OLD THRASHERS REUNION

 

For all of the bizarre creations that Necrosignatures Occult Library has bestowed upon us, their opening salvo might still be their most ambitious. A full bodied some-kind-of-feeling album that doesn't remotely hint at the slew of varied (and excellent)releases that would follow, the 2019 tape from OLD THRASHERS REUNION is an evil nasal-y bedroom indie anomaly...maybe it just fits the description, or maybe because it fits the description and it's a perfect recording. A self released tape filled with should-have-been alt/pop hits is a rare treasure in any context, but knowing that the VÖLKERDÄMMERUNG tape came right on the heels of this masterpiece, and knowing that the same party (parties?) was (were?) responsible simply shoots this shit to the stratosphere. 

OLD THRASHERS REUNION

THUP

 

More horror noise wall from the depths of California. THUP create and destroy sonic images, meticulously managing their own sound and the realm it creates as if they're writing the score and script simultaneously. "Spirits Of The Sky" is excruciatingly deliberate ominous ambiance, a quarter hour spent anticipating...something. On the flip, "Demons Of The Earth" sounds like the after - survivors letting their eyes flit across a dark hellscape, wondering how (why?) they were spared. We never know the in between, the event is left a mystery and the listeners is left feeling anxious. Hesitant....dirty. But alive. 

IN THE SHADOWS OF MONSTERS

PAYLOAD OF ATOMIC WARHEAD NIGHTMARES

 

Treble heavy full throttle high end DBeat, from Detroit (get it?!). Riffs are strictly by the book (which I like), and these fools play fast (which I love) and the vocals hit almost like Powerload-era demos. Ultra raw medium fidelity anti-fashion unforgiving fist banging kång through a Midwest dirt punk filter. I literally do not know what else I could ask for this morning. 

SUMMER 2014

DYE

 

This was the first one. There was another one that came after this one, but this one was the first one. Snarling, honest, urgent, in your face hardcore punk....that's what this one is. That's what the other one is too, but that's what this one was first. "Frustration" is the sound of kids burning shit in a parking lot. "I'm Important" is the sound of crying while smashing the face of the people who jumped you last week. DYE is the sound of mid-teens North American punk, and it sounds even better now than it did then. 

DYE

DANIEL CRAIG

 

For a recording (or a manipulation of a recording) to sounds like an event is a special thing. A Past Yet To Come is an event, a journey, and....experience? You aren't watching a nonexistent film while these sounds play....you are the star. You are the only character. DANIEL CRAIG creates a sonic environment with meticulously manipulated sound/s and I'm left wondering whether they were created or conjured. The most subtle and deconstructed techno undertones and/or interludes break up atmospheric events. These aren't songs, they aren't movements. These are more than moments - DANIEL CRAIG creates something that just is. Perhaps more than any other release I've shared here, 2020's A Past Yet To Come feels like an entity...it feels like the past is now. 

A PAST YET TO COME

09 FEBRUARY 1988

Pat effortlessly rolling from GENE AUTRY to THE LOVIN' SPOONFUL pretty much exemplifies the joy of listening to these tapes. LOU REED into PHYLLIS DILLER? Makes perfect sense. A set that includes HALF PINT and SHINEHEAD leads into the event calendar and then 3 MUSTAPHAS 3 brings it home...folks who have been paying even casual attention shouldn't need an introduction to these tapes - simply not knowing what you're going to get is a part of the joy - because what you get is always going to be good. 

KALX - 09 FEBRUARY 1988

GRUMBLE

 

Fuck me, man - Region Rock as a descriptor is such a motherfukkr. The shit is easy to hate on...if you're an asshole (or me). But if you actually listen? Shit, tell me something I want from punk that's not here and I'll tell you it's something from punk that I don't need. Except relentless DBeat - I do need that shit. And GRUMBLE does not offer that, so I can still listen to other records and tapes (which is good, variety is important). But I'll be fukkd if I can't listen to this shit and feel like everything is right...and that's especially weird (and perfect) because 35 years ago I was listening to people 10 years older than me make me feel like I wasn't alone - now it's people 20 years younger than me doing the same fucking thing. I know that's a lot of numbers and math is a real piece of shit, but my point is....right now, this GRUMBLE tape is doing everything right.

MILLION DOLLARS

...help me realize every day ain't so great...

THE CALL-UP

 

First thought when I popped in the only release from Oakland's THE CALL-UP was "Damn...I missed another one." Whatever I was doing in 2015, I wasn't seeing this trio in the flesh, and that was a mistake. Second thought I had when I popped in the only release from Oakland's THE CALL-UP was "Damn...this hits me like the first time I heard NEON PISS." THE CALL-UP were harnessing that energy and those hooks and mixing in UK indie/alt by-way-of AIRFIX KITS...a product of their environment perhaps, but also mayhaps a product of the same influences that led to those other (also great) bands. Eight songs here, more than worthy of a full LP release and packed with infectious, angular, laid back, deliberate punk. Whatever I was doing in 2015, I was clearly fucking up. 

THE CALL-UP

MUCH BAND

 

File Under: Things I'm Not Trying To Describe. MUCH BAND are equal parts free form jazz and jam band and hippie prog and indie/alt and....look, punk: MUCH BAND sound like whatthefuckever they want to sound like, and if you can't at least appreciate that then you are on the wrong fucking team. It's not as if you need to like it, but you must recognize it. 

LITERALLY TOO PLEASURABLE

ACAUSTIX

 

People and pundits have used the word blistering to describe hardcore punk recordings for as long as there have been people and pundits and hardcore punk recordings. One listen to ACAUSTIX and you will realize that all of those people and all of those pundits were premature....this is blistering. Relentless clenched fist punishment with a touch of Swede influence and infectious swing that the Texans seem to know how to inject better than just about anyone else. Howling '90s crust vocals remind you that you're listening to something different, especially on "Die Here Now," the catchiest (and slowest) number on the tape. This thing is just......it's literally swoon-worthy punk. It's what I want. It's what I need. Motherfukkrs at RoachLeg did us all a favor.

ASYLUM TEST NO.1

CAPITOL EGGS

 

Gonna pretend I leaned a lesson and use fewer words today. 

These sounds are what you make of them. 

THROWING UP THE FINANCIALS

PLUNGER

 

This music hasn't been acceptable in more than thirty years....which is exactly why this music is timeless. Rough, discordant almost indie almost grunge almost college alt - like BREEDERS and NOMEANSNO and '90s Midwest basement emo all high and riffing off of each other. It shouldn't work, but the execution is so damn good and when "Bitter Parts" drunkenly weaves into the mix you won't want anything more than more PLUNGER in your life. 

UPRIGHTSIDEDOWN

 

RIPPING THRASH

 

This is the shit, okay? Like...this is literally what it's all about. You have the people you love and the people you you hate and the choices you choose and the decisions you make...and you have collections of essential hardcore punk music made by people you don't know. Those collections somehow help you navigate all of the other shit - it doesn't make any sense, but that's literally what it's all about. Not sure who first came to this realization (hint: it wasn't me), but that shit resonates. I'm not going to blow a lot of words talking about this tape - it fukkn rules from start to finish and you should listen to this shit and study this shit. I will spend a few words mentioning the essential (QUOD MASSACRE, R.I.P., SUBTERRANEAN KIDS, WRETCHED) and the necessary (RADIKAL HC, TRANSGRESSOR, DEBAUCHERY, L'ODI SOCIAL and basically everything else on the damn tape), and I will once again mention how crucial mix tapes are. How crucial mix tapes have been. How crucial mix tapes will always be. The first version was probably from the late '80s, then the Social Napalm kids reissued it in the 2000s - which means the reissue is basically as old now as the original was when it was reissued. That shit is a trip...and this is the shit. Okay?

RIPPING THRASH: THE TAPE

ORAL HEX

 

The Wet Cassettes juggernaut is unstoppable. I diverted my eyes for what seems like just a few months and apparently I am more than thirty releases behind. Instead of beating myself up over missing out, I have been listening to the self titled ORAL HEX tape repeatedly over the last few days. Techno-tinged sex noise created by unknown animals, this release from 2021 is both a diversion from the noisy chaos the label used to grab my attention and a perfect addition to it....because there's nothing like something that doesn't sound like anything you've ever heard. Now...I have some catching up to do.

ORAL HEX

Гражданская Оборона

 

Look, I'm not going to pretend to be an expert and I'm not going to regurgitate data from wikipedia. Legendary things are hard to write about, and have no interest in pretending that I have any actual or learned knowledge that can bring you closer to Гражданская оборона. They were formed in Omsk (that's southern Siberia) in the early '80s and are a thing of legend, but I only know this because I looked. What I definitely know, however, is that this tape changed me. This collection of Hits From Tapes/Records made me hungry. Undefinable and indescribably punk of the  highest order - primitive and intense, dark and determined. There are almost fifty tracks on this tape, and I could listen on repeat for fucking days and still keep finding new bits to wonder over. Punk, hardcore, reggae, raw drum machine punk....this is just the sound of being against and you can feel it as much as you can hear it. Гражданская оборона (CIVIL DEFENSE) are truly special, and even the uninitiated (read: me) can recognize this instantly. Even two hours in, I know I have only scratched the surface - and that in itself is important. 

GREATEST HITS FROM TAPE/RECORDS

HIEROGLYPHIC BEING

 

HIEROGLYPHIC BEING presented a solid ninety minutes of deranged acid house damage to start Reel Torque's series of focused mixes that has been kicking for over a decade. A dark and debaucherous journey through new beat, funk and industrial-tinged EDM that would have sucked me into the series from the start had I only been focused in that direction. As it is, the rest of the 30+ tapes in the series appear pretty hard to come by, but I'm in the market if anyone's holding. 

REEL TORQUE VOL.1

HIGHLIFE

 

So you're shithoused on a Tuesday morning around 3am, stuck at some random house with a bunch of fools you don't really know, but they've got the drugs and you've got to work in a few hours so sleep is pointless anyway....fuck it, right? Someone pops in the 2008 HIGHLIFE Greatest Hits Demo 2008 tape and you're like "fukk yeah - I got this" and then the boom box fries the damn tape and it warbles to a stop. You rewind and fast forward to try to tease the machine into working again. Fail. Take the tape out and thwack it against your head a few times and still nothing. Shit. Maybe it's the tape, maybe the player....hell, maybe you're just wasted. So you go bum some drugs off some kids you don't know (you're already a decade older than they are so it's not like you're worried about coming off weird - that ship has sailed hours ago) and you try to get yourself psyched up for acting normal when you roll into work wearing yesterday's clothes. Damn tape still won't work and you're trying to fukkn rage for a minute before you bail though, so that sucks because you were digging HIGHLIGE while you were getting high. Casually you make your way towards the door, lift the tape on your way out (they won't even know) and hit the road (read: sidewalk). Work sucks, because of course it does. You don't even stick out though, because humanity is fukkn zombies anyway and your boss is doing lines and trying to cook the books to steal enough money for a nose job so he wouldn't care about your state even if he were paying attention. But at the end of your shift you still got that tape in your pocket, so you bum some drugs off nose job boss before you clock out and you head home to give it a blast. The deck at that party kinda wrecked the first couple of songs, but the blasts and that piercing guitar are all you need to remind you what really matters (hint: it's nothing), and by the time you get to "Brainfried" you couldn't give a fukk because you feel seen. You text a buddy and ask if he's trying to rage tonight. He says "sure, I'll be right over - some kid I skate with is having a party....they're probably barely old enough to drink but I know they'll have drugs." "Cool," you reply, "let's grab some beers on the way."

GREATEST HITS DEMO 2008

TRASH MAGZ

 

A killer dose of ripping Texas punk to wrap up your week. I remember when I first heard of THE MEATMEN and I thought they sounded so cool and "edgy" (I was a kid) - well...when I heard them I thought they were boring and sucky. If THE MEATMEN had sounded like fucking TRASH MAGZ then I would have been the most stoked teenager in all of Oklahoma...instead I'm a regular-level stoked middle aged dude in California who has to wake up at 5am tomorrow to go to work and is really digging on this shit. Not sure what's up with the fucking organ, and honestly I don't care. 

UNDER SIEGE

VIDEO DUCT

 

What if Mark E. Smith lived in Missouri in The New Century? What if he listened to GAG and squirmy shit like that? And what if no one wanted to play music with Mark E. Smith and he just decided to make all of the music hisownself? What do you think that might sound like.....?

SMALL PETS AND KITCHENETTES

D.I.Y. CONSPIRACY VOL.3

 

Another installment in the killer international DIY punk mix tape series from the punks at Bulgaria's Kontingent Records. It was a Covid-era "let's do something because we aren't doing anything" idea that grew wings and left us with a slew of tapes that are essential snapshots of early '20s DIY punk and hardcore. The third installment features G.A.Z.E. (the best track on the tape, methinks), KOMBAT SPORTS, LHUMA, E EMASCULATA, RADIUM GIRLS, DENY, CLUITERATI, PILLARS and several more. Not gonna try to link all of them or describe them, but if you like hardcore punk then you like this fukkn tape. You don't like hardcore punk? Listen to LASSO, you dipshit. Geez.

DIY CONSPIRACY VOL.3

SICK SAD WORLD

 

I could make comparisons (it's tempting) but they are too easy (and too obvious) so I'm just gonna revel in how intent (intense) and urgent this Melbourne trio sound more than a decade after they came and went. The epitome of punk realized by three femme maniacs who deliver maximum intensity even (pr especially?) on the slow plodding numbers like "Cane Toads" and "Rocks In My Fists" before unleashing unbridled ramshackle mania on basically every other track on the tape. "Period Pain" and "Blood Duster Suxxx" are the highlights, but everything here is delivered in ultimate lo-fi glory...they way it should be. This recording and a live set might be all we ever get, so I suggest taking the time to really let this shit sink in. 

WE MEAN WELL

KIVIRANTA

 

Nothing sounds like KIVIRANTA. No one sounds like KIVIRANTA. Hell, even KIVIRANTA doesn't sound like KIVIRANTA, because they clearly do what the fuck ever they want. I shared 2018's Dolce Vita a few years ago and yammered about the modern-indie-by-way-of-primitive-post-punk vibes and now I'm trying to wrap my head around this masterpiece from 2020. Antipsykootti is a master class in confidence - the was KIVIRANTA execute dark and minimal synths and then casually morph into tracks that land somewhere between ESPLENDOR GEOMÉTRICO and Russian rap after flirting with techno for a couple of tracks. "Kipa Ja Nautinto" is the star, a hard, drum machine driven dance floor punk smasher that stares straight in the face of most of the more subdued material on Antipsykootti, but it makes the whole release feel more cohesive at the same time....until the title track closes things down and reminds you that KIVIRANTA doesn not, in fact, sound like KIVIRANTA. 

ANTIPSYKOOTTI

EBB & FLOW

 

For readers who do not want to have a good day, GREENLING and JUNKYARD BURIAL alternate tracks, creating a north--south noise loop for the duration of the Ebb & Flow. Dizzying and disorienting tracks from the GREENLING and completely maxed out distortion worship from JUNKYARD BURIAL...there's nothing about this release that approaches calm or normal. Just maximum punishment. 

EBB & FLOW

NERVESKADE

 

Do you remember when this happened? The noisy, chaotic shit was already a thing and other bands had started pushing the envelope to be sure but NERVESKADE was different. And after NERVESKADE...? Everything was different. 

NERVESKADE

SELF-IMMOLATION MUSIC

 

Appropriately dreary desert psych from Leeds. Serious '90s REV + SPIRITUALIZED + LIPS vibes, even more so than on their debut in 2020 (Psychedelic Unknowns was released the following year), and the way SELF-IMMOLATION MUSIC deftly annihilate the simplest riffs is.....something special. There's something truly special about a band who sets their sights on a goal and then surpasses it, and that when these chaps (continue to) do. 

PSYCHEDELIC UNKNOWNS

TROPICAL DRIPPS

 

There's no way that a description using words can do TROPICAL DRIPPS justice. Hell, if I described them to myself I probably wouldn't even be interested - but this is why we listen. Simple and stripped down Canadian indie with a little sprinkle of lo-fi glam and....and some surf guitars? Yeah, I know. It doesn't make much sense but oh my stars does it work. "Sludge City" should be (or should have been) a smash hit somewhere, especially with the chorus that deftly lands the 95 second song, and then the close out a three song cassingle with a surf instrumental? Like it was a whole ass record? I can't explain it folks, I'm just here to speak truth and tyhe truth is that I love these TROPICAL DRIPPS. 

WRONG WAY

and bonus points for taping an alternate cover onto the outside of the case...