CONTRASESSION

 

The early 2000s were fukkn magic - so were the early '90s of course, and I guess the adolescent twenty-tens didn't suck either. I focus on today on the aughts though, because posi-political-hyper-fastcore took over the fukkn world and holy shit it was fun. You could argue that 2005 was on the back end of the shit, but try telling that to these Indonesian motherfukkrs. "Awas Prosess"personifies a tape filled with twenty three sub-60 second rippers culminating in the brilliant "The Only Time I Think About Romance Is When I Wonder Why I Don't Think About It." So here's to the tape you didn't know you needed until now....I guess I drop a lot of shit like that in your lap, huh?

LIDAH BERBISA...

Notable: "Topeng" kinda starts off like "Deny Everything" from a different universe.

GERINC

 

In this shit world, can we please celebrate Hungary for a moment? No one is ever going to accuse Magyar of being righteous, but damn that was a glorious rejection, right? Anyway, GERINC take snappy '00s USDIY and make it sound....theirs. Talking RED DONS and MARKED MEN and NEON PISS and shit, but a little nastier. Maybe like NEON PISS if they had existed in this modern reality. Every hook will stick with you, even though "Constrangimentos" kinda stands out as the song of the century (kinda) . So yeah, let's talk about Hungary for a moment, but maybe fuk the politics and let's talk about punk bands. I'll start: GERINC. Your turn.

REKLAMÁCIÓ

PSYWARFARE // BBVGC

 Not to be confused with the recent P.S.Y.W.A.R. post, this is Dwid's PSYWARFARE sharing destruction duties with Japan's BBVGC. The latter takes the BLOODY MINDED hardcore-as-noise-as-hardcore approach and makes it spooky and theatrical while the former....well, I can't speak on the world of Dwid but I recognize that it's a world. And I respect that he has been doing the shit for three decades (plus). And "Evisceration" is a perfect mind-melt of erratic power electronics, harsh noise and deliberate constructions of desperate sound. If you're looking for something to fukk up your day, then look no further. 

DEMONS MOURN FOR BLOODSHED

12 APRIL 1986

 

Welcome to the first ninety minutes of forty years ago today as broadcast on KALX in Berkeley. 
========

Proto-industrial heavy broadcast with some old 'MATS, some oldies, BIG BOYS, STURM GROUP and a shitload more sounds that you need. 

KALX - 12 APRIL 1986

مارتیک // ضیاء

 

It was probably a decade ago when I talked to Golnar about writing a thing about this tape because I thought it was cool (like...really cool) but didn't know shit about it and she was a music nerd and a Persian scholar and she already knew all about it so why would you want to read my words when I could solicit hers? Exactly. Fast forward to now and we've fallen out of contact but I'll be damned if these sounds don't (still) slap like some Ethiopian jazz meshing with those sounds that you don't understand except to know that you want to understand more than you do. Freak funk with dense horns and Mid-eastern trad funk and I am literally crying thinking about the multitude of realities that this music represents. I'm pretty sure that Ziya (exiled after the 1979 revolution) was in Los Angeles when this was released in 1987, a collaboration (maybe...? paging Golnar) with fellow ex-pat Martik Khanian who was apparently in Los Angeles when this recording was conceived. 

This current reality is light years beyond heavy, and imagining a rich culture and fascinating country ripped apart twice in the span of a half-century brings on more feelings than "طلوع ا زمغر" ...and that shit is ten minutes of pure sonic gold. Submitted with apologies, because I wish I could sa the right things.

کفریم / دیوونه / هلل یوس

P.S.Y.W.A.R.

 

The midwestern united states is a special place, sonically speaking. N.O.T.A. could not have come from California. DEAD SILENCE and ANIMAL FARM were influenced by the "cool" scenes on the coast/s but they were so obviously products of their respective environments. You get an Outhouse in Kansas but never in D.C. or Boston. Enter P.S.Y.W.A.R., who straddle/d Denver and/or Kansas City, two of the largest and most influential enclaves in the middle of this country's middle section. Proximity (or lack thereof) breeds isolation and that makes for special sounds....like these sounds. We're talking early '10s USDIY squirms and reverb-laden spiked boots guttural hardcore with dark '80s Japanese influence...kinda. Because really this shit is the product of all of the influences with none of the meddlings, and that's what makes the good shit hit even harder. 

P.S.Y.W.A.R.

80HD

 

When 80HD dropped a few years ago, the hype was all about their energetic live shows and aerial explosions. People scrambled to get to the internet to show the rest of the world how high they jumped, overfiltered grainy black and white photos with mullets and humans flying across phone screens. You never heard people talking about the music except that they were fast....but the shows were lit. Two KLPs and five years after the demo and that first West. Coast tour though, might I suggest revisit the almost unparalleled sonic detonation that is 80HD's Demo 2021? The hype was real, and this blur of j/o riffs (hi Max) propelled by a hailstorm of galloping thumps doesn't merely stand on its own without the stench of sweat and beer interrupting the surge of Gen Z punks scrambling to get the perfect photo, the context breathes new life into the special kind of fury this band was creating. Perhaps 80HD is best listened to alone at 5:30am before the coffee is finished brewing - without context and without filters and without peer promotion. That's when you can hear 80HD and feel their fury unencumbered by the noise. Seven crucial, life affirming minutes on this cassette, re-experienced (by me) the way punk was not meant to be experienced; in the dark and in the flesh accompanied by nothing but a soft snore in the background and the waft of impending caffeine from the next room. Not gonna lie though, thee jumps did look sick.

80HD