SONIC MASALA: Skimask

Sunday, 18 August 2013

Tossing Guerrillas Gets Me All Sedimental

Holy shit. I thought I'd sit down with the new split LP Kicked Back Into The Crypt outta Sophomore Lounge for some late-night grooves - and can't stop the bleeding. Is there such a thing as a gleeful aneurysm? The perpetrators of such internal mayhem are New York avant psychos The Sediment Club and Boston atonal banshees Guerilla Toss.

The Sediment Club is something akin to Foot Village having forgone the percussive diarrhoea and replaced with fucked up distorted guitars, eye gouging and Pissed Jeans' reading from the Book of David Yow. This kind of ebullient evisceration doesn't come along all that often - it's still turgid bile, but goddamn it tastes good - the black rainbow.

Sediment Club - Ink Drunk

Then the heaving discharge that is Guerilla Toss' side comes to pass, and we have even more fervent soul stripping noise, with the rants and howls of Sediment Club's Austin Julian replaced with the siren/Syren wails of Kassie Carlson and frenetic staccato noise that flays you willingly to the core and beyond. A quivering, happy mess? Only if you promise to continue. The Cenobites haven't truly understood the pleasure/pain balance - it took a bunch of raving lunatics to work out the equation, in aural form. The world is deliciously doomed.

Guerilla Toss - God Fearing Sex Symbol

Put Kicked Back Into The Crypt (which you can pick up here) alongside another Sophomore release, Skimask's Cute Mutant LP, and you have the end of the world mixtape all sewn up. See you at the Rapture, fuckers.

Wednesday, 27 February 2013

Screaming For Cute Mutants In Skimasks

On the 12th of the 12th of 2012, Sophomore Lounge (alongside Infinity Cat and 100% Breakfast) put out Cute Mutant, the LP from Boston noise terrorists Skimask. Voice terrorists, more like it - the two vocalists (one spitting lyrics that are so distorted that it feels like Jon Spencer ate a supermarket intercom, the other manipulating guttural noises) are the instruments, with the only other common denominator is the drumkit. That's right - no guitar or bass, the incessant noise is all from a dude's throat with effects pedals a-go-go. It makes for something wedged between Foot Village or Lightning Bolt - sure the drumming is nowhere to the same level frenzy, but the seemingly ad-hoc (and definitely crazy) song structure and feverish compositions are akin. The end result - Cute Mutant is a quivering swamp monster, fuelled by electricity and madness, feasting on dubious souls and spitting them into the converted masses' open mouths. That's not so cute, now, is it?

Grab Cute Mutant here. I have no idea what it means, but it somehow rocks, and is replayable. You've gotta fucking love that then. And if you are in Boston, and these guys are playing, put your riot gear on and GET THERE.

Skimask - Tempurpedic Mattress
Skimask - Slap Me Silly

About

It was early on a Sunday morning at ATP - A Nightmare Before Christmas 2009. After downing a fair few, at 4am we decided to cook a curry. It was during the consumption of this drunkenly delicious breakfast treat that we decided to actually do something about the music we talk about all the time.

So we started a blog – and Sonic Masala was born. Now into its seventh year, the blog has spread out to call both Australia and the UK its home (and the rest of the world), and has expanded to include gigs, festivals and a record label under its black umbrella. Come on, eat the noize.

If an mp3 is up here, it's because we have been talking about it, and think the whole world needs to know more. It's there to give you a little taste. Then, if you like, check out the band live and spend all your hard earned cash on their records. If we've posted up an mp3 of your stuff and you're not too keen on the idea, let us know and we'll happily take it down pronto.