A Hozac Triptych Of Seven Inches

I’m kinda getting 7” (and revisionist garage rock) happy this week, and here are three more, all from the Hozac world, that have been taking turns at spiriting me away from the real world, into one filled with attitude, mayhem and hedonistic fun.

Winter Bear is the new venture from ex-Cave Weddings songstress Erin Dorbin, and the two tracks here are imbued with enough summertime revelry and devil-may-care energy to fuel many a beachside moon party. ‘Jump In The Fire’ has the requisite punchy vocals and doo-wop backing vocals, but it’s Dorbin’s steely guitar riffs that infuse this with enough growl and bluster to supersede the cutesy exterior and be a true acolyte of 50s leather rock n roll. ‘Should I Leave’ flows on, more of the same, and it spins around and around, a youthful elixir that pushes aside the clouds and back the clock. Vintage pop tunes, shrink-wrapped and left in an attic, left until now, a true relic of then and now, if slightly warped from the sun and Dorbin’s overflowing charms.

But you can only by walking on sunshine for a certain amount of time before getting burnt and hurtling back to earth, and Cop City/Chill Pillars’ Gift Shop/Brand New Neighbor Blues has the requisite cement in the scorched punk rhythms to make that trip all the quicker. There is a primitive baseness to these two tracks (and indeed on the band’s debut eponymous LP) that disarms. The DEVO card is whipped out regularly when these guys find their feet, and it’s pretty warranted – the spaced out, deliciously warped compositions shouldn’t make sense – at all – yet inexorably draw you in. Before long you are splattered on terra firma, every bone, muscle and organ turned to jelly, yet you continue to hum these tunes through cracked teeth as you breathe your last.

  

Finally we are slammed with some squalling psych detritus from Chicago’s Verma. I know Hozac isn’t just a dirty, scuzzy garage den – they harbour the likes of The Band In Heaven and Human Eye in their midst - but it always blindsides me when something outside the mold crawls out of the darkness and into your ear. The assault is duly justified though – the uneasy motorik energy informing the swirling ‘Ragnaraak’ evokes the most ethereal yet dark machinations of the likeminded Cave, blistering the walls and scorching the floors with their fiery outro; whilst ‘Chrome’ ploughs through serrated tempests of noise to settle into a insidious groove that is pregnant with ill-tempered intent. The kaleidoscopic undulations are insistent, incessant, invasive and invigorating – you won’t be yourself when the needle stops, nor will you want to be.

 

You can pick all this slices of heaven up here.

Backwards Looking Forwards 2011 - Bad Sports, AIDS Wolf, Acid Baby Jesus

OK, so here are three more releases that I "discovered" over my two-month sabbatical that, whilst not anything overly groundbreaking, were a hell of a lot of fun.


Bad Sports, on their 2nd LP Kings Of The Weekend, have chiseled out some major disaffected pop rock that'll tear holes in the seat of your jeans. The Denton, Texas trio are made for summer benders with a sleazy bent. Dirtnap Records put out this fun-loving, fuzzy gem, and it reverently does what it says on the tin. I guess there are elements of Bare Wires about Bad Sports, albeit with more protopunk snarl, which makes me like these guys all the more.

Bad Sports - Can't Just Be Friends


Richie Follin's sister Madeline of Cults' fame will be here on Saturday as a part of the Laneway festival, so it would be remiss of me to mention Guards' Do It Again 7" that came out in December that I found quite delectable. Put out by White Iris, these tracks cement two facts - that Richie Follin knows how to pen a heck of a hook, and that they need to bring out their debut album STAT.

Guards - Do It Again


There was a stage when I seemed to be listening to a lot of Athens, Georgia acts back in 2010 - kickstarted probably by my love of Tunabunny - and it's more than possible that Acid Baby Jesus is going to bring that love full circle. Yet these clowns are from the "other" Athens - the one that proclaims to be the capital of Greece, the starting point (and possibly the endpoint - oh, political controversy!!) of civilisation as we know it. Their self-titled debut came out in October last year on Slovenly Recordings, and it sounds like another 2011 fave of mine, Human Eye, in its insistence of sounding like psych punk played by Ming The Merciless off Flash Gordon. Such space jams are morbid and strange, and oh so goddamn rad. This is a pretty killer album, and may have made the top 40 of 2011 if I'd heard it sooner. 2012 also has them firing up to join the biggest and best lineup yet for the Austin Psych Fest. Live long and prosper, you awesome weirdos.

Acid Baby Jesus - Tooth To Toe

Human Eye In The Sky

Sacred Bones have been at the zenith of labels that in the past two years create a oft deserved fervour for every release they produce. Alongside labels such as Thrill Jockey, In The Red and Hydra Head, SB are passionate about their music, creating beautifully packaged physical copies (all with a common format so that it is like collecting an entire collection, rather than buying disparate albums) whilst also refusing to break the budget.

The latest release to grace my presence from the Sacred Bones stable is from Detroit's Human Eye, whose split single with Sex Beet we thoroughly enjoyed. They Came From The Sky continues the warped, loud as hell fuzzfest that they alluded to there, but with more volume, zaniness and, bizarrely, more accessible. This loud, Comets On Fire-esque proto-punk with sci-fi allusions works really well here - an aural equivalent of a 50s B-movie double bill at the local drive in. At times utterly insane, it is this balls to the wall, devil may care attitude to the tropes of punk that make this album all the more exciting. And despite the lyrics erring on the side of absurdity, Human Eye prove that you can lead the old punk horse to water, lace it with stupidly addictive hallucinogenics and make the fucker drink it.


You can get They Came From The Sky here - but be warned, it will fry your brain.

Human Eye - Junkyard Heart
Human Eye - They Came From The Sky

Sex Beet Cleans Up, Gets Dirty With Spaced Out Human Eye

Scion A/V Garage keep putting out ace 7" splits (check out the Jacuzzi Boys/Nobunny no-brainer here!), and this time off the turntable its a good lil friend of ours - Sex Beet! On the split with Detroit's Human Eye, Sex Beet's 'Alone' is incredibly cleaned up compared to their previous efforts - you can hear the vocals! you can feel the squalling organ! you can smell the blood and spunk! - yet is still as stupidly infectious as ever. Of course Human Eye dont go down in flames either, their 'Martian Queen' takes a skewed Misfits approach to their punk, a nebulous journey that has brought something back with it...

Human Eye - Martian Queen
Sex Beet - Alone