LA ORDEN

Criminally short lived Austin outfit who left us with this one lone recording. Brooding Spanish language dark punk with Love-era guitars and an underlying shock rock vibe (especially in the backing/male vocals), it's sharp and hard hitting but LA ORDEN are also soft - a quality most indebted to Dru's uncharacteristically subdued vocals. There were these four songs...and then there was nothing. 

LA ORDEN

KORPERSCHWACHE

One of the most challenging releases I have ever posted on Terminal Escape, but I implore you to spend the time required to experience Fear The Hex. This 2008 release explores noise, distortion, drone, shoegaze, beauty, ambiance, pain, bleak industrial, abandonment and fear over three individual cassettes, spanning 177 minutes. The emotional investment is worth it, and the sonic reward is indescribable - fill the cracks between GODFLESH, Kevin Shields' guitar, EMACIATOR, SKULLFLOWER and primitive industrial experimentation...and fill the cracks in your self at the same time. 

FEAR THE HEX

WACKOUT

Yo, this is WACKOUT. Haifa-City Hardcore '97. Breaking it down to you one more time...GO!

That should be enough, right? Pre-DIR YASSIN, double kick heavy metallic hardcore with hints of melody. The internet had rendered this kind of "all-punks-in-a-blender" band obsolete, and at the same time the internet allows us to watch these artifacts in their natural environment. It's not the same, but it's something. 

FACING THE TRUTH

WHITE CHRISTIAN MACHO MIX

Housed inside this artistic, very punk (and decidedly LIMP WRIST-esque) looking case is one smooth and sultry collection of songs. In line with the East Side Story series (and indeed, DON JULIAN & THE LARKS open with "I Want You Back," featured on Vol.1, THE DELFONICS make several East Side Story appearances, and BARBARA LYNN should be on pretty much every compilation from here to eternity with "You'll Lose A Good Thing," even though that cut doesn't show up until Vol.12). A near perfect mix, peppered with soft funk from ZAPP, SMOKEY ROBINSON, LOVELITES, and JAKKI O's late '80s fuck jam "Ooo.Aah" with genuine under the radar hitmakers like PETE WINGFIELD and BARABARA LEWIS rubbing elbows with MARVIN GAYE/DIANA ROSS, ETTA JAMES and that infectious "I'm Your Puppet" track, just to keep the listener salivating. A handful from new-to-me crooner BRENTON WOOD ("I Think You've Got Your Fools Mixed Up" might be the single best floor banger in the of the whole hour), and "Darling Baby" from THE ELGINS should be an absolute standard...it certainly will be at TEHQ from here on out. There's a weird repeat sequence on the tape, which I naturally present unaltered, and there are a few skips that add a palpable authenticity to the whole experience. It's all a part of it...and whatever path leads you to a Friday night bawling to McKINLEY MITCHELL's "The Town I Live In" was the right path. Period. 

WHITE CHRISTIAN MACHO MIX

For visitors intrigued more by the cover than the contents, I strongly recommend WHITE CHRISTIAN DISASTER, the filthy Brasilian hardcore band from Curitiba. Their Coca-Cola Não é Deus demo was posted a few years back, and "Smiling Happy People Having Sex" is a killer jam. Regardless, I'm not pissed that someone seems to have used used their Macho! demo as a vessel for today's sweet sweet sounds. 

A.D.F. 914

Chalk this up with the reasons why unheralded cassette troves are still worth searching for. A 1986 recording featuring ASHLEY ALLEN (of SHAKIN' PAGANS "fame") and pals just being actual freaks - not dissimilar from the bedroom recordings likely made by scores of would-be geniuses from all over the world. Irreverent, sloppy, often twisted and awkward, mostly offered with only electric guitar and vocals. Recorded in Kentucky, with contact addresses in Louisiana and Ohio. Cassette appears to be alternately and/or simultaneously titled: Snare, Take One Of Theese, or Who Is Next? Pick one and get weird. 

TAKE ONE OF THEESE

NYLEX

I like that people are taking these tired rehashes and making them sound new and important. Sure, Australia's NYLEX play "goth punk" or "dark punk" or whatever moniker I (and too many like me) have been guilty of slapping on any new band with single note flanged guitar melodies and a snappy post-disco beat, and sure, NYLEX more or less sound like they dropped out of 1986, and that's likely their intent. But listen closer....listen to those fuzzed out bass lines (the actual focal point of this demo, to my ears anyway), listen to the vocals (part spoken word, part subdued shouts), listen to those aforementioned guitar melodies and those extra snappy drums, and note that most of this demo is faster than it "should" be (aside from the morose 17 Seconds-esque "Heavy Air" of course). I like that there are bands not just making the past feel new, they are making it feel important...making it feel like the present. Because it is. 

NYLEX

ŻONA ZŁA

This band is simply brilliant, and I should just stop there and (strongly) suggest that you listen. However, I will add that their approach to Eastern European punk is cold, relentless and deadly; their presentation is cold, deadly and relentless; they will make you want to break everything. Polish ex-pats making life in Dublin...this is their second tape, and it's offered here with the highest recommendation. 

SESJA 2

C.C.T.V.

It seems to defy logic that I have not already posted this demo, but search engines don't lie....do they? There was a time back in the middle of the '00s that NW Indiana punks dominated all mutant conversations about cool, so much so that I entered my first CONEHEADS show with generally blah expectations. I got my ass handed to me. Supposedly the combination of BIG ZIT and OOZE were really the kings of the region (and maybe no coincidentally, the most hardcore of the lot, including the bands that followed), but CONEHEADS, C.C.T.V., DAGGER, LIQUIDS....the shit all rules man. There are more, to be sure, but I am an old and out of touch man, and they aren't making this shit for me - they are making it for their mutant friends. 1970s DEVO reincarnated, DEAD MILKMEN but faster and not as dorky, cerebral punk for drunk teenagers....just good, fast music. And if I've already posted this tape, then I'm not sorry. 

PRACTICE TAPE 3.6.16

BRONCO LIBRE

I was turned off at first....a German band seemingly themed around the struggle of Native Americans just rubbed me kind of wrong. Like a cooption of sorts, it just didn't make sense. What does make sense after full exploration, however, is BRONCO LIBRE. I's not that they are good (and mind you, they are really good), it's that the thematic focus of the band heartfelt and honest, and it made me pause to think about all of the the "international" issues that First World political bands casually dip their feet into. BRONCO LIBRE dive in to the experience and the struggle lyrically, an attempt to identify more than empathize, and I leave this demo feeling stronger than I did when I pressed play....that's a serious accomplishment. That means you broke through. That means I'm coming back for more. Sonically there are similarities to NEON PISS, OBSERVERS, and high energy punk with a penchant for insanely catchy songs and killer guitars structures (the clean, the jangly, the distorted...all dancing together in harmony - it's like a metaphor for the life we want to live). I don't just recommend listening, I recommend learning. 

BRONCO LIBRE

AZAGTHOTH (UK) + '80s JAPANESE METAL/PUNK

The title of this mix should really give you all that you need. Well known Japanese hitmakers GHOUL (Jerusalem EP - 1985), THE EXECUTE (Hardcore Temptation EP - 1983), THE CLAY (Middle East Combat Area EP - 1984) and POISON (Mystery Temptation EP - 1986) join forces with a slightly more under the radar banger from CASBAH (1987's Infinite Pain EP, which has appeared here before but deserves a revisit) and R.U.G.'s wild NWOJHM-esque Deathly Fighter/Crazy Bomber 45. These are all mandatory releases, and most command serious coin (because they are mandatory)....so crank these degraded twenty year old mix tape quality reproductions and save your coffee shop tips. But the real highlight here is AZAGTHOTH's 1987 filthy deathrash masterpiece Shredded Flesh demo. The only non-Japanese act on the tape, AZAGTHOTH was a short lived Shane Embury side project and they were absolutely disgusting. To listen to "Bloodsucking Freaks" is to forever alter your perception of what is music. Three tracks here (P.D.C.," "Dwell On Death," "At Our Leisure") that don't appear on most (any?) of the track listings I've found online, but the dude who made this for me was teenage penpals with the people involved, so who knows. Dig it: Mix Tapes > Youtube Algorithms. 

CASBAH, AZAGTHOTH and more....

JAKOB PEK

It's as if the very recording itself has been confined and is yearning to break free. Haunting, painfully minimal, tedious sounds from Jakob Pek spread out over one half hour. A casually tortured offering that ends with a drunkenly happy and seemingly aimless acoustic guitar to close "What Happened At The River," and leaves the listener (in this case, me) simply bewildered. Emptiness Smiles is sonic improvisation at its finest.

EMPTINESS SMILES

COMBAT SHOCK

 Come on. It's like POWER TRIP but with way more SLAYER, and Reforestation Records has still never let me down so you know you're about to get slaughtered. I've listened to Sacrifice more times than I can count, and I still start mentally moshing every time "Death Leads Us" kicks in....because it's a track that mandates moshing. COMBAT SHOCK made a tape for 17 year old me, for the 17 year old inside of you, and they made it to remind us all that there is a reason people all over the world shit themselves for knuckle dragging TPDM (ThrashPowerDeathMetal): because TPDM is fukkn great. I look to Russia for the future past, and for more of the past in the future. Listen to the opening 70 seconds of "Doomsday" and objectively evaluate your existence.

SACRIFICE

JAPANESE FURNACE

Disgusting. I challenge you to make aggressive music sounds this genuinely damaged. The mix is all fukkd up, the components all sound like they were recorded in a basement toilet on a micro-cassette recorded and nothing sounds like it is even supposed to go together. I can't tell if the vocalist is mad at the world or just pissed because the bass guitar is smothered weird sauce and all you can really hear is the unfortunate off time click instead of the low end rumble that might give the recording some power. There are breakdowns....and those are a different story. A story about how JAPANESE FURNACE just doesn't make sense. I mean, it's hardcore to be sure, but I don't think you can set out to make something this demented, and I certainly cannot imagine a band hearing this mix after a recording and thinking "Yeah, sure....that's what we were going for. Let's release it!" It should go without saying that this band is fukkn great. Two demos, from 2013 and 2014, repackaged for further listening confusion and/or pleasure....the second one sounds slightly more cohesive, is no less intense, and the guitar solo in "Dried Out" is just...wow.  

JPNFURN: I & II

LÉGITIME DÉFONCE

I first heard of LÉGITIME DÉFONCE from their late '90s split with San Jose's KRUPTED PEASANT FARMERZ, but I never looked any further (and honestly kinda forgot about them). Then this homemade collection appeared on my shelf (that's more or less how it happens around here) and it was like a time machine taking me back to the tours when we played a handful of tapes until they were transparent, sweating and drinking and discovering everything, us against the world. This was the punk that we listened to on these tours - not this band per se, but this was the sound that escorted us across North America and we would have loved this tape if it had been on our radar. High energy, snappy, melodic French hardcore....mid '90s hardcore that holds up extremely well, even if in retrospect there's a little too much NOFX in the mix. This tape features their self titled 1995 debut and the slightly rougher sounding ¡Ya Basta! from the following year...and I'm glad it lives on my shelf now. 

LÉGITIME DÉFONCE // ¡YA BASTA!

This '90s tape maker was a nice one, slapping eight tracks from the Higgledy Piggledy comp at the end of the tape....there's never a reason for leftover tape, kids. Excellent French shits from OVER TEN INCHES, TILT UP, BURNING HEADS, OUT OF ORDER, MASS MURDERERS and more. Included in the DL of course, because I am also a nice one. 

CARLOS VILLENA

A hallucinatory sonic sculpture spanning forty-five minutes from Spanish multi-disciplinary artist CARLOS VILLENA. The accumulation of sound is almost painfully slow, and the end result feels like he is opening a black hole in and through my very soul. Not for casual listening, not for a quick dip....this requires full immersion. 

SOMNI CASUAT PEL PLANEIG DE UN ÁLIGA

NEW BERLIN

The first thing I thought of was that NAKED RAYGUN track "Hip Swingin'," but only because NEW BERLIN actually made me want to swing my hips. It doesn't sound like NAKED RAYGUN at all mind you...it just made me want to dance. We're talking SPITS, EDDY CURRENT level delivery with a similar casual cool oozing through every crease in the recording. Laid back, cool as fukk.

NEW BERLIN

Also - putting a mini-mix tape on the flip side of your demo is an extremely sick move. METIN H. ALATIL, CHROME, CAN, LOS SAICOS and PETALOUDA serve to change the vibe completely. IT's awesome, and....who the fukk is METIN H. ALATIL (1970s Turkish Moog driven funk is the answer, but how could I have actually known that?!), because that track is siiiiiick. 

EARLY TONGUE + DEALING

An extremely cold release utilizing the combined grey matter of two cold entities. This half hour proto-industrial excursion leaves me feeling somewhat disoriented and more or less hopeless...it's centering. Grounding...and conveys a dark hopelessness that feels very very real. 

EARLY TONGUE + DEALING

PELTERAS

Quite literally the only negative thing I can say about this tape is that there are only two songs.  PELTERAS play aggressive, driving goth punk with some of the best bass lines in the game, everything was so on point that I actually stood up from my chair and exclaimed "yes!" about 30 seconds into "Meranggas." Brooding and powerful vocals seem to direct their power inward, and the guitars here are ripped straight from the grooves of the greats....PELTERAS are just damn near perfect. All I want from this Indonesian band is more. 

MERANGGAS // PUSARAN

LIBYANS

Y'all remember this band? I do. Always seemingly just under the radar, but furiously intense live - so much so that every time I saw them I thought "why is this band seemingly under the radar?" Liz's vocals bring up thoughts of BLACK FORM and LOS CANADIANS, which is to say catchy and tuneful but full of dirt and anger. Check the guitar lead on "Missing Pills" and tell me how a band can drop that lead into that song and know it's gonna be OK? I mean, it's more than OK, it's fukkn great....I just don't understand how someone can have that kind of vision. Demo tracks are predictably raw, then you hear the band get faster and tighter as they move to wax ("Higher Standards" - I mean....come on). So yeah...if you don't remember LIBYANS, then today is the day to start learning. 

LIBYANS

This 2009 tape has pretty much everything....well, everything up to 2009 anyway. 

DOUGLAS EWART // GEORGE LEWIS

A beautifully trying sonic excursion recorded in 1979, this duo creates lays down a quarter hour of abstractions and non-music, and then they step effortlessly into the stunning "The Imaginary Suite" and serenity has rarely sounded so beautiful. As is often the case with jazz, and especially avant-jazz, I'm not going to try to punch above my weight with context here, but this release led me to dig deeper into the respective works of Lewis and Ewart, both beyond fascinating musicians with legacies (past and current) that make my brain spin. Praise due to Loathed Sound Department, without whom I may have never come across this stunning and challenging work. 

JILA // SAVE! MON. // THE IMAGINARY SUITE

BARREN?

This one kinda took me by surprise - I just thought I was putting in a tape by a regular band I had never heard of. I thought maybe it would be pretty good, or maybe it would be pretty forgettable (that's not an pre-assessment of this tape in particular, just a law of averages thing....every tape can't be great, you know?), but I didn't necessarily think it was going to kick me in the ass. Paris anarcho-punks BARREN? did exactly that, however, and I can't stop listening to their 2016 demo. File alongside ARCTIC FLOWERS and very few other bands who are able to make new sounds feel familiar (or make old sounds feel fresh and urgent), it's dark and fiery punk for a hopeless generation. That generation is us, in case you were wondering, and "Violence For Peace" is our anthem.

 BARREN?

RUBBER

Longtime visitors will remember a time when Mondays were reserved for distortion drenched mutants bashing the shit out of regurgitated DISCHARGE drums (but somehow still better) and rehashed four chord jerk-off riffs (see: also, better) with howling layers of distortion and reverb. Maybe those Mondays are done and maybe they will return next week, but this Monday is reserved for New York City's RUBBER and their '90s grrl punk delivered with '10s perspective and attitude. Distortion can wait, y'all. 

 RUBBER

THE WRONG

Ramshackle midwest punk fronted by Eve Libertine as interpreted by THE KRUNCHIES. This shit is either dumbness personified or LEBENDEN TOTEN meets THE GRUMPIES. If you know me at all, then you know that, at least based on this description, I love THE WRONG.

TECHNOLOGY

CRABSKULL

Incredibly chill ambient dub from Canada. Like.....extremely chill. 

JOVIAN BLACK OPERA

EAST SIDE STORY vol.7

The East Side Story series continues raining bombs, starting their seventh volume with GENE CHANDLER's instantly recognizable "Duke Of Earl" and running straight into a blissful and almost over produced ballad from BILLY STEWART. A heavier emphasis on the slow crooners this time around; THE STUDENTS - "I'm So Young," CHRIS & KATHY - "All You Had To Do Was Tell Me," THE ORIGINALS ' "Baby, I'm For Real," THE SUPERBS - "Baby Baby All The Time" and pretty much everything else on this tape. The prize goes to the soulful swing LINDA THOMAS drops on "Hypnotized" but there's not a dud in the mix, twelve more tracks that take you back to a place most of us can only imagine. 

EAST SIDE STORY vol.7

ULTIMO RAUSEA

I've shared them here before, and Moyashi is more of the same: raw and brutal Japanese fastcore. This one came out in 2010 and commemorates twenty years of ULTIMO RAUSEA by spending four furious minutes smashing through four furious tracks....it's pretty much all you need, though I recommend listening closely (or loudly....or both) for the subtle leads in "For-Way" before the tape comes to a close. No bullshit, just srash. 

MOYASHI

TWINK

If you like your punk dark and damaged, then I give you TWINK. They open with "Yuppy Larvae," a track that sounds like 1984 UK anarcho goth crashing full speed into JESUS LIZARD....and then they get weird. Lots of flanged single string guitars, they speed up on tracks like "Stigmata Fleshlight" but they surely never settle into anything approaching a groove. Ramshackle noise punk hell bent on BAUHAUS, dreary ass sounds that draw from everything and mimic no one....not even TWINK. "Reality TV" is this fellow's favorite track, but this while thing just gets better with repeated listening.

CHRISTMAS