01 January 2023

451ºF // GERENEZTENKE


The tape comes from a box handed down by Music Not Noize (who posted a few years back). Belarusians 451ºF would have blown minds delivering on the floor at Gilman in 2001 - rough, no bullshit hardcore bursts like late '90s PV jamming SOA on full. As good as the GERENEZTENKE side is, this is one of the best unknown (to me) things I've heard all year. But what about GERENEZTENKE? Damaged, distorted, cold, disjointed, manic - BIG BLACK meets CRASS meets KMFDM meets GODSTOMPER. Absolutely wild sounding, and genuinely unlike anything else I've heard. 

 

As I write this in late December, the talk is of Zelensky in Washington and Putin's brain rot and Lukashenko continuing to offer up Belarus as a pawn in order to maintain his grip on the people he's purportedly representing. And as I write this, I'm listening to a twenty year old recording with Belarusians on one side and Russian on the other. Both bands on the political left, both bands anti-fascist, both bands struggling to break free from the authoritarian legacies of their respective nations. I have no idea where either band is now, where any of the members are now - it's all a lifetime and a universe away. Does this reality relate to either of these bands...? I have no idea.








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