ADAM VOID & CHRIS FISHER

 

I've developed several virtual connections through Terminal Escape - people and artists I've never actually met (and likely will never meet) but whom I have followed and communicated with over the course of several years. There's one person who just sends me tapes sometimes - no note, no nothing, just their music - and I return the same. Tapes from the label, Wright Copy volumes, the occasional mix tape. We've been trading sounds for a decade and never exchanged a single word. But...we're connected. Enter outsider Appalachian outsider folk visionary ADAM VOID joined here by Unread Records empresario CHRIS FISHER. The listen becomes a thing in and of itself here; it's not that you listen, it's that you are when you're listening. Force Majeure / Forced Manure is the full experience; never a hint of the next move, just like I never know what 's inside when I open the envelope. I love this shit, and I am grateful.

FORCE MAJEURE // FORCED MANURE

BLINDED HUMANITY

 

Blazing mid-00s Lion City street crust with just enough earnest energy to keep them honest. The way "Sensou Soochi" stomps, the way "Vanished" flies completely off the handle after the intro - they're a product of their influences and it rules. '90s US crust and classic Japanese hardcore all doing battle with ramshackle DBeat, using distorted guitars as weapons. 

ENDLESS MASSACRE

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MONOLITH // DEAD SYSTEM

 

Raw blasting grind/crust from Austria's MONOLITH. I hope you're ready. 
Raw blasting crust/grind from Indonesia's DEAD SYSTEM. I hope you're ready.

You're going to want to hydrate before listening.

MONOLITH // DEAD SYSTEM

OSCAR PETERSON

 

I will never pretend to be knowledgable in this realm, but I know what I like and I honor my connections to sounds. This is me with Barbara and Morris in the Lovelight bakery at 3am - Barb taking care of business while Morris was still flying from the gig he had played that night, trying to help but distracting me and frustrating her in the process. He was so consumed, obsessed...he was so into it, and he wanted to share his joy. I feel that, and that feeling transcends genre. This 1964 recording is something special - shit is simply beautiful. Morris knew that (and Barbara understood and let him hold court and hold space in that bakery), and I remember. I'm grateful and I remember. 

THE TRIO: LIVE FROM CHICAGO

UNDERGROUND FRON SPILS

Another great collection of lesser known Latvian punk from the early 1990s, picking up right where Naïve Years left off. Thirty tracks from ten different bands including SEPSIS, 33-Х ЛЕТНИЙ ПОДОНОК, ORGASM FAKERS (my personal favorites on the tape), ЭВОЛЮЦИЯ КАКТУСОВ, TERMOPSIS KAPITANA GRANTA among others. A solid hour of new (to me) punk is always a treat, and it's even more delicious when it's this tasty. Easy to imagine most (or all?) of these bands sharing bills with my hoard, and even easier to image ТОРЕЦ ТОТАЛИТАРРИЗМА absolutely laying waste to a drunken warehouse crowd in some desolate not-yet-rehabilitated corner of San Francisco thirty years ago with an indescribably brilliant blurrcore track called "Я Приду Поздно, Пьяный И Не Один" - what I would give for a time (and space) machine. 

UNDERGROUND FROM SPILS 2

PAPER GANGSTER

 

I've probably told the tale before, but in 1996 FUCKFACE were quasi-stranded with HICKEY at the FAT DAY house in Somerville, Massachusetts for the better part of a week with no shows. We were well taken care of and the show at the end of that week was one for the ages (Matt was green, enough said), but I made a mix tape in their living room...and that's the connection here. We were light years removed from the tough hardcore scene (see also our show with UNDERTOW, UNBROKEN and JASTA 14 in New Haven on the 1994 tour, and the handful of shows we did with BURST OF SILENCE....lest I digress). These dudes were in New England, and 'that kind' of hardcore was everywhere. And the Firestorm EP was in their living room, and that record made it onto the mix tape and that was really the first time I had spent any time with this shit. 1996 - wild, right? 
Anyway, PAPER TIGER are from Depok, not far from Jakarta, and this 2004 recording takes me back to that living room except that Season Of Destruct is undeniably more interesting and innovative.
This isn't 'my kind' of hardcore (whatever that means), but try to tell me that "New Empire" doesn't resonate and I'll tell you you're wrong. Then we can talk about "Behind The System" and "Hope" and "Civil War" and then I'm going to start to wonder if straight edge groove metal is my new favorite genre because....well, because of PAPER TIGER.

SEASON OF DESTRUCT

UNIT X

 

You tell me you know a band called UNIT X and I'm gonna tell you that I think I know what they sound like. Well....that's what I thought when I picked up this tape. And I wasn't wrong. We're talking ten minutes of smart Y2K fastcore and classic SXE 'core and a little bit of that less-posi energy to keep listeners honest (think LACK OF INTEREST sharing a bill with LIFES HALT). The shit hits the spot.

WAR ON SELF, WAR ON EVERYTHING