SUCCUBUS

 

This one will be tough to describe so I will try to use few words (but more words than I spent on the glorious TOURIST tape a couple of days ago). SUCCUBUS are clearly drawing from classic goth and dark wave but SUCCUBUS are just as clearly rooted in punk sounds so the result is....different. They hit like retro dark wave but they also beg to be filed alongside RAKTA and UNA BÉSTIA INCONTROLABLE and they sound like fukkn punks, particularly on "Judas." Only three songs on 2020's Coherence - soaring and determined. They are still active and still pushing boundaries...

COHERENCE

PRE-MARITAL SEX

 

Next mission is to bootleg the three PRE-MARITAL SEX tapes I borrowed from that dude in Fresno a few months back. Anyone who can successfully justify this band's legacy languishing in the shadows owes me a sandwich....but that's a sandwich I will never eat because PRE-MARITAL SEX deserve all of the accolades. This band's should be on the lips of people who (still) speak of TEAM DRESCH and SPITBOY, but these women had a fukkn saxophone too. Songs like "Feminine Hygiene Blues" just wouldn't hit the same today, and "Big Scrotum" places a tongue so firmly in cheek that I'm left speechless. So yeah - expect a Tape-ography before the end of the year because it needs to happen. 

BLOODY MARYS

TOURIST

 

Powerviolence.

TAKE FIVE

ISABELLE MAYEREAU

 

Truly one of the most beautiful sonic accidents I've ever stumbled into. ISABELLE MAYEREAU's self titled 1978 release (not to be confused with her 1977 self titled release) would likely have stayed in the unknown realm forever had I not happened on a criminally small handful of tapes in a thrift store....but I did. And I will never be the same. I don't understand the words, but the swells in "Souffle en L'air" made me weep. I'm not ashamed. To the contrary, I remain encouraged. Apparently "Tu M'écris" was a hit and I can understand why even though it may be my least favorite track on the tape - I prefer the sparse guitar in "Difference" and the space offered by "Aquarelle." It's a genuinely moving release...I found it by accident and it will stay with me forever. 

ISABELLE MAYEREAU

KAGAMI

 

I feel like it was just yesterday when I posted a five minute long hardcore tape that felt like the greatest thing since sliced bread (a ridiculous saying, by the way....sliced bread is fine, but it's nothing special unless the bread itself is special). These five minutes come from Tokyo circa 2021, and they manage to grab early '00s fastcore, US82 by way of TOTAL FURY style retro hardcore and modern Japanese treble heavy punk all at once. They get in, they get out, there's no bullshit. Who wants bullshit? Nobody wants bullshit.

KAGAMI

647(F)

 

We've talked before about the lost late 1980s. Those kids who were young adolescents when their older siblings dragged them to FLAG and THREAT gigs were young adults at the end of the decade and...guess what? By the time hardcore wasn't cool and the dude from DEEP WOUND was a solo-ripping college indie darling, those kids were making some ripping under-the-radar hardcore music. It's just that hardcore wasn't cool anymore....except that it was. Hardcore was always cool. Still is. This recording was released as the brilliantly titled Cop Corpse 12" in 1988, but thankfully they made a tape too. 

SIX SICK SONGS

COOKING COURSE

 

More recipes narrated by your friend Vincent Price. More echo this time, as the legendary noir villain walks us through recipes from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Never stop looking, young punk....you never know what you may find. 

COOKING COURSE #1: FOODS FROM THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE