had no idea that M. Barker had pivoted from Philly noise malingerer to author of children's books on tape. Jetta and the Mountain certainly sounds like a fable from a 21st century Aesop. Definitely a better career move because noise tapes aren’t paying the bills like they used to. I was happy for him. Then I listened and realized that, nope, it’s the same old Embarker. Good for me, bad for the kids. 

Jetta continues an ever so slight softening of the Embarker stance. It’s been 12 years since the earful of white hot needles contained in the self-titled LP, which has endured as one of AuxOut’s preferred harsh platters. Like the past two cassettes, Jetta wades into more tranced out waters. No one will accuse Barker of being genteel in his approach but Jetta offers just two savage synapse-busting freakouts (“Speed Merchant” and “Settle Back Easy Jim”) giving way to slightly mellower offerings the rest of the way. The frequencies are still over amplified but you can put your feet up and relax to them. Or at least I can in my sleep-deprived state. 

Barker sounds like he has a future career in scoring artsy crime thrillers on the extended piece “Your Dreams Come Through” expertly quickening pulses and heightening tension. Even when he eschews the trademark percussive Thump und Drang of “Is this Acid Bro?” things don’t sound so sweet; “Bliss Work” and the title track work up thick atmospheric clouds of poison gas. No hippy dippy horseshit here, even in the “quiet” moments. That said, a choir of tape machines with slack belts provides a pleasant if unsettled interlude on “Point Significance”. Is that the most tender, cuddly Embarker moment yet? I think so. Maybe those children’s stories aren’t so far off after all.

ISS - Too Punk for Heavy Metal [Total Punk]
I fully subscribe to the notion that ISS are the 21st century’s first and only punk band. They’ve put out three of the best records to arrive in the last five years ((Endless Pussyfooting), the self-titled EP and last year’s Alles 3rd Gut) and this single isn’t quite that good. Still, I can’t think of a better band to grace the grooves of Total Punk’s final 7” single. (Side note: Total Punk abandoning the 7” is a tough blow to the endangered format. I hope their disappearance isn’t inevitable; not sure why they’ve gotten so expensive to press and ever-rising postal rates hurt too. Still, it’d be a damn shame to see the format fade away. Guess I need to do my part and buy more 7”s.)

Following the tried and true bite-the-hand-that-feeds strategy, ISS address “Too Punk for Heavy Metal” directly to Total Punk/Florida’s Dying head honcho, Rich Evans, hilariously ribbing the handstamped Total Punk M.O. Just another in their long line of scene-skewering masterpieces. The tune details being ignored various times by Rich—ostensibly early in ISS’s tenure—before he asked them to do a Total Punk single, when ISS, the facetiously introspective lads that they are, had to ask if Total Punk truly deserved ISS after such ill-treatment?

You can read the lyrics in their entirety on the front cover but the choice-est passage for me is “Suppose I am a Total Punk? With one of those contracts signed in blood? One that says I gotta write a song about a garbage dump? I’m sunk”. Anchored by a 3-note bass riff, the track is a bit different than the usual ISS approach, heavily emphasizing the groove and wallowing in a minimalist mid-tempo lurch. It’s definitely designed to showcase the lyrics but that doesn’t mean they can’t work in a killer guitar lead and they sure do. 

The B-side is billed as two tunes but in reality it’s a single minute long song. It’s good too, but only three minutes of new ISS material leaves my stomach growling. (Keep that record flippin’) It’s not like I’m complaining though. ISS has a knack for getting their songs to permanently live inside my head and “Too Punk for Heavy Metal” is no exception. I actually had a dream where I watched a hand-drawn A-ha-esque music video for the song (though that dream might have been more appropriate for Puffy Areolas’ “Lutzko Lives!”). 

Am I really sure the world deserves ISS? I’m not. But I’ll keep buying their records as long as they make ‘em.

Maximum Ernst - Bring Your Own Pencap [Ever/Never]
A manic who’s-who duo of NYC underground scuzz, Maximum Ernst is Ever/Never’s art-scum empire overlord Josh Gordon on guitar and, the man of a thousand FCC violations, WFMU “radio personality” Creamo Coyle on drums. While the duo is often seen in freak-jazz mode alongside wind-whipping legend Daniel Carter, Bring Your Own Pencap brings their own unadulterated huff ‘n puff chugjam steez directly into your walkman.

Fidelity challenged and mostly wordless, these guys know their audience. Side B hits a nice plateau, sounding like Sightings with no limbs at their disposal before turning classic rock with a fuzzy little number on your El Camino’s AM radio. Reminds me of the echoes of Back Magic’s dingy Indiana basement but recorded in a moldy NYC locale that’s surely 10x more expensive. I love livin’ in the city.

Maximum Ernst - Time Delay Safe [Ever/Never]
What’s that you say? You still want more Ernst? Well here I am to deliver Maximum Ernst. In advance of their vinyl debut this fall, NYC’s most popular music duo dropped this little tape Time Delay Safe and if that isn’t the name of a boutique guitar pedal, it will be now! 

TDS is a total about face from their previous tape Pencap, as well as their work with Daniel Carter; it sounds like a completely different band. They’ve traded in elastic thwacks for the metronomic precision of drum machines and freewheeling feedback for heavy signal processing. The side long opening track “Signal Thru Flames” is a heady meditation on abusing tape of human speech over skittering drum patterns and lunging sub-oscillator notes. By the second half of the track, Maxi has gotten fidgety and tired of the reverie and the noise starts invading, peaking filters and in-the-red gain boosts overtaking the composition.

I’m partial to the tape’s second side myself, with the pick of the litter being the kosmische vibes of “Orb-like”. Best use of drum machine on the tape with a distorted 1/8th note hi-hat setting the pace with some kick and wood block providing accents. Spread on a few layers of swirling synthesizer and you’re in an instant trance. Wisely the duo keep things pretty static before subtly introducing harmonic variations in the home stretch. “Glass Enclosure” feels a bit like part two of “Orb-like” ditching the drum machine and coasting on cresting waves of toasty synth.

Time Delay Safe is so radically different from Maximum Ernst’s previous work, I’m wondering what’s next? Proto-reggaeton club jams? If the current trajectory holds, I can’t imagine it will sound anything like Time Delay Safe. 

Kevin McKay - Neutral Mind [Cudighi]
Just like the cudighi sandwich, Kevin McKay makes his nest in the state of Michigan. The frigid temperatures must be at work in McKay’s neutral mind because he loaded up this dual-spooler with some icy pop. Neutral Mind largely sounds to me like a curious infusion of two very popular British bands that I have never really thought about in combination before. Belle & Sebastian and Radiohead. 

“Material” kicks off the tape with a blast of jangly pop that could be placed anywhere from C86 to the first two Belle & Sebastian LPs but with a certain glacial production value all its own. It’s my favorite due much in part to its driving nature and on-point rhythm section. McKay’s intonation is strikingly similar to Stu Murdoch’s and feels perfectly at home on “Material”. As Neutral Mind ventures forth it gets moodier, glassy-eyed, taking on a bit of a relaxed post-rock vibe. So if you’ve ever longed for a post-rock Belle & Seb, your wish has been granted.

Now I also mentioned Radiohead and to McKay’s credit he is not attempting to imitate Radiohead (always a terrible decision) but there’s something about the fey, drawn out syllables over chilly, processed tones that calls to mind Yorke & Co. One Radiohead is already more than enough Radiohead for me (I write this with complete awareness that this is the minority position) so I certainly gravitate to the more uptempo numbers like “Headspace”, “Pattern Maker” and “Ligature” over more extended cuts like “System”.

Overall, this type of sound is a less-is-more situation for me, 20-25 minutes is probably optimum and Neutral Mind runs twice that. There’s some variation from track to track but the tape largely has the same pallor across its duration. Your mileage may vary on that point though. If you hear one track and love it, definitely buy the tape because you’ll love the whole damn thing.

Mosquitoes - Minus Objects [Ever/Never]
If this UK avant-rock combo set out to name themselves after the worst species ever created, they succeeded. I’m currently suffering from an S.I.A. (swelling itching ankle) and I will never forgive the mosquito who caused it. Mosquitoes might be God’s sick joke on the human race but Minus Objects is emphatically not. 

This is my first proper introduction to Mosquitoes. I've seen warm internet ink spilled on their behalf and heard one or two tracks on radio shows, but there ain’t nothing like the real thing baby. From the looks of it, their releases actually sell out which is a hell of a trick to pull in this day and age. 

The whole affair is terribly mysterious with nothing more than the artist name, title and label insignia adorning the black-all-over package. They take on the elements of conventional rock instrumentation (guitar/bass/drums/voice) and then fool you into believing you aren’t hearing any of those things. Mosquitoes are certainly filling the vacuum left by Sightings (thank you!) but actually they aren't all that close to the famed NYC combo (at least not on this record). This 12” is more monastic, more out, even running far from the rock & roll precedent of turning up your amp loud. You might be hearing didgeridoos, you might be hearing Gregorian chants, you might be hearing any number of untraceable sounds. Lotsa bass, lotsa space but the ‘Skeeters don’t belabor any of their ideas. Nine tracks at 45 rpm for 25 minutes, just lovely—I’ll continue to holler from the rooftops to any artist that will listen: “Keep your releases short. Everyone benefits.” (Found a promo code and I’m ordering bumper stickers as we speak.)

At times, Minus Objects evokes a US Maple 45 played at 33 rpm and the more bands there are in the world that remind me of US Maple, even in such an oblique way as this, the better. Although the last track has a proper chord strum and cymbal crash, it’s honestly a stretch to categorize this as “rock” in any way, and that’s certainly not a criticism. The next evolution of avant-garde rock & roll has arrived and it’s these bloodsuckers. I’m now adding every previous Mosquitoes release to my discogs wantlist. Wish me luck.

Private Anarchy - Central Planning [Round Bale]
A midwestern art-punk record called Central Planning sounds like it’s the new Tyvek album I’ve been waiting ages for (will it ever come?) but, in fact, it is the debut LP by Private Anarchy a.k.a. Clay Kolbinger who has traversed many stranger climes with the likes of Davenport and the underground’s true MBV: Maths Balance Volumes. I’ve always thought MBV is at their best when they meld splintered pop/blues/rock structure with their witchy brew of gnarled tape such as “Roofbeams” on the Lower Forms LP and their cassettes on Taped Sounds and Bum Tapes (“Tried to Make a Call” is a bonafide pop smash). To Kolbinger’s credit, his own Private Anarchy is a much different animal (not that I wouldn’t love a full LP of slosh-pop from MBV… hint.)

Central Planning is a different animal and a strange one too. Oftentimes, it sounds as if there’s no chords, barely any distortion and the bass is just as likely to carry the melody as the guitar. Kolbinger has a penchant to mold Mobius strip-like riffs that cycle in strange, serpentine ways. They manage to be catchy despite sounding deliberately evasive. A little early 00s Dischord comes to mind in terms of the sound of the record (like maybe Fugazi on its deathbed or parts of the second Q and Not U album) and I have to imagine the minimalism of Wire is firmly nestled in Kolbinger’s mind. Still, it’s hard to pin down any exact reference points, which is always the best compliment to give a rock record. 

Whether it’s the sputtering earworm “Man in Shards” or slack strummer “Misery Switch”, the LP finds a way under your skin seemingly without breaking a sweat. Kolbinger’s connection to Graham Lambkin and Kye records is on display in “Accumulation” which sounds delightfully indebted to Lambkin’s and Adris Hoyos’s schizophrenic, whispering masterpiece The Rise of Elklink. Nailing those left turns into dead ends is what really makes skewed rock albums take flight and, predictably, Kolbinger has that part on lock.

Throughout Central Planning, it’s clear Kolbinger has stumbled onto—or perhaps worked fastidiously toward, as the 135 labor hours listed on the back cover suggest—a sound all his own. I feel like this LP is just the first thread pulled and there’s heaps more Private Anarchy for Kolbinger to unravel—I hope Kolbinger feels the same.

(I don’t really include artwork as part of a record’s value but I do appreciate the thoroughly novel cover art on display.)

AUGUST 2020

Whoa... this is the first post since the pandemic-fueled lockdown here in LA. My family has been very fortunate; we are healthy and still have jobs but my wife and I have been working full time (in her case, more than full time) while also taking care of our ever-active one year old daughter full-time at home. All in all, we're very thankful to be in the position we're in compared to the desperate circumstances that have beset so many people. That said, it's been nearly impossible to find spare time (and, more importantly, energy) to allocate to thinking and writing about music. I've got a pair of very interesting LPs I've spent some time with over the past several months for today's post and then going forward I'm going to try switching to a quick-hitter format with short blurbs on releases. I'll try to corral my loquacious tendencies in order to get some kind of briefer AuxOut content out into the world, most likely in irregular intervals but hopefully much more often. Thanks to any and all who read the site, I hope you are staying healthy and enjoying music every day.

Benjamin Dean Wilson - The Smartest Person in the Room [Works of Love]

I’ve been wrestling for months with how to accurately describe The Smartest Person in the Room, the sophomore effort from Benjamin Dean Wilson, Tulsa’s turtlenecked troubadour of note. On one hand, it doesn’t sound like anything radical but on the other, it’s quietly the most ambitious album I’ve heard in that hazy bullshit genre we call “singer-songwriter” in some years.

The record’s release has a perfect story for some future rock-doc: Cincinnati’s Works of Love is a record label established by novelist Luke Geddes who used part of his book advance to start the label (badass) and serendipitously came across Wilson’s debut LP while browsing eBay listings for Jonathan Richman records. An impulse purchase led to Geddes falling in love with Wilson’s music and offering to make his follow up the inaugural release on Works of Love.  

Wilson’s reedy vocals, somewhere between David Berman and the tinny tenor of James Taylor’s voice, belie the density of The Smartest Person in the Room. It’s verbally dense (the word count for each song must be stratospheric) with tastefully orchestrated arrangements that can keep up with the cavalcade of vocabulary. There are so many blink-and-you-miss-’em melodic nuggets crammed into this record that it’s far too overwhelming to try to capture them in this review. However, one of the keys to Wilson’s production is that, despite the wide array of instrumentation—we’re talking guitars, bass, drums, piano, viola, organ, synth, multiple male and female voices and more, he maintains a very spacious, naturalistic atmosphere for the album. 

To call Wilson’s tracks merely “songs” is almost a disservice as they are long, winding narratives of quotidian snark with ever shifting arrangements for each act. The Smartest Person in the Room feels like a collection of short stories nearly as much as it feels like a record. With songs usually unfurling to 7-10 minutes in length, Wilson often ignores verse-chorus convention opting for constantly evolving movements. Probably too literary to classify as pocket symphonies but structurally there’s a symphonic element at the core of these songs. Clocking in at just four minutes, “Ridgemore Hotel” sticks closest to typical pop song format but even that’s chock full of little key shifts and detours.

Positioning the title track as the opener is a smart choice by the smartest person in the room as it's the most immediately hooky (I was singing the ambling “I come from a family full of idiots” chorus to myself after a single listen) and nestles into a comfortable middle ground between Wilson’s firm grasp on pop songwriting and his more grandiose gestures that arrive in short order. The rest of the album ranges from the beautiful chamber music vignettes of “Mr. Paranoid, Lizzy, and Her Family”, the ten-minute finale of “Vitamin Supplements”, an amusing epic of con games and rackets, and “A Difficult Decision for Ronny Giovanni”, a comical minor key funk tune about the modern day descendant of Don Giovanni.

Wilson’s best work comes on “Won’t Say It Again...” a wry, disturbing portrait of an immature (and deranged) schmuck who can’t fucking deal with being separated from his ex-wife, all the while proving exactly why she’s better off without him. The song winds through the narrator’s bizarre stream of conscious including how butchering a deer reminds him of his ex-wife, straining to live in a movie flashback of his life and, ultimately, in a final unnerving kissoff, the resolution to hold his feelings inside and give his ex-wife’s address to a local serial killer. It might be Wilson’s best work as an arranger as well, finding various combinations of timbres to underscore the fluctuating tone from segment to segment, including an unexpected, hummable harmonica-led conclusion.

As alluded to, The Smartest Person in the Room is a dense record and after many listens I still notice new lyrical and aural details in every song each time it’s on the turntable. Wilson is truly doing his own thing; his peculiar voice (literally and figuratively) stands out from the leagues of forgettable singer-songwriters out there and that is so goddamn refreshing. Thank you.

The Shifters - The Shifters [Digital Regress]

Melbourne’s The Shifters' boastful, pie-in-the-sky online dating profile would describe themselves as Desperate Bicycles-meets-The Raincoats-meets-The Fall. This sounds like the best band that ever existed, certainly on par with using an eight-year-old profile pic. Except, in this instance, it's actually pretty true. The other reference point is mid-80s Flying Nun, think pre-Terminals bands like Scorched Earth Policy and The Max Block. If DigiRegress had pulled the wool and said The Shifters’ debut was a reissue of a cassette from 35 years ago rather than five (the truth), I'd be inclined to believe them. This LP miraculously sounds like it came from that era, one of the best in history, and I desperately want to know how this feat was managed. 

So The Shifters sounds like a million, but what about the songs? Well, they’re pretty fucking impressive too. Eight killer songs with no filler in sight. Each one is a hook-laden, instant-classic in its own way. The first two tracks “Creggan Shops” and “Captain Hindsight” made it as the A- and B-sides of a single in 2016 and it’s easy to see why. “Creggan Shops” seems like The Shifters’s mission statement if there ever was one. It’s got the fixation on areas of colonial strife, in this case Ireland, (songs “Algeria” and “Tel Aviv” appear later on the side) evoking brutal images of kneecapping alongside clever esoteric puns (“R.U.C. again and now you don’t”), over a scrappy brew of stepping guitar riffs and melodica wheeze. “Captain Hindsight”, alternately, breaks into an utterly gorgeous violin melody over murmuring bass and needly guitar thrums. The band ratchets up the tension on “Algeria” with a descending four-note bass line and thumping tom pattern. Vocalist/lyricist/guitarist Miles Jansen is impeccable on the mic and his sloshed Aussie accent sounds more on edge than usual here.

VU’s “Heroin” has many, many great grandchildren by now and The Shifters add another to the litter with “The American Attitude to Law”, working the extended two-chord format into their own style while singing about sliced achilles tendons, suing the internet and namechecking YouTube to timestamp it in the 21st century. “Benedictine Man” must be about Benedictine monks, I can only assume given Jansen’s historical proclivities, and it showcases the catchiest chorus on the record (you will be hollering “He was a Benedictine man!” in no time) with dual guitar riffs to match. The country-fried “Colour Me In” has a strong whiff of The Statler Brothers’ “Flowers on the Wall” without actually sounding like it and if “Algeria” seemed intense, the band really gets their blood pumping on “Stuck in the Middle” about as full-throttle as the ragtag group gets on the album.

In addition to the quality of the songwriting, the performances are perfect across the board. Drummer Ryan Coffey isn’t afraid to ignore his cymbals and even his snare occasionally giving each song a fresh rhythmic center while the two guitars and bass expertly intertwine loose, twangy single note lines maintaining space and allowing each other to stand out at different points. Angus McLean is The Shifters’ secret weapon playing both violin and melodica, wringing out all manners of lyrical melodies, rhythmic plucks and occasionally sawing skronk. If the rest of the band is the bones, he’s the flesh “colouring” the band in.

I remember seeing The Shifters tape pop up on several best of the 2010s lists which inspired this purchase and, for once, the lists were right! Do I have a new favorite band? I just might!

Much gratitude to Digital Regress for bringing this gem stateside. Right now DR is having a moving sale (20% off everything) so you can grab The Shifters along with other sweet Antipodean (and American) sounds for some low, low prices. Buy it.

FEBRUARY 2020

TV dinner Education - Nya Perspektiv [Cudighi]
I'd never heard of TV dinner Education before and the little bit I saw about them described the duo as a psychedelic band. I dig psychedelia but I was thrilled when I listened and realized this band is so much more. TV dinner Education is a duo of Loti Solovitsky contributing voice, drums, FX and tapes and Julesy Bejbi presiding over prepared toy guitar and tapes. Though it might not be readily apparent by that list of instruments, there are some strong strains of mutant disco and the more affable (yet avant-garde) areas of no wave and its latter day acolytes.

There's also a hearty dose of bizarre sonic emulsification, which they stick right up front ("Dyslectic Clam: A"). I love hearing a band kick off a record with their weirdest track; it's a heavy duty power move that gets you excited for what's to come. "Clam" is a five minute clatter and scrape fest that falls somewhere between sloooooooow-motion Brian Ruryk and the weirder parts of the Sightings discography. What a way to start! TV dinner Education then immediately juxtapose the power trip with the contagious simplicity of "Easy Busy". There's certainly a dub vibe to it, and an adventurous hip hop producer could sample the shit out of it and make a really hot beat.

"Easy Busy" conjures visions of a pared down Gang Gang Dance, stripping away the polyrhythmia down to the heart of the groove. This continues on "Excellent Choice" which immediately leaps out as a favorite (excellent choice!) after a tumultuous middle section freakout the duo lock into a strangely captivating guitar/drum pattern. Elsewhere on the tape, you hear the voice of an evil spirit luring you into a deep dark forest ("Little Birds") as well as a throwback bassline ("External Borders") that recalls the brief era in the 90s where you could find success being in a funk-metal band. What a time...

Nya Perspektiv is chock full of invigorating sounds and TV dinner Education achieve the rare feat of pumping out grooves without sacrificing a lick of their abrasive aberrance. Check this crew out!

Woollen Kits - Maths [R.I.P. Society]
I have a Kits LP which is solid, heavily channeling Beat Happening replete with the Australian version of Calvin Johnson on the mic. I liked it enough to grab this 7" platter at the local shop and I'm so glad I did.

Roaring like an amped up, totally punk Beat Happening, "Maths" is a straight up banger with the kind of ascending/descending riff you'll be replaying endlessly in your nog while you fall asleep and it will still be there when you wake up. A tad surf-y, with plenty of fuzz, it's rock & roll bliss plain and simple. The singer's voice is so deep it gets a little lost in the lo-fi slop and it would have been nice to have a voice that could cut through a bit but that's a minor gripe for a tune this bulletproof.

"Out of Town" is a better fit for his voice. It's a bit burlier and the playful, sing-songy quality of the melody of "Maths" is absent here. The monotone voice is met with a chunky two-chord riff and the perfect couple is all each other ever wanted in a mate. Now who can explain this extra "L" in Woollen? An Aussie thing or are they just trying to add some edge like Jaill?

Saint Black - Saint Black [Semi-Permanent]
This self-titled full-length from New Jersey's Saint Black arrived in my mailbox at the perfect time. Lots of early Dead C, early Smog (there's a track here called "Down to the Sky" which doesn't fall too far from "Sewn to the Sky" hmm...), Sentridoh, Stefan Christensen and Sacred Product have been on the turntable of late and the black Saint is surely trying to continue music history in that home-recorded trajectory.

Saint Black is lo-fi. Not lo-fi in the sense of conventional sounds on a meager budget, but lo-fi in the sense of packing his songs with all kinds of weird shit that you'd end up murdered for if you put it on a studio pop record. You can hear the hiss, so Saint Black rightly left the noise reduction switch in its off position on his four track. "Saint Body" is the weirdest moment with some strange out of place sounds littering the stereo spectrum. The song sounds like it was recorded standing next to a pneumatic paint shaker, and if that wasn't enough, someone starts banging on the door in the left channel out of nowhere at one point.

With a voice reminiscent of a Charlie McAlister-Calvin Johnson lovechild (this is an inordinate amount of Calvin Johnson mentions today) that kinda sets the scene for the style of these songs. Mid-tempo, drawn-out vowels, mundane yet quirky lyrics. You can certainly hear a Beat Happening vibe lurking in "What Passes for Gas?" and there's a self-ascribed "pacific northeast" tag on Bandcamp making me wonder if that's a knowing nod to the sounds of Olympia. Saint Black recalls another Pacific Northwest staple on "Full Cuck Press" which has a touch of the early A Frames sound when their finely honed cyborg rock was in its fuzzy embryonic stages

The record kicks off with a pair of highlights, the 25 second "I'm Tender" and the hit of the album "Touch No Evil" arrives afterward with an instantly hummable melody that's slowly papered over with all sorts of audio gunk. That's the one finds it way creeping into my mind unannounced. "Saint Vacation" shows that, when he wants to, he can play things straight and deliver a very nice low key pop number even if he can't help himself from abruptly sheering the track off at the stem with a harsh tape edit.

The Saint generally keeps things short (right move!) aside from the four and a half minute plaintive declaration of love, "Alex", which is nice but would gain potency in a slimmer frame. A couple of the tracks ("Laugh or Puke" and "Breed Concept") don't make much of an impression and unfortunately they arrive back to back, but Saint Black is onto something and, considering this is his first album, I'm really curious to hear where he goes from here and how he develops as a songwriter going forward. He's not afraid to wear his idiosyncrasies on his tape and that quality gets more refreshing by the year.

St. Dad - Do as I Say Not What I Do [no label]
Speaking of saints, I have the perfect segway to this month's baby/parent-themed review! It's the 10th anniversary of this parenting manual Do as I Say Not What I Do and by now St. Dad should be mentioned in the same breath as Dr. Spock right? Well... maybe not. These guys sound like they're 17 tops, but hey the world is probably full of 17 year old dads so who am I to judge? They hailed from somewhere in Florida but to my palette they have a bit of that Clevo nutwad flavor, like a truly dumb electric eels or, more recently, the brilliantly dumb Bad Noids.

They're probably not the best guys to be taking parenting advice from but they manage to get one or two things right on "Jobs and Junk" with observations like "Everybody's doing it/Jobs and junk" and "Pour another cup of coffee/Down my throat" because, man, dads get tired, especially at work.

The record sounds positively wretched which is right in my wheelhouse and, to be fair, the band is surprisingly tight and melodic but with a wild-eyed neighborhood tough like Gustavo on the mic, St. Dad takes on the same fly-off-the-handle character. His hyper-nasal, generally unintelligible sneer 'n whine is the EP's defining quality. Quite handily, the Dads offer up their lyrics scrawled slightly more intelligibly in a booklet. Without it, I probably wouldn't have realized the record ends with the immortal couplet "I've cut my own head off/Now I'm blind". These are some maladjusted lads, writing songs about selling their grandma on eBay and disturbingly, but fittingly, they save their catchiest riffs for their saddest track "The Unwanted Child".

The sleeve with a lovely multi-colored screenprint job is curiously professional looking, how'd that happen? Do these guys have a well-adjusted older sister or kindly aunt looking out for them? It's a  curious discrepancy that only adds to St. Dad's mystique.

JANUARY 2020

Lithics - Wendy Kraemer EP [Moone]
From time to time, I come across the new-paradigm music chat including the whole “what’s the point of record labels nowadays?” thing. In my opinion, it’s not an argument worth having because the philosophy that motivates such a question values recorded music in an enormously different way than it has been throughout its history.

Perhaps hiring a PR company to help get you social media followers and a place on a Spotify playlist is a more effective way to play a tent at Coachella. Perhaps us record buyers are just a forest of trees waiting to be wiped out by a streaming tidal wave. (But let it be known that we are having a hell of a lot of fun listening to our stereos while we wait.)

An artist creates and a label curates and both qualities are necessary and important to music lovers. Most music is bad, and there is more bad music being "released" than ever before. Entering the fourth decade of the online era, labels may be less important for the infrastructure they provide (though I don't necessarily agree with this) but far more important for the curatorial work they do. Releasing records (and tapes and CDs) is expensive and labor-intensive. The fact that a record exists means that somebody truly loves it and believes in it so much that they think others will love it too, and consequently assumes the risk that others won't.

This release, an EP titled Wendy Kraemer by Portland, OR’s Lithics, is a case in point as to why I love record labels (keep in mind I’m not talking about media conglomerates). Wendy Kraemer was first a tour tape thrown together by the band in 2017, consisting of home recorded demos and outtakes and was likely destined for ephemeral status as little magnetic mementos for a clutch of Lithics fans. But Moone Records, obviously one of those Lithics fans, loved that tape so much that it felt compelled to put hundreds of copies out on 12 inches of 45rpm vinyl. Being a record label goes beyond merely sharing your obsession but also trying to create an obsession for someone else (or with any luck, many people)—to make your obsessions become other people’s obsessions.

Lithics are rooted in the late 70s/early 80s; such as the sinewy sounds of Wire, Au Pairs, and various no wave acts but filtered through the placid minimalism of Young Marble Giants and the decade's oncoming development of indie pop. There's a lot of energy lurking in Lithics tunes but they keep it tightly bundled under Aubrey Hornor's stiff-lipped, somewhat somnolent voice. Lithics are chock full of potential energy, if you can remember your high school physics class. There is an anxious precision to Lithics’ songwriting and performance which creates a compelling contrast with the sketchbook nature of Wendy Kraemer. There are no song titles or a track listing given, and each side of the record is unbanded. Moone really labored to preserve the original tape experience (e.g. no skipping tracks) which is another idiosyncratic move that contributes to the unique vibe of the record.

The first side features tight bass lines and geometric patterned melodies you'd expect from Lithics but you also get some flutish feedback breaths over jazz drumming, unidentifiable musique concrète handheld sound collage and what sounds like a recording of playback of a practice session recording. My favorite moment in Wendy Kraemer arrives during the first side with a great little tune featuring multi-tracked vocals and two guitars, one being a normal sounding electric guitar and the other sounding like unamplified electric guitar like they aimed a microphone at the bridge or maybe duct-taped a contact mic between the pickups. The bass is so locked in that it wasn't until the track ended that it dawned on me there were no drums present. It's an unusual approach yet the result is easily identifiable as a Lithics tune.

This is the first Lithics record I've heard but I do recognize a couple songs on Side B having heard them on various radio shows. The second side mostly eschews the patchwork nature of the first for straightforward demos, and really good sounding demos at that. Their most recognizable song “Edible Door” (or recognizable to me since I can recall the name) appears here in less polished form but no less tight with the bands nervy chops on full display. (I might even prefer this version.) These guys must practice a lot, Wendy Kraemer often doesn’t have the typical feel of the homemade sloppy, mistake-laden rough draft that these types of releases usually amount to. They’re like those bothersome students that bring in their rough drafts to peer review groups and could already get an A turning the paper in as is.

The first song on Side B sounds great, bristling with jagged riffs tied together with a stealthily infectious vocal hook. Oddly enough the following song reminds me of Kate Bush's "Under Ice" despite being a completely different kind of arrangement (one with an odd mechanical sounding kick drum). The end of the side slips into more jammy territory and muffled vocals before fittingly concluding with the sound of a cassette being rewound.

In a rare event that will surely never happen again, I am actually posting this review before the record has been released. Wendy Kraemer is officially being released next Friday, February 7th but it's already available for pre-order on the Moone website.

Jacken Elswyth/Alula Down - Betwixt & Between 5 [Betwixt & Between]
I previously reviewed the fourth installment of Betwixt & Between, an ongoing split series by banjoist Jacken Elswyth where he pairs a different artist with his own work each time out. Elswyth's side was quite enjoyable and Quinie's side really got my jaw dropping so I was eager to hear what sounds lie in wait on the next installment.

As usual Elswyth kicks things off, here with three tracks. Opener "Sweet Lemeny" begins in a bit of a raga-inspired mood backed with a persistent harmonium drone before morphing into frenetic Fahey-isms in the track's second half. Elswyth's choice of instrument, clawhammer banjo if I recall, allows him to work in these established modes but introduce a new take on them. The bright, percussive timbre of the banjo produces an entirely different feeling than we've come to expect with these approaches to music making. "Improvisation for Banjo (22.4)" features fierce, speedy fingerpicking and is certainly the most wild-eyed of the bunch. My favorite moment of Elswyth's material comes near the end, where it sounds like he perhaps grabbed a bow and raked on the strings without missing a beat before concluding the piece. Its jagged coruscation is an unexpected thrill and the piece is richer for it.

Consonant and pleasing to the ear, the final piece "Last Chance Set" is vibrantly active and brimming with adventure; it would be a treat to hear it soundtrack pretty much any movie that's ever been made about Appalachia. I enjoyed my first experience with Elswyth on the last installment of Betwixt & Between but, unless my ears deceive me, I think he's getting better.

Alula Down is a duo that sounds like it could be one person, and that is by no means a bad thing. They create spare and elemental versions of English folk songs that come off as quite haunting without any overt gothic posturing. Each of the four tracks is constructed with the bare minimum of materials. A beautiful, somewhat chilly voice, a single track of acoustic guitar and subtle accoutrements depending on the track (birdsong, wheezing drone, a bed of looped voice). Alula Down reminds me of early Caethua which is a very good thing, though they come off as even more stoic and concentrated. The duo provides a foreboding version of "Sweet Lemeny" which is a true highlight. Based around a stone-faced, cyclical guitar pattern, the track makes for a fascinating contrast with Elswyth's interpretation. The avian duo of "Three Ravens" and "Blackbird" that closes the disc is pitch perfect as well. I could eat a whole plate of these things. 

Shop Assistants - Safety Net [53rd & 3rd]
My most joyous record store moment in recent memory is finding this Shop Assistants 12" at an affordable price. The limey blokes across the pond have the luxury of picking this beauty up dirt cheap but not so here in the western United States. "Safety Net" is a glorious tune, immediately evocative of that angel-voiced 80s Scottish sound. A pure dose of hard-driving c86 sugar rush. It's a rollicking number built on chugging bass, thumping toms and soaring guitar riffs, the kind that lives in your head forever after a single listen.

The two songs on the second side are good too. The pop stomp of “Almost Made It” rolls with a big time guitar break and the lovely closing ballad "Somewhere in China" anticipates the many somber Belle & Sebastian earworms to come. This is simply a public service announcement to grab this record if you are fortunate to have the opportunity.

The Bibs - From the Fish Houses [Soft Abuse]
Don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep up this baby-themed record review gag but I think I've got at least another six months in the tank so I hope you're getting used to it. This month's selection takes its name from one of the most important items you can have in your baby-care arsenal (especially now that my kid is starting to eat solid food): sons of Detroit, MI, The Bibs.

I actually don't know much of anything about The Bibs (apparently they are some kind of Heath Moerland-less (Sick Llama, Tyvek) configuration of Roachclip—which is also a band I'm not too familiar with). I have the Spacecase Records Podcast (excellent listening of new and old while you do the dishes, I recommend it!) to thank for putting The Bibs on my radar after they put "Fine Wine" on one of the episodes. I was hooked and shortly after, like some sort of divine gift, From the Fish Houses showed up in the new arrivals bin after a long, frustrating day.

Emblazoned on a small scrap of paper tucked in the jacket is the insignia "recorded on Tascam four track." Immortal words that get the hair to stand up on the back of my neck every time. There is certainly a Flying Nun vibe on Fish Houses, or at least a post-Flying Nun vibe after the Kiwis infiltrated the water supply of American college-aged rock bands, so if that's in your wheelhouse (and come on, it should be in everybody's wheelhouse) then this record is worth a look. One of The Bibs is named "Chris Durham" and that is a Flying Nun name if I've ever heard one.

"Fine Wine" is a small laundry pile of sloshed vocals, killer carnival-lite organ melodies and a jaunty rhythm section. The recipe is so, so simple but it's also perfection. The track feels like a lost classic that's been sitting in some burnout's closet since 1983 finally getting unleashed upon the world decades later. You gotta hear it.

Elsewhere in the ramshackle collection, "Slow Curves" has that great cardboard box drum sound and marks The Bibs' biggest effort at penning a pop hit, which is to say not all that much effort coming from these bummed strummers. If I really squint (like really squint) I see some hazy slacker-rock version of Nirvana's "Lounge Act" in "Afternoon", a rare uptempo ditty. The opening trio of "Trenches," "This Was" and "Already Gone" makes for an unvarnished entry into Fish Houses's lonesome sounds, nestled among the lingering ghosts on the cassette they recorded over. Live drums that practically sound like a drum machine, bleary eyed slow motion picking patterns and an organ that makes a habit of hiding out in the background whispering handsome countermelodies from time to time. The Bibs indulge in the fragile sound of the single coil pickup and love their single notes, I don't think they strum a guitar until four songs into the record. I have the feeling that as the years go by I'm going to be digging this record more and more.

The worst thing I can say about Fish Houses is that "Fine Wine" is so fucking great that the album's other tracks can't match it. The vast majority of recorded music doesn't come close either, so as far as "worst things" go that's pretty damn good.

DECEMBER 2019

Natalie Rose LeBrecht - Mandarava Rose [Galtta]
Galtta Media is one of the more consistent purveyors of experimental sounds having defined an electronic- and jazz-tinged forcefield around itself yet still find ways to subvert expectations. Last year's Nick Stevens tape came out of left field (yet somehow made perfect sense) and I loved it. Now we have this tape from Natalie Rose LeBrecht and I feel the same, it fits right within "the Galtta sound" while feeling like a departure as well.

This is a heavy tape, it's probably 70 minutes long so you gotta clear your schedule to give it the proper attention. Not difficult listening but demanding, and certainly affecting, in its way. Uneasy listening, shall we say. It's worth taking the trip if you can swing it though because it's a heady one, and easy to get lost in if you allow yourself to.

LeBrecht drizzles layers of acoustic and electric pianos, organ and voice on top of one another creating this whirling, swirling, twirling vortex of sounds in space. With an opening title like "Rishi Stars for Turiyasangitananda" it's evident that Alice Coltrane is an influence, but LeBrecht is on her own tip, exploding notions of what a pop ballad can be rather than jazz. The eleven minute jaw dropper "Rosebud & Lotus" is baroque pop in slow motion, feeling alternately like you're paralyzed in a foggy piano bar witnessing a blurry chanteuse waft wispy croons from the corner of the room, and sinking deep, deep into your chair in the cinema as the lights exponentially dim save for the glowing tableau enveloping you, offering some metaphysical communication you can't parse. David Lackner joins on wind instruments providing subtle accents but it's really LeBrecht doing the heavy lifting here, concocting such sorcery with a deft pair of hands.

Another highlight, "Autonomy Dream", is a wonder in its own right, with LeBrecht pushing her voice further into a higher register supported by a funereal organ melody replete with a somber sax solo by Lackner. LeBrecht is equally magnificent when not unraveling lengthy tendrils of sound over 10 minute run times. "Hear Today" winds down the tape in under four minutes with LeBrecht wistfully exhaling over a simple arpeggio before drifting away amid organ gleam and a rattling flute.

All in all, Mandarava Rose is a mysterious, transporting tape that I'm nowhere close to fully exploring but I'm comforted knowing I'll be rewarded each time I return to it, continually discovering new alleyways to slip down for years to come.

Von Hayes - Moderate Rock [no label]
This is my first encounter with Von Hayes, apparently a band involving Graham Repulski. I wrote about Repulski and his impressively bang-on body swap with Bob Pollard on Success Racist here and Von Hayes seems to add a Tobin Sprout to the equation as two singers trade songs on this one. (The other guy sounds like Colin Meloy from The Decemberists without the shtick.) As one would expect Von Hayes doesn't fall too far from the Graham Repulski tree which is cradled right between the roots of the GBV grand oak so that's "the sound" here. Although, Moderate Rock is lo-fi in method more than aesthetic as the recording is pretty clean overall. The arrangements are simple, usually two guitars, voice and a simple drum machine track (though some songs feature live drums) and that's it. It's a tried and true formula that has worked (and alternately not worked) time and time again.

True to its title, all the songs on Moderate Rock are solid and easily digestible but most don't particularly stand out. Nothing soars like "James Run" on the Repulski tape I have. However, in its second half the album hits its stride, starting with the highlight "Pissanthemum" (for some reason the CD features a few titles belonging on a Bloodhound Gang album like "Urinal Cookies") which takes things to an even simpler place than usual with finger picked acoustic guitar and electric guitar feedback backing up the best vocal performance of the album. "Man of Few Verbs" is an uptempo college rock ditty with a catchy guitar riff. "Zeroes and Victims" splits the difference somewhere in between the previous two, making for a nice string of hits in the album's closing frame.

If you're unfamiliar, I'd recommend tracking down Repulski's Success Racist first before moving on to Moderate Rock, but if you've got that eternal itch for early 90s era college rock like I do, Von Hayes does the trick, sounding especially good on the car stereo during the commute home.

Brandy - Laugh Track [Monofonus Press] 
This team up of Running and Pampers members (now there's a band I should consider reviewing for the baby-themed AuxOut segments) sounds exactly like you'd expect. That's a good thing in my book as Brandy retains the relentless ground 'n pound DNA of both groups. The bass player from Pampers and bass player from Running both play here but it sounds like one picked up a guitar (I'm guessing Matthew Hord of Running is the one who stuck with the low end here).

Despite the mathematics of porting over only one member of Running to Pampers' two, Brandy hews a little closer to Running even though they ditch the neverending feedback for a tight, precise sound. I don't hear as much of the garage rock influence present on the Pampers LP which I'm all good with, 95% lean noise rock action is how I like it.

"You're a Dentist" (an oblique Punch-Drunk Love reference I'm hoping?) kicks off the record with thumping drums and fucking shakers! Drummer is groovin' for probably a full minute before the bass starts rumbling. It's one of the best intros to a noise-rock record in recent memory. Pretty much every track relies on the same tried and true formula of two or three note riffs repeated ad infinitum, unintelligible vocals, with occasional guitar solo/feedback moves as the trio stomps every toe they can on their way to the back door. They're all good but it's hard to pick out one from another. (The penultimate and accurately-dubbed "Urgent Blowout" is pretty gnarly though.) In total, it's a twenty minute 45rpm drubbing and you're out, certainly with a few more bruises than before.

Brandy isn't doing anything especially new—Mayyors, Lamps and any number of other bands with a similar ethos come to mind—but it's doing it really well. Keep shakin' boys.

Tim Cohen - Laugh Tracks [Captured Tracks]
From Laugh Track to Laugh Tracks, this month's baby-themed selection, though not limited to simply babies this applies to all parent-child relationships—and probably beyond those as well.

Penned and sung by Tim's dad Robert Cohen, "Small Things Matter" is an ambling piano ditty I came across on an old episode of a radio show on my drive to work; I was singing it the rest of the day and thus had to track down the record or I'd surely die. "Small Things Matter" is a rare song that I come across far too infrequently. An expression so heartfelt and genuine, devoid of any pretense or irony, that it achieves a sort of universal purity—and I say this as a person who believes that nothing is universal.

The older Cohen ruminates on the difficulty of explaining all the bad shit in the world to a child: how can you be truthful without things sounding so hopeless? His solutions are things like doing small favors for your neighbors or lending "a helping hand to someone further down the ladder" because small things do matter. It's hard to keep it together after the final couplet "Small things matter/Give a sad face laughter" as I think of my daughter and all the joy she brings to everyone who encounters her. I have an inkling you'll feel the same about one of your loved ones as well when you hear it. I can only hope she'll want me to sing a song like this with her when she grows up.

Laugh Tracks is a really solid pop record worth hearing but it belongs in the home of every family because of this song.