Thursday 24 May 2012

Tenzenmen Rack Up The Heavy Comps

Here are a couple more releases from Shaun at Tenzenmen Records - and believe me, there is a lot to take in here.


Firstly we have this internationally flavoured four-way split LP between US band 97-Shiki, Australia's Bare Arms, Italy's Milvains and Malaysia's Inquiry Last Scenery. It's a pretty rad punk record, melding screamo tendencies with myriad different influences (trumpets! melodicism! languid segues!). It links together pretty well, which is quite surprising really - a serendipitous tapestry of tearing vocal cords.

97-Shiki - Massive Yachts
Bare Arms - Omar Comin'!
Inquiry Last Scenery - Behind The Mask
Malvains - #1


Stay Together Volume 5 is another compilation beast entirely. In early December 2011 64 music fans at a punk charity concert in Banda Aceh’s Tamen Budaya Park in Indonesia were violently arrested by the Shari’ah police. They were not (and cannot) be charged with any crime but were forced to undergo religious education which included their heads being shaven and forced into the lake to bathe. The religious police have threatened a continuation of arrests and re-education against the punks “until they are better”. When questioned about the targeting of punks due to their cleanliness the Police Chief justified the actions by drawing a distinction between them and “the clean punks that exist in different classes”. Asked why the police aren’t then targeting the homeless he stated “there are no homeless in Aceh, there are only punks.”

Fucking arseholes.

Therefore, the Stay Together compilation series exemplify the support the punks show for each other, in Indonesia (where the bands are from), in Australasia (where all the record labels involved in the release are from) and in the world (where the punk community has come together to help). As part of this community, Tenzenmen offers this release with 50% of physical and 100% of digital sales going to help the punks in Aceh. Available via mailorder and digital download here. It's a fucked up world we live in sometimes - so try to make it a better place!

Tetap Berbahaya - Delirium
Mutant Troopers - Reanimator
Strong To Hold - I Will Never Give Up

No comments:

Post a Comment