SCUM OUT

 

The first time I went to Europe was for two consecutive tours. almost five months in total. If I could do it over again...more shows in the former Eastern Bloc countries. We played Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, all of which were (and are) very much on the "circuit" for bands touring the EU, but further off that circuit there were ferocious scenes. Young scenes. Passionate scenes. Wild and dangerous shows. I don't mean to romanticize the "other" or to make something seem exotic just because it's far removed from my reality, but there's a wild difference between an organized matinee gig in Groningen (which was awesome) and an illegal gig promoted by word of mouth and held in defiance of local cops and nazis. It's just a different experience altogether, and I think the intensity of the latter translated into the recordings of bands from the era. Enter SCUM OUT - early century dual vocal anarcho/activist fastcore/crust from Minsk, Belarus. I think they were finished by 2003 so I wouldn't have seen them anyway, but one of the vocalists went on to JIHEART and the CD that Refuse put out in the mid '00s is (still) a killer...I digress. 

SCUM OUT

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.

451ºF // GERENEZTENKE

HATE TO STATE

 

Belarusian anarcho crusters HATE TO STATE dropped a demo in the late 1990s that bent time and space - clenching first wave Eastern European punk, mid '80s UK stench/crust and '90s North American DIY hardcore all together into a ruthless fist. On the one hand, fans of MANKIND?, DISRUPT, RESIST and associated outfits will need no convincing - power is power and context be damned. On the other hand, think about Belarus in the 1990s as the USSR disintegrated and left a void simultaneously filled by Lukashenko's fist and HATE TO STATE. The sociopolitical realities of activist punk in regions with access to "western" influences while hamstrung by the limitations (and oppressions) of "eastern" governments is a piece for a different time (and a different writer), but it puts "Cold, Hunger, Wind, Death" in a different context than if it was some band from Michigan, you know? Who noticed HATE TO STATE? That's a deeper question, but I'm just here to remind you that it happened...and that it was fucking powerful.  This regurgitated copy (on the flip side of the YOUR KINGDOM IS DOOMED tape) has the full demo plus nineteen uncredited tracks from two different sessions without femme vocalist Stasya - the recording on these song is more punk and less hardcore, but the second vocals are definitely missed). No idea where those extra songs come from, but it makes me wonder if there is even more out there...somewhere. 

HATE DEMO

RUSSIAN RAP MIX TAPE

Don't really know where to start...or where to end: six cuts of Russian (and Belarusian?) hip hop on the flip side of an indie/punk demo. I used the internet to (possibly) identify a few of the artists, but I'm going in basically blind so I offer you the same experience. The weird thing is....I kinda like some of this. The general vibe is early '90s vaguely commercial rap, heavy on the samples with some MC trade offs, so if you want to get (a little) weird then we've got you all sorted out over here.  The fifth cut is the funkiest by far, fans of 3RD BASS will want to pay attention here. Comments and critiques welcomed.

RUSSIAN RAP MIX TAPE

GNIEU//LASCOWIEC

You see, this is the trouble with black metal. You get a tape from the used section because it looks like it might be cool - it's a band from Belarus and a band from the Bay Area and it looks cool so it's worth a gamble....right? And then the Belarusian band starts with a song called "Blue-Eyed Land's Horizon Will Flare With Fiery Crimson" and I'm all like shit I got me some weird NSBM nonsense here? but I can't really tell. So do I chuck it? Or do I listen and acknowledge that these are sounds that have no relationship to or affect on my life in any actual sense, and perhaps I can listen to them with objective ears? I honestly don't know, because these things are important and intent trumps sound any fukkn day in my book....but I'm unclear here. GNEIU are outsider black metal, a chaotic onslaught of aural misanthropy -  the meandering shoegazing of "Disobedient Spirit Of Wind" followed by the nonstop whirr "Breathtaking Taste of Enemy Blood" with no apparent direction other than total destruction. The shit is intense and introverted, but explosive and dangerous. LASCOWIEC are at least more understandable, if not digestible. Buried blasts of treble ridden agony, a call to harsh winters never known (c'mon man, these dudes are from the Bay Area), this is relentless, pained black metal in the most base and classic sense. It's also really weird sounding, so digest that info however you like. I don't know what either of these bands are like, what either of these bands believe, or what either of these bands are into, but I know that "Before The Birth Of Storm" is a super heavy track....so there's that. Metal is hard.

MARCHING WITH THE BLIZZARD'S RAGE