Let's close out the evening (and my last evening away from my "day" job - I am filled with dread and despair) with this collaboration between LA artist Lawrence Rothman and rock goddess Kim Gordon. Well actually it's a much bigger collaboration than that - although Gordon's iconic vocals provides untold strength and hubris, there is the magnificent Angel Olsen with additonal backing vocals, and a backing band that includes Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeah's), M83's Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Warpaint's Stella Mogzawa, and Active Child. It's operatic and ostentatious, but at this time of night it's pretty magical too. Good night, kids.
I stumbled across Greek avant punk rock outfit The Callas two years ago through their excellent 2013 album Am I Vertical? They are back, again joining with Jim Sclavunos (Grinderman) for Half Kiss Half Pain. The first taste off it, ‘It’s Sunday I’m Bleeding’, has a decidedly hazy Sonic Youth hue to it, melancholy morning comedown lyrics – so far, so good. Am I Vertical? was a surprise in that it jumped all over the place from its spiked post-punk foundation – I am expecting that Half Kiss Half Pain will be the same; the hooks here are plentiful.
Pre-order the album through Inner Ear Records here. NB - since writing this the band has released the album - here are a couple other cuts from it, 'La Jalousie', 'The Great Eastern' (also the name of a film they are making with Lee Ranaldo) and 'River.Drool.Ear.Rope'.
Figures is a band from Brisbane that like their 90s guitar rock to be sparse yet dark, ruminative but destructive, maudlin yet cleansing. There are checkpoints across their three tracks on their Taekare EP (recorded at Incremental Records) that evokes Dinosaur Jr, Pedro The Lion (especially in the quieter moments of 'Figure Eight'), Sonic Youth...and another band enamoured with the blanket-bomb noise of shoegaze, Melbourne legends White Walls. I seem hardwired to dig bands that take the shoegaze noise aesthetic and give it a brittle edge, stripping away the dreaminess, even the dreariness, to lend it fire. Swervedriver had moments like this, to be far, but it seems like it's the younger bands that have found that serrating the fuzz and distortion gives new shadows to lurk in and burst out of. It's early days to be sure, but Figures look the goods.
It seems to be every week that I am discovering a new band in London - which makes sense seeing as it is over 7 million people's worth of working, rutting, fucking and dying going on. And right now I have been all over Ulrika Spacek, a five-piece with a heavy predilection for Spacemen 3 sonorous ephemera and walls of noise threaded with a nonchalant curiosity for the darker spaces, content to whir and march into the outer reaches and beyond. Space psychedelic rock this might be, but the band take pains to earth themselves (pun intended) by imbuing their lethargic motorik drones with harder edges - a BRMC riff here, a Viet Cong layer of echoed menace there. Everything seems crafted out of a gravitational pull, a kneejerk hypnosis, but is also heavily calibrated and maintained. The lyrics that halt the inexorable trudge of 'Beta Male' for example give us a lilting esoteric moment of respite before launching back out in the stratosphere, meaning that grooves aren't inherent, that bliss isn't constant, that they are always in control.
They released their debut album The Album Paranoia on Friday (through Tough Love, on white vinyl - impressive package, you can get it here) and will be touring it over the next couple weeks, check em out:
NY crooked losers loose in the Big Apple Giggly Boys have launched their debut album Bastards Of Young, and it is great - weird, beguiling, cracked. I was a big fan of their EP . (the cover my fiancee claims looks like me - she's on fire tonight, gloves are off), and the album veers into Spray Paint territory on opener 'The Hall', a track seemingly equally indebted to Ranaldo's Sonic Youth left-field takes on straighter rock. 'Crazy From The Heat' continues the cavernous production and Mike Zorman's moaned, quasi-barked and clipped vocals, yet there is a coldness here that evokes Scandi goth punk (the juxtaposition is in the name...) 'Butter Banquet' is more diseased, a (C)ramped sense of humour infiltrating these darker riffs and claustrophobic rolls, albeit with some slowed art-rock interludes and a glammed up lead back to the fever. 'Weird Lie' and 'Tiny Taste' again take a Ranaldo hue, but also evoke mid-career Blank Realm (possibly in the Daniel Spencer-esque vocal delivery). You can tell that I haven't made any Protomartyr references here, although you can hear echoes in 'Midnight Ones' or the similarly-named 'Darker Shade Of Pale'. Maybe because Bastards Of Young is so kaleidoscopic in sonic range that the references are spread far and wide. 'Country Lee' is something I wish Brisbane band-in-hiatus Nova Scotia had written. Now I doubt that Giggly Boys are into those guys - but the connections to Australian and American bands that flirt with mainstream composition before dragging them on wider, weirder slipstreams is clear. The throwback closer 'Whatever' is great too. Let's hope that these Bastards Of Young never get old - this is great stuff.
Grab the record through This Ain't Heaven Recordings here. If you are in New York tonight, head to The Gateway where Giggly Boys play alongside another new SM fave, Frog.
Wollongong has presented some really solid bands over the last few years - and Miners is set to join them. Positioning themselves alongside a growing pantheon of excellent Antipodean shoe gaze acts, the foursome have produced something gauzy, lustrous and yet raucous and altogether stunning on debut EP Pala. There is the parochial nonchalance on songs like 'Wrings', and the swirling maelstrom on opener 'Restless'. But then there is the incessant menace in the post-punk stagger of 'Empty Words', whereas the constant Sonic Youth comparisons becomes a little more apt on the slow amble of 'Ruby', something Day Ravies might have come up with if they OD'd on A Thousand Leaves. Miners close up shop on the 'Moon', a track that swims in the dead oceans of their predecessors, with the silence and slacker strums of 90s college rock underpinning the excellence. This is something else - and I simply cannot WAIT to hear what they come up with next.
Toronto duo Beliefs have crafted a buoyant dream pop winner in their LP Leaper. Starting with the typical yet nonetheless sunnily ebullient 'Tidal Wave', the band take some nicely carved tangentials - '1992' comes out like the calendar-similar Smashing Pumpkins track covered by mid-era Blonde Redhead; the soft-lens narcoleptic grind of 'Drown' ekes out a Dinosaur Jr vibe, albeit one in the Kurt Vile end of the noise pop pool; and the title track fully embraces the duo's penchant love for Sonic Youth angularity and spoken obliqueness. It is clear that Leaper revels in the 90s afterglow - its a steady stream of a dream. Pre-order Leaper through cool little label Hand Drawn Dracula (who also put out stuff from the likes of Fresh Snow and Vallens) here.
Montreal's Ought (who also feature an Australian) brought out their second LP, Sun Coming Down, yesterday. I haven't heard it yet, although I have heard good things. In fact, I only have heard one song of theirs - this, the almost title track 'Sun's Coming Down'. The atonal modulated squall of Viet Cong or Women (admittedly they are also Canadian references, and the cacophony on display and off-kilter art guitar pop here is more akin to Sonic Youth, Talking Heads or Television, but I love the sinuous nature of those bands, and this, so there) with a Mark E Smith vocal delivery, over the top of a garish video that plays like Gregory Crewdson meets Alyssa Monks through the glossed lens of Battles' neon foodcentric artworks. It has blown my mind - I'm racing into town to pick this up NOW.
NB - I just found the whole album stream, so here it is for YOU! Grab Sun Coming Down (out through the excellent Constellation Records) here. Ought are playing the Mutations festival in Brighton 28-29 November, alongside Lightning Bolt, Om, Metz, Chelsea Wolfe, Vision Fortune, Jane Weaver and many more.
Melbourne trio Loobs are preparing to launch their second EP (Loobs 2, doncha know) and it's a good'un. Taking the dissonant legs-splayed post-punk approach and throwing it to the ground in abject disgust, these four tracks machete their own path through the sonic jungle, a sweat soaked fever dream of anguish and despair. The chanted vocals and spidery, spiralling guitar is reminiscent of bands like Women and Sonic Youth, albeit more stripped back and ramshackle, but when things cascade into shards of noise, it's a sight/sound to behold. And the narcoleptic closer 'Pingu', whilst not my favourite track on the EP (that's split between 'Dysentery' and 'Great Wall Of China') the marked change of pace and weight of desperation with promises of hope in the last lyrics, despite the trainwrecks (I feel the closest I ever have), shows Loobs are onto something special here. Buy Loobs 2here.
Olympia's Broken Water have always been a pretty exciting band for me - one of the first entries into the Night People label for me, their mix of atonal distorted quicksand and opaque melodic pop evoking Sonic Youth or early days Blonde Redhead with a bit of Widowspeak colouring the edges. New record Wrought certainly upholds this sounds - listen to the sonorous squall of '1984' or the spoken word and no wave guitar squall histrionics of 'Choice' for example - but there is a cleanliness and effortlessness to some of these tracks that suggests the trio may not have waded out of the deep dark waters of distortion, but have at least found cause to don their Raincoats. Opening gambit 'Hi-Lo' is the clearest indicator that sunshine permeates the darkness, even if opaque ('Am I right or am I wrong/All I know is I do not know'). 'Love & Poverty' is a song in the same world - imagine a Fortuna Pop alum covered by Electrelane at their most pop esoteric. 'Close' floats in on a percolating wave of shoegaze fuzz, before Kanako Pooknyw's vocals takes a downturn, things grind to a low rumble, before we amble along to a wistful close. Elsewhere we see Jon Hanna take vocal duties on the likes of 'Wasted' (whose gravel-ripped round-voweled vocals feels like other 90s progenitors of alternative rock (when that was a positive term) Screaming Trees and Social Distortion) and 'Psycho Static' which feels more akin to Thurston Moore having a narcoleptic dream, eyes at half mast, slight left jaw paralysis, simple strumming, late sun dreaming, before the requisite distortion kicks the needle into another direction but still feels like an amble at its feverish height. Hanna's vocals find another sideways slide on 'Set Free', carved out of a Mascis drawl and a Vedder howl. 'Stone' has more in tune with the lo-fi machinations of Veronica Falls coupled with a high, ragged tempo that Vivian Girls often conjured up. These somewhat obvious touchstones may read as lazy observations, but they help assuage the idea that Wrought and Broken Water themselves are steeped in recognition while upholding their subversions - railing against the surveillance police state of '1984', the soul-crushing monotony of low-level jobs on 'Close'. The elongated closer 'Beach' though gives us the truest sense of where the band has ended up - on the waterline as day starts its transformation into night, at first ethereal, before the cold whips at the edges of your bones, the stars prick holes in the darkness and start to swirl, convex lines of light, before they shatter and fall to the earth in cacophonous glory. A dreamscape? A nightmare? Reality and fantasy, originality and familiarity, fuse together into one main constant - that Broken Water lapping at your feet. Pick up Wroughthere.
This one blindsided me. I had never heard of Polish band Trupa Trupa before, true; but more for the fact that it came from Blue Tapes, a label that is admittedly eclectic in sonic output but is generally more to the abstract noise/ambient outliers of the musical spectrum (Tashi Dorji, Henry Plotnick, Father Murphy). Headache, Trupa Trupa’s third album, is not like this – more akin to noisy indie rock meltdowns than overtly electronic or jazz-inflected experimental fare. Their listed reference points include Swans, Sonic Youth and Slint. But then it isn’t as brazenly atonal as you may think based on these signifiers.
‘Snow’ is a rambling unruly maudlin pop song with blown-out guitars, reminding me of 90s guitar bands like Australia’s Gaslight Radio. ‘The Sky Is Falling’ feels like a later-era Beatles track with a Soundtrack Of Our Lives vintage/homage aftertaste that explodes in the mouth with a cathartic rally of arms. ‘Wasteland’ has a chaotic musical middle third not far removed from the orgiastic, sumptuous noise tapestries that Blonde Redhead have become experts at weaving. In fact, Headache is simply a great record, regardless of the perceived influences – the minimal brooding and hushed vocals of ‘Halleyesonme’, the twisted shuffle leading into an inexorable organ-led miasmic meltdown on ‘Getting Older’; the liberating rise and fall of ‘Rise And Fall’; the motorik tension of the title track. Most of the songs dish out crescendos, but not in the cheap cop-out mould – every build up and release is poles apart, plumbing a different emotional depth and offering a respite, sonic acupuncture.
By the time we get to the post-punk sworl of closer ‘Picture Yourself’, you will be begging to get to Gdansk and see these guys in person, rope them into being your theme music band, and have them follow you around every day in real time, scoring your failures, triumphs and ennui. Do yourself a favour and pick up a copy of Headachehere.
One of the most intimate and exciting venues to rise up in Brisbane over the last decade, The Waiting Room, sadly closed its doors last year. In a city renowned for closing venues before they really get a chance to flourish, the three years it had been open is something of a miracle – a glorified house party a few nights a week in West End, albeit with a good sound system and PA, a caring and passionate management and staff, BYO sensibilities and communal goodwill permeated every show. And there were some stellar shows – from Mt. Eerie making a pleasantly unexpected visit to many great local and interstate acts getting in on the love. Two of my favourite shows ever that took place in that 80-person venue involved Auckland three-piece God Bows To Math, one of the most underrated bands in the Southern Hemisphere. Their serrated buzzsaw of a self-titled album blew the membranes out of the inner linings of my mind back in 2011 - the engine room of Thomas Morrison (drums) and Sam Cussen (bass) pounding incessantly and Martin Phillips’ barked, acerbic lyrics and dessicated guitar melts.
I have been extremely lucky to have a penultimate master of their follow up Brighter Futures on my laptop for the past few months, and FINALLY I have the final version and the album is hitting the world with a sledgehammer subtlety and cathartic charm. The thing is, it is when there is a measured stasis, a crawl, a breath taken, that the atmosphere and intensity is ratcheted up tenfold – the sample and two minute intro to ‘1999 Doomsday’ and the tempered vocals and skeletal instrumentation that eats its own tail in ‘Moral Prophylaxis’ are anxiety eaters, so that when the impending doom and destruction finally hit it is gargantuan in scope and precision. Even the brutally succinct ‘Munchausen’, which barely cracks a minute in length, opens with a quarter minute of near silence. The Sonic Youth and Shellac comparison I initially held with the trio still holds some weight, but Brighter Futures showcases a rougher hewn angularity, emotional expulsion and exorcism. ‘High Strings’ for some reason reminded me of My Disco, Jakob and a more unwound Unwound simultaneously – the insidious bass, the gravelly vocals that bleed into something more ephemeral, the instrumental groove, pummelling drums… All of which comes to an end on ‘Oil of Vitriol’, a strange track that brings back all these through lines and balls them up into a compacted whole.
Grab Brighter Futures (out through Muzai Records) here. Support these guys, stat.
A bit late to the party on the anarchic mess that is Don't Believe In Time, the mind melt 12" from Italians For Food. (it came out mid last year). It's got that squat-house dynamic that mirrors as disparate locales as Amsterdam in the 80s, France in the 00s (think especially of Looks Like Miaou), or even the VU collectivism of the 60s/70s. Even New Zealand has its own kinship in the form of Girls Pissing On Girls Pissing. It's like when civilisations around the globe develop something technological totally independent of each other - or how Volcano and Dante's Peak came out the same time. For Food. continue to strip all genres of their base tropes, going beyond atonal punk to deconstruct and resuscitate tribal drones, pop immolation, industrial noise, naive art, spoken drivel, cathartic experimentation and found instrument demolition. Grab this impressive record here.
This has been a long time coming. I’ve been a fan of Boston band Soccer Mom since their inception back in 2010; they were the subject of one of the first ever Sonic Masala interviews (an element that has come in fits and bursts, but has included the likes of Civil Civic, Angie (Straight Arrows/Ruined Fortune/Circle Pit), White Walls, Batpiss and Alpine Decline amongst others); my write-ups find a small space in the nether regions of their press releases. And yes their moniker is incredibly misleading. But if you haven’t jumped rampantly on their bandwagon, no need to go back to the beginning. Simply dive headfirst into the distorted world of their debut self-titled album – it’s an exercise in calibrated tension, serrated guitar lines opened up to the sky, a series of noise and nuance that embodies what guitar rock should be.
Start with opener ‘It’s Probably Not Your Fault’ – my favourite track on the album, because it IS Soccer Mom. Crawling out of an aluminium bin with the requisite fast-approaching din, we enter the kind of loud-sedate territory that Archers Of Loaf made (make?) their own, creating a cacophony of fuzz and cymbals amidst the sonorous chorus, everything tempered with gazed-shoe precision (including the feedback-toying close). Its that sense of frivolity and earnestness tagteaming amongst the chaos that makes them such an enthralling listen. Elsewhere the is the swirling guitars and disembodied of vocals of ‘Orejas’; the glazed dreaminess of ‘No One Left’; the anguished stutter of (im)personality on ‘Dry Mind’; and the crowded instrumental interlude in the middle of ‘Hideaway Sands’ is the kinda things that coalesces into a vibrant catharsis of crossed strings and smashed slings that Deerhunter-via-Sonic Youth revel in. The brooding closer ‘Open Heart Surgery’ is more openly abrasive, still tempered by crooned insistence, but offering an expulsion that to be honest doesn’t even need to come - if you aren’t an acolyte by album’s end, why are you still here?
The band continue to connect, playing alongside the likes of Weekend, Whirr, Speedy Ortiz and Nothing, bands in particular that embody the yin and the yang of Soccer Mom’s aesthetic. I know there will be albums this year that will grab my attention harder and for longer, but this is such a solid opening gambit longplayer, especially having listened from the beginning, that it’s hard not to get rabidly excited. Well done guys. Soccer Mom is out now through 100m Records – you should definitely get this.
I never thought I would see Carsick Cars. The idea of a Chinese no-wave inflicted guitar rock band even existing seemed unfathomable – but to see them hit the stage at Woodland back in 2012 felt like a heady hallucination. A true caterwaul, but one that felt imbued with real, honest and earned anguish. I hope to see them play again.
And if they continue to produce albums the calibre of 3, I reckon there's a hot chance that I will. It's been five years in the making, and the shift in sonic aesthetics is palpable. There is a stronger jamming vibe to these songs, and whilst the Western musical appropriation has always been evident in their abject love of Sonic Youth, 3 is littered with much further-reaching touchstones. I felt like 'Wei Cheng' was a mix of The Kinks and The Clean, all sunny, ebullient and crisp in execution (unbeknownst to me, The Clean's Hamish Kilgour actually produces this record alongside Peter Kember - yep, Sonic Boom). 'Fifteen Minutes Older' sounds crafted for Doug Martsch's inner ear only, so effortless is the tightly wound yet effervescent guitar pop carved out here. 'The Best VPN So Far' was pummelling in the engine room, the drums rolling forth like a harbinger of giants of yore, whilst the anguished growl of the guitars were of the netherworld - yet all was evocative of something positive in nature, regardless if experienced through headphones, stereo speakers or in a stadium. It's the pop strains that are stronger; the motorik seam richer; the psych permutations more striking. This album deserves to be heard by EVERYONE.
But that isn't enough - Carsick Cars just finished a Stateside tour with Minneapolis' psych-drone outfit Flavor Crystals (whose own newly released album is eerily called Three), and have a split blood-red 7" to stand as a marker of their time together. It was crafted for Record Store Day, but is now available to all (both releases are available here in Australia thanks to the inimitable Tenzenmen and Geijing Records). The Chinese trios contribution is 'Yoko' and is a perfect slice of rollicking guitar pop, the drums and organ effects driving the song at a frantic pace - Guided By Voices in hi fi. Flavor Crystals' effort is 'Mirror In My Mind', a much more wound-down, stargazed effort - the band has also recently toured with Brian Jonestown Massacre, so that gives you an idea into what psych realm we are drifting into. It's a great piece of Krautrock-inflicted glide, but the effervescent strength of 'Yoko' undercuts it somewhat (although if you dig Spacemen 3 - which I do a lot - you could take the split from the other side of the fence too...) Its still a must have though - both tracks a perfect exemplar of their oeuvre.
There isn't much I can tell you, other than if you aren't out and about celebrating this at your local record store, I don't know why we are friends. So many exclusive releases, it's incredible! Here is a massive list of some of the things on offer. There is a lot of local gear too, so keep your peepers gleaned!
Here are four I'm pretty excited about:
Baltimore's Dan Deacon is a cuddly maelstrom of gummi-bear electronica, a sugar rush of giddy proportions, yet on last year's America produced a sliver of gravitas that further accentuated his relevance in the 21st century. He has a 500-press only 7" through Domino Records that utilises four - count 'em, four - drummers, two for each cut on the wax. The two tracks, 'Konomo Ripoff No 1' (essentially ripping off the Congolese Konomo No 1 - naturally), features ex-Ponytail skinsman Jeremy Hyman and percussionist Kevin O'Meara on one cut whilst the other sees ex-Double Dagger drummer/current Roomrunner frontman (and regular Dan Deacon Ensemble participant) Denny Bowen and regular Deacon cohort Dave Jacober take control. It's vintage Dan Deacon - therefore, vintage excellente.
Then there is this beautiful absurdity. Indianapolis label Joyful Noise have somehow managed to collate some serious shit under a 7" serious they are naming Cause & Effect, with the premise being an influential, historically-significant solo musician on Side A, and the modern result of that musical influence on Side B. And they ain't fucking around - the first cabs off the rank include Thurston Moore coupled with Talk Normal, Lou Barlow synced with Dumb Numbers, and David Yow vomiting arm-in-arm with Child Bite. The special, limited edition run that is available only to VIP Joyful Noise members is pressed on silver/clear split colour vinyl, while the regular edition for all the other people, is printed on black/clear colour vinyl. Amazing? Fuck yes. You can actually order too - try that here - and try some of the results here and here.
And as I mentioned last week, there is the new (posthumous) Double Dagger record 333 - only 1000, so they will sell like the proverbial. You'd be insane if you had the opportunity to pick this up and didn't - DD are definitely one of the unsung bands of the past ten years, full stop.
Finally, for some local flavour, the excellent Tym's Guitar started a record label late last year in the form of a 7" record club (which I am a part of), and it's drawing some pretty special exclusives (including an amazing Earthless one-off). This is another pretty rad one - Californian nutjob guitar rippers The Shrines. If you don't know what they are all about, think Fu Manchu, in your teens, on waaaaaaay too many Red Bull-tainted bowls. Sweet, I know.
So get there. It doesn't even matter if you buy anything. I love going to Tyms, or Title, or Rockinghorse, or Jet Black Cat, or Woolly Bully (RIP), as much to listen and to chat as I do to buy. Many friends have been made in such a place. If these places die out, so will an integral part of why music is the amazing thing that it is. And to remind you, Brisbane is having some pretty cool parties at its stores. Head to any one of the below, and trust me, it will prove to be an outstanding day - it may even change your life.
TYMS - opens at 10am. Second wave of new stock rolls out at 1pm. Bands start at 12pm, including The Nation Blue (most likely their only show in Queensland for 2013 - an absolute must-see!), Bruce!, Midnight Wolf, Emperors, Roku Music and Cannon.
Rockinghorse - opens at 9am. Bands start at 12.30 and include Per Purpose, Living Eyes, Brainbeau and Half Spoken.
Jet Black Cat Records - opens at 9am. Bands start at 12 with We All Want To, with Thelma Plum at 4 and Morning Harvey at 6.30, with a mystery band thrown in for shits and giggles.
Much of the excitement over Chelsea Light Moving, Thurston Moore's new project (or at least one of many) has already died down some. Thurston played here late last year, the same time I was throwing a Sonic Masala night (Go Violets, Do The Robot, Tiny Migrants - great lineup) so I didn't see the confusion of many as Thurston, who was booked as a solo show, came on stage and proceeded to play predominantly new tracks off Chelsea Light Moving. Not that most people should have complained that hard - he is one of modern rock's geniuses, and the new record isn't all that far removed from latter Sonic Youth meanderings anyway. It cannot be avoided - the guitar, the dissonance, the laconic drawl. Shit, the man still looks the same he did in the late 80s! And it's a call to arms - a fuck you to the direction that most "edgy" rock acts take in the 21st century. And there are moments when it is clear that this quartet has the potential to become a fully formed band, such as when 'Empires Of Time' collapses heavily into a morass of chugging sludge - the sense of communal abandon feel real, and is something that has been missing in much of SY's latter releases, for better or worse...
That said, BECAUSE it's a Thurston Moore project, Chelsea Light Moving comes slightly as a letdown. The production values are a little too slick, taking away the punch from some of these tracks. That said, if it was another band you would find gravel deeply embedded in the skin underneath your jaw. Maybe it'd be the same last year, if the debut self-titled album from Metz actually had Ian Mackaye in it - sure it's good, but we've heard better from the original well-spring...
Nevertheless, Chelsea Light Moving has its moments, and it's great to see Thurston freaking out more. This band will get tighter, dirtier, louder - and then we could have an atonal masterpiece. Grab it here through Matador Records.
If you think back all the way to 2011, I raved about Family, the debut EP from Bristol miscreants Spectres. So many bands adhere the Sonic Youth school of rock to their own ends, yet Family felt original, something visceral and ebullient, harrowing and energising in equal measure. Their live shows are understandably widely-renowned, few new young bands brandishing such clout and noise with such aggression and abandon without it falling into an implosive mess.
I've had the new EP Hunger for a couple months again, and it furthers the rabid excitement, and hopefully gleans them a much larger fan base. Essentially four songs (opener 'Pull' is 47 seconds of ambient noise), Hunger is a ferocious package, each song more explosive than its predecessor. Controlled tensions, squalled aggressions. Excellent stuff.
The jangly fuzzy that permeates This Is Disconnect, the debut LP by Chicago five-piece Videotape, is juxtaposed by the angelic/acerbic vocal interplay of Sophie Leigh. Think The Breeders and Fonda becoming a Mazzy Star/Sonic Youth hybrid - a shoegaze band grunging it up just to the precipice of static abyss before reining it in for a bit of La's-centric alt-pop... The sweet/jagged confection is a little off putting at times, yet on tracks like the glistening 'Static' or the growler 'The Creeps', everything aligns perfectly. It's a bit schizophrenic at times, but the melancholy of 'Walking In Circles' or the almost post-rock of 'Form' haunts as well. It has everything, and everything is done well, even if it doesn't cohere perfectly as an album. Well worth a few listens though - some of these tracks are absolute killer.
This Is Disconnect is out next week - you can get it here.
Welcome back! I've had a lovely break, but it's time to get back into the brilliance. A week late, but here is the second track from Thurston Moore's new act Chelsea Light Moving, 'Groovy & Linda'. I'll let the man himself introduce the track:
Not to be confused with the 1968 coffee house folk song by Tom Parrott (recorded for Smithsonian Folkways), this chug n’ shred burner is a psycho reflection of late 60s NYC East Village hippie idealism slayed and splayed in an Avenue B tenement boiler room. Groovy was the boy born James Leroy Hutchinson from modest American means and Linda was Linda Fitzpatrick, she from a privileged nuclear household, both runaways to the lysergic pulchritude of peace, love and marijuana. When The Fugs went on tour in 1967 ringleader Ed Sanders enlisted Groovy to care take his Peace Eye bookstore at a “secret location on the lower east side” (E. 10th St., actually). An incredible underground poetry bookstore/art gallery/hip hang out and orgy hook up scene, Groovy turned it into a barefoot mantra crash pad for all the beautiful zonkers and speed freaks of alphabet city. It was hard for even a grouch like Sanders to get too miffed at Groovy who actually believed in the wild animal dreams of hippie. Groovy was in love with Linda, a starry-eyed goddess nymph and they were the power flower couple of Tompkins Square. Tragedy flapped its nightmare wings and the two were found brutally beaten and killed bathed in blood and mystery amidst their tie-dye rags and rolling papers. It signaled the end of the fairytale that the media presented in day-glo color come-hitherness in the pages of Life and Look magazine. The following year Charles Manson and his dune buggy motherfuckers would exact an even farther cry of chaos and killing in the bamboozled hills of Los Angeles. We, Chelsea Light Moving, want to mantra the names of these two angels of beauty, regardless of the cynicism and naïveté of youth, for these are the charms of the soul. “Don’t shoot!!” ----- we are your children……
