Warm Climate - Camouflage on the River Wretched [Stunned]

Anyone who heard Warm Climate's previous opus Edible Homes can't be expecting anything less than perfection from its follow-up Camouflage on the River Wretched. And, man, it really delivers, probably even surpassing Edible Homes. The only aspect where Camouflage doesn't quite match Edible Homes is atmosphere. That's not a criticism in the least though. The pervasive chilliness of the cavernous free-glam-creep-out of Homes is more or less unbeatable but where Camouflage hits hard is the songs. "Saltwater Simplified" launches things off with a fuzzy, stumbling synth-bass line. After a few echoing shrieks the song hits full force with groovy, loping drums and thick grinding organ. Seth Kasselman, who masterminds Warm Climate, is singing in his signature glam-falsetto, struggling to be heard above the racket. It's a short song but immediately sets the tone for what's to come. "Trespassing" shifts into the more avant-garde Warm Climate mode, with sample manipulation, eerie drones from guitar and keys floating pretty freely. Then Kasselman's voice enters out of nowhere and all of a sudden this loose arrangement becomes some futuristic ballad. Bass backs up the vocals while a wah-wah'd guitar sets about squirming. Things get more and more twisted with matter-of-fact female narration about a fat man, and a basement, while brass supplied by Cailin C. Mitchell lets out some elephant roars. The track totally works but its amazing it does. How Kasselman envisions this and then keeps it together is beyond me. The track wears so many hats, it's mind boggling. Balmy ballad, cinematic soundtrack, dark jazz/drone session, placid keyboard piece all in one. "We Wish You Rain" may be my favorite track. It begins with a fantastic foreign-sounding rhythmic jaunt and then just fucking lays into it with copious amounts of bad vibes. Multi-tracked vocals, thick thick thick bass, keyboards and effects-laden guitar squalls. All this with a relentless, organic dance groove behind it. The track just gets more and more unhinged drifting off to any idea that gets in its head. "More Wretched" kicks off almost like MF Doom beat, vaguely hip hop-styled drum machine and weird collage of instruments/sounds. It's a pretty short but it's a nice interlude seguing to the next side. "Voice Over Headlights" features a murky beat akin to quick foot steps. There's a brief intimation of a gospel-blues vibe amongst scratchy crackles but the track eventually settles into some gargling vocal drones. Jangling chimes, guitar fuzz, a slow bass throb and something like walkie-talkie feedback lead into Kasselman riffing on his clarinet. The dry, woody tones seem unusually at home in their crusty surroundings and clarinet is just awesome period, I'll think it sounds great anywhere. This section is one of my favorite parts on the album as its a great solo and a really nice, somber break from the album's constant cacophony. A bit hotter playing from trumpet and drums takes over before launching into the "song" portion. Which is excellent. Chunky bass, operatic keyboards and multi-tracked vocals over a great guitar line. It gets interrupted much too early by garbled noise. The final section recalls some of the eerie minimalism of the last tape, and for the first time on the record Kasselman's voice doesn't face any competition to be heard. It's him singing over a low bass rumble and airy keyboards. Seriously epic jam! It's a well-placed retreat to calmness, in conjuction with the brief swirl of keys, guitar, bass and voice in "Two Stones", before moving into the gutsy finale "Blue Metro." Kasselman is in unabashed rock & roll mode here, screaming about something being "blue on the metro" over crunchy drums and bass and plenty of thick guitar distortion caked on as well. It feels great going out on the rawest note. Well, what an album. I'm impressed. Stunned claims they were recently christened the best band in LA and I'm not gonna disagree. Kasselman just keeps barreling on down the street with no signs of slowing down, doing his thing like nobody else. Either climb aboard, or get your ass run the fuck over. Stunned is down to it's final copies so paypal that shit right away! Oh and there's fantastic color-pencil(!) artwork by Phil French all over this thing. I love it!

Ugly Husbands – The Faith of the Family [Roll Over Rover]/Warm Climate – Edible Homes [Stunned]

I like it when people start crossing the line between “song-based” music and experimental stuff, especially when I get to hear it on tape. Being the ever blessed soul that I am, I have two very different but very good tapes that fit that description.
First of all, this Ugly Husbands tape comes in a book. I know that has been done before, but a tape-in-book has never made it to my hands before so I’m fucking impressed. Lucky for me the music is pretty sweet so it won’t just be a novelty item to show friends. UH is a project of Stewart Adams, one of the heads of Roll Over Rover along with Sean McCann and Dave McPeters. Through its 16 tracks The Faith of the Family flirts with lo-fi folk/pop as well as weird sound collage and warm drone stuff, and is often at its best when its synthesizing the two. “Pee-chee” is a couple of acoustic guitars plucked and strummed against radiating keyboard or organ and a bit of feedback. “The Daily Record of C.J. Whitman” by contrast is an uptempo number with lyrics, slashing electric guitar, live drums and a little steel guitar as well. “Mr. Tower’s Dead Trophy” returns to the fingerpicked acoustic guitar and lap steel, adding voice and a few UFO synth parts making their way in. “Spotswood Rice” is a minute long interlude of static and keyboard loops leading into “Off-Hand with Alwyn” the longest song at 9 minutes and one of the best as well. It works with the same palette as the songs before it, but Adams’s vocals are more surefooted and it features a lovely melody (well that’s pretty symptomatic of the tape as a whole.) The song stretches along so effortlessly that I hardly notice it’s a good deal longer than the total of the 4 songs that came before it. Definitely shows strength of songwriting. “Red Hot Hot Doggies” features lonesome vocals adrift in toy keyboard, organ and a recording of something of ski ball arcade or something like that before fading into a movie sample I can’t identify. “Zipper” features more weirdness, this time a cartoon spring noise (boing!) and a vaguely organ grinder/carnival-esque vibe overall. “Radiola” has train whistles, a creepy dude saying “Hey mysterious traveler” and then a really cool tapefucked piece of music. With “The Graves at Counselors” Adams moves back towards the song-like realm with spacey keyboard, echoing guitar and maybe some piano? It all blends to a nice, pulsing mush. “Lay Your Hands on Me” recalls the earlier songs somewhat but is a tad more strung out and has a good dose of fuzz applied/smeared across its face. “The Blob” is more sound collage leading into “The Great County Fair” and “Starved by Ulysses” which is the best back to back match-up on here. The former reminds me some of the Golden Hours tape that came out Not Not Fun forever ago, a cheap, warbly organ and vocal duet with a certain stiltedness that really adds to the flavor. A well-place accordion near the end really sells the track. “Starved by Ulysses” is a pretty great song as well, perhaps the best of the tape. It has a fantastic lilt and the elements all achieve a pretty perfect unity including a great distorted accordion outro. The guitar in “Sleepwalker” drifts over a field recording of croaking frogs and the title track closes the album. Adams ditches the guitar for multiple layers of warbling organ and it’s a real nice shift bringing the tape to a lovely endpoint. I really love that this thing was recorded to 4-track cause it imbues the album with such a presence of warmth and blissfulness. At times the songs can sound a bit same-y, but it’s pretty damn good for a debut, and in a way the similarity of a lot of the songs creates a unified effect more like a drone tape. Worth checking out.
Warm Climate is a project by LA-based Seth Kasselman. The first song “Lost Teeth/Organ Donor” is the one I keep spinning and it’s a good one to put up front cause it breaks down any expectations right away. The tape kicks off with straight ahead Bowie worship with a twisted, plaintive glam ballad before sliding into an unsettling keyboard interlude that seriously reminds me of the piece of music from the scene where Cillian Murphy goes nuts and starts killing people in 28 Days Later. That little keyboard part is my favorite detail of the tape, I wish it wasn’t so fleeting but there’s no time cause Kasselman jumps right into a sixties rave-up jam with go-go ghost dancers and all. Downright brilliant track. This leads to the “Organ Donor” portion I guess cause there’s a whole cavernous mess of pipe organ that surprisingly really grinds on you as well as being a bit soothing. A great looped melody emerges and it’s a fantastic sight to behold until Kasselman starts fiddling with the radio dial as it spews bits of speech and static. “Cave In” has a bunch of jangling whatsits and it almost feels like someone accidentally dubbed in a world music tape for minute. Weird sorts of drones creep in and it might be groovy if it weren’t so damn creepy. Free drumming, seasick groans and more pipe organ appear out of nowhere and the track turns into a haunted pirate ship/jazz club. “Edible Homes and Gardens/Synth Pads for Homeless” brings back vocals but this time it’s over a distorted drum machine and hollow, sustained vibraphone tones. The second part of the track switches gears dramatically into a soft lull of acoustic guitar, puttering synth beboopery before laying on the synth strings along with spliced samples. A drum machine lurches forth steeped in incredibly saturated fuzz and the tape takes on a Portishead/Burial type feel. The anguished samples (distressed people saying things spliced beyond recognition) are a nice contrast to the prettiness of the keyboards. “Devine Souffle & The Southern Approach” starts with vocals singing over drums for nearly a minute before the “full band” comes in. It’s a great midtempo track, and it reminds me a little bit of early/mid 90s British stuff like a more chilled out Manic Street Preachers, maybe? “Motion Picks Glaze” by contrast is an acoustic guitar led ballad with slowly spinning warble in the background. “Gross Polluter” finishes off the tape with a more maximalist approach some vaguely tribal drums and singing, fragments of horns and vocals. An epileptic clarinet gets things going before everything drops out leaving some strange garbled tape sounds. Clarinet returns in fiery free jazz form joined by rumbling free percussion. I’m glad Warm Climate, along with crews like Wasteland Jazz Unit and Helhesten, is sharing the clarinet’s violent side with the world cause it’s a damn cool instrument and doesn’t get a lot of credit. The record drifts on manipulated chimes to its close. I can’t think of anyone else doing stuff like this and doing a good job of it. Glam revivalism has a tendency to kinda blow but Kasselman takes the influence and makes it his own, covering staggering amounts of terrain with his songwriting. A ride worth taking over and over.
The Ugly Husbands tape is down to the last copies of an edition of 50 and Warm Climate is sadly but expectedly sold out at Stunned, though its an edition of 120 so check around at distros, one is bound to turn up. By the way, this is just another instance to add to the list of Stunned Records introducing me to a brilliant artist I had no idea existed. I feel like sending them a thank you note every time I hear one of their tapes.

FEBRUARY 2022

Abstract Butta Fingas - Lightweight HEAVY Vol. 1 [no label] 

Abstract Butta Fingas - Lightweight HEAVY Vol. 2 [no label] 

Two damn fine cassettes of mid-fi instrumental beats from the most abstract set of Butta Fingas that Southern California has to offer. From the plinking keys of “Poolside Dreamin” to the nylon guitar strums of “Nunca No” to the fuzzy bass thump of “Rider”, Lightweight HEAVY Vol. 1 is real solid. And “The Scheme” is flat out beautiful. The woozy synths and heavily processed piano chords really do it for me. All that said, Vol. 1 is real, real nice but ABF takes his work to another level on Vol. 2. 

From top to bottom, this thing fuckin’ sings. The way the grimy dystopian stutter of “Pulse”―buffered by speedy harp plucks―segues into top shelf banger “For the Hill in the Haystack”―bristling with crackly horn blasts rubbing elbows with liquid synths―and then slips into “Composure”―which at about one minute long feels like an hour too short―it’s a thing of beauty. ABF brings more crackling horns and stirs in choral samples on “Celestial Boogie” and with that title, he just reviewed his own track. What do you need me for? “Vibin’/Giv Luv” gives me Endtroducing..... vibes, and considering that’s one of my most listened to records of all time, I do not bestow that compliment lightly (or ever!). The concluding two-fer of the stately “Lobelia” and blissful “Platitudes”... Wow. Two abstract butta thumbs up! 

Chaltandr - Numbers [no label] 

It doesn’t take much to overwhelm us over here at AuxOut headquarters, and that’s how we regularly (and quite shamefully!) come across cassettes sent years ago but never reviewed. Just like this here tape from Chaltandr. It’s a real brief affair with a non-real voice chanting “numbers” and “whoa whoa”. Way bitcrushed, a sizzling sample of something or other gets entangled among infinitely echoing percussive clicks. Side B is a continuation and/or remix. Introduces a bass throb that gives the composition a little kick in the ass and gets it off the ground. The shuffle slows to a stumble then slows to a crawl. The voice repeats “zero” and wa la! For fans of malfunctioning robo-calls and stuttering software loops. 

CIA Debutante - Music for Small Rooms [Ever/Never] 

I remember coming across the CIA Debutante name as one of the rare acts Tom Lax has branded with the Siltbreeze imprint as of late. But I’m just now realizing that this duo is French! But at least one of them is Australian? These international waters are murky. Regardless, how my American brethren let a great name like CIA Debutante slip through their fingers and across the ocean is beyond me. We invented the CIA for pete’s sake! 

To these ears, CIA Debutante comes from the Shadow Ring anti-rock tradition. But trading the haphazard for the methodical, Music for Small Rooms pumps along on heavily filtered and tightly LFO’d synth squirts. The “singer” (probably the Australian one) speaks in a deep, languorous drawl seemingly suspended in a vacuum rather than a small room. The opener “Nuclear Holiday” sounds like Excepter during one of the times that they stumbled onto a good song. You get the tingle to dance but, uh, how the fuck can you dance to this? In fact, Excepter is a pretty solid comp except the vibe is totally different. Excepter always seemed like a lunatic’s idea of dumb fun but CIA Debutante actually creep me out! All this talk of “catching females in mating season”? Yeah, that’s sending shivers up my spine. John Fell Ryan never did that. Not even in that Shining doc. “Sink Hole” sounds like a Vince Clarke jam at first, but someone unplugged the drum machine, Alison never showed, Andy neither and we’re left with this skeevy crooner from places unknown to fill in. The muttering about an untidy room over a seasick sequencer on “Corner of the Room” sets up for the grand finale, and the record’s best track, “Faulty Appliances”. Against portamento-afflicted synth slipping back and forth and a clanging drum machine disguised as a trash can, our mysterious stranger spins pure poetry: “Faulty appliances unavailable for refund/Receipts disappear into bottomless jacket pockets”. You can’t trust ‘em, they’re gonna turn on you. 

Fits right in line with those Boy geniuses of Budokon and Ever/Never’s ever/growing stable of weirdos, so if you’ve been paying attention you already have this record, right? Right??

 

Eyes and Flys - Anxiety Tools [no label] 

Eyes and Flys - Asbestos Fiber in a Sunbeam [no label] 

Even though I’ve been behind on everything, Eyes and Flys have been chugging along with no problems whatsoever continuing to produce and distribute their own 7” singles. Despite their penchant to rock, I’ve always had a hunch that they’re at their best when they show their softer side. The homey acoustic number “Wait for the Sun” still stands as my #1 E&F song and Buffalo’s favorite sons strike gold again with the jaunty lilt of “Anxiety Tools”. Pat Shanahan’s deep rasp is front and center as usual, this time over a bed of rustic, slo-mo jangle pop bliss. There is some high-quality tambourine work here. I talked previously about “New Way Get It” and my interpretation that it's a statement of purpose, picking up the DIY torch of Desperate Bicycles and others as we enter the third digital decade of the new millennium. Well, Shanahan isn’t even bothering with suggestion now, directly communicating his self-released 7” ethos with the refrain of “getting by, two songs at a time”. And if that isn’t clear enough, see: “smoke mad weed/pet my dog/and play with the tape machines”. The melodious warble of the outro absolutely sparkles, full of yearning. And I don’t think I’m feeling this way just because my old neighborhood gets mentioned. (I miss you, LA.) The instrumental “God’s Management” fills out the b-side, a curious mélange of jostling roots rock-grunge-jam band-post rock moves. 

When was the last time you heard a punk single about asbestos? The last I have is this here 7” Asbestos Fiber in a Sunbeam featuring, not one, but two sides about asbestos. Shanahan includes his asbestos certification from the State of New York on the insert so you know he’s not a fuckin’ poser. “Asbestos Fiber in a Sunbeam” is a garage-punk ripper, roaring high, tight and wild. Shanahan’s voice is drowned out by the band but he sticks in the line “I don’t put my boots on for free”. He may be a working stiff but he ain’t no sucker. Side B “Sad Labor” is bifurcated with a rev’d up, rocked out bit of despair (“Can’t stand the midwest/Covered with asbestos/This is your roll/Get in the hole/Grow up and die like a man, boy/This is your roll/Get in the hole”) coming first. The second half is a melancholic extended outro featuring a guitar figure reminiscent of the intro on “In the Mouth a Desert” and field recordings of some industrial operation happening, or maybe just a lot of aerosol being discharged. “Anxiety Tools” is my pick of these tunes, but you can’t go wrong with these guys. 

James Fella & Gabriella Isaac - CCTK Music [Gilgongo] 

CCTK Music, a new collaborative LP by Gilgongo head James Fella and Gabriella Isaac, is firmly situated along with the likes of Scuba Death, Embarker and Diagram: A in the Is my stereo broken?! Fuck! genre of music. In fact, the pointed placement of “music” in the album title drives home the point that 30 minutes of harsh static, corrosive klang and ungrounded electrical wiring is music if we say it is.

 

This thick, face melting slab comes sheathed in a none-more-red jacket because… wait for it… this record lives IN THE RED. 2000’s guitar duo Hototogisu and their bottomless thirst for wreaking havoc/caving my head in came to mind at first blush so that will give you a real good idea of the kind of euphoric punishment in store. Unlike Hototogisu, there are no guitars used here. The accompanying blown out photo shows Issac sitting in front of a MacBook and Fella behind a pair of turntables, so unless Issac is hunkering down to finish her dissertation and Fella is moonlighting as a DJ at Tempe’s hottest night spot, we can assume that’s how they kicked up this godawful racket. Actually, we don’t have to assume because behind that photo it says “cymbal, tape, kalimba, computer”. But that’s just the beginning. Side A titled “Reference Lacquer” is a recording of the duo manipulating each other’s material in real time. This is what gives it that livewire feel. From ear splitting crackle to ear tickling rattle, the performance flows in an organic motion. Capable of turning on a dime but wise enough to settle in where appropriate. The flip side titled “Lacquer Ensemble” expands the concept exponentially. The duo cut six stereo reference lacquers of the recording on the first side and then performed again using those six lacquers as their instruments. Whatever singed eyebrows you have left after dropping the needle on the first side, say goodbye. Fella and Isaac unleash an ungodly fucking firestorm and it is truly glorious. Dynamic but utterly savage. The wretched wail of a skyscraper collapsing in on itself. This is what love sounds like. Recommended

 

Gabby Fluke-Mogul | Jacob Felix Heule | Kanoko Nishi-Smith - Non Dweller [Humbler] 

Any longtime reader of these pages knows that percussionist Jacob Felix Heule has big fans at AuxOut HQ and Non Dweller, released on his Humbler label, finds Heule operating with a new configuration. Joining Heule on Non Dweller is violinist Gabby Fluke-Mogul as well as Kanoko Nishi-Smith (who collaborated with Heule on the 2020’s excellent Brittle Feebling). The trio wrangle together violin, koto and bass drum for an hour of minimalist squirm und drang. Split evenly into two untitled pieces, these are some extended dives into the gorgeous, unsettling sensations that can be wrought from friction and resonance. The insistent whine of Fluke-Mogul’s violin. Heule’s groaning drum. The tap-tap-tap of Nishi-Smith’s koto sounding like rattling bones. This is some heavy haunted house shit. A ghost lurks in the shadows. Or at least that’s my guess as to the meaning of the titular non dweller. By turns fierce and cunning, the trio exhibits ultimate restraint, at times brushing up against the cusp of total freak out, never overplaying their hand. And, alternately, sometimes retreating into near and even total silence. For fans of things that go bump in the night. 

Hidden Rifles - Across the Neighborhoods [Total Life Society] 

Total Life Society sent over a hulking stack of Scarcity of Tanks records which I’m still digesting for publication but they also sent along the sole CD by Hidden Rifles―ah, now that’s a discography appropriately sized for a part-time, part-time music writer. Much like Scarcity of Tanks, Hidden Rifles is centered around Matthew Wascovich’s vocals and, on Across the Neighborhoods, he’s accompanied by guitarist Mark Shippy (a fav from his US Maple days), drummer Jim Sykes (Parts & Labor) and guitarist Norman Westburg who’s also spent time in Scarcity of Tanks. Oh yeah, there’s also a bass player by the name of Mike Watt. 

Hidden Rifles immediately leap off the starting line with the two minute blast of “Thrawnly Lot”. Dual post-Sonic Youth guitar wig outs whirl and crash while the rhythm section lets it rip. It’s brief and brash and stands apart from the album to follow (about half of the remaining songs eclipse the 5 minute mark or get mighty close). “Paranoid Unsaid” simmers and slinks along lead by Wascovich’s raspy speak-sing with an elastic sense of time before waves of noise eventually cascade into one another. The way that jazz is spliced into Hidden Rifles’ DNA makes ‘em hard to pin down, I mean the title track features a walking bassline after all. I keep coming back to the first MX-80 Sound LP but there’s something else going on here. The anything-goes attitude of The Styrenes? Can’t place it, which is the point. Hidden Rifles are on their own racetrack. They can grind to a halt with nothing but Wascovich’s voice and guitar scrape percolating through the silence and snap back to double time in an instant―the chops are on full display. 

The band really taps into something special on “Essential Swearing” twisting and turning at full speed, seamlessly covering about an album’s worth of dynamic changes in three and a half minutes while masquerading as a catchy tune. Really impressive stuff. On the other hand, “Mutant Numerals” fights the urge to flat out rock, gathering tension as it deconstructs and rebuilds its swaggering strut over and over. “Cranial Escrow” and “Obviate Effort” have a bit of the jazz-funk-punk churn that once oozed out the doors of Dischord while “Subway” gets unexpectedly hypnotic. “Wherever” stands apart, seeming to presage Wascovich’s Vicious Fence project, with a lively bounce and more traditional take on rock & roll. Hey, turns out they're pretty good at that too. 

Not sure if this is a one-off or if plans exist for a second Hidden Rifles album, but I hope they do. This bunch of guys have all made a ton of records in their lives but that hasn’t dulled their desire to discover something new and crack it wide open. 

Seth Kasselman - UV Catamaran [UR Sounds] 

Seth Kasselman is responsible for the avant-glam Simon Finn acid-nightmare of Warm Climate, some of the best outsider pop this side of Y2K. Those Warm Climate cassettes (and LP!) were an adventure and this new one under Kasselman’s own name is too. Sadly the pop element has dropped away with the Warm Climate moniker but quality has not suffered. UV Catamaran finds Kasselman in full-on soundscape mode. Kasselman’s penchant to drift off into other sound worlds in between pop hooks was a big factor in attracting me to Warm Climate so it's fascinating to hear him go full-hog here. There’s a lot of water flowing throughout UV Catamaran with Kasselman going so far as to record some of this material underwater using hydrophone microphones. I’ve never gone scuba diving but I’ve watched those movies made by scuba divers and I’ll be damned if this doesn’t sound exactly like what I imagine scuba diving to be (including some horrifying I-think-I’m-gonna-die hyperventilating on “Long Time Machines”). I’m drifting somewhere unfamiliar. I feel calm but I’m not relaxed. Wondrous moments pass by my ears, I’m captivated by their beauty, then remember I’m 200 feet from air, vulnerable, and shaken from the infatuation of my surroundings. I hear voices in my head. Unintelligible whispers. Intrusive thoughts. Sounds I can touch. Sounds I can feel. Describing the nuts and bolts of the sonics here does a disservice to the overall work. Kasselman truly takes you on a journey. No bullshit. This is a schooner I want to sail away on. Recommended 

p.s. Perfect “serious art” pairing with the brilliant meditation on the Hand of Food 12” 

Los Lichis - Small Mole & The Flavor Jewel Trio [Ever/Never] 

Taking a quick scan over the Ever/Never discography, I don’t think the label has ever gone so “hippie” before. Those crazy bastards in the Big Apple have gotten up to plenty of shenanigans over the years but peace and love, man has never been the calling card. And if you take a look at this album cover, Los Lichis don’t exactly come off as the peace lovin’ types either (just wait 'til you see the whacked out A/B labels). So to my surprise, the first time I dropped the needle on Small Mole & The Flavor Jewel Trio, I hear open tuned guitars, hand drums and chanted vowels. Not so surprising, however, considering who's releasing the record, is that this is real good stuff. 

Reminding me of my younger years when folk-raga revivalists like GHQ or Good Stuff House were all the rage, Los Lichis hail from Monterrey, Mexico and they have their own raga Mexicana take. There are five pieces on the 12” and they all wander and drift into each other, seemingly emerging from the ether. Los Lichis can simmer and smoke with the best of them but my favorite aspect is that they subtly inject a sense of mischief in the otherwise solemn vocation of being a hippie-drone band. Wild-eyed yips dapple the hypnotic, tangled strings of “Electroterrifying the Neighborhood” and the heavy meditation of “Roosters and Loggerhead Turtles are My Best Friends” culminates in a loud burp. This mentality comes to the fore on the buoyant psychedelia of “Charly Morkecho’s Fucking Filthy Pig Skin Needs a Daily Bunch of Body Cream” which would definitely be on the soundtrack at a cool line dancing bar. If there was a cool line dancing bar. It’s a rollicking good time. The perfectly placed finale “Kesos & Kosas Las Mas Horrorosas” marks a fantastic comedown and that track will be playing at the other bar you head to post-line dancing after you’ve been blasted by your fourth rum+tequila cocktail and need a place to unwind. 

The trio recently scored a short film at Sundance, so watch out, Hollywood might come sniffin’ around and try to corrupt ‘em. You know, sand off those strange, lovable edges. Make sure you’re able to look back without regret and say you knew Los Lichis when they were still sub-underground. 

Meadow Argus - II [no label] 

Gather round kids, I have a story to tell you. Long, long ago, back at the turn of the century, a young chap by the name of Tynan Krakoff formed an underground record label Doris Nordic Tribute (named for his grandmother if I recall), better known as the acronymized DNT. DNT stood as one of the finest underground labels of its era running the gamut from neo-No Wave, placid psychedelia, chilling drone and noise, cassettes, CDrs, records of sounds from around the world. (You can read about many DNT releases HERE)

Krakoff retired the label a while back (because goddammit, he deserved a break!) but has since reemerged with his Meadow Argus project. Distorted, processed home videos/field recordings nestle into abstract trickling rhythms (reminding me of his dub work as Tad) and even more heavily processed guitar or keyboards. The cassette is at its best when it's fully adrift, seeming like it’s receding back into your brain even though it never originated there in the first place. There’s a distinctly lo-fi flavor―I may be fooled but I bet Tynan is huffing that pure, uncut ferric oxide baby. II has the vibe of the pre-DAW/Plugin’d era. When it was weirdos alone in their basements, surrounded by old tape recorders, hypnotized by their decaying sounds rather than broadcasting live to Youtube. In an age where you can find out how anything is made in an instant, Meadow Argus harbors mysteries pleasingly unexplained.

In Rotation #8

Dang, it's been a while since I've done one of these In Rotation things. And since, so much incredible stuff has found its way to me one way or another so I'm gonna spew it all out at you.

I caught Chicago free jazz crew Tiger Hatchery at Seattle's best show so far this year (they shared the bill with an amazingly free and melodic set by Wally Shoup and Don Berman (dude's got one of the coolest drumming styles I've ever seen,) Jason E. Anderson (Brother Raven) did live analog modular processing of saxophonist Wilson Shook and Panabrite closed the night with deep synth vibes.) The Hatchery blew the roof off the place, still one of the most intense, relentlessly energetic jazz ensembles I've ever encountered. Dudes were all super nice too, I complimented Andrew Michael Young on his solo Catholic Tape and I was pleasantly met with news of a second tape to be released in the future. Ben Billington also gave me his recent tape as Quicksails on Deception Island, another sweet entry in his unique percussion-inspired solo synthery. While I was there I obviously clutched a bounty of proper Tiger Hatchery stuff too: an insanely good one-sided LP on Pizza Night, a cassette on Baked Tapes, the best bang for the buck, with a live set on each side, and a split 7inch split with rock band Lechuguillas (who they modestly stated delivered the better side; modesty is great and all but please allow me to disagree, Tiger Hatchery.) Killer band, if you missed their tour, well, that was dumb.

More killer Chicago shit (is there something in the beer over there?) Running's self-titled 45rpm LP on Permanent. A wailin' and wall-shakin' Chicago noise rock record. Sloshed, uptempo Jesus Lizard-on-amphetamines gnarlyisms. Some of the cuts barely qualify as songs and others drop the catchiest riffs and most inept drum solos in ten counties, all the while feedback bleeds all over the record even between its 13 tracks. There is no silence on this record! Awesome. Check this band out already!

Speaking of silence, I gotta talk about this new Rale LP on Isounderscore. First of all, fuck. Have you seen this record? Like for real seen it in person? If you haven't, you won't be able to begin to understand what I'm talking about. Seeing a picture of the jacket online will give you an idea of what it looks like but make no mistake, the record in person is simply gorgeous. It's so simple, so elegant and just perfect. Kudos to Brandon Nickels's design work. As far as the sounds go they are quite stately as well. Rale aka Bill Hutson has created quite a fantastic drone record; one that does not lull (or dull) you into submission with constancy or repetition but it instead breathes. Hutson constructs it meticulously to move through stretches of sculpted sounds and pure silence seamlessly. I just got this and can tell it's a good one. I am looking forward diving in many more times.

"Meticulous construction" and Sightings are two terms that I've never really thought about together until now. "Now" being since I got Future Accidents the latest LP by Sightings, released by Our Mouth. This is the best Sightings record I have heard. It's got all the good things about Sightings but revamped into a more studied, cerebral brand of noise rock. The side-length track "Public Remains" on the B-side (which features help from Pat Murano) could pass for (or in fact is rather) an excellent example of modern abstract composition. It's dense and complex stuff but immediately listenable. Really outstanding work. Shahin Motia and Kid Millions engineered this record which reminds me when are Ex Models gonna drop another record?

Moreso than any other label this year, Weird Forest has been blowing me away. Of course part of that is me digging through their back catalog as well but still, props. One of the smartest moves made by Davy Bui when he became the new CEO last year was instituting tapes into the Weird Forest pantheon. Matt Kretzmann (Garrincha & the Stolen Elk) dropped a tape earlier in the year which is a great cassette-concrete thing he had done like a decade ago or something, glad it finally saw the light of day! I can hear traces of its style in Garrincha, but it's definitely a path of its own worth traveling down. And damn man, Bui went 3 for 3 with the new tapes he dropped recently. Colour Buk delivers a half hour of intermingling avant-junk skronk rock with super-weird and really awesome songs. The Preterite dropped a hearty two full hours of magical piano/tape manipulation pieces. It's always nice to have another reason to add a double cassette to the collection. The crown jewel of the three for me is Kevin Corcoran's Haptic Music, an absolutely stunning tape of solo percussion. It's the kind of thing that not everyone will be down with but they fuckin' should be. Corcoran's approach to his instruments (or "objects" may be more apt) is patient, tender (sometimes) and fascinatingly detailed. His subtle manipulations make for extremely engaging aural gestures in the headphones. It's music for people who love to listen. One track is actually pretty too, as Corcoran pulls drones out his drums. Along with the tapes, Weird Forest dropped a to-the-letter reissue of Symphony for a Genocide by Maurizio Bianchi (billed as M.B.) which was gone in a flash (all 520 copies!) I had never actually heard any M.B. stuff which is why I picked it up. Apparently Bianchi is a pretty conceptual guy stating "The moral of this work: The past punishment is the inevitable blindness of the present" and, well, whatever. I'm not exactly seeing what the gnarled tones and relentless beats contained on the record have to do with that. Good thing I only really care about gnarled tones and relentless beats. This thing seems like it could have been made today and it's 30 years old. Modern experimental music you are really behind the times. Also, Noveller released a new album of her trademarked tangled guitar strings called Glacial Glow. Weird Forest collected a bunch of Terrors cassette tracks, forming a new CD/LP of barely-fi, heavy-on-the-lethargy tunes called Qagan Lord. A few keepers on the record for sure. Perhaps the most interesting of the new full lengths is Garrincha and the Stolen Elk's Void. In some ways it has a touch of a post-rock feel. Not the shitty neo-prog stuff but the classics like early Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Of course, where there was like 20 people on a Godspeed record you got two here; though the two, the aforementioned Bui and Kretzmann, are products of the current multi-tasking, 17-instruments-to-every-person scene. Long story short the record is still a bit of an enigma to me as it is, and when you think about it in context with their previous releases, well, that makes it all the more enigmatic.

No strangers to blowing me away, Stunned dropped their second to last batch of tapes and well the batch probably couldn't be any more flawless. A.M. Shiner drops a weirdly musical tape (is that an actual instrument, and not a stalled transmission, that I hear?) Super Minerals go straight off the deep end with Contacteer and continue their hot streak of one-upping the release that came before. Not sure if you caught that, but basically each successive Minerals release has been better than the last, at least for a while now anyway, not many bands you can say that about. M. Geddes Gengras and Jeremy Kelly play analog synth-sparring partners as Voder Deth Squad to masterful, mind-blowing effect. Think Gengras's other Stunned tapes and then imagine him dueling with some kind of alternate reality doppelganger. Santa Cruz, CA's Ugly Husbands (which I haven't heard since their very nice debut cassette) delivers an abstract spectacle of lo-fi bedroom songwriting while on the flipside resides Gul Bara, a Warm Climate side project--need I say more to entice you? A duo of Seth Kasselman and Caitlin C. Mitchell, Gul Bara is maybe a little like an expansion of those interludes between "songs" on the Warm Climate records, but where as those interludes were strategically calculated, each piece here is left looser to thrive on its own accord.

The Rise of Elklink delivered by, you guessed it, Elklink is a LP reissue on KYE of a cassette released way back in 1998 (yes, "My Heart Will Go On" was stilling ruling the airwaves when this initially came out.) Graham Lambkin, thank you for reissuing this. This record is way too fucking nutty to get lost in the past. The duo of Lambkin and wife Adris Hoyos (Harry Pussy) have created something that hasn't gotten any less confounding in its 13 years of existence. The source of practically all sounds on the record is the human voice but, it's most likely not what you imagine it is after a description like that. This is a record for someone who loves tactile sounds, minute sounds magnified and all textures that can be derived from physically manipulating something i.e. me.

Blanche Blanche Blanche, the metamorphosis of a Zach Phillips project I loved to pieces, GDC, delivers lots of good homemade minimal pop pieces ("Heroes of the Microphone" probably being the definitive statement thus far for a few reasons) on their debut tape (pictured) for Night People. The duo seem on the verge of blowing up, Night People are dropping an LP later this year and Pitchfork and Vogue are already drinking the kool-aid. Looking forward to more.

Avant Archive has been all over the map of good shit this year. Take a gander for yourself. Recently Mr. Michael Jantz dropped tapes by Talk West, Bret Schneider and HMS. They're all so different it is hard to rank them. Talk West was initially my favorite with its patient pedal steel meditations but now, I don't know, Schneider's balls-to-wall loopy computerisms are really sticking in my mind and that doesn't even take into account the staggering showmanship of HMS' guitar/synth/drums improvisations. How about you take a listen and tell me for a change?

Seattle-area crew Extraordinary Pigeons and Regosphere (who is PDX-based if I'm not mistaken) just dropped a split cassette via Pigeon Coup International. The last I heard from the X-Pigeons was a Zine/Flexi-lathe which was a short track of harsh, grainy noise derived from an "audio-ization" of the images in the zine. Their side here is a spooky acoustic-drone piece reminding me of the days of 2008 when everyone was high on GHQ. Needless to say it caught me a bit off-guard but I like it. Regosphere contrasts EP's acoustic activities with a nasty wall of noise. Concocted with analog synthesizer and shortwave radio, the two pieces have guts to back up all the noise and sometimes even lock into strange hypnotic places. Nice work.

Also got a weird tape by Chica X on HeWhoCorrupts Inc. who is an eight year-old girl who raps over home-made beats by her pops. That sounds like a gimmick but most of the tracks are pretty sweet such as opener "Da Bank (1, 2 Step)" Chica X is at her finest when she's droppin' lines like "on my malibu bike and I'm feelin' kinda happy" or sneers "It's not that hard to get a library card" and taunts "How's that job at micky dees treatin' you?/Guess you shoulda been hittin the books instead of skippin' school" on stand-out "To the Library..." A couple tracks aren't as strong but overall the tapes a lot of fun.

April in the Orange - In the Mirror Under the Moon [Cae-sur-a]

While Cory Card's output as head of the Cae-sur-a label has been fairly varied, I was pleasantly surprised when I heard this April in the Orange cassette. Not only does it mark yet another new direction for the label, it's also really good.
Opener "Of the Night Hymn Ikue" is a great little folk ditty with bouyant acoustic strums and a spacey electric guitar (and possibly a keyboard) blanketing the piece and providing occasional counterpoints. This introduces the blueprint that the duo of Andrew Barrett and Samantha Linn use throughout the course of the tape. Acoustic guitar, drowsy vocals, heavily effected electric guitar and keyboard.
There are a lot of great songs on the tape but the best is "Same Old Mystery." It's reminiscent of Warm Climate's Stunned tapes minus the strange soundscaping and rock & roll panache. It's seriously catchy and the electric guitar accompaniment kills it again with an equally catchy riff and nice little solo. Can't get enough of this tune. "Xerxes Folding Roses" ups the ante even more with a positively gorgeous acoustic guitar melody that appears halfway through. "Love All the Same" feels like some of the sleepier MV+EE stuff, very nice.
Barrett and Linn throw a bit of a curve on "Outsideinsideeverywherenowhere" at first, with some reggae-like guitar stabs before they start rolling with acoustic guitar again and somebody starts shredding on his/her axe. One of the more rambunctious tunes included here, making for a great climax before the brief, soft "Under This Wave" leads you into the tape flip.
"Amethyst & Azure" waltzes along, drifting like a cloud with excellent slide accompaniment and hazily effected keyboards. Linn takes over on vocals for "To a Lost Family," and her vocals add a different dimension to the band. Her vocals are recorded much cleaner and their a bit stronger (though still soft) than Barrett's whose vocals tend to blend in with the instruments. Barrett's style probably fits the overall aesthetic a bit better but it was nice to hear Linn for a change of pace.
The final track "Morning Never Came" clocks in at nearly 13 minutes. It's at once one of the stronger and weaker tracks. It features some of the most beautiful songwriting on the tape though It segues into a long "drone" section that feels a little tacked on. I admire the adventurousness but the duo is much better at arranging songs than drones. The main misstep is that the section just sort of goes on and on without being particularly dynamic. Had they shortened it to a minute or two before wrapping things up I might have have applauded them for the left turn but as is I think they veered a little too far off course. Still, I am mostly just complaining at this point, the song is still a good one and you can press stop at any point in the drone and start the tape over.
Druggy, hippy folk can go either way for me, a lot of it is none too great but based on this cassette alone April in the Orange has to be one of the best groups practicing the genre.
In the Mirror Under the Moon is fantastic. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous atmosphere and brilliantly bare little songs. Nimble and pretty addicting, check this baby out!

Stunned Records Round-up

The formerly Long Beach-based/now Portland-based Stunned label has put out so many of my favorites this year (Warm Climate, Albero Rovesciato, Kabyzdoh Obtruhamchi, Super Minerals to name a few) and here's four more to add to the list.
Chapels - Last Night of the Earth
This is the first I've heard of Adam Richards's (House of Alchemy label) music and man was I impressed when I first put this on. Beginning with a short sonic whipping on "Inhale," the tape finds Richards exploring the transcendental properties of a distorted microphone. He weaves blankets of feedback and, I think, mainly voice into muddy, shifting banks of fuzz. Richards does a pretty good job finding rhythm in the midst of it all and he gets onto some kicks that just flow like liquid. The tape feels like a river at times, ebbing and flowing, dictating its own pace but it sounds more volcanic than peaceful. "Another Lost Night" makes use of sparse looped drumming incorporating it into the simmering tumult. Richards does a really interesting thing where rhythm is one of the main focal points of the track, but the rhythm itself is quite slippery. It seems to continuously get buried only to reemerge slightly warped, bent into something new. It's really the side-long "Beggar" on the second side that gets me going though. It takes its time casting its spell, it's mainly a couple of distorted frequencies interacting for the first bit, but it slowly creeps into a nearly melodic zone. It's not necessarily a hypnotic thing but you just kinda fade into it. The same pulsing loop is pushed up front while cackles and groans and distorted throbs cascade and trickle around it. At some point, probably around half way through, the piece is fully realized, lots of little details working in perfect unison: almost choral bits of vocals, melodically manipulated feedback, a central groove in the form of rumbling mounds of fuzz. It's a fantastic, scraping, gnarled beauty. I'm gonna have to check out more of this Chapels stuff cause Richards seems to have a pretty fundamentally unique approach to the noise/drone genre, I'm curious as to what other stuff he's come up with.
Sparkling Wide Pressure - Seven Inside & Out
I always have a tough time labeling Frank Baugh's Sparkling Wide Pressure project. It's not really drone because there's such an emphasis on melodies and he tends to compose things in a vaguely song-like manner yet the traditionally song-based tags don't fit either. Mr. Baugh's an anomaly; that's for sure. "Color First" eases you into the tape with its fugue/funeral procession hybrid. The track moves at a very mellow, nearly mournful, pace but to Baugh's credit he makes the track incredibly active despite the slow pace. There's guitar, static-y loops and I don't how many layers of keyboard melodies. My favorite, hands down, is "Creeping Cloth Highway." It gets even more "fugue-ier" which is a big plus in my book. There's a fantastic intertwining of synth lines and the thing that seals it all is a distant, probably vocal, whine that resembles a singing saw more than anything else. A break halfway through finds a new melody and minimal drum machine taking over, set against quiet, garbled speech. It all climaxes with a Vangelis-esque rise from the ashes. Awesome. The second side brings "Outside, Above My Head" which is a good deal different, at least on the outset. A recording of wordless vocals and acoustic guitar out in a wood somewhere is the central element with touches of synth making their way in and out. Eventually, with the addition of more keyboard and wiry electric guitar, the track gets to be a lethargic, swollen psych jam. "Rock Wall" starts up more ominously with a modulated, bassy synthtone. This track is way more minimal and it takes a little while to capture me, though once Baugh starts laying on more keyboard lines, I get into it. In an effort to make up my own silly genre like real music critics do, I'm gonna call Sparkling Wide Pressure's stuff "neo-fugues." Baugh's work really does remind me of what Bach was doing but with a much looser, more warped approach. Good stuff and SWP has a brand new tape on Stunned so head there if you're interested.
Silver Bullets - Free Radical
This Sicilian psych crew was discovered by Super Minerals and Magic Lantern member/apparent Stunned A&R man William Giacchi who produced this tape as well. Most of the tape is made up of fat, jungle grooves and opener "Monday Morning in Ragusa" is among the fattest and jungliest. Not too mention an instant favorite. The bass and percussion are wisely pushed front and center while the psych guitar improv's are peripheral, adding to the track's texture and letting the focus fall on the rhythm section. It's heavy, hypnotic and addictive. Twenty more minutes of this would do me just fine but Silver Bullets still have another ten songs to get to. And holy shit do they do it again on the next track, "Flight from Babylon." This time instead of dense and heavy, the groove is a bit speedier and takes on a brilliant pan-world flavor. The percussion is vaguely African sounding and they got some brilliant melodies that sound somewhere between gypsy jazz stuff and traditional South American flute music. Sadly, I don't much about Sicily beyond The Godfather so this could be inspired by traditional Sicilian music for all I know. I do know that this jam has a catchy as hell, rattling groove though. "Black Leaf" isn't particularly rhythmically driven but rhythm still has a presence. The brief track is mainly led by a couple of echoing guitars. The title jam brings back the rhythmic section but the overall effect is more of a full band glide than a focus on the grittiness of the groove. "Revolutions" is heavy on the South American vibes I mentioned earlier. There's some great intertwining guitar and flute-like lines over an active but united rhythm section. There's a great smokiness to it all like it's soundtracking some mystical magic show or show something; that sounds silly but this jam is like a hallucinogenic so no wonder I'm drooling kooky babble. I think there's maybe a sax solo buried in there too but I can't be certain. Needless to say the track rules.
"Il Punto" on side b is some of the most streamlined, "rock" stuff on the tape. It's basically 4/4 and leaves the guitars wide open spaces to shred. Just wait for the introduction of the tambourine near the end, it really gets things moving. "Sister Polygon" is hazier with lovely cascading keyboards and the absence of a rhythm section (though not rhythm.) They're surprisingly good at this kind of stuff too. Though I can't say why, "Shiva" almost seems to have a more acoustic vibe save for some spacey guitar playing. "74 Dream" is similar but wades a good deal deeper into the swamp fuzz territory. The apparent sequel "White Leaf" weirdly enough has an awesome mechanical vibe as the Silver Bullets whip their gangly limbs into shape. The closer "Ascent" is a beefy psych jam, thick and solemn. A perfect conclusion.
I'm the first to admit I get bored with some psych stuff out there but this tape is so punchy, and the Bullets play with such soul, it's practically revitalizing the genre in my eyes. Here's another one to chalk up there with the best that Stunned has ever produced. So great and killer artwork too.
Dead Black Arms - Lake Reflection Catalyst
It feels like it has been a long time since I heard some great Danish drone but no longer. Especially cool is that it's brought to me by an artist unknown to me (one of Stunned's specialties.) Lake Reflection Catalyst is two brooding side long slabs, the first of which is matter-of-factly titled "Lake Reflection Catalyst I." After a few minutes, the piece hits full-on bludgeon mode. It sounds like mainly guitar doing the thrashing with the possibility of a taped-key synth in there too. Dead Black Arms' sound recalls the live-drone vibe of Family Underground and Hototogisu's penchant for heaviosity. DBA don't allow for much breathing room, they seems to be caving your skull in between the headphones to the point of claustrophobia setting in. They slam the same violent chord over and over, only it somehow gets more oppressive each time you hear it. The twenty-plus minute track has a rise/fall action, though it's a fairly shallow curve allowing for maximum time to be writhing in feedback. The flipside "Lake Reflection Catalyst II" begins quite differently with a barrage of clattering cymbals. They create a surprisingly full sound; it ends up working similarly to the blaze of feedback on the previous side with the density of microtonalities generated by cymbals rather distortion. The sound itself more jagged and ruthless than feedback can usually provide. That isn't to say the side is completely devoid of electronics, there's a creeping drone always looming not far off the shore. Dead Black Arms pulls an extended crumble to finish off the track which is a nice touch culminating with some fairly pretty guitar strums. A solid outing worth checking out for those looking to be battered and bruised in freezing cold temperatures as the ominous cover art suggests.

Auxiliary Out Radio Programme #41 (10/11/09)

Historians “Slice n’ Dice” Proof [Stunned 2009] (CD-r)

Tusk Lord “Afraid of the Dark” Summer 2009 [Dynamo! 2009] (CS)

Jazzfinger “Birth of the Knife” Psyched Punched [DNT 2009] (2xCS)

Blue Sabbath Black Fiji “Laksa Bath” Gemini [Deathbomb Arc 2009] (CD-r)

Maths Balance Volumes “Untitled” Tried to Make a Call [Bum Tapes 2008] (CS)

Caethua “Surface Waters and Underground Seas” Split with Ancestral Diet [Goaty Tapes] (CS)

Nackt Insecten “The Telepathic Jackal” Split with Dylan Nyoukis [Sick Head Tapes 2009] (CS)

Hanging Coffins “Haunted Hives” Hanging Coffins [Night People 2009] (CS)

Warm Climate “Lost Teeth” Edible Homes [Stunned 2009] (CS)

Occasional Detroit “Side A” Occasional Bomb [Human Conduct/I Just Live Here 2007] (7”)

ID M Theft Able “Zone Y Ponds Y Sugars I’ve 3” Split with Cave Bears [Feeding Tube 2009] (LP)

Lam Young “Kati Sorn Jai” Siamese Soul: Thai Pop Spectacular Vol. 2 [Sublime Frequencies 2009] (CD)

Rambutan “Sideswept” Vertical [Tape Drift 2009] (CS)

Orphan Fairytale “Crybaby Needs a Hanky” Ladybird Labyrinth [Ultra Eczema 2009] (LP)

Bright Duplex “It’s Geese” Strawberry Trust [Thor’s Rubber Hammer 2009] (CD-r)

Teenage Panzerkorps “Arc de Triomphe” Teenage Panzerkorps [Captured Tracks 2009] (7”)

Grasshopper “Regal Blood Wraith” Wretched Blood Wraith [Obsolete Units 2009] (CS)

The Widow Babies “Carmen Y Pipo” Jet Packs [olFactory 2009] (LP one-sided)

Ignatz “The Woman Helped Him” A Canine and a Kitten in the Car [Goaty Tapes 2009] (CS)

Dragging an Ox Through Water “Devil’s Prayer” The Tropics of Phenomenon [Freedom to Spend 2009] (CD)

Brian Grainger “Swamp Bike at Dusk” Traveling [Imperfect Music/Sunrise Acoustics 2009] (CD-r)

mp3: Part 1 Part 2

Cristopher Cichocki/Kevin Shields/Rale – Artist Series Vol. 1 [Deathbomb Arc/Table of Contents]

This is the next installment of the Kevin Shields-related round-up…
To clarify the title of this review a bit, Cristopher Cichocki is the filmmaker behind this 3” DVD-r of which he created visual accompaniment to a Kevin Shields piece as well as a Rale piece. The goal of the project is to translate the “micro-grain obsessions” of the two composers into a visual medium. This is done through serious, split-second editing working at maximum frame rates. (I stole that bit from the press release, I actually don’t know shit about film editing)
The Kevin Shields track goes first. “Motorhands” was also seen on the vinyl bonanza Thrash Sabbatical but here it’s delivered in spiffy, digital quality (though through my crappy TV speakers). I’m gonna try not to focus too much on what all the visuals are and a bit more on the overall effect the video creates. That said, as a starting point I’ll mention that much of the raw footage from this video looks to be images taken during a Kevin Shields performance. That metallic crank she’s so fond of (apparently a “film synchronizer”, if I can trust internet research) makes a prominent cameo appearance early on. The audio begins with a steady sine tone. When the noise breaks, an image (well actually it’s like a hundred really similar images) of Eva Aguila’s gear begins shaking erratically, moving between images drenched in red light and soft pink. What freaks me out is the way all her gear seems to be continually “slipping” across the table. It is a very disorienting feeling, much like one gets from hearing Aguila’s music. There’s a jump from that relatively static image to a series of images where the camera appears to be swooping in close to Aguila, though that may just be the editing. This set of images is disorienting as well but in another manner. The juxtaposition (sorry if I sound like a tool) of the nearly static image with the next set of short moving images almost creates the sensation in my body of being stationary (which I am) and then suddenly, repeatedly being jolted forward. That isn’t even the real brilliance here; that set of moving images is positioned perfectly with a part in the audio where Aguila repeatedly breaks the flow of noise with a hi-pitched tone, an adrenalized lurching if that makes any sense. The video ends with a frantic, psychedelic mindfuck of nature images with things of various colors: a cool blue, a pale green, a grey and a kinda orange-red-gold. The composite of the frenzied alternation of all those images looks galactic to me which is pretty rad to behold.
The second video is titled “Tattered Syntax” with Rale, which is a project of noise artist and Cassette Gods scribe, Bill Hutson’s. As far as I can tell, this is the first time this track has been released, though I’m far from a Rale expert. No matter. The majority of the footage used here seems to be images of metal, light, earth, modern architecture and probably some other stuff that I’m not catching. There’s a recurring section with what looks like a wall of light bulbs, where their varying intensities in the different images of the bulbs are cut to a shimmering, digital crackle in the audio. Patterned metallic flooring is intercut causing the columns of lights and embossments of the floor to interact, almost as if those little things could dance. The interplay of these two images begins to break up as the audio gets more intense, until it explodes along with a new group of images that are deceptively clear but still play tricks on my mind. There’s a brief lull before the video/audio elements both just go off, for lack of a better term. Each time I watch this I catch a different image I didn’t see before which leads me to the conclusion that Cichocki has weaved a near infinite amount of images here. Both the audio and the video blow right past me which leads to the best part of the video for me. Hutson takes an unexpected break and in that short-lived silence there’s a few images (I’m guessing an upclose shot of a burning joint but who knows) that barely last for a nanosecond and it’s a really dramatic, eerie feeling to suddenly hear silence and see a few beautiful, though still unclear, images. It feels like my heart stops every time I reach that point, even when I know it’s coming. After this there’s a brief return to the light/metal theme before more images jump in, this time geologic, which are increasingly more smeared than the ones before. The track ends how it began with flashing lights and static crackle.
Cichocki has done a great job adapting the work of Aguila and Hutson into visual forms and that is a weighty accomplishment. Watching this DVD-r made me ponder the difference between the way we interpret sound and images. I guess I can only speak for myself but when I look at something visual I try to “make sense” of it as you can see by my preoccupation with figuring out what single images composed these videos. Anything goes for sound, however. While I can often be curious of what is making the sounds I’m hearing, I just accept the sounds as sounds more often than constantly trying to figure out what is producing it. Anyway, I don’t actually have a point about that, just an observation.
I have to mention the packaging as well because, well, it should be mentioned. This 3” DVD-r comes mounted on a 5x7 sheet of aluminum! This is then wrapped in a vellum cover with info and so forth. It looks killer and there’s nothing like holding a DVD mounted on aluminum in yr palm to give a boost to the old self-esteem. Trust me on that one. The release is limited to 75 copies and already sold out at Table of Contents; Deathbomb Arc still has some in stock though so hurry if you want one. It appears Volume 2 has been released as well with audio by Warm Climate and I Heart Lung.
The official theatrical (ha!) trailer

ROCKTOBER 2024 (DELAYYYYED)

Blood Rhythms - Horror Pilation [No Part of It] 

With the presence of “blood” and “horror” in the artist and album names, you’d be forgiven for bracing yourself for a harsh, Hospital-ish onslaught. You might even be forgiven for expecting rhythms, as well. Yes, you are forgiven (Pete Townshend voice) of all those sins because Blood Rhythms traffics in smooth, almost glassy tones. Blood Rhythms is a duo of Leslie Keffer and Arvo Zylo, two mainstays in the noise underground, and this Horror Pilation disc compiles the two sides of the Horror Pilation LP (the first in a six(!) LP series by the duo) in addition to material culled from other LPs in the series. Horror Pilation isn’t minimal (it has no problem flooding the room with frequencies) but it is gradual. With no obvious melodic structure in play, you’ll ask yourself: has this been changing constantly or has it not changed at all? As always, the truth lies somewhere in between. The two “sides” don't seem like an exact continuation but both sound like they are cut from the same session; to my ears, the second sounds like it’s had a light layer of frost wiped away but for all I know my mind is playing tricks on me and the two are sonically indistinguishable. As far the “bonus” material goes, the lesson might change but the essence of the message is the same. The tracks sound different than the first LP material, but are grown within the same parameters. All in all the disc runs 74 minutes, at seven bucks, it’s a real valu-pak of drones! Patient and budget-conscious dronehounds take note. 

The Blorp Essette Gazette - Volumes 3 & 4 [Gilgongo] 

Now here is a real doozy. Embarrassingly, I have to admit that I’m not that well-versed in LAFMS (that’s the Los Angeles Free Music Society, if you’re even less well-versed than I am), a seminal, intrepid collective of sonic explorers that have been scouting for the edge of the universe since at least the 1970s. The recordings on this double-disc set, compiled by Ace Farren Ford and Ju Suk Reet Meate, range from the 1960s to 2020s, that’s 60 going on 70 years of recorded music in one place! As you can imagine, this is an overwhelmingly eclectic couple hours of music making taking you on a deep sonic safari. 

The beginning of Volume 4 (disc 2), perfectly illustrates the range of imagination on display. It first starts with a 2003 recording of Lynn Carey reading her 1988 poem “Jazzpoem (my life in music… unf.)” a rumination on jazz and sex. Then slips into “Summer’s Day” by Collide Burger with Chicken Larry and Patrick Lubow, a 1978 foray into old timey folk ditties. After that, you get “Sydney and Cleo” by Electric Bill Robinson in 1990 which sounds both like a cartoon radio play and an avant-garde sound ensemble. (Sounds much different than Robinson’s hilarious hippie folk tune “No One as Gentle as You” which appears on disc 1.) Bet you can’t guess what comes next. Well, if you guessed a free jazz-rock goof-off Jefferson Airplane cover by Dr. Amazon (titled “Silly Rabbit” naturally) where the “singer” tries to clear the room by exhorting in the most strained vibrato imaginable, then give yourself a gold star because that is what comes next! 

There are nearly 30 tracks here so it’s not feasible to dig into all of them but rest assured that each one is quality in its own unique way. I’ll pick out a few notable highlights. An instant favorite is Dan and Letha Rodman Melchior’s musique concrete jam “The Purple Pill Redux” about penile growth and hot dogs and burgers. (Anyone hungry?) Bizarre and utterly fun. As is “Describe Again” by Testing Vault, which fits clearly into The Shadow Ring or later-Scott Walker avant-soundworld-song thing but without sounding derivative of either. Deranged sonic perpetrators Kommissar Hjuler und Frau Mama Baer contribute the catchiest number they’ll probably ever make, sounding a bit like an early 00s NYC freaky groove band (Gang Gang Dance and the like). Portland, OR’s Million Brazilians continue that vibe as well. Also from Portland, Lee Rockey’s late 60s violin-based rocketblast “Soundcraft” appears in two versions. The gleeful weirdness of “Light Bulb 2.1” by {AN} EeL is infectious. Donkey Flybye, James Dewey and Eric Zann set your house on fire with “JBE” using aluminum foil anti-charisma guitar and devices. “Kettleday” is excellent field recording/non-music/tactile rattle and clank from GX Jupitter-Larsen & Ace Farren Ford. Epic home-fi ditty “Down in the Dungeon” by Mr. Foon (“I’m just down here reading my science fiction/You know it’s real bitchin’”) is quite pleasing, particularly when the song is scuttled for a sophomoric shred sesh. Trance Farmers’ sample-based garage rock/drone collage “Gas Can” will keep you popping that rewind button. Concluding the set, Erica Rawlings contributes a reading of her eventful short story “Bloody Very Little Good Happens in Autumn” which I just might agree with. 

A true, and surprisingly listenable, kaleidoscope of the outer fringes of audio art. Recommended to those that can handle it. You know who you are! 

Cyanide Tooth - Sixth Dimension Vacation [Flat Plastic] 

The latest tape from NYC’s Cyanide Tooth (also one half of Maximum Ernst) jets down a neo-early-industrial track. Reminding me of the likes of early 80s Cabaret Voltaire, somewhere in that soft nexus of electrical alienation and mutant dance floor innovation. See “Clank City Club”, for instance. Obliterated recordings of some non-Western reed instrument bleat over the incessant thumps of a stalled engine. On “Chartered Trip”, grooves lurk but cascade on top of each other, weaving an itchy (but not abrasive) blanket. What sounds like 40 superimposed field recordings of Mr. Tooth’s 10th birthday party at the local laser tag outpost form a thick, crusty coat of frosting on top. On the second side, “Radio Eater” brings a little more heat with jagged static grind and high frequency penetration pushed right up to the fore. “Lo-Hi-O” latches onto a vocal fragment and blasts off into the syncopat-o-sphere. “Transcendental Llama” (featuring electric baglama—yeah, I had to look it up too—by Roy V) makes for a true change of pace. Dare I say “ambient” classification might be on the table, if it weren’t for the rapid, relentless, uneven strumming that underpins the affair. I’ll be honest, on first listen, I kept waiting for the Holy Molar to jump out from behind a bush and jab a feedback icepick in my ear, but lo and behold he’s content to surf the sonic sea, one with the spirit of the universe. Might this noisenik be mellowing as he matures? We won’t know until the next cassette drops! 

Tori Kudo John Dieterich Caleb Dailey - Tough Darts, Tender Nights [Moone/Kids and the Occult]

Now here is a fun little lathe from a trio of collaborators Tori Kudo, John Dieterich, and Caleb Dailey, entitled Tough Darts, Tender Nights (brought to the physical realm via Moone Records and Kids and the Occult). Kudo (Noise, et al), Dieterich (Deerhoof, et al) and Dailey (Moone Records, et al) being best buds and all decided to play a little game of voice memo round robin. One member recorded a song on his phone, then sent it to the next member who listened and then recorded his own song in response on his phone, then sent his song to the next member… and the wheel turns. After a few cycles the group was happy with the material that they generated (ranging from lonesome cowboy tunes to unidentifiable field recordings to pointed noise prickles) and compiled and edited it into a flowing collage of their collective conscience. The end result is entirely strange and beguiling, but eminently listenable and soothing as well. Rocking back and forth between country and blues traditions and the avant “traditions” of tape music, or Graham Lambkin, or Kudo himself! The way the recordings all leech into one another generates an impressive, personable web of tones, where the multiplicity of approaches initiates a singular, breathing machine, limbs coordinated as they stretch in opposing directions. Even more importantly: Tough Darts, Tender Nights forms an intimate, sonic product of friendship, and, gratefully, the listener is gifted a momentary portal inside. Recommended! 

Flower Festival - Age [Moone/Anxiety Blanket] 

One of the pitfalls of writing about music is that you have to write. Listening to music is great, but writing? Ugh. Sometimes, you put something on with an open word doc waiting and the honest intent to jot down notes. But then, you listen, and listen, and when it’s all over and done with you realize you didn’t jot down a goddamn thing! Infuriating. Case in point is this here LP, Age, the third full-length by Flower Festival but first for me, I keep listening but not actually writing anything. There is something so warm and comforting about it that it disabuses me of the notion that I need to be writing about anything. I should just relax and enjoy. Yes, my shortcomings in the productivity department are the music’s fault. Now that I’ve put my own head in a vice until I reach 200 words, how shall I go about describing this? Broad strokes first. It’s clearly a pop record. A soft one at that. But not an ordinary one, and never dull. 

I’m gonna wager a guess that Micah Dailey, Mr. Flow Fest himself, is a member of my generation, spending teenage years with the music of the early 00s. It reminds me of something that might have appeared at that moment in time, though without any mediation through a nostalgic lens. Flower Fest doesn’t sound like either of these bands, but there’s an ether of friendly sonic detritus reminiscent of The Books and Califone. (Well, the instrumental opener “Predictify” does kinda sound like The Books.) Sounds drift in and out, dissolve into one another. But that makes it sound like some shoegazey dream pop record and it’s not really that (although it’s not not that either). There are structured songs and crackling drums (such as on “Lunatic”), there is wonderful clarinet on “The Well”, alternately insistent with a chant-like rhythmicism or squirrelly and squawking, contributed by Seth Kassleman (Warm Climate), there are bent strings strangled out of tune perched prominently against sheets of plush falsetto coos on “Pedestrian”. Nothing is played straight, jagged and smooth peacefully coexist, all decisions are made with a deftness and confidence that’s obscured by the leisurely execution. The rhythms, the melodies, the voices in “Get Over It” all seem to trickle down like water in a brook. They may not all move at the same pace but they do so in collective unison. “How Wonderful” is the most straightforward (country-tinged) pop song on the record with its flowing pedal steel and drum machine pumping away underneath a blanket. It recalls something Daughn Gibson might make if he ever felt content and filled with romance, which I reckon has probably never happened. 

Dailey is joined by a sizable corps of contributors too long to list (though it does include Lonna Kelley who sings her own composition on “Behave” which seamlessly ingratiates itself with the rest of Dailey’s songs) and much like Micah’s brother Caleb’s last LP, there is a sense of community on display, adding a unique breadth and depth to each arrangement. When Dailey ends “Pedestrian”, with the spoken proclamation “I’m going to start my own nation” it doesn’t seem that far-fetched. 

Los Microbios - Cognitive Thinning [no label] 

Los Microbios, a project of Lance Jones based in the nether reaches of Vermont, has been making tunes at home since the 90s according to Jason Henn of Honey Radar, and he even taught Henn how to operate a 4-track. (A little nugget afforded by internet research, true journalist at work here.) Cognitive Thinning is a lo-fi record, and I mean a lo-fi record. This isn’t a “is it or isn’t it lo-fi?” conundrum people like to ruminate on. This is a low-fidelity recording; the instruments (except vocals, sometimes) are churned together into one mass of smeared frequencies. 

For a good chunk of its runtime, Cognitive Thinning wears it influences on its mildewy sleeve, whether that be the punk twilight between the 70s and 80s (“Trained to Follow” is a lowest of the lo-fi take on second album-era Suicide—with maybe a touch of Daniel Johnston as well, “John’s Amp” sounds like a budget boombox Joy Division demo and “A City is Not Science” is a clear doubletime reworking of “Blue Monday”) or the outgrowths of the British Invasion (an enjoyable cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Child of the Moon” and an epic rendition of “Oh Yoko” that crushes all the composition’s nimble maneuvers into overdriven, mis-biased oblivion). Elsewhere, there’s “Not Even a Pandemic Can Bring Us Back Together” a deep voiced keyboard ballad buried under a pile of fiberglass insulation and “Walls” a frantic, out of character 44-seconds of abrasion. The closest RIYL that came to my mind, evident on tracks such as “For Us”, is early Pink Reason when Kevin Failure would dabble in pop moves once in a while. There is an additional similarity in the sort of heaving, guttural quality to their baritone voices too. For all I know, Jones taught Kevin how to use his 4-track as well! 

Meadow Argus - Arboreal Frippery [Chocolate Monk]

Meadow Argus - The Chameleon’s Dish [Aural Canyon]

A couple new joints from Tynan Krakoff’s Meadow Argus project, one very focused and the other sprawling over an hour. First up is the sprawler, Arboreal Frippery released by the legendary UK label Chocolate Monk (I recently saw Cannonball Run for the first time and that has to be the etymological inspiration behind the name, right?). Culled from seemingly decades of tapes, including microcassettes recorded by Tynan on a late 00s hitchhiking jaunt with his brother, Arboreal Frippery goes here and there and whatever place it damn well pleases. My favorite piece is one of the longest, the finale “Trainwreck Tunnel” which finds a perfect symbiosis among its tape loops and chord organ drones. Elemental drift. “Every Person Contains a Universe” achieves ominous stasis over its 17 minutes. Is that a cow? That’s a cow, right? Mournful moos punctuate the undulating tape loops. That may sound quaint but not too much later you’ll hear someone confess “I’m afraid I’m going to kill somebody. Just by not knowing what to do.” “Balloon” is much more frenetic as a conversation plays with voices stepping over each tripping through a tangled bed of looped groans while “Ladybug” resonates with tape-garbled peaking autoharp plucks (I’m making a guess as autoharp is mentioned in the list of tools employed).

Arboreal Frippery might be a journey but The Chameleon’s Dish is an uneasy guided meditation. Consisting of two sidelong pieces “Color Wheel” and “Air to the Rock”, and beginning with the direction to “pick a spot, any spot” from our unnamed hypnotist. The Chameleon’s Dish sets up a juxtaposition between the intended tranquility of our speaker and the dilapidated grind and hiss of the loops spinning beneath his voice. Eschewing the conventional, round, smooth new age sound clichés usually associated with meditations, loops are sped up or slowed resulting in unsettling pitch evolutions. Are those gnawing bass frequencies relaxing or unnerving? Is that distant tinkling the product of chimes in the wind or a machine stamping carburetors? Are you meditating? Are the clouds beginning to part? Oops, tape over.

People Skills - Gunshots at Crestridge [Blackest Ever Black]

Apropos of nothing, here is a brief mention of a favorite discovery of Fall 2024. The People Skills name (the nom de plume of Jesse Dewlow) has been rattling around for a decade or more I feel like. I know I heard bits of Dewlow’s cough syrup slurred dirges here and there over the years, and nothing ever clicked. Still, I couldn’t let go of the fact that in-the-know folks like Siltbreeze, Digital Regress and I Dischi Del Barone had been deep in the People Skills pocket. Was I missing something, or were they? Who do I trust? Smart, tasteful people like them, or …myself? I know whom I’d put my money on, and it’s definitely not myself. So when the opportunity came to purchase the second “proper” People Skills album, Gunshots at Crestridge (brought to the public by the reputable Blackest Ever Black imprint), I said “fuck it, let’s find out what I’ve been missing.” Turns out it was a lot! 

Gunshots is a killer record. When listening, my head was swirling with all these elements I’ve loved from other artists and here they were, glued and stewed together. Banana Head’s slo-mo surf pop, Pink Reason’s bomb shelter ballads, (early) Yellow Swans’ love of aggressively present drum machines, or the ascendant ghost of Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart after his body was smeared on the motorway releasing all traces of his hyperventilating histrionics into the ether. There’s even some hints of Smog’s Wild Love (one of the finest records ever made), a downtrodden troubadour trying to mesh incongruous pieces of his life together, figuratively and sonically. But as with all the truly good ones, People Skills doesn’t sound that much like any of those. It can’t be anything but itself—enduring in an environment all its own, songs and non-songs seamlessly coexisting. Gunshots at Crestridge is a home (or a hole, depending on your predilection) to inhabit for 45 minutes at a time. Take a visit, I recommend it!

Shop Regulars - Shop Regulars [Merrie Melodies]

Now here is a real good thing. Picked this up at a show recently where Portland, OR’s Shop Regulars shared a bill with Famous Mammals from Oakland (by-way-of-Cheltenham) and my current fav Oregon band The Lavender Flu. The ol’ Regulars here are giving the Flu a run for their money though. Not that they have that much in common, although they both probably like The Velvet Underground given that they’re still playing guitars and drums two decades into the 21st century.

Speaking of the Lord’s messengers (ya know, the message of rock & roll), the VU riff-repeat template features PROMINENTLY in the Shop Regulars’ debut LP but instead of the usual honking, ripped speaker grooves, new life is breathed into that aged physique via Television-ish prickly plink plonk. The Regs’ tinnitus-inviting live incarnation that I witnessed was two guitars, one bass and two drummers, and it sounds like the same thing was happening when they rolled tape. (Though there’s a list of like 12 disciples that played on the record, headed up by Shop manager Matt Radesovich.) In the live environs the rhythm section was humming like a finely tuned jalopy engine, Radesovich smashed one chord at hummingbird speed while another guitarist plowed into staggering arpeggios.

The LP recalls post-Y2K double guitar angle attacks ranging from the first Ex Models’ album to the first Strokes’. The context has been reshapen though. Did I mention that there are some long songs on this record, and there’s only five of them? (Come to think of it, that’s a lot like the last Ex Models album.) So what’s happening on top of all the downstrokes? Radesovich's drawling, semi-somnolent vocals, that’s what! I’ve spent a long time trying to place it. I was thinking maybe Lee Ranaldo’s speak-sing thing, but I really think it is an American-accented Ben Wallers that he’s reminding me of. 

Okay, okay, all this talk about New York City bands (and whatever bog Ben Wallers crawled out of) but what about my home state of California? Oh yeah, that’s right, there’s some fuckin’ Creedence running through the Regulars’ veins too. CCR wasn’t shy about dropping a 12-minute head nodder/guit-grinder on Side B and neither are the Regs! ‘Xcept when the Regs do it, they call it the “Emerson Run Down”. Emerson Run Down on the corner, if ya know what I mean. (Fuckin’ zing!) While his lackeys are locked into a perfectly-practiced hustle-trance, Matt R’s voice is fed through some kind of bizarre mid-humped EQ or bandpass filter, pinging around the marbled walls of heaven; he’s a mic swallower without even raising his voice. He intones “go tell it on the mountain” “row your boat ashore” and you realize these really are trumpeter angels spreading the gospel of redemption through rhythm and riffage. And that’s just one of the five holy mantras of rock & roll on this record. Get it. Get zen. One of my favorite things about 2024! 

Workers Comp - Workers Comp [Ever/Never]

Baltimore’s Workers Comp had never entered my radar and I’m ever grateful to Ever/Never for compiling their first three tapes (with a new “bonus” track tacked on, naturally) on a single LP, the eponymous Workers Comp. There’s no irony in the name. “Pressure Today” finds lyrical fodder in hex wrenches and conveyor belts, industrial decline and decay. The record is brimming with tales of dreary toil: “We all could use a break/From the shovel and the rake/And when boss says ‘How are you?’/You say ‘Surviving the dream…’” Workers Comp is the voice of the people. 

The Workers’ approach is so simple that it’s hard to describe. It feels a little rich to uncritically accept that this music was made only a few years ago. It just as easily sounds like it could be a 47-copy private press run from ‘76 by a trio of college dropouts-cum-working stiffs in Missouri documenting their life’s work, airing their grievances from the factory floor on “Gilt Rig”, steeped in the methods of Blue Ӧyster Cult. The inclusion of “Alley-Oop (1996)” ruins that fantasy for obvious reasons but I don’t care because it’s fucking beautiful. The fidelity, the performances, they’re perfectly imperfect. Not amateurish, just imperfect. The songs though, every single one, now those are just proper perfect. Workers Comp has either stumbled upon or finely honed (don’t care which) a twitchy, twangy Heartland version of UK DIY.

Throwing a curveball from the jump, the LP kicks off with a country tune “When I’m Here”, loose and entirely credible. But it’s a prelude paving the way for the ass kickers “Pick and Choose” and “High on the Job”. “Job”, in particular, pops in my head constantly with its guttural vocal hook. If you’ve held fond feelings for any David Nance tune in the past decade-plus, this tune is a must as Workers Comp match or surpass every Nance tune I’ve heard save for “Leather in the Box”. I could say the same about Mordecai. “Good Luck” and “Shoot” with their plinky guitar lines and nerved-up rhythms might’ve even been hits in “The Great Garage Revival” of my youth, but alas they’re a few decades too late. Such is life.

A unique element of the record is that four different singers take the lead at various points. Joshua Gillis handles most vocal duties (and he’s a damn fine frontman) but “Never Have I Ever” brings in a ringer on vocals, Anna McClellan, and borrows half of the Shop Assistants’ peppy “Safety Net” bassline. McClellan’s guileless, Mo Tuckerish-presence on the mic is a welcome change of pace from the hollowed-out bitterness that leads the charge the rest of the time. Luke Reddick sounds like punk rock Mark Hollis on “Peel Away” hollering over top of a sick guitar melody but on the depress-o-matic ballad “It’s Fine” he sounds truly shell shocked. The only comparison I can come up with is watching this drunk old man singing karaoke to the slowest country song I’ve ever heard at The Crab Bowl on Barbur Blvd. Heartrending stuff. Meanwhile the “bonus” track “Basic Values” surfs along on searing guitar leads and is sung by Ryan McKeever (also of Staffers fame), and it’s one of the best tunes on the LP!

You probably haven’t watched DIG! 100 times in your life like I have but there’s this random dude at a NYC subway station that says about the Brian Jonestown Massacre: “I was there in the 60s and these guys have ‘it’”. I wasn’t there in the 60s, but Workers Comp bloody well have “it”. 

My favorite 2024 release? We’re nearing the end and Workers Comp is in pole position. I’m scared to investigate if this is a memorial compilation or if Workers Comp is still a going concern, because if they are, Workers Comp is my new favorite band. I’m so in love.