Column: Nothing Catalog Review

I got my shit together enough to write an overview of Nothing's back-catalog today for New Noise. The primer includes their EPs and LPs, no singles or splits. There won't be a review of their new album The Great Dismal on the horizon. I just have too many other things I want to cover, but trust me when I say that it's good! 

Check out my primer on Nothing's catalog on New Noise. 

Get a copy of The Great Dismal on Relapse Records. 

Album Review: C.O.F.F.I.N - Children Of Finland Fighting In Norway

They can really make a gross, sweaty ruckus down in Australia and I was able to distill my thoughts on one oily locus of it for New Noise today. C.O.F.F.I.N are basically a woke Murder Junkies lead by a trailer-home dwelling, Schlitz blitzed Phil Collins, and they fucking rule! They just released their self-titled fourth album and I can't put it down! 

Check out my write up of C.O.F.F.I.N's self-titled here. 

Get a copy of the album from Legless Records. 

Album Review: Ian Isiah - Auntie

The Pentecostal raised, GHE20G0TH1K scene maker Ian Isiah is going to lift your spirits, cleanse your soul, and hug the hurt out of you with the gorgeous gospel polished funk of his latest EP, Auntie. The singer and composer has beamed in Chromeo to do the honors of conjuring and channeling the ghost of Prince and the living essence of Chaka Khan into a mixing board to Weegied up this release as a celebration of life as it was bequeathed to us by the miracle of cosmic coincidence. The role of caretaker that Ian has assumed with the title of this EP is evident in the consciousness of his approach to melody and lover's mischief on this release. I swear by the hair on a lambs head that you will feel well-tended to and fully sated by the conclusion of its run time. Auntie kicks off with "N.U.T.S," a totem to remind you that even if others see you as a villain for merely existing as you are, to those who love you, you're a god damned star! It's an essential message conveyed with a flow of sexy sax solos and moonlight struck funky synth chords. The slinky bounce continues with the Champaign blooded, dancefloor, bust-up and strut "Princess Pouty" and the disco drenched wind-up and shakedown seduction of "Can't Call It." "Bougie Heart" doubles down on the enticements of Isiah's sex appeal, allowing him the space to drop a guard evading bid for your affection amongst a suite of parallel spiritual hard-bop and squishy funk-bap synth and sax parts. “First Love” has a subdued DeBarge-esque, puppy dog-eyed quality to its flutter groove and playful prattle. Don't cut out early though, because the main event premieres just before the end of the EP, with purple-dyed funk and bold stepping blues sneak of "Lady Bug," its fur-lined Morris Day melodies and lightening-through-your-heart, show-stopping guitar solos will overcome the last of your resistance to Ian's dusky charm. Break out your best wine and bless your day with a kiss from Auntie. 

Get a copy of Auntie from Juliet Records here. 

Album Review ọmọlólù - laiii 222 rest ooo : blx ancestral sonix salves

Wrote a little piece on the wonderful new album from ọmọlólù. laiii 222 rest ooo is technically an EP but it touches on more moods and ideas than many LPs that I've encountered that are three times its length. Oh my god, it's good. 

Read my write up of laiii 222 rest ooo on New Noise. 

Get a copy of laiii 222 rest ooo from Don Giovanni Records here.

Album Review: Sex with a Terrorist - Demo

Did a write up of Sex with a Terrorist's demo. It's a little band by a couple guys, maybe you've heard of them. Just Ian Shelton and Patrick Kindlon. You know, THOSE GUYS. All kidding aside, great fucking record.  

Demo write up on New Noise.

Cassette available from Convulse Records and Bad Mouth Productions

Album Review: Rïcïnn – Nereïd

I have a review of the new Rïcïnn album Nereïd for New Noise up today. It's an impossibly deep album and I doubt I was able to bring up even a 10th of the pearls that lie in its depths for this review. I've done my best though and you can read my thoughts below. 

Read review of Nereïd.

Buy  Nereïd from Blood Music.

Album Review: mynameisblueskye - No Ordinary Summer

 

I'm going to do something unheard of here and say something nice about Bandcamp. Gasp, right?! A music writer, heaping praise on Bandcamp? Impossible! Yet, here we are... 

One of the great things about Bandcamp as a platform is that it facilitates the release of independent projects and gives solo artists the same tools and frameworks to promote themselves as those with a whole team at their disposal. Further, the platform has a robust set of discovery tools that allows you to actually find things that you'd want to listen to on the platform, as opposed to what ever is being pushed by paid PR consultants in a given press cycle. Between recommendations from other users, articles written by Bandcamp staff, and stuff I happen upon just by visiting the front page, I end up with almost TOO MUCH to listen to and enjoy- which is not a complaint, believe me. I wish I had the time to cover everything I discover through the platform, but sadly there are only so many hours in the day, most of which I'm either grinding for XP or gold. One such release that more or less fell into my lap thanks to rainbow glazed joy funnel that is Bandcamp is mynameisblueskye's No Ordinary Summer. Put simply, it's great. And it is really, really great.

No Ordinary Summer is an autobiographical album by one young, solo composer, identified only as Chris B, singing about the summer he experienced in quarantine while processing the trauma of this country's recent racial awakening. No Ordinary Summer was tracked using the barest of recording setups, merely utilizing a keyboard, drum machine, microphone and laptop. The fact that this album works as well as it does proves the thesis that you don't need more than a couple of good ideas and the ability to execute (most of) them to create a compelling piece of art. Most of these tracks must have been recorded in a single take and they're so DIY you can hear a carbon monoxide detector with a low battery going off in the background of at least one of them ("Start at the Bottom"). This is a fact that I find endlessly endearing. Beyond the inclusion (or intrusion?) of environmental sounds filling in and texturing the mix of these songs, there is some serious, songcraft going on here as well. More than anything, what makes this album an engaging listen is the simple interplay of the intersecting vocal and keyboard melodies, which are allowed to take to the fore of the mix in tandem, in a delicate dance of Sparklehorse-reared, fosterling virtue and charm.

The drab drag and understated majesty of "I Should Be In a Swimming Pool Right Now" illudes to the summer that should have been with a cold, shadowy beat and moaning, neon melody, that periodically draws out a disquieting hiss from the instrument as it is played. "Hidden Planet" takes gradual flight, with aid of a popping, air-bursting beat and the ample lift of a sunbeam colored synth chord. "Revolution on Paper" in contrast, is grounded in lyrical honesty, depicting some betrayal of trust that seems larger than what can be pinned on a single individual, a resigned message of resilience,  lite by an electro-gospel harmony, and contained by the shadow cast from a clear-eyed soul melody. 

I love that Chris B has the confidence to center his voice on these songs. It allows his personality to flesh out No Ordinary Summer and permits the listener to access the emotional core of each track. The solid compositions as well help usher the listener into his world, while the lo-fi production gives the entire effort the feel of an intimate concert taking place in the adjoining room. Sort of like that episode of Portlandia where Carrie and Fred persuade Amy Mann to do a private concert for them in their living room, except in this case, you're the guest. And your presence is at Chris's pleasure. 

Get a copy of No Ordinary Summer here. 

Interview: Divided Heaven

Photo provided by artist

Did an interview with Jeff Berman of Divided Heaven for New Noise this week. It includes the debut of his new song "They Poisoned Our Fathers" which features guest vocals from Lydia Loveless, The interview also includes a selection of protest songs that are helping Jeff keep his head held high during this these times.

Check out my interview with Jeff here. 

Check out his new song "They Poisoned Our Fathers" here. 

Album Review: Brain Corrosion / Ripped to Shreds - Exhumed From Eastern Tombs Split

There is nothing on earth quite like a good grind. Getting up in the morning and pulverizing some beans into a powder for a French press coffee, excellent! Piling up XP so that you can take on the next stage boss and progress in the campaign, that's how you win, baby! Getting down with some hottie, Oh la la! As good as all that is though, I'd say my favorite grind is still of the music variety, which why I've been blasting the latest split from Brain Corrosion and Ripped to Shreds since it dropped this past August. Now I'm going to bite straight to the marrow here and give you all the bloody details. 

Brain Corrosion is a Taiwanese group who play absolutely disgusting, revolting, and ignominious sounding death vocals grind. You could compare them to bands like Dead Infected, and in their less coherent moments, Agathocles, but these are mere signs post along the road ahead, grind is about the journey, and on this trip, you'll need snow chains to get over all the gore. Of the eight Brain Corrosion songs on this split, six are original, with two being re-recordings of tracks off their 2017 Legal Innocence EP ("Legal Innocence" and "Death a Go Go." 

The A side of the split is in Brain Corrosion's mangled grip and it opens with "Corpse Refining - To Become A Jiangshi," a particularly pulverizing track, that slides through grinder grooves and winds through the gears of an infernal, automated killing machine at alternating tempos, loobing it's mechanisms and increasing its capacity for total domination and slaughter.  While Brain Corrosion can take off like a casket downhill during a mudslide when they want to, it's really the groovier sections of their songs that draw me in and hold my attention. "Mondo Ivo's Blood" has a particularly sick, intestine twining riff that feels like it's been nursed directly from the bile of Exhumed's exposed spleen, and the latter half of  "Twisted Reflections" has this weird, twisty surf element to it that sounds like a harbinger of a wave of undead shark attacks off the coast of Malibu. Bikini babes and hairless chested hunks beware! 

Ripped To Shreds hold things down on the B side with a series of covers rendered in an approximation of their usual death-grind style. These covers lean into a thrashier more sharply melodic territory than we've heard the Andrew Lee before, feeling more like blackened hardcore or crust punk in places than death metal. The contrast of Ripped To Shred's side is a welcome one though. Brain Corrosion's viscera disgorging spew is not an act I'd want to follow and the sharper tones Ripped to Shred adopts for their covers of songs by Assuck and Gridlink helps carve out some breathing room in the heavy bass tone residue left in the A side's wake. The one original song Ripped To Shreds offers for their side of the split, "Rotting Stenches Unknown," does try to keep pace with the first half of the record but changes gears by the midpoint to what feels like a Japenese hardcore version of a Morbid Angel track, a shift that triggers a progressive tightening of the song's melody that makes its muscle rending slither all the more intractable as it penetrates you and makes a nest in the pit of your stomach. 

Exhumed From Eastern Tombs will split you open like a jelly-filled walnut and you will only know it is about to end by the number of buzzards that have gathered to swallow the pulp its made of your interior. 

Get a copy of Exhumed From Eastern Tombs Split from Horror Pain Gore Death Productions here. 

Album Review: Noosed - Rise

Did a quick write up of the crusty, harsh, brutal, blackened hardcore of Noosed and their debut LP Rise for New Noise today. It is never not a good time to resist hegemonic authority.

Read my write up of Rise here. 

Get a copy of Rise from Trepanation Recordings here. 

Album Review: Landowner – Consultant

Got around to do a review of the second album from Landowner for New Noise. Consultant is the desaturated, acerbic post-punk we need as a culture, and it's skewering social commentary is what we deserve, also as a culture. 

Read my review of Consultant here. 

Get a copy of Consultant on Born Yesterday Records here.  

Album Review: Penny Penny - Yogo Yogo

So this one is a bit a cheat for me. I've made a rule for myself to only write reviews for albums within the past calendar year, but this got a reissue in October, so haha! Loopholes! 

Penny Penny, given name Giyani Kulani, started his adult working life as a laborer in a brutal gold mine in West Driefontein, South Africa, and rose to become one of the best-loved politicians and reality stars in the country's history. In between his humble beginnings and his rise to political power, he became one of the most famous and widely successful pop-stars of the post-apartheid era. As it turns out, the real gold mine was in Penny along (zing!). 

Penny's music career started while he was working as a janitor in the studios of acclaimed Afrobeat producer Joseph Shirimani. In 1994 Penny approached Shirimani and told him he wanted to make a record. When Shirimani asked if Penny could sing, Penny answered in song. That was it. By the end of the year Penny had released his debut record, Shaka Bundu, which went on to sell over 250,000 copies in South Africa alone. 

Yogo Yogo is Penny's second studio album, released in 1996, it is a direct sequel to Shaka Bundu, but with tighter rhythms, more level production, and didactic lyrics, calling for African unity against oppression and agitation. Penny is demonstrable more confidence on this release, moving with conviction in his style and approach, as he steps into bossy strut of opener "Ibola Aids" like a chief intoning a declaration of good tiding before the beginning of a grand festival. "Kulani Kulani" glows with a neon irradiated synth riff that inspires a relaxing side-to-side shimmy, giving you over to the soft press of the mill-stone like groove that rolls effortlessly and continuously, reducing any resistance to its motion to a fine powder which is scooped and showered into the air, the burden of your cares gifted to the wind for transport to the sea. The title track features swift, wicking percussion that transitions into a fat-bottomed, bassy bounce as a two-stepping melody rushes in like a hot southern wind, inducing an infectious, clothes-shedding wiggle that compliments the slap and twirl of Penny's avuncular shout. 

A true classic of 90s dance, in dire need of distribution outside of its native country. Yogo Yogo will transport you to a time and place when music truly embodied a growing sense of humanity's ability to free itself from oppression and domination. If it doesn't inspire you to want to live in a better world, at the very least I hope that it will inspire you to move your body in ways you never thought possible. And if it can do both, even better. 

Get a copy of Yogo Yogo from Awesome Tapes From Africa Shop. 

Album Review: Skáphe - Skáphe³

Former one man black metal blasphemer Skáphe is back, seeing Alex Poole once again joined by DG on vocals and a new drummer. The third album under this project is titled Skáphe³ and you can read my write up over on New Noise. 

Read write up of  Skáphe³.

Grab a copy here.  

Album Review: Matriarchs – Year Of The Rat

Did a review of the new Matriarchs record Year of the Rat for New Noise last week. Beat down hardcore is on a bit of a collision course with groove metal right now and Matriarchs are more than happy to helm the wheel in this game of chicken for yours and my entertainment and vindication. 

Check out my review of Year of the Rat here.

Grab a copy of Year of the Rat from Upstate here. 

Album Review: Eartheater - Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin

Hausu Mountain graduate Alexandra Drewchin aka Eartheater has a new record out and it seems to these ears to be a return to the fold. Although not necessarily to the familiar fabric of her early work. No, the folds that I reference here are the overlapping plates of the world's crust that sheth its mantel. Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin sees Drewchin dipping below the sun-kissed world's epidermis to find renewed strength in a rebirth by fire in the withering heat below.

As much as the act of diving below the sea of soil that is the flesh of the Earth may sound like an act of retreat, but there are aspects of Phoenix that lead me to believe otherwise. In fact, the relatively unadorned (for Drewchin anyway) acoustic quality tells me that she no longer has anything left to hide. In fact, these tracks express her moods in relatively straightforward ways. Announcing her desires. Documenting the dividing lines of her territory. Extending an olive branch to some, a cold glance to others.

This directness of her intentions can be felt throughout Phoenix, but forms a significant locus of entry for the listener on the track "Diamond in the Bedrock," where she examines her own creative processes and affiliation with her resident Callope, while marking out a boundary for others that reroutes the flow of energy that might extend to other relationships and reroutes it back to its source. It's not an act of narcissism as much as a realization of the psychographic space she requires to thrive. It can also be interpreted as an act of love, for in forsaking the affection of one in particular, she opens herself up to the love of, and for, all.

The energy on Phoenix is irrepressible in its clarity of vision. The rumble of drum machines rushes in like the mother-wind to give a lift to the slow aerial choreography of "Faith Consuming Hope" providing a sense of motion like a crystal ballerina, twirling on the head of a pin in the waxing moon light. Her brushing, lapping chords and piano accents give a molten, vaporous intoxication to the wishful yearning of the cataclysm courting "Volcano." The vivacity of the album almost feels destructive at times, like on the cindery cloud of confrontational electronics that greet the listener on "Burning Feathers," or the blade-sharpening sounds and reapter beats on "Kiss the Pheonix," both of which provide an interesting thematic complication and compliment to the coiling, wolfs-purr, spiritual immolation and fiery resurrection of "How to Fight."

Cracks, crags, cascades and all, you see a lot of different sides of Drewchin on Phoenix, from her most vulnerable to her most deadly. A whole human catastrophe, defying you to look upon her with anything other than appreciation of her grandeur as her creative essence erupts forth from the furnace of her organs in a rejuvenating shower of golden light.

 Get a copy of Phoenix: Flames Are Dew Upon My Skin from Pan Records. 

Album Review: Straw Man Army - Age of Exile

 

Did a write up of the new debut album from anarcho post-punks Straw Man Army and their debut album Age of Exile. A historically minded album and true parable about a land emptied to make way for profit and a genocidal providence. You can read my thoughts over on New Noise at the link below. 

Write up of Age of Exile on New Noise. 

Get a copy of Age of Exile from D4MT Labs. 

Album Review: Otis Sandsjö - Y​-​OTIS 2

There was a point in music's past, long long ago, in a place that might as well have been another galaxy, when plundered breaks and horn toots brought jazz into the popular imagination as a catalytic engine to keep the treads of linguistically lavish and rhythmically complex new forms of musical expression peeling against the pavement of modernity, while simultaneously and steadily grounding these forms in the work of the masters from a different era. Connecting the old with the new in a kind of silver bridge of divine inspiration. Jazz doesn't really serve this function for hip hop and electronica anymore, as these genres have moved on, sometimes to more exotic, sometimes to more insipid, sources of beats to buck up their flexes and flows. However, the revived interest in jazz as a contemporary mode of expression that these plunderphonic adventures inspired continues to thrive in new exciting ways, especially in the world of jazz, where the integration of hip hop elements has become nigh essential in recent years. The appearance of a Grant Green sample in a Tribe song added a smoothing quality to the chuck and rumble of the crew's flow, but reflecting the breaking quality of a hip hop sample in a jazz composition is an entirely different experience altogether.

At this point, we will need to drop in on our man of the hour, Otis Sandsjö to see what he's got steaming in the pressure cooker of his head-case. Sandsjö is a respected saxophonist in the worlds of progressive jazz and contemporary pop. He is recognized for having a free jazz style, which he has chosen to funnel his considerable talents into a reconstitution of fusion jazz under the moniker Y-OTIS. His second album in this vein is appropriately labeled Y-OTIS 2, a collaboration with producer Petter Eldh (who he also worked on Koma Saxo with, and who plays double bass on this album), along with keyboardist and sound sequencer Dan Nicholls, drummer Tilo Weber, as well as Per' Texas' Johanssen and Jonas Kullhammar on flute, Lucy Railton on cello, and Ruhi-Deniz Erdogan on trumpet. Sandsjö dubs his stir of influences- from hip hop, to smooth jazz, to drum ‘n bass, to house- "liquid jazz," a centrifugal melding of styles that produces a cool and hydrating elixir of sound.

It's hard not to feel refreshed after allowing the ethereal trickle and prickly massage of "waldo" with its rain-drop like beats and frictionless ribbon of harmonics infiltrate your ear canal. This track is followed by the break beat brush of "tremendoce" which makes space for Sandsjö's wildly playful free sax passes, as the track shifts tempos, slowing, accelerating and finally, almost, reversing, untying time and tilling-over and refreshing sonic space in the process. "abysmal" has an incredibly unrepresentative title, exhibiting a brilliant and luxurious spiritual jazz-inspired piano riff that deeply flirts with an excitable clarinet performance, swept up in a gravity challenging melody, that gains altitude with the help of consummate influxes of sure-stroke percussion. The term liquid jazz is never more applicable than on the soft boil and electronic gurgle of "ity bity" with its gallons of light pouring, precipitous sequencing, and the bubbly, bat-and-purr of the dry-greased house-breaker "bobby." I could go on, but you get the jist.

Y-OTIS 2 is a fluid, restorative, and cohesive statement of true inspiration and intent, executed in a way that feels as natural and invigorating as inhaling a breath of warm summer air after a rainstorm.

 Get a copy of Y-OTIS 2 from Helsinki's We Jazz here. 

Album Review: Fever 333 – Wrong Generation

I did a review of the new Fever 333 EP Wrong Generation for New Noise today. The band's sound and songwriting really benefit from the raw way this album was recorded. I wasn't sold on the band before hearing this record, and I'm still not totally team Fever 333 yet, but I definitely have a better grasp of their talent and understand why some people lose their shit for their jams. Wrong Generation drops this Friday. 

Read my review of Wrong Generation on New Noise. 

 

Album Review: MURMUR (Ryoko Ono & Pandu) - A Collaboration

 

Did a little write up of the new collaborative EP from avant-garde and free jazz saxophonist Ryoko Ono and hash noise artist Pandu for New Noise today. It's literally called A Collaboration and it is a fucking trip, my friends. Ryoko does a good job of holding down a confoundingly unorthodox series of melodies while Pandu does his thing and smears white-hot blaring noise all over the mix. Evocative stuff. 

Read my write up on New Noise.

Get a copy from Gerpfast Records.

Album Review: K. Campbell - Every Little Thing w/ Pretty Pictures

 

Did a quick write up of the new 7" from Houston power popper and sensitive guitar dude K. Campbell for New Noise today. Very '90s-esque. You know, the good era of pop-punk. You can stream his entire album and read my thoughts at the links below.

Read write up and stream K. Campbell's 7".

Buy a copy of  K. Campbell's 7".

Album Review: These Streets - Expect The Worst

 

Expect the Worst could be the title of just about every hardcore record ever, but some how it took until 2020 for one in particular to claim it. Modesto, California goon-squad These Streets have been rolling a wrecking ball of sound around the gorges of the Cali punk scene since 2013. Beginning with the melodic leaning hardcore of the Life From the Gutter EP, they’ve aged into a more aggressive and distinguished style of metallic hardcore that, through many successful (and possibly illegal) experiments, has managed to twine the RNA of hip hop and death metal into its genome in a way that feels like the product of a natural, if malevolent, evolution. The Expect the Worst EP may be under fifteen minutes in total length, but These Streets don’t even need a tenth of that runtime to completely lay your ass out. This shit starts churning from the drop with “Stay Awake,” which rides a punch-drunk groove into a deathwish crest that topples over the edge of Hybrid Theory proving breakdown that serves as a landing pad from which the song uses to refuel and relaunch on acid tipped, steel-cast butterfly wings. The point where hardcore diverged with nu-metal is an instructive point of reference for this album, at the bass drops and anthemic choruses of “Misery” and “Irreversible” are very Linkin Park-esque in their aural elocution. As mentioned before, these elements are by no means distracting. In fact, they are masterfully synthesized with hip hop flow enabling rhythms and churning death metal grooves, a summoning of tempestuous violence that animates these songs with a force and fluidity known only to the gods of dead pagans. It's the kind of sonic execution that will scoop you up, toss you twenty feet into the air, and then bring you crashing down into branches a neighbor’s dead tree, like an insurance policy voiding act of god. Track after track, you won’t know what just hit you or where to expect the next blindsiding blow to come from, and if you’re anything like me, you’ll be so impressed that you won’t care either. Expect only the best from These Streets, even when they’re doing their worst to break every bone in your body.  

Get a copy of Expect the Worst from Upstate Records. 

Album Review: Coupons - Up & Up

Of the rising indie bands I could name, who I think deserve your admiration and attention, few come to mind quicker than Albany’s Coupons. I don’t write a lot about indie rock bands (I have my reasons) but I have nothing but warm gushy feelings for these guys (and gal)! Up & Up is the band’s second LP, following their pleasingly eccentric debut Number One Hit Album. After a short hiatus, the band slid back into productive mode laster year, assembling slacker anthems that would be chart heat-seekers in a world were college radio retained the cache and liquidity priming power of a Spotify Dailey Playlist or a Walmart blind buy off the CD rack (a consumer behavior that still drives a lot of country music sales, apparently). The first lick after unwrapping this cool, ear-candy confectionary is the big, groovy garage bop “90’s Kids,” an honest and simple construction with a patina of psychedelic-pop, which, true to its name, sounds like it could have played over a montage from The Adventures of Pete & Pete. The following track “Moz Disco” has a lightly funky bass line that drives forward a bright, lonely-hearts post-disco melody, and a rolling rocker hymn with a peevish punk undertone of the kind Sabrina Ellis and Andrew Cashen have taken to writing for Sweet Spirit. After the college rock soul and broken-rhythm blues of “Expectations and Plans” the album really settles into a routine of vacillating between indie guitar folk in the vein of Blitzen Trapper and Replacements beguiled garage punk a la Beach Slang as exhibited on “I Wanted” and The Hold Steady on “Ansel.” Even when they’re playing to their strengths in familiar lanes, you can still expect a few curveballs, like the piano-led, coffee-bar confessional, “Don’t Let Me,” the "Pianoman" of indie film festival submissions soundtracks. Up your daily recommended dose of DIY and get down with Coupons today.

Get a copy of Up & Up from Counter Intuitive Records. 

Read my interview with Dan Maddalone of Coupons for New Noise.

Album Review: Ronnie Vega - Two EPs

 

Did a write up of the Don Giovanni Records reissue of the Curan Cottman aka Ronnie Vega's discography as Two Eps. It's some of the grittiest, ballin'est hip hop you'll hear out of a DIY scene anywhere. Cottman passed during July of this year and all of the proceeds from the record will go to support Oshun Family Center to help people access mental health services during the pandemic. 

Read the write up of Two Eps.

Get a copy from Don Giovanni Records.

Album Review: Annihilus – Ghanima

 Did a review of the one man, Chicago-based, black metal band Annihilus and his debut Ghanima for New Noise yesterday. It's not as raw and evil sounding as some albums in this lain but it definitely captures the spirit of separate noisecore and crust punk just fine. 

Read review of Ghanima on New Noise. 

Get a copy of Ghanima from American Decline. 

Album Review: R.I.P. - Dead End

 

Did a review of the very evil-sounding thrash rock and death garage band R.I.P. for New Noise this week. They're basically Bewitcher meets Zeke, which, you guessed it, completely rules. 

Read my review of Dead End on New Noise. 

Get a copy of Dead End from Riding Easy Records. 

Interview: Venomous Concept

 

Image courtesy of the band

Had the chance to talk to Kevin Sharp of Venomous Concept about their new album Politics Versus the Erection and the election for New Noise this summer. He was building a deck while we talked which ended up being a perfect setting for our discussion of working class politics. I figured we'd have a few things in common politically, but I did not expect our politics to overlap quite as completely as they did. We're pretty in-synch in terms of our outlook on the world and I'm very stoked a condensed version of our conversation out into the world (even if it totally decimates my readership- which who cares?!? I'm doing this shit for me). 

Check out my conversation with Kevin Sharp of Venomous Concept here. 

Get a copy of Politics Versus the Erection here.

Album Review: drwg - drwg

The new album from drwg titled drwg is one of those collaborations that can easily slip under the notice of even experienced indie music scouts, but that's why you keep tabs on indie music journalists (*ahem*) so that dope releases like this don't fall to the bottom of the internet before they can hook your attention. And frankly, with the talent involved with this release, if a writer you're following isn't covering this, you probably shouldn't be following them.

drwg (which incidentally is the Welsh word for "bad"), is a hip hop hoagie stuffed with grey matter and meaty beats and smothered in tasty synths, a monster grinder that will bite you in the face before you get a change to sink your teeth into it. Comprised of former Beak> sound scavenger Matt Loveridge aka MXLX who brings the venomous elixir that was brewed on his last release Serpent to the magic stew of drwg with punctual punctuating synths that keep time with the sparse, leaky rhythms of former Foot Village footman Brian Miller, and which serve up feedback and counterpoints to the dark, slippery flow of resident linguist Rhys Langston, who provides deathbeam like commentary from the mind-fortress of his intellect, against the society that exiled him to this sanctuary of satirical solitude. Also, at some point, John Dieterich of Deerhoof showed up to do some guitars. His work here really doesn't stand out in any notable way, but the fact that he's there in the mix is some fun trivia, don't you think?

Langston literally released a book on the use of hip hop lyricism as an activist force and a kind of praxis earlier this year, and his poignant, if at times absurdist, analytic approach is suffused throughout the album. The first point at which the substance of his social critiques hit me on this release was on the "Ballad of A Fading Mumble Rapper," which gives a kind of abridged history of underground rap over the past 10 years. The song begins with the near implosion of pop rap in the late '00s, through the cultural cratering of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines," up through the rise of mumble and sound cloud rap, genres that ascended in opposition to the overculture, only to have its aesthetics recuperated by it, with the people who made the genre viable pushed back into the margins of the gutter. An arch that is related with a collegiate tone, too piss-taking for words to adequately appreciate. More abstract verbiage symbiotically spars with the squawky flock of synth shifts and sneaky, clackity beats on "I'm Dressed in Ghost Meat (Snapping Like Crab Legs)," but inscrutability is really just a cover for deeper truths, as proved on the loaded layup and drill of "Black Joints Matter (Arthroscopic Exercise No. 27)," and the humanity-adrift harmonizations of the beautifully, oblivion seeking, cache purging, doom scroll of "For I Scroll (Note to Singular Self on Internal Storage)."

There is a lot to unpack on drwg and I'm still unraveling its folds inside my own mind like a riddle whose answer is the question itself. Thank god this EP is so short because you'll want to listen to it multiple times to really let it sink in. It's both a comparatively smooth, and enjoyable listen, and an album that will give you the mental roughage to break down some of the mysteries in your life. Or should I say, this drwg ain't no drag.

Grabe a copy of drwg from Deathbomb Arc here. 

Album Review: Clown Core - van

 

Because I have impeccable taste, I did a write up of Clown Core's new LP van. I tried to give my thoughts on it as concisely as possible, but Clown Core really are not a band that you can talk about in conventional music journo terms. I recommend just skipping what I wrote and listening to the band yourself. Make up your own mind or whatever. 

Here is my write up of van over on New Noise. 

Get a copy of van here on Bandcamp.

Album Review: Big Black Delta - 4

The latest album from former Mellowdrone singer Jonathan Bates, under his project Big Black Delta, is the product of extraordinary clarity. After years of drinking and chemical dependency, Bates has begun picking up all the pieces of himself that he had let flake, or otherwise discarded over the years in pursuit of a buzz, and started to glue them back together into a whole human man. I can’t begin to understand what that struggle is like, or what crawling out of the depths of dependency will do to your body and mind, or if it’s possible to repair the relationships that addiction has damaged or bleed dry, but I’m happy for anyone who can come through it and see the light of a new day on the other side.

There is a cliché about how sobriety helps you focus on what’s important to you in life, and despite being a cliché, I actually think it’s true, especially on 4. It’s an incredibly polished sounding collection of songs that sees Bates returning to the mic again following a period of absentia on his largely instrumental 2017 album whoRU812. Many of the songs on 4 appear to deal with themes of renewed and enduring devotion, and it’s therefore fitting that much of the sonic influences for the album are drawn from periods in popular culture when effluent surges of romantic intent were not only prized, but expected.

“Vessel” spins through glorious, gushing clouds of coolly compact synth cush and a chiming clatter of percussion that sounds like it could have been a joint songwriting effort with Roland Orzabal. Similarly, “Politics Of Living” and “White Lies” proudly pinch from the pockets of Talk Talk and Thompson Twins, bringing those group's obsessions with soul and miniaturized orchestral movements into a bottom end favoring modern rock production. More straightforwardly electronic influences play the leading role in the tense, neon-starlight, spirit-stirring trounce of “Summoner.” An excruciatingly melancholic but defiantly buoyant piano riff acts as the central protagonist of “Sunday”’s vespertine apocalypse, digging such a deep well of reflective thoughts and emotions, that your likely to drown in it if you’re not careful to keep your head above the swell of empathic sensation. 

While the new wave and experimental dance influences are well articulated and elevating to observe, it’s really the big, bad rock numbers that keep me coming back to 4. “Heaven Here I Come” is certainly centered around a lovely electo-R’nB vocal melody, but it’s the huge, harry Van Halen solos and meatball grooves that drive the track and cash the check that the twinkling synths and cooing melodies write.

And then there is the opener, “Lord Only Knows,” with its anguished, wailing intro, sludgy raking bass, and valiant mountain-piercing guitars. It threatens to be a souped-up Mötley Crüe track in the vein of “Looks That Kill,” only to have its fire contained by the heat-shielding calm of Bate’s even, delicate vocal performance, allowing the track to keep its momentum while it slowly transitions into a balletic bloom of uplifting synths and heralding horns unlocking the mysteries of the consecration of human love with the skeleton key of a blithely skipping, brass-ringed, piano refrain.

You don’t need a 12-step program to clear your head today, so long as you can hit play on Big Black Delta’s 4 and let it guide you to where your heart knows it needs to be.

Get a copy of 4 from Big Black Delta's Bandcamp here. 

Album Review: Cryostasium feat. MEIKO (メイコ) - Project​​:​​00 (プロジェクト00)

I usually attempt to restrict my coverage on this blog to releases that have dropped within the calendar year, but I’m going to have make an exception for this one because I’m just so smitten with it. Maybe smitten is the wrong way to put it. Bewildered and delighted? Ok, let’s go with that. Also, Fish Prints reissued the album this year on CD so... Yeah, we're doing this!  

Back in 2016, the Boston based, one-man black metal project Cryostasium released an EP titled Project​​:​​00, featuring the Japanese vocalist MEIKO. Well, not vocalist exactly, Vocaliod to be more precise. MEIKO is a sound engineering wonder produced roused into existence by the Yamaha Corporation in partnership with Crypton Future Media back in 2004, as part of a digital pop-star project known as Project Daisy. 

MEIKO was one of the four original voice models developed for the program. She is commonly depicted as a trim but busty middle-aged woman, with a youthful face, a short brown haired bob-cut, and a tight-fitting, sleeveless red-leather jacket and skirt combo, with exposed lingerie underneath, often depicted as holding a variant of the Sennheiser MD421 microphone. She originally had what was considered a “straight” vocal tone, but later variations modified her voice to give it more character. 

Like all Vocaliods, MEIKO is technically a software package that is meant to be slotted into projects where there is not a vocalist, and replicate the sound of a human voice with uncanny accuracy. Because the sound of a Vocaliod (Vocal + Android) so closely mimics the actual sound of a human’s voice, it’s become customary to list the software's product name as a featured artist on tracks, or in the case of Project:00, entire albums, which the software is used on.

With the increased interest of metal idol groups in the United States, specifically Babymetal, and the run-away success of Agretsuko on Netflix, the use of a Vocaloids in heavy metal would seem almost inevitable. Cryostasium’s cyberpunk, atmospheric black metal was obviously a great fit for this style of collaboration and MEIKO’s addition to Project:00 certainly goes a long way towards elevating the project, even beyond either of their usual output (Note: I'm going to be referring to MEIKO as a her from here on out. We have a para-social relationship now. What about it?).

 In Cryostasium’s hands MEIKO sounds both more human at times, and far more alien. On opener “Inebriate” Cryostasium lays down a raw and spinney blast-beat and flesh withering tremolo for MEIKO to layer a striking, evocative and patient melody over, that occasionally fires towards the sky in a star blanketing, shrieking falsetto. The way MEIKO emotes on the opener is comfortably human and would not give anyone who did not realize that they were listening to a piece of software, any pause. It’s on the following track, “Downward,” that MEIKO’s otherness and the outlandish qualities of her voice become more apparent. The high notes and variation in modulation quickly outstripping the possible range of human vocal cords, becoming theremin-like, screeching like a piece of seismographic equipment that has just detected a major shift in the earth's crust due to some undulation of a primordial horror in the earth's mantel, and spiraling out into absurd sonic peaks like a PKE meter at a seance.

Raw black metal and the dirty variety of atmospheric black metal that Cryostasium trades in are usually eerie enough on their own, but when you add the inhuman frequencies made possible by an electronic pop idol, something incredibly bizarre and transfixing emerges. Like your speakers are being haunted by a poltergeist or your soul is being drawn out through your ears. Is Project:00 the product of it a sacred sonic communion made in virtual Valhalla, or a deal made with a digital demon at the gates of a Pentium purgatory? I’ll let you know as soon as the processor in my head-cave stops throwing off sparks. 

Get a copy of Project:00 from Fish Prints here. 

Album Review: Yatra - All is Lost

 

I somehow found the time today to crack into the latest album from blackened sludge metal band Yatra and their new album, All is Lost. It's a mean-ass slog through the swamps of despair and their second studio LP released this year. Keep an eye on Dana Helmuth, she sounds absolutely terrifying here and I'd be willing to bet money that she'll be the last one left alive in the state of Maryland once Armageddon getting into full swing out there. You'll want her for both your raiding party and your soft-ball team once civilization collapses. Full-circle, bad-ass! 

Read my review over on New Noise here. 

Grab a copy of All is Lost from Grimoire Records here.

Interview: Oui Ennui

 

Image thanks to artist

This week CHIRP Radio is running my conversation with the phenomenal and talented, but surprisingly reclusive, Chicago-based experimental artist Oui Ennui. We talked about how and why he's become so prolific these past few months and the themes of some of his most recent records. He's an insightful guy and I hope you'll enjoy checking out our conversation. 

Please excuse the audio quality, we've switched recordings platforms since we did this one, hopefully, this is the last one that sounds like we're talking in a tin-can. 

You can listen to my conversation with Oui Ennui on CHIRP's site or below. 

CHIRP Radio · Oui Ennui Interview

Album Review: Black Dresses - Peaceful as Hell

 

Peaceful as Hell is the last Black Dresses album we're going to get for a while, possibly ever. Back in May, the deviant digital duo Devi McCallion and Ada Rook announced that they were calling it quits, citing "harassment." I can't comment on the actual controversy's details, so if you are looking for hot goss, I've got nothing for you. I became aware of the band's existence randomly via the spooky machinations of the web. They sprung into my Twitter feed during the summer like a pop-perfect imp, cast-off from what feels like the rippling underside of a twee-twisted Shub-Niggurath, writhing in the black-box belly of the internet. I, therefore, have no first-hand perspective on, or inclination to investigate, the fan interactions that lead to the band's demise. I do think, however, that Black Dresses was on to something with their music and that their break up says something about fandom in the internet age. I'm going to try to elucidate what I think I'm seeing as lucidly as possible while talking about Peaceful as Hell.

For starters, Peaceful as Hell feels uniquely wonderful in the way that only a direct to Bandcamp release can. It has the raw, digital-DIY feel of a Hausu Mountain release, paired with the proto-hyper-pop charm, boundary agnostic ethos, and limitless liminality of an underground diva like Sir Babygirl, with an antagonism you could expect from Fire-Toolz's Angel Marcloid if she started an pop-punk adjacent project in the vein of Reggie and the Full Effect. It's one of those albums that seems to create a universe in the space of a single bedroom, or condense an entire language into the single, a-tonal spasm emitted by a midi. It's also, as I said, extremely relatable in its assessment of what life is like living in the dark reflection of the internet. Given all this, it's really not hard to understand why people would so intensely identify with the statements and moods of Black Dresses's music. And its, unfortunately, this intensity of response that I feel was their undoing and why the project had to be deep-sixed.

The world is a miserable place right now. There aren't a lot of opportunities to improve one's standings or prospects. The wages most people can earn, even when they're privileged enough to find work, won't even begin to cover the expenses necessary for survival, let alone the investments needed to thrive and build a future. It's a situation that drives many into hopeless debt traps in a bid for a better life. College, credit cards, pay-day loans, you name it. The powers at have the means of transforming just about anything into a fiscal bear-trap. At the same time, there are very few civic or social outlets for genuine human connection and any political activity one could engage within an attempt to improve their circumstances seems destined to fail and to dissolve into a reputation eviscerating, circular firing squad. So people retreat into isolation and the spectacle of the internet, where they pour out their misery in the form of tweets and tik-toks, all of which profit corporations who have a vested interest in people only living their lives in a way that they can mine for data that helps them compel people to stay logged on, perpetuating the cycle of isolation. Despite all our rage, we're all just rats, trapped in a maze of skinner boxes. And it sucks. It sucks a lot. And it sucks a lot even if you're not battling with trauma or mental illness. Which if you are, there really isn't much difference between this world and a literal hell. Some artists are very good at picking up on the experience of this perpetual process of social and economic immiseration, and I think Black Dresses is comprised of two such individuals.

Peaceful as Hell begins with "LEFT ARM OF LIFE," an enervated tumble of synths and sirens, about falling down, and picking your bloody face off the pavement and stumbling forward despite the pain. Then things get weird with the desaturated, crystalized honey-bass of "DAMAGE SUPPRESSOR," that winds an elastic melody around a maxed-out electronic beat and shattered piano riffs, a perfect primer for the Grimes-esque, electo-pinpricks of "ANGEL HAIR" and the chip-tune meltdown and eye-liner smearing sear of "MiRRORGiRL." The latter track has a pretty explicit theme that is revisited again, and again, throughout the album. That theme being, the sense of losing one's grip on themselves while dissolving into a mania induced by the painful stimuli that punches through the surface of one's reality. Life throws a lot of unbelievable BS our way and it can turn one's life into a version of that magic trick where swords are shoved through a sarcophagus from which the lovely assistant is meant emerges unscathed. Only, in reality, every blade splatters your guts all over the floor of the box and you're expected to walk out like you're making your entrance at the Emmys, dragging your large intestine behind you like a stubborn pet chihuahua. The theme is further developed on the trash-compacted, Superchunk-syphoning, mental mutilation matinée "IM A FREAK CUZ IM ALWAYS FREAKED OUT," and the turpentine-streaked, rock ‘n slam, obliteration party "EXPRESS YOURSELF." The title of the former, more or less speaks for its self, while the latter is one of those portraits of an artist style pieces that will not leave you envying its subject.

Lastly, the band's most focused statement appears on the indie-bass anchored stroll and midi drizzle dream of "CREEP U," which offers Black Dresses's most acute statement of pain and dissatisfaction, a depiction of what it's like being a girl in just about any social situation, and how hard it can suck. The song is a deluge of numbing paralysis and intense emptiness that is disarming, to say the least, especially when the beats and melody begin to twist off the rails and dissolve into glitter pierces of flammable plastic during the bridge.

It's pretty clear that McCallion and Rook have a good handle on what it's like to live in the present era and a thorough enough grasp of their own talents to be able to translate their thoughts and emotions into some effective electronic pop music. The fact that others feel their pain, though was probably what ultimately drove a stake through their soft, beating hearts. And it goes back to what the world we live in is like now, and how many people are struggling to tread water in it. When people feel like they're downing their going to try and grab on to anything stable they can get their hands on. If that thing happens to a piece of art or an artist, then they're going to try and hang on to that thing or person as tightly and as ruthlessly as possible, even to the point where it feels like both are going to sink to the bottom of the sea. As anyone with a cult following will tell you, the scariest part about success is the attention that comes with it.

The attention and adoration that an artist receives can quickly sour into animosity for any number of reasons. Fans can claim to feel betrayed by the artist due to a perceived violation of some ethos, either professed by the artist themselves, or projected onto them, and call outs ensue. Or fans can become jealous, dangerously so at times, when the artist attempts to shield their private lives from fans, or fails to meet a fan's expectations in terms of access or validation in some other way. Because the world is a miserable place and the internet is part of the world, we can expect the internet to be an extension of the misery we find elsewhere. When people find something good on the internet that helps them relieve their pain, they're almost guaranteed to smother it with their admiration. Black Dresses was a really interesting, innovative, and insightful band, and I think their demise may be a parable for the internet age- the moral of which is that being internet famous can ruin your life. So don't put anything someone might like on the internet, ever.

Get a copy of Peaceful as Hell here.

Album Review: Sarchasm - S/T

 

Did a write up of the new album from Berkeley pop-punk prodigies Sarchasm for New Noise this week. Adventurous, poppy and independently minded, with hints of Grumpster and Worriers. Great stuff! 

Read the write up of Sarchasm's self-titled album on New Noise.

Album Review: Lamp of Murmuur - Heir Of Ecliptical Romanticism

Some NPR nerd who bought this album on Bandcamp, inexplicably wrote "there's a lot of raw black metal out there and most of it sucks," and then he proceeded to say generic, nice things about it. First of all, who asked this guy? Second of all, what? I listen to a fair amount of black metal, raw and otherwise, and most of it ticks the boxes of: 1) harsh, 2) alienating, and 3) cruel, and despite (well, actually because) it sounds like it was recorded on a laptop mic, in the very early morning, by someone who clearly does not get anywhere close to six hours of sleep a night, I happen to like most of them quite a bit. I do agree that Lamp of Murmuur's Heir Of Ecliptical Romanticism is different. Hence, why NPR nerds have taken heed and offered their lukewarm, mayo-too spicy, tone-it-down-I'm-trying-to-nap style takes.

What is it about Lamp of Murmuur's debut LP that has everyone so excited? The production values are fairly high for this style of metal, which could contribute to its success. There is also the solid album art, which is a classic corpse-paint guy motif but has a real eye for composition. It's unorthodox in that the figure on it appears to be recoiling rather than standing defiantly or charging headlong into the night in Blaze in the Northern Sky style. It's a pose that I identify with. And I think others do as well. Ghoulish, raw black metal, when done right, kind of makes my skin crawl. I feel like I'm shriveling up inside while listening to it. So points up for mirroring my emotional state. The music too, is well performed and savage. But there is a lot of great metal out there with these same, or comparable virtues, that doesn't appear in the rearview mirror of the All Songs Considered commuter. So what is it about Heir Of Ecliptical Romanticism that even normies are finding so seductive?

Maybe it's because the album is about love. I'm a believer that the message of music can reach people even when they can't intellectualize what that message actually is. They can feel it, and that's enough. I may be wrong, and you can feel free to unsubscribe from me when I say this, but I think Heir Of Ecliptical is a genuine romance. Although, maybe not of the Wuthering Heights variety. I think it's a love letter to oblivion. A poem written to the lightless beyond. Calling out for the embrace of the rippling undertow of that which lies behind the shell of the conscious world. Where ions mean nothing, and nothing is dissolved into an infinite process of unbeing. Ancient people used to have a concept for the world's unmaking, realizing that all things give way to entropy, knowing that life is an anomaly and that unbeing is the true and final stage of things. The world, like ourselves, will know its end. All things will one day be reunited in the dark. It's comforting in a way. A promise of internal peace. It's this romance with oblivion that has survived through antiquity, through gothic traditions, and up through the pop music and poetry of Robert Smith, and later the dark folk of Emma Ruth Rundle, to name a few modern ciphers. 

How do I know all this you may ask? Well, there's a goddamned Dead Can Dance cover at the end of the album. There is a cover of "In The Wake Of Adversity" following a track titled "The Stars Caress Me As My Flesh Becomes One With the Eternal Night." This is a tango with termination, and it is hot for "D." The "D" being death, but that's just the tip. This album is a full-blown make-out session with annihilation, and I think it's this appetite of one's own unmaking that is attracting people to it, not just those who normally skulk around the waste lock ridden corridors of Bandcamp. They sense it's passion, and are drawn in, only to be torn asunder by the blizzard of blast beast and banshee-like guitar galls that surge and savage on the aptly named "Bathing in Cascades of Caustic Hypnotism" or are brought under the husk shredding spell of the hallucinatory, somnambulist-thorn prick and electric psychic-sacrifice of "Chalice Of Oniric Perversions."

Whether you are deeply, intimately, and madly in the thralls of raw black metal, or this is your first outing with the venom-blooded countess, to all who stumble through the threshold of the Heir Of Ecliptical Romanticism, I say, welcome. Welcome to thy doom.

Get a copy of Heir Of Ecliptical Romanticism from Death Kvlt Productions