TROPICAL DEPRESSION

 

Even a casual visitor here knows that I am drawn to freak sounds. The difficult listens are....are a fuel. It's not always comfortable (and that is, in fact, the point), just like working out your own thoughts when you don't have words. Or when you don't know what the thoughts are. The difficult listens are good because they challenge you(r ears), because they are awkward, because they are unfamiliar. Thunderous fist banging kång and a wall of pummeling DBeat? Shit, that's like a bowl of grandma's mashed potatoes and gravy compared to New Orleans trio TROPICAL DEPRESSSION. Hold The Knife Close is a four song lumbering exercise in patience....guitar squawks like a free jazz alto, the bass plops, the vocals wail like a feral child crying for ice cream before bed at 3am and the drums that are supposed to hold everything together instead seem to just encourage the sonic mania. There are times when you wonder if the members of TROPICAL DEPRESSION are even on the same page at all and then....."fukk, this is intentional" and everything changes. Imagine CRUCIFUCKS and STILLSUIT and FLIPPER trying to work out a SWELL MAPS cover set and you'll be on the right path...or the wrong one. Five songs on the lyric sheet....four on the tape (and one of them cuts off). Because you need to keep wondering. Keep fighting. Keep trying. 

HOLD THE KNIFE CLOSE

INFANTILE DISSENTION

 

Positively demented outsider metallic anarcho freak sounds from Vancouver....I posted another tape last year and I was very pleased to revisit that one while listening to this one. It's not just good....it's intense. 

INFANTILE DISSENTION

GROSERO

 

GROSERO have been kicking around the Bay Area for years and they've never disappointed when I've seen them. No frills, no bullshit hardcore punk that will appeal to folks from the '90s who loved THE NEIGHBORS but thought they never got their props. Or to folks from the '00s who loved FUNERAL SHOCK but thought they never got their props. You see where I'm going with this, right? GROSERO deliver more than their reputation and/or following would suggest - and this demo from 2018 is a prime example. Barely on the rails and absolutely on the hot rails, this shit is hot, reckless and totally insane. 

GROSERO

AUTOR

 

This thing is so good. Austria's AUTOR are dark and weird in all of the creepy ways that the punks go bananas for....but they are different. And they are so fukkn good. I'm not gonna drop any comparisons because I truly feel like AUTOR exist on an island they've built themselves. I'd like to visit that island...perhaps live there.

NEKTAR

LAMF 45s

It's sometimes harder for me to convince me to pop in something completely at random, but if you don't take some chances every so often then you're either going to leave some killer shit on the table or you're eventually going to be left with nothing but gambles and mysteries. So I try to pepper in the unknowns to spread the joy (or pain) and it seem to be working out pretty well so far. So I pulled out an unmarked tape from a box of live shits earlier this week - no writing on the tape or the j-card, just a TDK S-90 full of opportunity - and I pressed play on that fukkr. There was a hand written insert thankfully, and I quickly learned that I was in for 45 minutes of HEARTBEAKERS outtakes on one side which I can totally deal with....but it was the flip. It's always the mysteries lurking on the back side, right? A collection of stunner proto-punk and sleaze rock 45s was waiting for me there and I had not heard of a single one of them, so I cranked that shit. KILLER KANE BAND (featuring Kane from NY DOLLS and Blackie Lawless from W.A.S.P....in the same band) followed by a solo banger from JERRY NOLAN (from the DOLLS and HEARTBREAKERS) and HEROES (more ex-HEARTBREAKERS). A swanky ass slab from MICHAEL THIMRÉN, famous for work with Nolan and Johnny Thunders but legendary (around TEHQ) for his time in BITCH BOYS leads into the 1984 single from Swedish rockers PILSNER (Jerry Nolan again).The sole 45 from BLESSED wrap the side...but the tape is pretty wrecked by then (probably been rocked too many times) so it'll take serious dedication to make it all the way through. Until you listen to "American Bandstand" and realize that you're hearing snarky punk perfection and you decide you don't give a fuck anymore. About anything. And this......? This is why we put our hands on things we don't know and hold on until we know. 

LAMF 45s

SAD EYED BEATNIKS

 

Wondering what to think about? Wondering what to think at all? Conscious of the reality that thinking can lead to discovery and that discovery can be awkward sometimes? Painful sometimes? Want something but aren't sure what it is? Know what it but aren't sure how to ask for it? Hesitant to even look for the reasons mentioned in the previous sentences? Wondering if you can maybe just have a day....just one day....where you don't have to ask yourself any of these questions? A day when you don't have to discover, a day when you can just be? SAD EYED BEATNIKS are here for that day. SAD EYED BEATNIKS are here for you today. Contemplative dream pop that exists not to make you forget...but to help you remember.

CLAUDIA'S ETHEREAL WEAVER

DIRTY JUNK

 

I love one that's hard to nail down...and DIRTY JUNK is very hard to nail down. Imagine a show with MILEMARKER and GODHEADSILO and STILLSUIT....who would you get to open that bill if you lived in Minneapolis? I'd suggest DIRTY JUNK - because you want a band that fits with the sounds but tweaks them (all) and makes you re-hear things that you already know. DIRTY JUNK does that...and more. It only takes two people to create this mood-by-way-of-racket, and I spent some serious time with the rest of their catalog after On Yr Knees was finished with me. It's Wednesday, so why not? Right?

ON YR KNEES

RADIATION RISKS

 

Because true punks is alway freaks. Because the music was meant to sit outside of anything approaching normal. Because we are here because we are (at least a little bit) weird. Because sometimes you need to hear something and just wonder 'what is' and/or 'why is this' happening. Because sometimes the good cannot be contained by norms....RADIATION RISKS. There is a spacial plane that we cannot reach or even see....and on that plane RADIATION RISKS are a commercially viable, socially successful quintet. On that plane, filthy garage punk with throat shredding vocals and hopelessly infectious leads is the norm. On that plane horn melodies are not just acceptable in punk - they are desirable. Essential. Perfect guitar leads are universal it seems ("Acid Fantasy #1" and "Prayers" as examples), but literally every other element on this 2016 recording (allegedly from Buffalo, New York - but I'm skeptical) has been delivered from (the) God/s to let us know what is possible.....out there. Most of us will never reach this plane or these realms, but it's nice to know what we're missing. 

RADIATION RISKS

MORON

 

You like to get noisy and weird. You like to swing like a motherfukkr. You like when it sounds like '80s synth punk but it also sounds like Olympia hardcore. You like to get fucking throttled. I have news for you. You like Music From MORON.

MUSIC FROM MORON

SIREN SONGS

How can you listen to SIREN SONGS and not think about GRUMPIES and/or BLACK RAINBOW? Also how can you listen to SIREN SONGS and not fukkn swoon - especially when "Grievances" starts and that '90s college shit creeps in. I want these songs to be recorded "better" but I also think they are perfect exactly as they are...the things we love aren't always clean or easy to digest. Sometimes the things we love are rough around the edges, and sometimes it's even tough to hear the beauty....which makes it even more beautiful when you listen.

 PAINT BY NUMBERS

WEREWOLF JONES

 

Sometimes I listen to a band and I think that maybe they're a hot fukkn mess live. You know something that I like to see...?  I love watching a hot fukkn mess - and a hot mess bashing the shit out of advanced garage tinged hardcore punk? Well that shit is even better. WERWOLF JONES fit that bill and then some on their first collection of grimy anthemic punk it's almost as if they're trying to dumb down great Motor City punk snarls with alcohol and misanthropy but the genius shines through....because a good song is a good fukkn song. Just listen to "Pray For Your Sons" and you'll know what I mean.  

WEREWOLF JONES

PARA CUANDO EN MI TE MUERAS

 

While it would be great (and easy) to dissect this comp, it might serve the reader (and listener) better to simply refer to the subtitle: 20 Unearthly Sissy And Sassy Hits and say that the twenty songs contained inside are all (inter)stellar. Focused on queer and femme punks, Para Cuando En Mi Te Mueras drags you from the UK to Argentina with stops in Mexico, Brazil and the US - from nasty squirmy hardcore to walls of disconnected noise...and literally evert track grabs me. A few bands I was already familiar with (ARGUMENT?, HETEROFOBIA, HEX) but most of the sissy and sassy shits here were new to these ears, which is an extra bonus. Your week sucked, and it's over anyway.....so what's stopping you?

PARA CUANDO EN MI TE MUERAS: 20 Unearthly Sissy And Sassy Hits

VIDEO DISEASE

 

A deep dive into virtually any era or region will yield results, see my recent combings of the '10s as an example. And then hit rewind and start digging through the late '00s and see what a few extra years can bring. VIDEO DISEASE dropped this demo in 2008 and then quit after two killer singles the following year - four raw and rough around the edges hardcore punk slammers from folks who would go on to bring us STOIC VIOLENCE, RESPONSE, MONGREL and a host of other hitters during the course of the next decade. This is dirty jeans and leather jacket/s hardcore.  

VIDEO DISEASE

FOREIGN OBJECTS

 

If it seems like I've been on a bit of a 2010s deep dive lately....perhaps that's because you are perceptive. Maybe I just missed a lot from that era, maybe I just blind grabbed from a shelf that happened to have a lot of nuggets all hanging out together, but I'm not complaining and I don't think the minions will be either after they revisit (or are introduced to) FOREIGN OBJECTS. Sharp, urgent Boston punk with fierce femme vocals right up front drawing from '90s Olympia as much as early punk. There's a killer three band split with DAYLIGHT ROBBERY and DEFECT DEFECT and I kinda feel like that a perfect place to squeeze this band in, though the distinctive vocals are such a huge focal point that it's really hard to try to put them in a box with any other band/s. And this tape appeared in 2011 (a format variant of the Vinyl Rites 12" released the same year) because that's apparently the year I'm supposed to be paying attention to at the moment. Focus Track: "Words Of War."

NO SENSATION

HENCHMEN

 

Suspend belief before you read any further, and suspend hope before you press play....HENCHMEN are about to fuck up your world. If drunk, death obsessed horror rap is your cup of tea then you've found your grail, young savage...while those among you who still (somehow) thought the world was a decent place are about to get a dose of reality from A Nightmare Of World Carnage. TC Bonelocs' beats are enough to make you shivver on their own, and accompanied by a bevy of depression dealers (X-Raided, J-Dog, Lil Sicx) they sound straight deadly. DJ EONS ONE, Lepr and LE-DOG add beats on a couple of tracks and if you're paying attention you know that the fools laying the foundation are West Bay royalty. This is the sound of the words behind the headlines you skip past because you don't want to feel uncomfortable...

A NIGHTMARE OF WORLD CARNAGE

LEPROPHILIAC

 

If you thought that 2022's Slimebath was the pinnacle of grimy churning death/grind, or if you think that the era of death metal bands composing sonic homages to the legacy of serial killers....please allow me to introduce you to Gein. First rate nasty shit, exactly what you'd expect of you've been following the Spanish duo LEPROPHILIAC since the Caskets Of Flesh demo five years ago.  It's anew week, and the new year has barely started....get ugly. 

GEIN

THE TANGLED LINES

 

If you live in North America then the weather outside your front door is probably kinda daunting. Good day to stay inside and blast a solid hour of blistering '00s German fastcore, right? I loved this band starting with the DICK CHENEY split and always kinda felt like if they had started five years earlier then people would have gone apeshit (and hopefully they did go apeshit while I was in the wrong hemisphere). They did such a good job of keeping the listener guessing ("Fatal Call" anyone?) and when they just unload (which was most of the time) they are ruthless. Anyway - maybe it's cold where you are, but THE TANGLED LINES fukkn ruled...and this tape has all of the songs. You're welcome.

DISCOGRAPHY TAPE

CHARDONNAY

 

This one just makes me feel right...and sometimes it feels pretty good to feel right. 

DO YOU HAVE MAXIMUM INTUITION?

OTHER OZ/NZ HORDES

Ripped a real banger set from Sydney's HITMEN a while back (check Escape Is Terminal for that magic) and someone was nice enough to cram a few bonus cuts at the end so....here you go. HENCHMEN, MUSHROOM PLANET and a gloriously brooding number from MELTING SKYSCRAPERS - it's a short little mix, but damn it's a good one. Thank you...and you're welcome too. 

OTHER OZ/NZ HORDES

VHOL

I remember how VHOL was presented to me via drunken scene chatter - the word was that Aesop and John from LUDICRA were teaming up with Sigrid (HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE) and Mike (YOB) and they were going to make a DBeat band....and with that lineup, it was all set to be a DBeat band that would blow the doors off of the whole damn world. Even though the first record delivered as advertised, it was still apparent that they weren't going to be able contain themselves...and by 2013's Deeper Than Sky the train has fully left the station. Imagine a combination of the above elements with a healthy nod towards DISFEAR and early MAIDEN and you get the general idea, but suffice to say that no one sounded like VHOL then and no one has sounded like them since. I listened a lot when it came out, but Aesop gifted me this tape a few weeks back and it's been on re-regular rotation since...I am not bummed.

DEEPER THAN SKY

PARANOID TIME

 

More underappreciated 2010s magic from the PNW - not Olympia this time but just an hour north and undoubtedly connected. Sharp, choppy, urgent punk of the highest order with flanged guitars and femme vocals up front - brings to mind BAYONETTES and GORILLA ANGREB but also the first couple of WHITE LUNG records, all with a perfectly dreary undertone. The highlight is the guitar break into the slow finish to "Annuit Coeptis" that wraps the tape like landing your entire listening experience with care are grace. Can you image if someone could land your life with the same care? That would be cool. 

PARANOID TIME

ANCIENT SCROLLS

 

Sometimes the perfect things appear exactly when you need them. Not when you're looking for them or when you want them...but when you need them. This ANCIENT SCROLLS tape has been in my possession for some time (exactly when it arrived? I'll never know because we aren't just talking about physical possession here, right?), I had easy access to it and had scanned my gaze right past it dozens of times before I reached for it last week. I reached for it, I popped it in the stereo, and I continued about my day - until ANCIENT SCROLLS slowly but very steadily made its presence felt. Having a conversation? There were the sounds. Feeding the cat? Listen to this. Getting some mundane housework taken care of? ANCIENT SCROLLS are with you. Until the only conversation was about this - this present (double meaning absolutely intentional). And now, ANCIENT SCROLLS are everywhere. The sound is something like an astral collision of TANGERINE DREAM, SURVIVE and OZRIC TENTACLES....but I'm not just talking about the sound. Or the tape. The tape is a physical representation, and the tape sounds fucking cool. But I'm talking about the perfeft things that come into your life exactly when you need them, no matter how long they've been there.

ANCIENT SCROLLS

CRUDE THOUGHT

 

Ten years later, thinking about the bands from Olympia in the 2010s kinda blows my mind. It's not just the sheer quantity (there were a lot of notable outfits), but the quality (there were a lot of notably good outfits). Maybe SEX VID planted a seed or some shit, or maybe punks from Olympia have just been drinking from the same mysterious fountain for generations. Last week it was ESCØRT, and today we get a visit CRUDE THOUGHT's first demo released in 2011. Fuzzed out bass and guitar that come together like a soft poo smooshing through a window screen, an awkward stilted pace and vocals that...well, CRUDE THOUGHT mean it, you know? CRUDE THOUGHT sounds fukkn real and you can feel it, you know?  At the end of the day I don't really care where they were from (the Olympia thing is still impressive, of course), because CRUDE THOUGHT exist now, in a time and a place where you need them to. I'm gonna listen to "Luxury" a lot of times today, and I recommend that you do the same.

CRUDE THOUGHT

BLIGHT

 

How long has it been since I blabbed about my Atlantic Province punk obsession? Well friends, that's just too long. Enter BLIGHT. True mutants with a downtuned howling crust attack dredged through '90s DIY punk and DYSTOPIA. "Lifeless Life" is the song that will get you through tis fucking week, because this is a band who are doing it because they need to do it. That energy translates, and that energy feeds.  You're welcome...but apparently these five songs are all you get. 

STAGNANT

ENDLESS ROPE

 

It's tempting to not even try to describe the sounds of ENDLESS ROPE, because they don't sound like anything I've heard before or since. At times they land like a modern post hardcore band, but the vocals sound like involuntarily shredding glass and the guitars are waaaaay too East Bay Ray to sound like anything except fucking punk....sometimes. Other times thjat same guitar sounds like an anguished post-alt freakout a la YEAH YEAH YEAHS or some shit and of course I mean that in the best possible way. The rhythm section is thunderous and ruthless, almost like they're trying to beat the other elements into submission and it all just fukkn works. I don't mind being a decade late to the game when this is the trophy....I don't mind at all.

NEGI SURF

X-RAY SPEX

The target audience here might be small, but hats off to the tape makers and traders from past punk generations for putting all of this shit in our hands today. I'f you're still reading after noting X-RAY SPEX on the title bar then just skip my drivel and go right to the download link, because you clearly know what you want and it's right fucking here. A live version of "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!" with several tracks from Germ Free Adolescents (taken straight from the record), plus nine cuts from a 1977 demo recording and four from a Peel Session the same year. And then, because I love you (and someone who came before all of us loves you too) you get three tracks from THE SAINTS and goddamn it's good to hear "Demolition Girl" again because that song just rules. It's been too long. You're welcome, punk.

GERM FREE + DEMO + PEEL + SAINTS

LAND AND LANGUAGE

 

Absolutely devastating collection of underground and experimental hip hop from indigenous artists based in all corners of the globe. Instead of dissecting tracks, I'll give you a (partial) list: NUUK POSSE (Greenland), AMOC (Sámpi), SERHADO (Kurdish rapper based in Stockholm), UPPER HUTT POSSE (Aotearoa, NZ), TJIMBA AND THE YUNG WARRIORS (Australia), HATHUR ZOO (Buryatia), ROLLIN 'N LIL SPADE (Navajo Nation), BANAISSA (Moroccan based in Germany), X PLASTAZ (Arusha, Masaai), LO CUT A SLEIFAR (Wales), M.A.K. (Basque Country)...and that's just the first side. The sounds are all over the place (literally and figuratively) and the delivery is overwhelmingly intense. You can feel the intensity and the isolation in every track, and that is exactly what makes this compilation so essential. The flip features artists from Cherokee Nation, Mongolia, Nairobi, Tajikistan, Chile, Bolivia, Mauritania, Norway, Palestine.....in case you need to be convinced. All praise to the folks who put this compilation together. 

LAND AND LANGUAGE

ESCØRT

 

Ruthless, screaming, hyper-charged squirmy DBeat mania - from Olympia, Washington (of course). Because if you take PHYSIQUE and ELECTRIC CHAIR and you crank that shit on a cold, wet Pacific Northwest morning with the haze from the night before still clouding your brain...you get ESCØRT. The drawn out trippy mania of "Burnout" sits smack in the middle of the tape, flanked by straight burners to create a nonstop bulldozing riff machine, a vehicle for lyrical fire and pleas for self determination. Don't dismiss "Fuck Me Hard" as an salacious attention grab until you listen (and fukkn read) in the context of songs like "You Are Enough," "Nope" and the anthem "Whore For Whore." It's not just context or content....ESCØRT are on a fucking mission.

ESCØRT

PENELOPE HOUSTON & THE BIRDBOYS

 

I heard PENELOPE HOUSTON & THE BIRDBOYS before I heard AVENGERS - I knew that Penelope was noteworthy because of the promo blurbs that came with that first LP, but I didn't have the means to hear this legendary first wave SF punk band so I just imagined what they might have sounded like while I listened to the sweet vocal harmonies and honest acoustic Americana of THE BIRDBOYS. Most of the tracks on this 1987 demo recording made it onto that record and it they still resonate (as do the AVENGERS, of course) even if the sounds are light years from whatever "first wave punk" was supposed to have sounded like. Pay attention to the songs, to the lyrics...listen closely to songs like "Bed Of Lies" and "Putting Me In The Ground" and you'll see why that record landed with a small town Wizard still not old enough to drive. And a lifetime later, it still lands. 

PENELOPE HOUSTON & THE BIRDBOYS

OUTDATES

 

Just...it's just a really nice sounding tape. That should be enough, right? (hint: it is) Extreme and ancient Pacific Northwest vibes on the debut OUTDATES recording, and the 4-track only adds an air of authenticity. Candilore's vocals sound completely at home warbling and wailing on tracks like "Sick Of Talkin'" and the entire tape just feels....warm and familiar. It's a short shot, but check "Taking Sides" (the shortest shot of them all) and tell me it's not worth it. 

MAKE WAY FOR OUTDATES

COFFIN APARTMENT

 

To (try to) describe Portland's COFFIN APARTMENT would be to do them a disservice. I can say "psychedelic death/doom" and you might think of a sound, but you wouldn't think of this. Ferocious technical death and metallic hardcore clashing with early KYLESA and CAVE IN and even inexplicable tastes of Revolution Summer vocals through a '90s WCBM filter. Even if you know the sound/s (and you likely do), you can't know COFFIN APARTMENT until you hear the sound. 

COFFIN APARTMENT