Erasing Tossed Guerillas Forever

Jesus - Guerilla Toss know how to fry minds. On their new album Eraser Shoegazer, the Boston noise nihilists aren't as brazenly abrasive as previous releases - instead embracing the groove, jazz inflections, disco rhythms and r'n'b textures just to set them in a paint-mixer and leaving the door open, the contents a manic kaleidoscope of frenetic abandon. It's all in that bass - thick, sinuous, suggestive - what are we getting here? Then we have Kassie Carlson - an unhinged vocalist somewhere caught between Screaming Females' Marissa Paternoster, Deerhoof's Satomi Matsuzaki and Lydia Lunch. You have the funk desiccation in a Soviet-era arcade game that is 'Grass Shack'; the contorted cowbell mania of 'Diamond Girls', like Tortoise trying their hand at calypso on ketamine; the minimal maximalism in tribal percussive repetition, scratched and ratcheted guitar, chants and yelps (underlaid by an insidious synth hook) on the excellent 'Perfume'... Guerilla Toss are a band both artful and anti-art; performance, mantra, idiocy, id. I have always loved the insanity that the band has brought to their music - but with Eraser Stargazer, they have made it addictive, a dance bomb. Bring it on. Pre-order the album in clear green through DFA Records here.

Live And Still Screaming

It's a day of reminiscing, it seems. I got to see Screaming Females the once, when I lived around the corner from the still mourned London venue The Luminaire. With old SM mates Paul and Ani I'm pretty sure. The band was tight and fun, and the diminutive Marissa Paternoster was a blazing presence, her voice booming forth, her face contorting, her guitar wailing. It was a powerhouse performance, one that I was sure would blast them into the stratosphere. It's grungey, punky, proggy in places, silly in others - noise pop with hunting knife serrated edges and dipped in PCP. Over eight years and five records that hasn't changed.

It makes sense then that for me, their live album Live At The Hideout (out now on Don Giovanni Records) is the best thing they have committed to tape. First up, it's recorded by Steve Albini (also recorded their last album, Ugly). Secondly, it's the Screaming Females. They roar through their tracks like it's the last gig on earth, and other than some muted drums (the recording's fault), it is a killer display of raucous, blood curdling rock and roll. King Mike on bass is given some moments to shine, and the tightness of the band is without question. Yet the focus must be on Paternoster - she is a wailing dervish, a devil at the crossroads, and she finally gets the recorded platform that she deserves. Live At The Hideout reaffirms (if any was needed) that this trio are one of the best live acts on the planet - go out and see them pronto!

You can get Live At The Hideout here.

Wild Movements In The Arabian Dunes

About this time last year I gave a little lip service to Brooklyn wonky popheads band Beach Arabs. They finally have a full-length out, also called Wild Movement, and it's jam-packed full of frenetic, off-kilter, sunny concoctions that rock and/or roll. Liz Hogg is a happy amalgam of Screaming Females' Marisa Paternoster and Kim Deal in a dialled-down Breeders mode, whilst Nathaniel Sabat's droll, Lee Ranaldo-esque drawled deliveries offers a poignant counterpoint, two roughies that rub together to make a diamond. The focus remains the manic tempo shifts and Hogg's pitch-perfect noodling however, the math-lite precision (see closer 'Under The Whale') that underpins these lo-fi ramblings and elevates them beyond mere garage also-rans into something more appealing, a whispier Deerhoof, a American slacker take on Trash Kit or an East Coast Raincoats. Not that Beach Arabs are scaling those heady heights just yet - but with Wild Movement, they have at least made it to base camp.

You can grab Wild Movement through Mouca Records here.

Wild Movements On The Arabian Beach

 

A quick catch up post about a little Brooklyn band called Beach Arabs. They are prepping their Wild Movement release and it’s the kind of discordant post-punk that doesn’t take itself very seriously – so the punch and jaggedness is tempered by a grin and a hug. Imagine if Kim Deal fronted Screaming Females, or a sped up, sun blessed Life Without Buildings (although there is no ‘New Town’ here).

 

Wild Movement has been sitting on the shelf for a few months now – we here in Australia would love it to come out, just so it can soundtrack our summer. Especially for those gearing up for a carefree, care less, loose and easy summer that is all about casual impromptu parties, hook ups and skinny dips.

Screaming Females Ain't No Fools!

I really don't get Marissa Paternoster. The Screaming Females banshee/shredder is a pocket rocket of awesome - I saw the trio first hand at London's Luminaire, and they killed! But she looks like my sister when she was 12. How can she rock so hard? Well, she does. Rock hard. Now the band are bringing out their fifth record Ugly on Don Giovanni Records, and here is the first track from it. it, as always, rocks HARD. Buy the record here.

Screaming Females - It All Means Nothing

Gig - Screaming Females/Not Cool/Trogons @ The Luminaire, 27/10/10

It is a small intimate affair for this evening's Upset The Rhythm show at The Luminaire. One of (if not the) best venues in London, Kilburn's Luminaire offers the avid reverence to music that true music lovers desire - and the venue's lack of adherence to any one musical style or genre heightens the altruistic nature that its velvet and warm glow exudes.

Tonight we are here to witness the energetic garage pop fury that is New Jersey's Screaming Females, but before they enter the frame we view Trogons. Steeped in 60s/70s psych pop, Trogons offer up a Doors-esque sound that is driven by the high in the mix keyboards, which is not a disservice as it is these flourishes that help this fledgling act rise above any more cliched tropes. The lead vocalist showed a nice range, although many of the songs required a low, deep register, and it is here that the songs got lost, as the vocals helped to enforce the drive of each track. They certainly had their moments, when the band would collectively wig out on a less common trajectory, but on the main Trogons didn't stray too far from their idols' (aforementioned Doors, with a sprinkling of Spacemen 3) paved-in-success frameworks, with their one venture into the abstract, their second last offering, coming off more carnivalesque than trailblazing.

Not Cool - Um, You Didn't Do That In The Soundcheck

Not Cool came on next, and without much ado they launched into one of the best (and definitely expected) support sets I've seen this year. Of course this came out of left field, which always heightens the experience, but it was with the wanton abandon these boys set about thrashing the shit out of their tightly-coiled garage punk with such precision that blew me away. A new song (for them at least; to me they were ALL new) is dedicated to their landlord, and this explains some of the band's innate tightness - three twentysomethings in a band, in the same house, playing every day... And whilst lead Matthew, with his skinny jeans, coiffed hair and his Garfield jumper, is decidedly not not cool, the 'engine room' are about nothing else but the music. The way in which bassist William flailed about nonstop for forty minutes - at one moment facing the amps limbs akimbo, at another bent double like a vertical foetus - reignited in all the sense of wonder in discovering the joys of a simple chord and playing it to within an inch of its life. Drummer Andrew was anything but mechanical, belting the skins like his life depended on it - and it probably did. Japandroids may have some stake in what is being dished out on stage, but by the end of the set, it is evidently clear that Not Cool are decidedly cool as fuck, and they don't even know it. Hopefully it stays that way, because they have the potential to wreak global carnage.

Screaming Females - I Don't Mind It

This is one of the quickest UTR gigs yet, for not long after Not Cool have exited in a blaze of spontaneous combustion that Screaming Females are ripping into their first number. Marissa Paternoster ambles meekly onstage and straps her guitar on. She is diminutive and cute, like a cross between the sadly defunct Ponytail's Molly Siegel and Edna Mode, the fashion designer from superior Pixar film The Incredibles. And to be honest, as soon as the first song is under way I cant get this out of my head. Paternoster is a guitar demon, a vocal visionary, and a screaming (female?) banshee, a true presence that threatens to burst forth and envelop the entire venue in effervescent joy. She is a maestro, and the way she contorts her body and voice whilst her hands eviscerate the fretboard is truly jawdropping. The band hits the turbo button, blasting from classic rock to 90s indie slacker rock to amazingly loud punk noise with nary a space for a necessary breath. The set was smattered with tracks from last album Castle Talk and newie Power Move in what was a seamless setlist, ending with a squalling noisefuck of a track that had Paternoster channelling her inner Reagan from The Exorcist whilst the 'engine room', Jarrett Dougherty and King Mike, propelled proceedings to the nth level. Screaming Females leave the stage having made their statement - that indie rock can be warped and incredibly loud, intricately noodled, and amazingly rendered - with a sledgehammer. I think I'll have tinnitus for a few days after this, and for that I am grateful.

More pics soon.

Not Cool are better than cool

And bam, where the fuck have they been! This morning I woke up blurry eyed to the fact that Sonic Masala have a new favourite live band. Last night SM trotted down to London's best gig venue The Luminaire to see Screaming Females (yet another Upset The Rhythm gig, they can really do no wrong). Screaming Females were awesome as would be expected (a review is forthcoming) but, more out of sheer surprise than anything, it was support band Not Cool that stuck out in the mind, just about.

I've heard bits about south east London trio Not Cool, their track 'Limbs are for Liars' featured on the Italian Beach Babes / Paradise Vendors 12" Comp that dropped back in August that I had completely failed to buy, I've missed out big time clearly. But nothing could have prepared us for how good a live act Not Cool were last night. A raucous explosion of energy so tight you would have thought the band had been touring for decades. A full review and photos will follow soon so I wont go into too much detail but you can imagine my joy this morning when I discover that Not Cool have just dropped their debut mini album 12" Rugged Raw on Sleep All Day Records, get it here, if its half as good as they were live then winner is written all over it. Taste below of their debut 7" Wonderful Beasts and Perfect Hair Forever from Rugged Raw.

Not Cool - Wonderful Beasts
Not Cool - Perfect Hair Forever

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For Screaming Females!

New Jersey's garage rock conquistadors Screaming Females are taking out The Luminaire tonight, supported by Not Cool (they are actually quite disparaging, as they are cool) and Trogons (a very interesting up and coming band). SF's last LP Castle Talk really showcased the trio's penchant for tight, extreme rock raucousness, amped by Marissa Paternoster's guitar wailing and vocal gymnastics and Jarrett Dougherty and Mike Rickenbacker's intense interplay. Now, with new album Power Move blowing the hinges off my doors, its high time you check them out. And in the intimate climes of the Luminaire, with maestros Upset The Rhythm at the helm, its going to be a wild ride...

Screaming Females - Bell

Screaming Females - Zoo Of Death