ASTRAL BUTCHER

 

I played with them once. It was in Sacramento - it was probably with NO STATIK even though my brain keeps telling me it was SUICIDE BOMB) - and ASTRAL BUTCHER felt fucking dangerous. They were like the drug dealers who showed up to the high school dance and lurked in the shadows. They played with irreverence, they destroyed with abandon. They fukkn destroyed the joint. 

CEMETERY GOATS

FILE UNDER: Blistering high-end black psychedelic metalcrust power trio.

SPUR

 

This one almost made me question my commitment to physical tape rips....because the shit is so damn demanding and in your face and I feel like the murky lo-fi replication kinda pulls back the power. But I am a purist, so you get what I got. And you're gonna get smacked in the damn mouth by Florida's SPUR just like I did. And when the pit-churning mosh part in "Scraping By" drops you're going to be yearning for fidelity just like I was...and don't even get me started on "Headache" because the desperation is particularly palpable there. the point isn't what's lacking though, because this tape is ready to be party blasted. This tape is pumping out of a shitty ass speaker while young kids attempt new tricks at the downtown skatepark. This shit is real punk - it's desperate and honest. This punk is real shit. 

COWBOY KILLER

SUCCUBUS

 

This one will be tough to describe so I will try to use few words (but more words than I spent on the glorious TOURIST tape a couple of days ago). SUCCUBUS are clearly drawing from classic goth and dark wave but SUCCUBUS are just as clearly rooted in punk sounds so the result is....different. They hit like retro dark wave but they also beg to be filed alongside RAKTA and UNA BÉSTIA INCONTROLABLE and they sound like fukkn punks, particularly on "Judas." Only three songs on 2020's Coherence - soaring and determined. They are still active and still pushing boundaries...

COHERENCE

PRE-MARITAL SEX

 

Next mission is to bootleg the three PRE-MARITAL SEX tapes I borrowed from that dude in Fresno a few months back. Anyone who can successfully justify this band's legacy languishing in the shadows owes me a sandwich....but that's a sandwich I will never eat because PRE-MARITAL SEX deserve all of the accolades. This band's should be on the lips of people who (still) speak of TEAM DRESCH and SPITBOY, but these women had a fukkn saxophone too. Songs like "Feminine Hygiene Blues" just wouldn't hit the same today, and "Big Scrotum" places a tongue so firmly in cheek that I'm left speechless. So yeah - expect a Tape-ography before the end of the year because it needs to happen. 

BLOODY MARYS

TOURIST

 

Powerviolence.

TAKE FIVE

ISABELLE MAYEREAU

 

Truly one of the most beautiful sonic accidents I've ever stumbled into. ISABELLE MAYEREAU's self titled 1978 release (not to be confused with her 1977 self titled release) would likely have stayed in the unknown realm forever had I not happened on a criminally small handful of tapes in a thrift store....but I did. And I will never be the same. I don't understand the words, but the swells in "Souffle en L'air" made me weep. I'm not ashamed. To the contrary, I remain encouraged. Apparently "Tu M'écris" was a hit and I can understand why even though it may be my least favorite track on the tape - I prefer the sparse guitar in "Difference" and the space offered by "Aquarelle." It's a genuinely moving release...I found it by accident and it will stay with me forever. 

ISABELLE MAYEREAU

KAGAMI

 

I feel like it was just yesterday when I posted a five minute long hardcore tape that felt like the greatest thing since sliced bread (a ridiculous saying, by the way....sliced bread is fine, but it's nothing special unless the bread itself is special). These five minutes come from Tokyo circa 2021, and they manage to grab early '00s fastcore, US82 by way of TOTAL FURY style retro hardcore and modern Japanese treble heavy punk all at once. They get in, they get out, there's no bullshit. Who wants bullshit? Nobody wants bullshit.

KAGAMI

647(F)

 

We've talked before about the lost late 1980s. Those kids who were young adolescents when their older siblings dragged them to FLAG and THREAT gigs were young adults at the end of the decade and...guess what? By the time hardcore wasn't cool and the dude from DEEP WOUND was a solo-ripping college indie darling, those kids were making some ripping under-the-radar hardcore music. It's just that hardcore wasn't cool anymore....except that it was. Hardcore was always cool. Still is. This recording was released as the brilliantly titled Cop Corpse 12" in 1988, but thankfully they made a tape too. 

SIX SICK SONGS

COOKING COURSE

 

More recipes narrated by your friend Vincent Price. More echo this time, as the legendary noir villain walks us through recipes from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Never stop looking, young punk....you never know what you may find. 

COOKING COURSE #1: FOODS FROM THE AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE

SANGUINE MOON

 

The polar opposite of yesterday's bludgeoning, Portland's SANGUINE MOON creep their way into your soul with one 19+ minute dungeon synth missive. Raw, distant, bleak, minimal.....haunting, introspective....complex in its deliberate simplicity. It would be a lie to say that I seek these sounds, but it would be dishonest to not acknowledge how tight their grip on me is. 

HAUNTING DREAMS OF AN ANCIENT TIME

REFRACTIVE ERRORS

 

Five minutes. Five pieces of distorted, bombastic fastcore punctuated by the terrifying squirm of "Psychosis." There's really not much to note other than the brutally sinister and overtly dangerous energy that REFRACTIVE ERRORS puts into their sound - even the bits with hooks (I'm talking "Useless And Consuming" here) sound like Satan themself has taken over the songwriting for ADOLESCENTS or some shit....and then it's just over. And you realize you haven't really been breathing. 

REFRACTIVE ERRORS

DEHIDRATÁLT FEJEK

 

You remember twenty-ish years ago when EDDY CURRENT SUPPRESSION RING dropped in from heaven and changed the way a (punk) generation of hardcore (punk) listeners approached listening to blatantly simply and simply brilliant punk music? Well, DEHIDRATÁLT FEJEK are like that but they are from Budapest and the sounds owe as much to awkward UK post punk the indescribable intersection of dark wave and '80s college/alt as they do to '10s NWI freak punk and/or NEON PISS. Essentially what I'm saying is that DEHIDRATÁLT FEJEK, much like EDDY CURRENT SUPPRESSION RING, sound like a thing that you already love and feel connected to.....before you even realize it. "Térkövezett Hala'l" is perhaps the single best example, but literally every track on this tape hits and Szégyen Kazetták wins again. 

GONDOK

THE CAVEMEN

 I got Sex Bomb Baby as a promo when I was in high school and I simply didn't get it - I thought "Ha Ha Ha" was a funny novelty song, but I didn't....get it. I saw FLIPPER in Norman, Oklahoma sometime around 1991 and still didn't get it (even though I knew it was important and I was supposed to get it). The next time I saw FLIPPER was at El Rio in San Francisco sometime in the early 2010s, I lasted a few songs but got to see a former coworker (a 60+ year old SF punk OG) throw a beer at them and tell them they should go back to shooting heroin (said former coworker was 'formerly alive' a few months later). 

ANYWAY......

I only talk about my weird irrelevant and inconsequential relationship with FLIPPER because "Ca Ca (My Wall)" kinda hits me they way that the aforementioned encounters did. THE CAVEMEN are different though - it's FLIPPER for sure, but with THEE OH SEES and a splash of Albini (see: "Ritual") and THE SPITS for good measure, all presented on a tape that was duplicated on a pile of turds and eventually sinks into the depths of murk. It's okay to observe, young punks. It's okay to be curious and still not understand. Real freaks will remain distant - even from other freaks. 

BAND IN B.C.

WEST COAST MENNONITE MEN'S CHORUS

 

While it feels kinda weird to get behind some likely reactionary religious shit, I'm holding on to a few things:

• The sounds are legit haunting and (at times) low-key beautiful.

• IDK, seems like there are a few parts of The Texts that suggest that The Prophets were socialists who practiced street level harm reduction, and that seems generally chill.
• The logo with the face coming out of the cross is sick.
• It would be easy for someone with more and/or different skills than me to turn these tracks into some seriously diabolical missives, even with and/or and especially because of the spoken sermons between tracks.

• "It Is Finished" is about fighting and war and shit, and has words like 'demons,' 'evil, 'devils' and 'glory' in the lyrics. Sounds tough.
• Listening to this tape makes me feel like I am watching a movie with extended family who I like but don't really talk to or feel connected to while a oaring fireplace warms the room. 

Anyway, I'm pretty sure this is related to the WEST COAST MENNONITE CHAMBER CHOIR tape I posted several weeks back, if only because I bought them at the same place at the same time (100 American cents for both, in case anyone is asking).

MENNONITE MEN IN CONCERT: SONGS OF REDEMPTION AND PRAISE

FUSELAGE

 

Hard to figure out what to say here....total modern post/art punk and/or emo college/alt freak outs with a cast of guest artists who seem to shape the sounds - moving from "Trigger Warning" to "Needle" is a perfect example and it sets the stage for a captivating listen. You've got the herky-jerk of "I Chase Cars" and the driving power of "Backyard Wrestling In Pecos County" interrupted by "Condo Rock"  and 0:44 of free jazz. Yeah, you've got yourself a weird fukkn listen.  

FUSELAGE

924 GILMAN STREET PROJECT

 

The fact that this recording listens more like background noise than anything approaching punk history is notable. While I was still in high school in Oklahoma, a group of determined punks in the Bay Area were doing whatever it took to make sure that 924 Gilman survived after Tim Yohannan stepped away from the project less than two years after it started. This was recorded two months after what could have been the last Gilman show....maybe it was a STIKKY gig? Regardless, I'm glad it wasn't the end, because that venue has been a source of sustenance for thousands of Bay Area kids for almost 40 years. This was recorded by Pat (click the link, please), and serves as (mostly) background noise starting with JOY DIVISION and basketball (if you know, then you know) until the meeting starts almost an hour in. Listening can sometimes be a struggle, but remember the time and place here....this is important shit. This shit and these kids shaped a generation. I don't even know who's talking here....but I am grateful.

924 GILMAN MEETING: 17 DECEMBER 1988

PITBUL

Six minutes of uncompromising hardcore fury to start your week.....you aren't going to find very many bands in this millennia that hit like PITBUL. The whole thing is perfect, but then you listen to "Mental Prison" and start over because you know you missed something. This is everything you need today. Trust me. I wouldn't lie to you. 

DEMO 2020

ELLEN RIPLEY

 

This one is really tough to describe, but it scratches all of the right itches. You're going to to hear heavy KrautRock sounds and elements of anarchist post/art punk mingling with early '80s Czech punk innovators (think FPB and MICHAEL'S UNCLE) and proto-goth punk. To really listen to "SGR A*" is to hear early PINK FLOYD reincarnated as sonic Scandinavian activists in a reality far removed from any tangible comfort zone. The beauty of ELLEN RIPLEY is that they own everything they touch - it only takes a few bars to forget what you might have thought they were emulating. If this were a just world, then ELLEN RIPLEY would be music for the masses. This is not a just world, so ELLEN RIPLEY is music for oyu. 

BODY PACT

CARDINAL

 

Saw CARDINAL in San Diego a few months back and was blown away. On a night full of theatrical black metal with capes and candles and props galore, this subdued trio from San Francisco calmly set up their gear, clean guitar with no effects, corpse paint so casual that it made you wonder if they wore it every day.....and they blew the fukkn doors off. Mesmerizing, haunting, imperfect, sinister, raw....true. Luckily Demonstration 2025 captures their essence, but you must see CARDINAL live to experience their power. 

DEMONSTRATION 2025

PEACE VAULTS

 

It's a cool thing when a homie hands you a few tapes in a taqueria on Mission Street...it's especially cool when every. single. one. of those tapes is a straight killer. Prisoners Of Time is one of those straight killers. UK anarcho, modern DIY goth and '90s dorm experimentation (they gloriously clash with raw bleak metal by way of screamo) vocals and vibes that take me back to "discovering" alternative goth/alt bands in 1980s Oklahoma. PEACE VAULTS hit that way, and if you know what I mean when I talk about them....I hope you know what I actually mean. "The Young Kite" deserves a very (very) special place in your rotation.   

PRISONERS OF TIME

CASING

 

Raw, bombastic, devastating, grinding industrial sludge madness from London. 

Damn this shit is good. 

PATTERNS OF DETERIORATION