BIG

 

A while back, someone casually mentioned that they thought BIG were the hottest new hardcore band in the Bay Area. I noted this observation, and remembered the drummer for my old band telling me about his new band called....BIG. Eric beat the shit out of the buskets in STERILE MIND and he was constantly involved in the construction and evolution of our songs. I imagined that translating that energy and focus to guitar would probably lead to something I needed, but it was months (years?) before I saw BIG in the flesh when REALISTIC played with them in a San Francisco batting cage (it's a thing) earlier this year. I was right - that casual mentioner was right. BIG are advanced hardcore. Maximum intensity delivering every micro-hook you never knew you needed. Metallic breakdowns, pop punk sensibilities and occasional indie vibes (I swear a BLOC PARTY in "Fear & Hunger") driving hi-NRG squirm punk and it all sounds like the hardcore that you didn't know you were missing until you realize you (finally) have it. Anyway.....shit is good. 

DANCE MUSIC

CELENG THE ABSTRACT

 

Total fucking noisecore nonsense. Ten songs, four minutes. You might not know that you need this, and you might not need this at all. But you won't know that you don't need this until you have it. And actually, you need this.

DEMO 2025

EATING

 

As stated countless times: the compulsion is the draw, the results are the prize. 75 minutes of improvisational and/or experimental noise and/or sounds from Ange and Max. This is truly Music For People, and intentional listening is recommended. The compulsion and the drive is the thing, the sounds are the result....endless respect. 

NONSITE / SITE

BROKEN BONES

 

When I posted a tape-trader version of this tape a dozen years ago, it was the first time I had consciously listened to BROKEN BONES. The name and logo are ubiquitous and sometimes it seems like everyone already knows all of the "important" things before you do (or at least it seems that way to me sometimes), but there's truly nothing as exciting as discovering a classic for the first time. You know it's monumental even if you don't know everything about it....yet. Hearing "Civil War" for the first time, I felt like a 13yo kid in his bedroom fiddling with the dial to try to record "Smoke On The Water" off the radio because I knew it was special. There you go - I just compared Bones to Ritchie Blackmore. And there were only twelve years between those two tracks, when is wild when you think what twelve years ago in the realms of modern hardcore. Anyway, this recording fukkn rules; quintessential UK metalpunk. 

DEM BONES

RICHARD SCARY

 

Absolutely fucking demented hollow tupa-mania from Southern California. Alien squirms and dark alley beatings punctuated by bursts of savage raw hardcore punk insanity. "Rot" is the closer, and I was so fukkn bummed when I realized that when it was over...it was over. Good shit. 

HELL IS A PLACE ON EARTH 

MASSES

 

I've said it a thousand times, but goth punk is better when it's punk. Enter MASSES. Melbourne (AU) maximum energy dark punk.....emphasis on punk. Jam "Intolerance" and tell me you need anything in this godforsaken world....I'll tell you that you're wrong. 

2017 SE ASIAN TOUR

SHAKEY BONES

 

I ripped this one in the spring - a tape from Pat's collection that I had every intention of sharing 20 years after it was recorded. But I forgot, and that milestone was back in June. It would have felt weird to post it and say "this recording was twenty years old a few days ago" so it just kinda sat in the to be posted folder languishing. Until today...when this recording is twenty years and three months and one day old. 
I don't care about folk punk or train hopping americana.....until I hear it done right. And then I start thinking about a guy I met in the '90s called Montana Bill who had the outline of the state Montana tattooed on his face. He wasn't from Montana. But you can hear the freedom represented by that anecdote in this live performance broadcast on KZSU on June 1st, 2006 who released three CDrs and then vanished. Listen to "Goin' Down This Road Feelin' Bad" and know you aren't alone when you feel bad. 

LIVE ON PIRATE RADIO

TEMPLES

 

Is there a place for pained, deliberate solo improvisational electronics in your life?

If your answer is yes, then I offer you TEMPLES. 

BESTIAL

HÄNDE

 

Why not continue on a theme, right? Moving from Austria to Poland with a sound more reminiscent of INTERNAL AUTONOMY or UK DECAY filtered through stark Eastern Bloc punk. Decidedly dreary and danceable, with hints of RAKTA creeping into "Parafina" via synths and drums that remind me of watching Natha at the Whistle Stop Bar in San Diego a decade ago....but I digress. demo hände closes with "Koniec" - it's the hardest hitter on the tape; a would-be late '80s dark alt classic with guitar, vocals and synth sharing the spotlight. Sometimes you hear a thing for the first time and it's already in you before the tape stops rolling...that's what happened here. 

demo hände

DRUCK

 

Describing DRUCK makes me feel like an amateur sommelier talking about a bottle of cabernet. You're going to hear hints of MERCURY REV and SPACEMEN 3 floating around a base of Kraut Rock and THE BIRTHDAY PARTY. Notes of '90s Neil Young color the instrumental title track before you let the twelve minute B-side "Sonnenleiche" envelop you with waves of PHARAOH OVERLORD-esque dark synth driven repetition. This is truly a gorgeous release, and I offer it to you with the highest recommendation. 

AAA

JAN GARBAREK

 

I went to see The Hole Truth And Nothing Butt tonight, and it hit fucking hard. It's not just that BUTTHOLE SURFERS are truly a generational band (they are), it's the way the film interacted with the people and observed the was they interacted with one another (or didn't). I was planning to listen to some punk, drink some beers and hang out with my cat when I got home but honestly I feel like skipping the punk and beers and focusing on the cat while I think passion and instability and danger and loss and friendship and love and how close so many come to not quite making it. Smooth Norwegian outsider jazz is good for those nights, and honestly the cat kinda prefers it. 

PLACES

KILLED BY GERD

 

It's Friday, so here's another collection of songs from bands that I had never heard of before I popped Killed By Gerd in the deck for the first time a few weeks ago. Death rock (PELTERAS), new wave/college alt (THE NORTHPALM, MALARIE), driving shoegaze (DENIAL), dreamy twee/indie new wave (CLOSURE), tracks that sound like a bridge between JOY DIVISION and INTERPOL (LELAKIDIVJVNGTANDVK, THE PORNO), angular post punk (MEGATRVTH, HIGHWAY)...you get the general idea. Most of these tracks would be just as at home on a mix of late '80s college rock with DINOSAUR and MBV or a collection anchored by WAX IDOLS and DIIV. According to the sub/title, this is the first volume in a series - where are the others?!?!

KILLED BY GERD VOL #1
A Mixtapes Bootleg Series

DESECRATE A.D. // BABIRUSA

 

Look at the cover and look at the logos....then look at the photos that are placed beneath this text. You fukkn know what you're going to get here and these two Indonesian crossover thrash acts are still going to lay you the fukk out. BABIRUSA hit like VIOLATOR with heavier mosh parts, while DESECRATE A.D. are more like some unearthed, unfinished and unhinged EXODUS demos you didn't know you needed. Both bands have clearly followed the punk ----> metal trajectory, and both bands breathe fresh air into these lungs. 

DESECRATE A.D. // BABIRUSA

VITAMADE

 

Finding cool things I've never heard of is cool, but sometimes finding cool things I've never heard of but I feel like I should have heard of is sometimes even cooler. VITAMADE rose from the remnants of FLIES ON FIRE existed for one single and one full length (a CD release with a cassette promo, because this was the '90s) and as a standalone document it's a perfect document of the in-between eras. You can hear these sounds mingling with SUPERCHUNK, DRIVIN 'N CRYIN', MUDHONEY, DIDJITS, DRIVE LIKE JEHU and the like/s, but then you learn that the band formed from the ashes of FLIES ON FIRE - a would-be Sunset Strip band who came a few years too late and got ignored by their label (possibly because they were boring as fukk). Think about it like that and you can hear the "Rape Me" energy in "Self Inflicted" and maybe contextualize the furiously frustrated blast beats in "Golden Boy" a little differently (everything about this song deserves further analysis, by the way). Overthinking this recording would be easy and I find myself asking a lot of questions.....then I stop, take a breath and recognize that "Smug" is what would the world would be if FOO FIGHTERS had written a genuinely great song instead of thirty years of effective commercial ear worms and appreciate the accomplishment a twenty minute full length packed with genuine bangers. I'll never know if the transformation was organic or calculated (Everything You Need didn't come out until 1996, when the butt rock ---> grunge/commercial alt transition was more than complete), but the aforementioned tracks along with "Better Of Playing Dead," "Glad You Made It" and "Forgive Me" and legit. The context and the questions just makes it easier for me to write some words, but a world where "Last Believer" was never a radio hit* is a world I don't want to live in. 

EVERYTHING YOU NEED
* HINT: It's this world. 

DYAD

 

I write these words on the evening of August 24th (composing tomorrow's post tonight...I do this sometimes). Sitting with Murder The (Internet) Cat on my left demanding attention and my mind demanding an escape from the day. It was an awful day - life be like that sometimes. And tonight as I write words that a couple of thousand random humans and countless LLMs will digest tomorrow, it seems that Colorado's DYAD are providing precisely the escape I'm craving. See what I did there? Sometimes DIY ambient minimal synth driven fixes everything....for a few minutes. 

CYBERIA

CRYSTAL ANTIPATHIES

 

Sometimes things feel bad and you want to hear something that sounds destructive. You want to listen to something that feels bad. CRYSTAL ANTIPATHIES sound destructive....CRYSTAL ANTIPATHIES feel dangerous. This music makes me feel like I felt before I pressed play - that's not repetition, that's validation. MINISTRY, VENOM, BOTCH. It's all here and sounds like the embodiment of sonic nihilism. 

CRYSTAL ANTIPATHIES

A VISITATION

 

Misanthropic deconstructed bleak and/or avant black metal/punk adjacent sounds.. 

I don't know what this is or where it comes from....but I want more. 

RIGOR

ASSAULT

 

Gloriously epic Indonesian stadium crust from 2017 that would have destroyed a musty Midwestern US basement in 2004. From the stunning tempo changes in "Eviction Warning" to the anthemic black metal march of "Suffering From A Systematically" and right into a quasi-fastcore DBeat with "Culture vs. Modern," every breath of The Final Apocalypse holds a purpose and holds your attention...I'm not sure what more you could ask for. 

THE FINAL APOCALYPSE

WALK SOFTLY

 

All of the praise I showered on last Friday's Astral Maps collection apply here as well. Two dozen gorgeous slabs of unheralded country music from the likes of JIMMY PATTON, CHESTER KNIGHT, RONNIE THARP, FIFI QUEEN, WILLA RISP, TIDE CARTWRIGHT and so many more your head will spin. Choicest cuts are from ALLEN R. ADAMS and an under the radar slammer from JOHNNY PAYCHECK, but there's not a singe clunker in the bunch. All praise to the mysterious folks at Little Axe in Portland for constantly striving to remind you how much you don't know...

WALK SOFLTY

THE STASI

 

Damn if this doesn't embody the misanthropic abrasive old school USHC of the 2010s.

Six minutes of honest hardcore. 
You're welcome.

THE STASI

 

PESTILENT ENDEAVORS

 

PESTILENT ENDEAVORS isn't for everyone. PESTILENT ENDEAVORS is for the real punk. Are you the real punk? The mutant? Alcoholism is the cure for depression. Depression is the cure for herpes. Herpes cures nasal congestion and congestion cures alcoholism. You've got the illness? We've got the cure. Anxiety is the cure for drug addiction. Death is the cure for life. 

ADULT ONSET DEATH

The a-side was blank, but the b-side should be enough to let you know that you also need the a-side.

This is what it's like when you get your music from blogs instead of the modern internet.

It's a mystery.  

HUNGER

 

I understand that some Friends Of The Escape might be seeking a blast or raw, mysterious and misanthropic black metal released in 2022? If that's you, then please direct your attention to the 2022 self titled cassette from HUNGER - I don't know shit about them but fukk me this thing is an absolute monster. "Loagaeth" alone will justify your entire existence, but the way HUNGER launch right into the manic metallic DBeat of "Infested Destiny" will hurt your brain. Then comes "Abyssic Synaptical Chalice" and if you're listening with purpose then you're just going to throw up your hands and submit. I have no place or context here.... but I have twenty-nine minutes of furiously uncompromising black/death. You're welcome.  

HUNGER

DISLAW

 

I like the mysterious ones, the ones you have to listen to intently to really understand what they're doing and/or where they're coming from. I also like picking up a tape and thinking "fukk yes - I know exactly what this is and it's exactly what I want." DISLAW are, not surprisingly, in the second category. Bombastic, ramshackle DBeat street punk from Bandung - almost like they were trying to ape Underground Army-era CASUALTIES but they were just a little too fukkd and ended up closer to DISORDER. So yeah....the pummeling two chord repetition of "Aborsi" is exactly what I want to start my business week. 

NEVER DIE

END YOU

 

I listened to this from start to finish without typing a single word. Then I listened again intending to start writing as it played....but I didn't type a single word. I mean, I know the sounds and I know more or less where they come from. They are familiar, but my interest is intent and deliberate as it would be if I were hearing something I could not contextualize. This is like listening to a modern abrasive record recorded by someone who was introduced to hardcore through SOAD and DEFTONES but quickly made their way to WEEDEATER, BORN AGAINST  and UNSANE (not in that order) without ever forgetting that their older sister loaned them a WHITE ZOMBIE tape when they were in sixth grade. END YOU sounds like none of this and hits like all of it and....and now maybe you see why I keep listening to try to figure out what's going on and where it came from. When "Equinox" starts I remember watching KARMA TO BURN in a coffee shop in Kansas in 1995 but then I really don't know what to think after that. "Alt Delete" is mid-paced hardcore terror at its finest, "Copstomp" is as brutally intense as the title suggests except that the sonic violence is intelligent (because stomping cops is smart, apparently) and "The Call" is a dark and deliberate modern sludge/hardcore masterpiece.  It's not that this recording is all over the place; this shit is everywhere all at once and its overwhelming. The "It Gazes Back" closes the tape and honestly I feel like I need to go back to the beginning. END YOU was (is?) a one-person recording project, and it almost makes you wonder why full bands even bother. Repeat listens highly recommended - this one just gets better and more interesting.

AIMLESS DREAD: A DISSOCIATIVE EVENT IN TWELVE PARTS

===========================
Unrelated: REALISTIC is recording today. It will sound nothing like this, but it's not supposed to. 

GRAN BANKROTT

 

The connections are more than a little convoluted and/or confusing here, but patience and loose adherence to traditions will start you down several different paths leading to new and fascinating sounds. As near as I can tell, Gran is an alter ego used by an Austrian named Florian who's associated with a band called DOT DASH and several techno/EDM/noise projects. Florian released music as GRAN for a few years - a solo project rooted in early post-punk, NDW and dub while existing a space created purely for their own sound. Around the turn of the last decade, Florian added some players and GRAN became GRAN BANKROTT and released the brilliantly synth/dub heavy slog Gran Bankrott that manages to reinvent the innovative approach of trailblazers like WIRE, CABARET VOLTAIRE and EINSTURZENDE NEUBATEN for a new generation now several generations removed. That 2019 record is a fantastic journey and now Schere is, predictably, a complete departure. Gran & Company (now including bassist Lina Liquid and a guitarist from the aforementioned DOT DASH) have perfected sharp, bleak DeutschPunk sound with a dash of early '00s dark NYC indie. Electronic and dub foundations and a confidently meandering pace allow for unique re-imagination of everything from THE FALL to HANS-A-PLAST, with a guitar that hits like Eat Your Paisley-era Jasper Thread in a way that can only make sense if you really listen. The person who turned me on to this tape (and the world of Gran in general) warned me that Schere might be challenging and tough to really wrap my head around....he was right, but I'm (still) having a great time trying. Strong recommendation for the thinking listener. 

SCHERE

ASTRAL MAPS

 

I posted the first Astral Maps volume almost a decade ago and I highly recommend uninitiated visitors visit that collection as soon as their done with this one (or vice versa). Now as then, the title manages to say it all without letting on how much gold it contains. Aside from JERRY JEFF WALKER (who closes the mix with the brilliant "Shell Game") and NICO (who most wouldn't expect on a mix like this, but of course it's perfect), these artists are going to be new to all but the most dedicated old country aficionados....which is to say that Astral Maps is a very special gift. BOOTS WALKER, RONNIE HAWKINS, JOHNNY ROBERTS, RONNIE McFARLAN, HOLY MODAL ROUNDERS, DAVID BLUE and loads more sing songs about traveling and wandering and love and loss. It's an honest collection of songs and singers that will take you to a completely different place if you let it. Listen to TOMMY FLANDERS' "Between Purple And Blue" before you do anything important today, and thank the folks at Ack Ack Ack Tapes for helping you (me) get through. 

ASTRAL MAPS Vol.2: COUNTRY ROCK '65-'75