Bad World Maker Of Rules 7″ (Convulse)
I dunno, man… you’re gonna sound a whole hell of a lot like Cold World, and call yourself “Bad World”? Cold World rule of course, and I have no doubt that their style of hardcore is one of the most fun that a person can directly participate in, be it moshing, stage diving, singing along, covering, directly aping, or ripping off wholesale for your lame streetwear clothing company (it happened!), but at least cover up some of the evidence! Granted, lots of bands have followed this path of late, the groove-oriented, metallic-riff, capital-H technique that Madball, Crown Of Thornz and Merauder bestowed upon the truly hard (and the wannabe gangstas) since the early ’90s. But when you’ve even got those secondary Alex Russin vocal parts sung just like Alex Russin… I don’t know what to tell you. Plenty of other contemporary beatdown signifiers can be found on this brief EP as well, like the awkward “(blank) of (blank)” phrasing, a well-known guest hardcore-vocalist spot (Ben Cook on “Last Of Me”), and an OG-tribute cover song (“Nineveh” by Only Living Witness). Bad World offer a perfectly competent display of this style, but their brazenly borrowed ideas serve to remind me of how potent and exciting their inspirational hardcore sources can be, and prevent me from appreciating whatever the unique life experiences of Bad World’s members must be, as they’re absent in Maker Of Rules. Do you think if they find out I’m tight with the handsomest Cold World scab guitarist they’ll only beat me up a little bit?

Bastard Collective Manchild LP (Transylvanian Recordings / Black Claw)
Man Is The Bastard is truly unkillable. Like a dystopian-horror video game boss, the innovative hardcore institution always comes back bigger and uglier, brandishing grotesque new weaponry upgrades. The current iteration, Bastard Collective, brings in folks from Gasp and No Comment alongside core Man Is The Bastard personnel (with a different Nick Turner than our friend from Cold Sweat and Walls) for a mix of familiar and uncharted territories. Since the group’s inception, Man Is The Bastard’s songwriting has exhibited a lethal-prog quality unlike any of their peers, and it remains evident in the unexpected stop-starting of the many aggro hardcore cuts here. Multiple voices are present as well, a cast of volatile characters to frighten and forewarn as bass-centered riffs punch holes in hard surfaces. What’s newest (and weirdest) on Manchild is the occasional presence of a horn section, leading at least one internet commenter to call it “Man Is The Bastard’s ska album” before hightailing it. Listening to “Funky 1”, “A Song That Has No Place In This Town” and “Kicked To The Curb”, you’ll hear what they mean, but Andy Beattie’s vocals lend Bastard Collective’s bursts of power-violence that authentic No Comment feel, and the bad-trip analog collages of Mitchell Brown (AKA Professor Cantaloupe) make for surprisingly flamboyant interludes, far lighter than Bastard Noise’s typical industrial-horror fare; Manchild isn’t any one thing but Bastard Collective. As Professor Cantaloupe, Brown released an album with Don Bolles a quarter of a century ago – maybe he could make a phone call and we could add a member of the Germs to Bastard Collective’s CV?

Bent Light The Daylight Is Ours LP (Memory Waste)
When your LP is limited to a hundred copies, you don’t really have to consider whether people will take notice of it while flipping in a record shop bin, because what are the odds of a new copy actually making it into one? As such, you are free to deliver cover art as blurry as Ben McOsker’s Instagram (go look it up and be amazed) without any concern for marketability; the true (few) heads will find it. So it goes for CT guitar-improv duo Bent Light, whose morning-after ambient is ripe for peaceful visitation. Two lengthy tracks comprise The Daylight Is Ours – this music doesn’t acknowledge the hectic pace of modern life, but rather the more complex emotions brewing within us that we choose to ignore. With extra lengthy trails of echo, Michael Slyne and Russell Linder engage in a tender back-and-forth with their guitars, conjuring a similar “space alien seen walking through the forest” feel as Grouper. They’ll futz with “tape machines” and a delicate array of effects pedals if they need more apparitions in the atmosphere, but you can drop the needle anywhere on these two sides and find solace in their soft, casual noodling. If I only heard tell of Connecticut from the psychedelic guitar records that have come out of there over the last ten years, I’d assume it must be the most enchanting, star-speckled pasture this planet has ever known. Will one of these acts finally come clean and make a record with an emotional resonance to match the endless pageant of Dunkins and Subways on I-84?

Blason Blason LP (Bruit Direct Disques / Tanzprocesz)
It can go only two ways: either you need an endless supply of free-form electronic synthesis music or you never need to hear this sort of thing again. I’ll leave that up to you, but if you’re one of my brilliant friends in the former camp, allow me to introduce you to Blason, care of the ever-adventurous Bruit Direct label. The credits don’t go beyond “Blason”, but it has to be the work of an actual human being, as I don’t think robots are talented enough to twist a variety of knobs and switch the patches out on sequential circuitboards… yet. Whoever it is, they certainly go wild here, two side-long pieces that seek out their analog system’s limitations and rapidly test them, like a virus traveling inside your latest Partiful invite. The second side was actually recorded at the INA GRM (the CBGBs of intellectual experimental electronic music) so you know Blason’s bonafides are in order. Generally speaking, I prefer electronic music from people who failed out of eighth grade, but there’s no denying the pleasures of Blason, all manners of wet clicks, static-laced swooning, frizzled lurking and ghosts in the shell, particularly on the more frenzied first side. I’m afraid that if I stare into Blason for too long, I might suddenly find myself trapped inside…

Cherry Cheeks D.O. And The Bytes LP (Total Punk)
I’m not sure Kyle Harms AKA Cherry Cheeks was even alive when dial-up modems were the only way one could get online, but that distinctive digital crunch appears early on this newest Cherry Cheeks album. It’s called D.O. And The Bytes, and it slaps a bunch of technological concepts together lyrically, in service of a thematic statement within a genre not generally known for thematic statements: egg-punk. The world wide web, AI girlfriends, floppy discs, ones and zeros, pop-up ads, digital surveillance and techno-fascism are all invoked through this package of hook-laden, kooky-synth fortified, helium-voiced songs for punks who happily eat cereal for dinner. I appreciate that the lyrics directly respond to our increasingly untenable digital hellscape, and that they do so without fumbling into righteous moralizing or, even worse, total corniness. It doesn’t hurt that the music could support generic skateboarding / weed / pizza tropes and still sound pretty good. Harms’s songwriting chops are honed here, in league with long-haired punk troubadours like DD Owen (I thought the album was about him at first!), Jay Reatard and Kyle Thomas. If you’ve ever savored a cutesy-babyish, occasionally glammy sort of punk rock sound (quick test: do you own any Rezillos, Dickies or Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias records?), you’ll want to bleach your mullet blonde to D.O. And The Bytes, the first egg-punk record to convince its audience to double-check their Instagram security settings.

The Clog The Clog LP (no label)
It feels like a blessed day whenever I become aware of some new freak’s existence, like The Clog for example. That’s the moniker George Albert Carpenter chose for his musical output, both solo and with a handful of friends willing to go along for the ride. He better appreciate those friends, as this ride isn’t for everyone! The album-opening “Fog Devil” and “Kissing Great Whites” offer strong support to that recent Melvins and Napalm Death collaboration by sounding like a cross between the two of them: muddy noise-rock bootprints with an unexpected blast-beat and some ill-advisedly goofy vocals. I made sure my seatbelt was securely fastened, only for the rest of the first side to kind of languish in a zero-gravity psych-folk zone. “Come Ye & Follow Me”, for example, is closer to Father John Misty channeling Danielson Familie than anything King Buzzo would point his silver curls in the direction of. The second side rouses things up with “Lordly Lord”, sounding like Animal Collective: Live At Guantanamo Bay, and settles into more mild-mannered indie-psych, left-of-center as it may be; the album ends with the most candidly indie-rockin’ song of the record, “An Ordeal”, recorded live in Monterrey, Mexico. It’s one of those droll situations where I don’t love the music, but I think I love the guy behind it, fully committed to his own ever-evolving bit. This shouldn’t come as a total shock to Carpenter – one doesn’t view themselves as the second coming of John Lennon if they named their project after a ball of hair caught in a pipe.

God Of War Molly Picture LP (Julia’s War)
If They Are Gutting A Body Of Water are on a Death Cab For Cutie trajectory, would that make God Of War their Postal Service? It’s TAGABOW’s Douglas Dulgarian collaborating with two folks from Hooky, whose homespun electronic pop is, to its credit, more likely to employ old-internet graphic design than a manager / publicist team. A good part of Dulgarian’s appeal comes from the sense that he truly doesn’t give an eff – I keep waiting to hear that right before their inevitable Coachella set, he squandered his big break by wandering off into the desert with some models and pro skaters he met while smoking behind the stage. Hooky don’t seem to be earnestly seeking anyone’s approval either, which is the right mindset for God Of War’s Zumiez-friendly alterna-gaze to materialize – well-trodden emo-pop melodies like those found in “Lindas” and “New Deal” are ripe for some semi-ironic detachment, garish MIDI augmentation and hyperpop vocal effects. The trio experiment with contemporary (and possibly cracked) software while wistfully retreating to the emotional womb of the early aughts, when the sounds of Paramore and Dashboard Confessional leaked through the closed doors of older siblings in a magical way. As such, it’s really not far from what TAGABOW are doing, just a little less Boss DS-1, a little more post-Animal Collective / post-100 Gecs outlandishness. The distance between Narrow Head and $quib on an NTS playlist has never been shorter, and until it closes up entirely, Molly Picture is well-suited to plug that gap.

Kyoufu Shinbun 死 LP (Bitter Lake Recordings)
1990: not a great year for harsh industrial noise-punk! Such was the moment when Kyoufu Shinbun released their debut tape, 死, surely greeted warmly by the tens, maybe even dozens, of listeners that received it. That’s how you know it’s legit: Kyoufu Shinbun made no concessions to the pop-industrial of the moment, or even seemed aware of any of that besides maybe some Ministry and Coil. There’s no confusing 死 with Nine Inch Nails or Skinny Puppy, though it’s not entirely without precedent either. Through its sixteen songs, the album offers junkyard guitar akin to Hijokaidan, the electro-shock drum machines of early SPK, violent-devil vocal-gargling that would’ve fit in on a variety of early Japanese noise-core flexis, and the sense of darkly isolated madness inherent to Jun Konagaya’s Grim project. In other words, it’s killer! A track like “死姦” kind of encapsulates the vibe in four minutes: a bent interpretation of classical-style keys is progressively poisoned, then abruptly shifts to a stompy drum-machine / bass-guitar rhythm, with distorted vocals half-rapped as a single feminine scream is deployed over and over, a stand-out sample in any haunted-house starter pack. Whew! There’s nearly as much volatile sonic information crammed into any given track as Boredoms of the same era, but far uglier, more battery acid than psychedelic acid. A most bitter lake indeed!

Lolina gg EP 12″ (Relaxin)
Lolina’s music has Rubik’s Cube appeal: if you grasp the basic conventions and principles of exactly what the hell is going on, it might become your new obsession. I’ll cop to understanding fifty-percent at best of what Lolina is up to on any given record, and as her techniques consistently shift, the rapid-fire sampling methods on one record might not have anything to do with the psychedelic-horror hip-hop beats that appear on another. For me, it’s about as fun as experimental music gets! And now on this quick twelve-inch single, we get one of her most straightforward tracks in years, “gg”, a friendly reminder that Lolina excels at doing whatever she wants to do. It’s a Gossip Girl-inspired vocal track: Lolina’s spoken voice verges on singing over a choppy rhythmic loop and melancholic pads, far catchier than it has any right to be. Appropriately, it feels like the edge-of-mainstream pop that will arrive three years from now. Following Lolina’s original “extended” version, we get an electro-house remix by the trollishly-named art-hipster duo New York. It’s a bit more straightforward, licking and sticking Lolina’s voice onto a traditional dance-pop beat, and I love it too. The b-side grants none other than Arca VIP access to the original “gg” files, which she wipes clean of beats and loops, opting instead to lightly time-stretch Lolina’s vocal onto a pile of post-modern pastel pillows, the results akin to a drunken teenage phone call that bares its emotions without following any logical sense. There’s never a wrong time to dip into Lolina’s work, but gg feels especially right.

Beatrice M. & Tim Reaper BMTR001 10″ (no label)
Tim Reaper is a round-the-clock jungle factory: merely scanning a list of his upcoming and recent DJ gigs, records, mixes and radio shows is overwhelming, let alone what it must be like to actually live it. Last year, Reaper graced the Resident Advisor mix series with a seven and a half hour-long mix, enough to get you through a full workday shift. I’m no authority on the man’s endless activities, but I do like to pop in from time to time, as I did on this cool new white-label ten-inch EP. He’s in the studio here with one of the classier dubstep producers of the moment, Beatrice M., for two quick slips of effortless breakbeat polish. “Robot” opens on a bed of sumptuous pads, teasing out a half-time ragga bounce with some sexy cyborg sparkle. It shares the rhythmic charisma of Hessle Audio’s peak Ramadanman and Pangaea sides, now wrapped up in high-end designer packaging. “Biota” is another riff on the same idea, beatific space-chords locking fingers with a throwback breakbeat and disembodied female vocals “whoa”-ing, because you know they’re feeling the groove as they float in liminal space. Jennifer Lopez and Lady Gaga probably pay someone an obscene amount of money to loop tracks like “Biota” at a low volume in in their fiftieth-floor penthouse powder rooms, and if Tim Reaper is too busy for the job, I would like to formally announce that my schedule is open.

November Növelet All Your Love 7″ (Galakthorrö)
We normally wait years between dispatches from Mr. and Mrs. Arafna, yet All Your Love arrives mere months after their most recent full-length, Electrical. I’d love to tell you that you can skip this one, but unfortunately you’re going to need to saddle up for those severe German shipping costs all over again. November Növelet don’t miss! “Cry Today” is upbeat and uplifting by their standards, its subtle pulse and melodic beeps far more elegant than they have any right to be. A great dance track if your typical dance moves include silently weeping with your head in your hands. “All Your Love” arrives as the b-side and it’s a real haunted-houser, lugubrious (so very lugubrious) dark-wave industrial that they built their decades-long reputation on. Mrs. Arafna exhales her vocals as though drifting in and out of a coma on her deathbed, and I can clearly picture Mr. Arafna right by her side, solemnly changing the water on a bouquet of black roses. November Növelet’s music has been deathbed-derived since its inception, which is wild considering that they’ve been at it since 1994 (even surpassing the longevity of the world’s other beloved dark-wave married duo, ADULT.). How long do you have to lay in your deathbed before it’s more appropriately classified as your lifebed?

Swedish Magazines Laughing Problem 12″ (Tall Texan)
Not sure how the premise of a “musical collective from Austin, TX / Los Angeles, CA” makes you feel, but this four-song debut from Swedish Magazines rocks with an appropriate abundance of style. They’re credited as the duo of Marley Jones and Tom Triplett from the OBN III’s / Snooty Garbagemen camp, so either one of them must’ve moved to LA or they are enlisting secret undisclosed Californian rockers to complete what is, amazingly, not the first hard-rockin’ band to call themselves Swedish Magazines. If you want to go further into their biography, you’ll have to write them a letter yourself, as significant backstory isn’t required to enjoy Swedish Magazines’ buzzy, psych-tinged sound. Picture a rattlesnake scurrying across a long Texas highway under the scorching high noon sun, only to be flattened under the tires of The Jesus & Mary Chain and Kyuss. That might be too cinematically self-serious, though, as there’s an inherent playfulness within Swedish Magazines’ sonic outlook. I’m reminded of the ways that Black Time poked and prodded at garage-rock, kind of trolling it while also upholding its traditions – Swedish Magazines seem to take a similar approach to long-chugging psych-rock grooves, open to possibilities and, if you can believe it, actually having some fun along the way. “In The Hills” and “Loaded Gun” party like a harder-edged form of that excellent Spiral Dub album (RIP Chad Kawamura), whereas someone had the sharp idea to kraut-ify a Judas Priest-styled riff on “Dressed For Pleasure”. If they aren’t dressed up like Queens Of The Stone Age at the casino, don’t ruin my fantasy. If they are, attention George Clooney’s tequila company: you can send that million-dollar licensing check for “Dressed For Pleasure” to Swedish Magazines care of Tall Texan Records.

Sweeping Promises You Say I Romanticize LP (Sub Pop)
A few years ago, Sweeping Promises sweepingly promised us an album on Sub Pop, and while they didn’t have to tease us with such a lengthy wait, they certainly made it worth our while. You Say I Romanticize arrives like that unexpected burst of shower water when someone flushes the toilet: a scalding shock that gets you reflexively quivering. Opener “Shooting Shadows” establishes this intensified fury, with Lira Mondal’s vocal delivery dialed up from sung to screeched (yet remarkably still on key!). This might be the punkest-sounding album Sub Pop has released in years – recorded in Sweeping Promises’ Lawrence, KS home studio by guitarist Caufield Schnug, they’ve retained that Feel It Records back-alley grit, the guitars burning hot new-wave and the bass as resonant as a rubber band. It’s the sound that drew us towards Sweeping Promises in the first place, though it’s Mondal’s striking vocals that have elevated Sweeping Promises to one of the greats. Her voice is powerful yet controlled – think of the X-Men’s Cyclops wearing that visor to restrain his otherwise wildly shooting lasers – and while I can picture her banging out some excellent no-look first-takes in the booth, it seems that they spent a little more time massaging her vocals here, what with layered harmonies, well-placed back-ups and a full exploration of her wide range. Along with some of their leanest meanest songwriting yet (“Rapture, Or…”, “Shooting Shadows” and “Last Man” are exceptional from an already-exceptional band), You Say I Romanticize finally redeems Sub Pop for dropping the Dwarves in 1993, or at least is a step in the right direction.

The Thugs Mighty Tiger Dubs LP (Aagoo)
No, this isn’t Les Thugs finally translated into English, but perhaps something even less expected: grotty Italian dub music! Like pretty much everyone I know (myself certainly included), Sicilian artist Nicola Giunta got bit by the dub bug, in his case while making visual art back in 2021. His infection was severe to the point that he felt compelled to emulate it himself, care of this project with multi-instrumentalist Andrea Davi, The Thugs. Like pizza and days off work, even mediocre versions of dub music are generally pretty enjoyable. That’s how I’d rate Mighty Tiger Dubs, some obvious dub-tourism from a post-punk mindset that offers no new insight into the genre, nor does it deliver such a heady trip as to stick out among its myriad practitioners. Upstroke guitars brush against typical bass-lines, simmering keys and echo-webbed percussion, all exactly as to be expected. The sole wild card is Giunta’s vocals, gruff wordless shouts that are noisily distorted to such an extreme degree, you’d think he was tracking backing vocals for a Lightning Bolt album. That’s the beauty of dub music, really – over a sturdy dub foundation, you can sing with the voice of a precious angel or violently dry-heave without disturbing the music’s eternal hypnotic force.

YHWH Nailgun Magazine 12″ (4AD)
The post-screamo, experimental art-punk realm was overdue for a fresh kick in the pants, and it arrived last year in the form of YHWH Nailgun’s debut, 45 Pounds. My personal reckoning with that record is ongoing (read “reckoning” as “blasting it in my car in August with the windows up and air conditioning off”) but I was immediately ready for more, which has arrived in the curious form of Magazine. Whatever YHWH Nailgun are doing, it’s not the norm, so while a one-sided twelve-inch probably isn’t what anyone precisely hoped for, it’s refreshing nevertheless. Musically, I presumed that YHWH Nailgun wouldn’t (or couldn’t?) simply duplicate the highly combustible splendor of 45 Pounds, and in a strange turn of events, I was right. Magazine maintains certain aspects of the group’s formula while swapping out others: Zach Borzone’s steel-wool vocals are as stylishly menacing as ever; the synths of Jack Tobias and guitars of Saguiv Rosenstock continue to sound like neither-nor, but rather cybernetic squeals and alien engineering. The biggest shift from 45 Pounds is that Sam Pickard hung up his rototoms, perhaps the defining signature element of YHWH Nailgun’s debut. He’s still a dazzling player, but his patterns are comparatively decelerated throughout Magazine‘s ten tracks, giving the album less energy, if perhaps more room to breathe. Luckily, their songwriting remains condensed, mind-bending and inky – imagine Rorschach blots with sharp, precise, purposeful angles that its creators can replicate at will. If YHWH Nailgun come to harness the full extent of their powers, no one will be safe.

In my varied-yet-limited experience, live rap shows are often more miss than hit, which is odd because the music itself is indisputably America’s greatest cultural export. A mid-sized, all-ages Live Nation club venue just doesn’t seem like the place where the magic of hip-hop thrives, but I was willing to set aside my preconceptions (my personal disappointment beginning with a Jedi Mind Tricks show a quarter of a century ago) and see what this relatively youth-oriented billing could do. In case you live a lifestyle completely devoid of any contact with children, you might’ve missed that kids have been randomly yelling “six seven!” for the past year in pure adult-confounding bliss, a live-action meme originating from Skrilla’s breakout hit “Doot Doot (6 7)”. In our post sense-making culture, this makes perfect sense. About half of the people entering the club were actively smoking thick, cloudy weed, many of whom also sported big orthodontic braces on the teeth that sucked it in. Let’s get wanded, hand our leftover dumplings over to security, and head inside.

With a comfortable spot snagged up in the back-wall stadium seating, I was again reminded that the correlation between monthly Spotify listener metrics and asses in seats is unreliable at best. The show was originally booked at Brooklyn’s Warsaw; the last-minute move to the smaller Gramercy Theatre suggests underperforming ticket sales for this man of more than 640,000 Instagram followers. Virality alone doesn’t pay the bills! Nevertheless, a devoted crowd of a few hundred gathered toward the front of the stage and stayed put, their sporadic clouds of weed smoke and flashing orange embers resembling a pine forest smoldering the day after a ravaging fire. From my vantage point, I could see that the house engineer switched from a “Best of 2026” Spotify playlist to one more curated for the show, featuring multiple 1900Rugrat songs. The crowd got into the mood, singing along to “One Take Freestyle”, which would be played no fewer than three times throughout the night. By the third time, I couldn’t resist rapping along to the “booga suga” “coulda shoulda” couplet, but finally, look! Some guys quietly wandered onto the stage.

Announcing himself as Slumlord, Melly Frank$ kicked things off with little fanfare. His mix was bass-heavy yet quiet, a distorted jumble that contrasted poorly with the slickness of the preceding Spotify mix. Representing the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, I wished his music or performance came with the clarity it deserved, but the inexperience was self-evident; he just wasn’t there yet. Someone should’ve given his on-stage posse a pep-talk before getting out there, too – I’ve seen more energy in Group 6 of the American Airlines boarding line. Frank$’s allotted time was short, the same of which went for the next few performers. He was followed by an MC (whose name I still can’t figure out) whose performance shared a similar fate. (He kept referring to himself as “Don’t Call Me Lucky”, which the internet tells me is the name of a DJ Muggs album, so that can’t be it.) To that guy’s credit, he at least did a single dance move at the very end, which was the first time the crowd offered any sort of response. I thought the whole “no stage banter, don’t announce who you are, no audience reaction” thing was endemic of the disaffected Zoomer basement noise scene, but apparently this willful lack of crowd interaction has been spreading across genres like that new diarrhea virus.

Finally, some color: from the South Bronx comes Baby Osamaa, rolling with a crew of stage potatoes that looked like the guest judges on any given episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race: over-the-top hair and makeup, giant pants, shiny miniskirts, neon everything. They mostly just milled about and halfheartedly filmed on their phones, but Baby Osamaa’s voice cut through the muddy mix nicely, at once both gravelly and high-pitched. (Does that make her the Axl Rose of rap?) I pictured a filthy air-conditioner filter where her esophagus should be, but she buzzed and spat with the energy of a fully-charged Orbeez gun, enthusiastically running tracks back at will and excited to be performing on stage for a crowd. Her grinning, unscripted chaos was precisely what the room needed. During her performance, a man seated near me appeared to be rolling what was an absolutely gigantic joint, that is until my eyes gathered their focus in the dim club lighting and I realized it was actually a Nathan’s hot dog (sold in the venue) he was preparing to devour.

With a quick switch between laptops, Happy Dranker took to the stage, wearing an unsettling white smiley-face mask: imagine a Slipknot x The Purge Halloween collab sold exclusively at Spencer’s Gifts. As if the prevailing mix wasn’t bad enough, he had to contend with a layer of plastic and synthetic fabric between his mouth and the mic, but I’d say he did his best. Happy Dranker’s flow is fast and sporadic, an anxious, irritated mumble that comes across alluringly sinister on Soundcloud but fails to fully translate through a cordless mic on stage. Why not take the extra step and have the sound-guy add some of that distinctive Percocet filter to the live vocal track? Happy Dranker was accompanied on stage by a guy whose sole purpose seemed to be slow-rolling a joint while vaguely miming along to the lyrics. It’s a move that would’ve been dangerous and cool if it was Gang Starr in 1994 under the threat of possible arrest and jail-time, but far less so when the audience is already happily smoking the legalized plant like chimneys. Like every other artist on the bill, Happy Dranker rapped over his complete studio vocal tracks rather than the instrumentals, a sub-karaoke cheat-move now so commonplace that I start to wonder if I’m the crazy person. I wasn’t aware of this young Philly rapper’s existence prior to the show, but a live performance should be more than just a means of notifying an audience that one’s digital presence exists, right? If it’s time to pass me a cup of ginger tea and tuck me into bed with the rest of the elderly and out-of-touch, please turn off the light on your way out.

Throughout the evening, paper-and-string versions of Skrilla’s trademarked face-mask were passed out to attendees and sported by many – such is the timeless joy of free promo swag. The effect was appealingly jarring, as people wore them behind or on the sides of their faces, resulting in the sense of being stared at by awkwardly-angled faces in the crowd. How would you feel if the back of some guy wearing a Geese t-shirt’s head was staring you down all night?? After even more 1900Rugrat on the house system, Skrilla emerged from the deepest posse of the night, and ostentatiously so, sporting a white button-up, black tie and American-flag version of his mask. Get the man some platform boots and he could’ve been up there kicking Twiggy Ramirez in the balls on the Mechanical Animals tour! With his sea of masked devotees ready to go off, Skrilla was rambunctious and magnetic, a far cry from the barely-coherent, drug-coma’d persona presented on YouTube. Under what was clearly an AI slop-vid of Playstation 5-style zombie horror, Skrilla ran through prior hits like “Blahdahdahdahdah” (my personal favorite) and material from Z, their fractured, dystopian, downright mournful beats disturbed into physicality by the enthusiastic phone-holding crowd. Compared to the opening acts or otherwise, Skrilla’s star-power was undeniable, blathering between songs good-naturedly, shouting out friends, and even bringing out Doodi Babby, the young Philly rapper who credits Skrilla with helping him escape street life. That’s not to be confused with The Doodie Baby, the queer Indian DJ and streetwear artist based out of Brooklyn. Two Doodie Babies!? This is the future that Mamdani wants.

Binaural Prototype 1 Untitled LP (Concentric Circles)
Concentric Circles isn’t any old obscure-reissue label, it’s Jed Bindeman’s obscure-reissue label. As far as record freaks go, he’s consistently ahead of the curve – it’s happened more than once that I went looking for some specific weirdo rarity on Discogs that I thought only I was aware of, and there he is, quietly minding his business, the sole American with a copy for sale. His lust for outsider music of the highest caliber is a public service, and one that you can subsidize by buying a copy of this truly unknown Binaural Prototype 1 album. From what I gather, this find is particularly out-there: it’s impossible to authorize and thusly unauthorized, as the material came from a random unlabeled cassette he found at an audiophile’s estate sale, the project name conjured by Bindeman from writing on the tape in lieu of any further clarifying information. I love the idea of “found” tapes – random answering-machine break-up calls pulled out of a dusty bin otherwise filled with Herb Albert and Barbra Streisand – but the nutso beauty of this one is that the music is actually worth your time. It’s a wild headphones affair, with presumably high-end electronic gear used to create synthesized library music, bizarre for its time (the early ’90s?) and ours. The pre-recorded vocal snippets recall the madcap sampling techniques favored by Chris Korda and Philip Brophy; along with dazzling, audiophile-friendly electronic patterns, the whole thing is eerily compelling and fresh, like Mark Mothersbaugh and Seymour Glass running wild together on some new dystopian sci-fi Apple+ show. A Bindemanning of the finest order.

Celebrators Deliberation LP (Tomothy)
Tomothy is a record label and recording studio in Los Angeles, its name a portmanteau of owner-operators Tom Pinkava and Timothy Waldner. The two of them also record music together as Celebrators, and Deliberation airs out their reels, collecting twenty-one songs from 2021 through 2025. Joined on most tracks by drummer Josh Duron (sorry Josh, they’re not going to start calling it Jotomothysh), the Tomothy crew is much too excited to remain seated on the sidelines recording and distributing other peoples’ music. It’s safe to file Celebrators under the dance-punk umbrella, though they seem to bring a new concept to each track, even if the mood generally hovers between skittish and frantic. Some songs remind me of that initial connection between Black Eyes and The Rapture, others pogo with the zest of early Zickzack singles, and there’s at least one that sounds like John Maus fronting Blank Dogs. That’s the beauty of having your own actual studio – there’s no need to hurriedly maintain the same guitar tone and drum-kit if you have the keys the place. Why not try to remake Marquee Moon and Duty Now For The Future in your own image, with a borrowed synth, a vintage mic from the swap meet and an enthusiastic friend with just as many ideas?

Debt Rag It Is Clear What’s Going On LP (Post Present Medium)
When you actually, truly deconstruct post-punk from its orderly shackles, the results are not going to be pretty. The music will not be dance-ready: anti-grooves will happily set up camp where grooves normally exist, and casual fans will find themselves alienated and confused. Those of us who appreciate upended expectations will rush to the front of the room (now with plenty of available space), and hope that the band is Debt Rag, Olympia’s self-described “adult punk band” who behave like neither typical adults nor typical punks. Working with a taped-and-puttied drum / bass / keyboard formation (and a modest heap of horns, noises and auxiliary percussion), Debt Rag take the concept of no-wave and thrust it into this 2020s dystopia that no 1979-era Arto Lindsay or Sumner Crane could have conceived. Marissa Magic’s bass offers mutant-funk lines not unlike Erase Errata and The Contortions, though it’s the only element that provides the comfort of a typical ‘real band’ feel. Around it, songs play out in ways both primitive and unintuitive, emerging as naturally as a protest chant; someone feels compelled to repeat a shouted phrase and those in agreement join in. There’s a moment of what could be considered rapping in “Gary’s World” (probably my favorite song here), whereas “Cold Kitchenette” sounds like Screamers accidentally inventing hardcore thrash. Unlike the hordes of paycheck-collecting reunion bands whose members can’t stand to be in the same room as each other, Debt Rag burst with the magic of guards-down human friendship.

Esse Pi Enne Industrial Relations LP (Centro Di Documentazione Metropolitano Torinese)
As we move even further out from the ’80s and ’90s, the distinction between post-punk and post-rock grows ever hazier. “Post-” is really more of a feeling than anything else, a desire to peek beyond stylistic borders in search of fertile unknown territory, for better or worse. It’s where my listening habits often wander, and a record like Industrial Relations by Turin, Italy’s Stefano Murgia (alias S.P.N; alias Esse Pi Enne) is a glistening example of what can strike when genre formalities are misremembered or ignored. As is the case with many of today’s loner artists, Murgia follows his own disjointed script, crafted from humble means and free from obligation. It’s a lazy tangle of simple three-note (or less) guitar iterations, live drum patterns suitable for the skill level of a total amateur, fun-size synths with electronic textures (which are then cut-and-pasted into larger resolution), and infrequent vocals from the shyest kid in photography class. Imagine a Hood rendition of “Hamburger Lady”, Pseudocode signing to Drag City in 1991, or perhaps The American Analog Set the day after a flood came and ruined almost all of their gear. Industrial Relations offers the sensation of being barely there, yet I’m right there with it.

The Grebes The Grebes LP (no label)
It’s always a promising sign when you google a new band and the results are primarily “weird bird facts”. So it goes with Portland’s The Grebes, a private affair for the past few years now shared openly with the world, fully formed and able. They feature members of bands that, if you recall, you recall warmly: Lithics, Shop Regulars, Woolen Men and The Spatulas, and while The Grebes are also a traditional rock band by most metrics, there’s no mistaking them for one of their members’ other projects. The Grebes were allegedly borne out of noisy guitar improv between guitarists Bob Desaulniers and Raf Spielman, though you’d never know it from the traditional verse-chorus structuring found here, at its best like Tyvek offering up a stormy rendition of “You’re Gonna Miss Me”. They take clear inspiration from regional teenage garage-rock of the ’60s, wild mop-top boys in hand-me-down suits who dared to mix original material among their Beatles and Stones covers at the high school dance. It’s about as timeless as rock n’ roll gets, and while The Grebes clearly find sonic influence in those Pebbles and Back From The Grave compilations, they don’t pretend to be crazed adolescents, Wild Thing-ing and Twisting and turning every knob to ten in a fit of hormonal activity. Rather, these songs are taut, sharply tailored and mature, almost verging on the suit-jacketed power-pop of Purple Hearts and The Tubs (albeit unpolished by comparison). “Yours” is my personal fave, though I find no reason to limit myself to anything less than the entire self-titled record.

Guiding Light Fear On My Own Time LP (Post Present Medium)
Tall Texan’s twelve-inch vinyl issue of Guiding Light’s debut EP featured the same five songs on both sides and I still managed to wear it out, so this full-length follow-up couldn’t have come sooner. And it absolutely rules! The Austin quartet’s post-punk perspective is nimble and proficient but never self-inflated – in a world of post-punk flatland ollies, they’re an unexpected heelflip down some stairs. I’m reminded of Vexx in the way that each member of the band operates on an advanced level while still retaining an undeniably punk quality, though musically-speaking, Guiding Light falls closer to the satisfying crevice between the first side of Dolly Mixture’s Demonstration Tapes and CCTV’s sole seven-inch EP. Probably because I’m still playing that Station Model Violence album at least once a week, I’m hearing a touch of them in Fear On My Own Time too – it’s that wild n’ clean guitar work with all six strings activated that does the trick. Maybe Station Model Violence performing Meat Puppets’ In A Car EP would be a more reasonably accurate way to describe Guiding Light’s compelling sound (and I hope they someday give it a whirl). Like all aforementioned bands, Guiding Light are talented songwriters, not aesthetic box-checkers; “Shackled By Lust” and “Fear On My Own Time” are an immediately catchy one-two punch, though all eight songs whiz by in a flash you’ll want to immediately relive. Vocalist Elise Cook got so caught up in the feeling that she accidentally sang multiple songs in fluent German. Haven’t we all been there before!

Gord High / Clockdin Home Rock 3xLP (The Unpopular Archives)
Home Rock is an exhaustive compendium of one Gord High, produced with the unavoidably loving touch inherent within Canadians who uplift other Canadians. I don’t think The Unpopular Archives expects anyone outside of Ontario to be overly familiar with High, but Home Rock arrives as a formal exhibition of the local-legend’s sprawling, decades-long musical career, not a bid for overdue commercial success. This triple-LP treasury includes a selection of tracks produced as early as 1991 and as late as 2011 (High passed away in 2012), a 2006 album under his Clockdin alias, and a twenty-minute “disco” single (featuring “Gun School”, eleven minutes of dubby IDM research). Under aliases such as Puh, High Amiga and Clockdin, High’s musical interests were widespread and voracious. The label calls it “low-fi surf dub”, and while the bubble effects in “Herbdub” don’t betray this made-up genre name, that’s only a sliver of what High was up to. He lovingly messed with early Warp Records-style techno and jungle techniques, wonky electro-funk, computer-generated noise, hand-spliced breakbeats, and at least for “High Guitars”, slow-core indie-rock I’d expect Elliot Smith to start singing over. Some works reveal an interest in calming melodies, whereas others reject the notion outright (see “The Gunn”) – if you follow along intently, a rough map of High’s musical mind is sketched out, a generative cycle of sound experiments opening up new possibilities. If only all unheralded sonic voyagers had friends like The Unpopular Archives to keep their sounds alive after they’ve passed on.

The Hobknobs Helmets Off LP (12XU)
Lewsberg not twee enough for ya? Singer-songwriter Arie van Vliet is happy to turn things up a notch (or I guess down a notch) with The Hobknobs’ debut. It’s van Vliet’s new project with Yaël Dekker, and she handles keys and percussion with an appropriately mild touch, the two of them scurrying through these simple-on-the-surface pop tunes like mice in a library. They share vocals like well-mannered relatives, often enhanced by the tick-tock of a drum box and the bass-guitar of a friend named Jaap van der Velde. Van Vliet’s voice is so instantly recognizable that it’s impossible not to compare and contrast The Hobknobs to Lewsberg. On first go, I found myself missing the sturdy rock formations of Lewsberg, those subtly sly yet instantly memorable hooks that have brought me so much joy (please play “Cold Light Of Day” at my funeral). Lewsberg are small enough to fit in an elevator, but you could sneak The Hobknobs into a shoebox, teeny enough that you’ll want to pack them in some cotton balls to prevent any injury. It’s a great sound, though there are moments that miss for me: “Jennette McCurdy” is coffeehouse ready (pejorative), and while the hippity-hop of “Are You Looking For Something?” is particularly Lewsbergian (complimentary), I don’t think there’s any cool way to integrate the “Rain Rain Go Away” nursery rhyme into one’s twee-pop (and I wish to discourage any further attempts). On the other hand, “The Bowl”, “The Tide” and “Dictionary” are shining examples of The Hobknobs’ charming talents. The conversational “The Extra Mile” is my current favorite, an intimate Jim Jarmusch-esque short that beats out feature-lengths ten times its size.

Kinetic Orbital Strike The Terrifying Power Of Bombardment LP (no label)
Having never figured out the button combination to unleash a kinetic orbital strike in Tekken 2, my gaming career was short-lived. I’m now forced to relive my failings through this ferocious Philly d-beat band, who have followed a couple of self-released EPs with a self-released full-length, The Terrifying Power Of Bombardment. D-beat hardcore is a battle of inches, as the style has been so thoroughly explored over the past, what, forty years?? You can’t really top the classics (feel free to argue the case for select Japanese exceptions in the comments) but you can still inject the formula with a fresh burst of fury. Kinetic Orbital Strike do well by it in a burly sort of way, calling to mind ’90s American crust as well as the requisite Discharge singles. I’m reminded of State Of Fear and Aus Rotten in the group’s tumbling depths; even within the understood confines of the style, their tempos vary from mid to urgent, and the vocals are gruff and succinct ala Doom. The (self-)production is dynamic and heavy without sacrificing its raw edge, landing much closer to the godliness of Cracked Cop Skulls than any overproduced stadium-crust sound. It’s an intentionally repetitive blueprint, but the album is not without its outlying flourishes: “No Dream At All” is a crust-metal headbanger’s delight (and by far the longest track at nearly three minutes), whereas “Essential Aid Denied” speaks directly to our moment. Blasting it loud enough that the neighbors can surely hear, I look out the window and expect to see Felix Havoc pulling a police helicopter out of the sky with his bare hands.

Non Plus Temps Conditional Bunker LP (Siltbreeze)
The Bay Area boasts a real rogue’s gallery of indie-pop colors, groups like Famous Mammals, Naked Roommate, Preening, The Reds Pinks & Purples, Blues Lawyer, Debt Rag, Fake Fruit and so on contributing to the region’s spinning kaleidoscope of sound. Of those I listed, the first three acts (if not more!) share personnel with Non Plus Temps. If Non Plus Temps isn’t the context wherein its players feel freest to pursue their least conventional ideas, I want to know which is, as Conditional Bunker is dub-punk armed with all the kitchen-sink percussion and dime-store synthesizer splurts it can bag and carry. I loved their 2022 full-length debut Desire Choir, and while much of the same infrastructure remains in place (dubby bass-lines, no-wave guitars, post-punk singing, the lingering sense (if not direct presence) of chaos), they’re going bigger and bolder here, like Exek, Minny Pops, Mo-Dettes and 3 Teens Kill 4 stitched together with a dull needle. That means the pop songs are poppier (“I Am Not Wise” hits with the sideways poise of early The Intelligence) and the weirdo elements are weirder (“Inside The Wall”, which directly follows, is as transgressively gassy as Nervous Gender). In a moment I’m thinking of Ric Ocasek’s power-pop, then Mark Stewart’s experimental dub, then the two of them doing that annoying mosh-pit move where they hold hands and swing in a circle until knocking into someone. It’s Siltbreeze music, but it’s also party music: convention-defying post-punk that doesn’t shut the door on keg-stands entirely.

The Strokes Reality Awaits LP (RCA / Cult)
For me The Strokes are kinda like Metallica, in that the thrilling experience of their early material generated such enduring goodwill that I continue to check out whatever they do (while fully expectant of diminishing returns). There were a few bright spots in the Strokes’ orbit since they initially Saved Rock N’ Roll™, namely the solo Julian Casablancas album (bested only by Is This It!) and the first Voidz album, but it’s mostly been a drag after First Impressions Of Earth and the band’s initial hiatus. With Is This It garnering some nostalgic publicity as it hits twenty-five years old and Casablancas settling into this bizarre role of Bernie Bro prankster himbo (it… works?), I was as ready as anyone to enjoy some new Strokes songs, but Reality Awaits is a certified stinker. I don’t get it, really – the majority of the album lingers in a listless sort of slow-dance mode, a prefab Squarespace backdrop for Casablancas’s squiggly Autotune voice. His voice has held up great (and I am no Autotune hater), but the songs themselves are as satisfying as skim milk. I’m completely fine with their contemporary aesthetics, but where are the hits! Besides the silly bop of lead single “Going Shopping” (which really only stands out by comparison), Reality Awaits sounds like circa-2010 Maroon 5 without the hooks, or New Order running through Californication (again without the hooks), or the slower material on the last few Strokes albums (sadly, I must confirm, without even those meager hooks). If they put out another album after this, I’ll still be curious enough to check that out too, but it damn well better be their Lulu.

Sür Drōne T.I.T.S. LP (Frontier / Geza X)
Like many of you I’m sure, I’ve often wondered what it’d be like if Raymond Pettibon had a band of his own. In fantasies such as these, the joy of wondering often beats the reality of knowing, which is unsurprisingly the case here. Pettibon is the lyricist, vocalist and artist-in-residence (duh) for Sür Drōne, a studio collaboration with multi-instrumentalist and soundtrack composer Daniel Adams. They released a CD-EP in 1998 (who knew and didn’t tell me??), which is collected here amidst seven other (newer?) songs, and if you’re hoping to hear a band that sounds how the nun on Slip It In and the puppet on My War looks, prepare for disappointment. Of course, Pettibon has always reveled in defying expectations, of lashing out reactionarily against the reactionaries, so no, this never had a chance of sounding like a Frontier Records classic (even though it’s actually the label that released it). If anything, T.I.T.S. is closer to his recent collaborative book with Mike Topp, The Frontier Index, a nonlinear cascade of jokes, stories and verbal riffage, now set to lightweight, joke-y college-rock. (“Dream Team” in particular sounds like the text from a Pettibon canvas set to music.) If you squint hard enough, you might hear some slight resemblance to adolescent punk-rock before passing out, but mostly the songs are loose, no-effort garage-rock numbers, some jangly and bopping, others “arty” or “psychedelic” in that late ’80s SST way – “Space Mutha” owes royalties to Meat Puppets, no doubt. Pettibon’s vocal affect is childlike and taunting… only he knows how he really feels, an opaqueness he clearly revels in upholding. As a punk, checking out T.I.T.S. is kind of your duty, but you should probably shoplift it from an indie record shop, or rig some online PayPal scam when ordering a copy – it’s what Pettibon would’ve wanted.

The Thirsty Giants Escape The Junkyard LP (Round Bale Recordings)
As far as I knew, Round Bale Recordings purveyed psych-rock, experimental post-rock and guitars on the lighter side of the spectrum, which made it all the more surprising when The Thirsty Giants jumped out of the speakers and chased me around the room with their ferocious hardcore-punk. What a pleasant surprise! It’s actually pretty heartwarming, too: in 2022, Round Bale label-head David Perron played drums with the then-teenaged guitarist / vocalist Holden Perron (his son, I take it?), they brought on the younger Perron’s prior bandmate Hunter Thiesen on bass, and suddenly The Thirsty Giants took shape. I don’t know if Perron Senior is feeding Junior the best selection of punk to emulate or if he discovered it on his own, but The Thirsty Giants are hitting the right buttons for me. I’m hearing big similarities to Kaleidoscope, first-few-EPs-era 7 Seconds, Code Of Honor and a little Necros and Crucifix, but there are a few grungier tracks here too, a noise-rock update on Nirvana that The Thirsty Giants handle with similar conviction (I thought about the late-great Leather more than once). It’s hard-hitting and delivered with perfectly disgusted vocals, enough to remind me that somehow, all those great early hardcore records were actually made by kids under legal drinking age. For reference: if Minor Threat’s debut EP was released today, Ian MacKaye would’ve been born in 2007.

Tusen År Under Jord Sorgsendömet Fobos LP (Hosianna Mantra)
Hosianna Mantra falls within the network of reissue-centric labels from the great Nexus Records shop in Brooklyn. Its focus is on “spiritual” music that gazes back to ancient times for inspiration… intriguing obscurities rescued from the River Styx for one final spin. A world of kingdoms and fields lit only by fire! It’s alluring enough to captivate historians and artists alike, of which we can include the cryptic Swedish project Tusen År Under Jord. Sorgsendömet Fobos was originally released as a limited-edition cassette back in 2013 AD, but the Hosianna Mantra folks granted it a second life with this handsome slab of appropriately-black vinyl. On the cover, the vacant-eyed knight, horseback and in mid-prayer, concerned me that this might fall into an aesthetic I tend to avoid: gothic folk with Renn Faire signifiers. Luckily, Hosianna Mantra wouldn’t do us dirty like that – rather, this album is an engrossing exercise in brooding loop-based minimalism. The circular crackle of dusty vinyl is ever present over looping strings… mournful melodies manifest themselves from some long-forgotten time. These fractured, shadowy Euro waltzes probably played softly in the heads of World War 1 soldiers as they took their final breaths on some godforsaken Slovakian battlefield. The disintegrated textures of William Basinski are prominent, though a more apt comparison might be Brannten Schnüre, whose gloomy industrial-folk collages conjure similar images of castle ruins, dark forests and watchful eyes. Gather your most herbaceous and medicinal twigs, ’cause tonight we’re brewing some Tusen År Under Jord tea.

Vital Stress Vital Stress 7″ (no label)
I saw Cloud Nothings for the first time a few months back and was amazed at how hard they ripped. Society has failed me yet again by not cluing me into this earlier! While it was a true trio effort, Jayson Gerycz was positioned front and center for good reason, a hard-hitting whirlwind of a drummer who, much like Ric Flair, elevates the talent of anyone he’s sparring with. He’s got a variety of projects happening, the newest of which might be Vital Stress, another hard-cracking punk band from a town that’s already way over quota, Cleveland. Don’t let the cute cat on the cover fool you – Vital Stress has some real dirt under their nails, playing motor-punk riffs with the energy (not the speed) of hardcore-punk. They packed six songs on this seven-inch and I’m glad they did, as I want as much of this as I can get, songs that remind me of Pink Lincolns, Land Speed Record, Dead Boys, Easy Action and Reagan Youth, but smack immediate for the present moment, not beholden to the past. At this stage in their existence (very early), they’re one of those dangerous opening bands that comfortable touring bands should fear – there’s no chillaxing in the green room when Vital Stress are already on stage and completely ravaging the crowd. You should’ve opted for one of those watered-down replicas of your own indie band that the unimaginative booker originally recommended instead!

Batu & Donato Dozzy Exhale 2xLP (!K7)
Strikingly similar to the techno fantasy draft that exists only in my mind, !K7 brings us the unexpected alliance of Italian techno maverick Donato Dozzy and British bass specialist Batu. Their individual stylistic preferences differ greatly, but I’m not shocked that Exhale is such a fruitful collaboration – both artists are seekers of the unknown and eager to tease out any intriguing possibilities, not stubborn closed-circuit conservatives stuck in their respective ruts. Dozzy is known for a steely, methodical approach to formalized electronic dance genres – acid-, dub-, minimal-, industrial-techno forms and beyond – whereas Batu’s practice has helped push dubstep into dexterous new forms far beyond stereotypical bass wubs. I can’t claim to know precisely who did what here, but Exhale certainly bears evidence of Batu’s thrilling bass pressure mixed up with the relentless locomotion of Donato Dozzy. Within this consistently uptempo album lies a controlled frenzy, grid-based techno sequences bursting at their seams from Crossfit pacing and dynamic hydraulics. I can attest from personal experience that Exhale is one of those albums that will have you driving well beyond the highway speed limit without realizing it. Batu and Dozzy transformed my Obama-era Rav4 (Sport edition) into a Bugatti Chiron, if only for all of “Drift”.

Holt Bodish Gorgeous LP (Celluloid Lunch)
Let’s hope that Holt Bodish’s Mordecai bandmates are safe and accounted for – most likely, they were passed out on the couch a few feet away while he recorded Gorgeous in the driest corner of the basement. Mordecai’s music has progressively unraveled with each subsequent album, and while Bodish’s solo material is new to me, a similar form of puzzle logic is on display here. Bodish’s multitracked guitars all kind of resemble each other – rough-housing siblings, let’s say – their half-licks and rhythmic strums fashioning a rickety ship to carry Bodish’s lyrics to the other side. It’s a lo-fi affair of course, so even though Bodish opts for casual plain-speak over a more traditional singing voice, you might miss out on lines like “precariously timid flashes of your hearts cock / opulent meanderings may you fly far in association”, the sort of cuckoo wordplay that blurs the line between stoned nonsense and scholarly erudition. That’s the sweet spot, isn’t it? The overgrown path back to The Velvet Underground is clearly visible (which I guess could be said for at least a third of all guitar bands that pass through these pages), but with plenty of hairy detours along the way, to include poetic hippie pranksters like The Fugs, early ’80s New Zealand bedroom recordings, all those Homosexuals side-projects and the questionable “shit-gaze” moment of the mid ’00s. I don’t know how Bodish figured out when these songs were finished and complete, what with their inherently confusing layers of guitars and unconventional arrangements, but he did, and he was right.

Morgan Buckley & Ben Donohoe Sworx LP (Wah Wah Wino)
I hope that some intrepid music journalist eventually untangles the knotty web of Dublin’s Wah Wah Wino crew, but until that investigative report drops, I’m content to just go with their flow, buying on sight (“site” actually, usually Boomkat or Phonica) and enjoying the tunes for the tunes’ sake. No matter how you slice it, Morgan Buckley has been central to Wah Wah Wino, producing, guesting, editing and encouraging, most recently under unattributed aliases (or so I’m led to believe). For added confusion, Sworx is attributed to Buckley and Ben Donohoe, a duo previously (or concurrently?) known as Little Movies, whose prior LP of experimental noise provides few clues. (There I go again, trying to shoehorn their disregard of convention into some legible sense of order!) Sworx acts as a compendium of forward-thinking electronic styles, never quite on the dance-floor but occasionally sliding across it en route to somewhere more interesting. Imagine Aphex Twin and Kraftwerk kidnapping Alva Noto and Edgar Froese for the first night of actual fun in their entire lives: I’m talking paintball, Jägerbombs, those straight-down water slides where you get dropped through a trap-door, selfies with dangerous wildlife, the whole shebang. The funny robot voices are a nice touch throughout, though it’s those bass-/guitar-centered tracks (“statecellar [ 641Amix ]”, “Mastering The Internet” and maybe “sWORxism_noclocks_notimekept”) that scramble my brain in the way that only Morgan Buckley can. No need to answer any questions when you’re dropping gems like this!

emer feat. Ugnė Uma You And Me LP (Stroom)
You And Me very well might be the Stroomiest album that ever Stroomed. The Belgian label is responsible for an ever-growing stack of left-field prizes both new and old, and while part of the label’s appeal is its defiance against clean-cut categorization, this new collaboration between Marija Rasa (AKA emer) and Ugnė Uma ticks most of the label’s aesthetic boxes. The songs are miniature and personal, little whispered secrets between two artist-friends materialized into song-form. The moodiness of Euro trip-hop is ever present in both rhythm (fractured) and voice (sultry), with jazzy keys, electronic squiggles popping like carbonation, samples of voices over voices and of course plenty of dub-inspired processing to smear any fine lines. You And Me carries itself like the sophisticated endpoint of a young adulthood listening arc starting with The Weeknd and Drake, then Burial and The Xx, and now NTS radio. It’s starting to feel a little codified, this modern deconstructed arthouse R&B trip-hop style, but it hasn’t gotten stale quite yet, at least not with folks like emer and Ugnė Uma at the helm. Their tracks drift in and out like nighttime daydreams, a stylish haze of smoke illuminated by the flicker of neon club lights.

Katie Alice Greer Perfect Woman Sound Machine Vol. 1 LP (GAK)
Now firmly ensconced in Los Angeles, Katie Alice Greer continues to forge her solo calling with Perfect Woman Sound Machine Vol. 1, released on her newly-christened GAK Records imprint (coincidentally also one of the Nickelodeon network’s most successful toy products). The enumeration helps ensure that we haven’t missed any prior Perfect Woman Sound Machines, and offers hope for future installments, as the songs here explore a variety of easy-to-enjoy arty styles. Opener “Expo ’70” might be the hit of the lot, delivering a ghostly girl-group phenomena similar to Cindy Lee, but then “Unglued” stage-dives in a babydoll dress like vintage Hole, stinky Doc Martens leaving their print on someone’s forehead. And how about the glossy trip-hop sheen of “Talk To Leslie”, which sounds like an alt-radio chart sensation that DJ Food coulda-shoulda produced in 1999? Whereas much of Greer’s solo debut Barbarism felt like it was being figured out in real time (with so much magic uncovered in that trial-and-error sensation), these songs display that same level of who-but-KAG artistry, those strange rich ideas no one else has, with the added muscle of streamlined songwriting and pop-friendly production. Much like covering Leonard Cohen (which she does here in a retro-synth-styled “I’m Your Man”), it takes an unshakeable confidence (or at least some insouciant bravery) to bare one’s teeth for up-close inspection. The cover’s dentist’s-eye view of her chompers is well suited to the beautifully weird, beautifully vulnerable music of Perfect Woman Sound Machine Vol. 1.

Inweys Inweys 12″ (Absolutely Loud)
Cover Mom’s ears: Conal Blake and Murray Collier dragged their gear into the studio! Inweys is the first formal appointment of these two Glaswegian chaps, and it’s a prickly affair, full of sparring electronics, rhythms disjointed until no longer classifiable as rhythms, and live-action energy. These four tracks, titled in the standard “A” “C” “A” “B” formation, offer a sweaty handshake between the hand-soldered tone-creep of classic Wolf Eyes and the hyperactive, hostile beats of Powell’s early run. The opening “A” track creaks like one of those resin-embalmed American Tapes releases from the mid ’00s, before “C” tortures an 808 with cattle-prods – the beat is so disfigured, you’ll want to hide any nearby mirrors lest it catch sight of its own ghastly reflection. By the b-side “A”, a groove somehow emerges, marrying the crispy static of Cotton Museum to Jamal Moss at his most crowd-antagonizing. “B” is probably the most Wolf Eyes-esque of the lot, a meager rhythm lurching with a limp as the airplane’s black box blinks itself alive amidst its wreckage in the tundra. I appreciate that Inweys sounds live, DIY and punk, that you can hear Blake and Collier developing bad posture over their respective electronics as opposed to comfortably reclined with laptop in hand. A fitting maiden release for a label calling itself Absolutely Loud.

Jazz Der Irrtum Hat Mal Wieder Gewonn! LP (Turbo Discos)
Naming your punk band “Jazz” is a purposely self-inflicted handicap. It’s a joke where there’s nothing to “get” besides inconvenience, which they extend to the vinyl itself – this is one of those inside-out-pressed records, where you have to drop the needle near the center sticker instead of the outer edge, and you have to figure it out on your own. Does Jazz want anyone to hear them at all? Perhaps the revolution against our algorithmic passivity needs to start with a jolt, so if you’re willing to jump through this German group’s hoops, you’ll be rewarded with their gaudy and chaotic post-punk. It’s like a self-poured Slurpee where all three flavors are mixed into a brownish mauve: post-punk, egg-punk and no-wave. Like many modern-day punk acts, Jazz doesn’t sound like a band in a room so much as a wild confluence of WAV files overlaid on each other. A toy keyboard here, some freeware sound-effects there, noisy guitars at every angle, and not a single moment of space that isn’t inhabited by at least three conflicting sonic elements. It’s a clear sign of our times, this overabundance of cheap-everything resulting in collective dissatisfaction, and Jazz are here to ringlead the madness, a messy conga line of The Mummies, Vintage Crop, Parquet Courts and Geza X. With “Schmerz”, they distill this perception to its essence, a catchy lil’ synth-punk zinger that doubles as a commercial jingle for pain.

Jake Muir Pareidolia LP (enmossed)
Sound artist Jake Muir tends to start with a concept and work outward from there, which shakes out nicely thanks to his keen conceptual vision. His prominence extended beyond the ambient tape-label underground with 2023’s Bathhouse Blues, a musique-concrète queer-cruising tribute assembled from musical and field-recorded sources, and the premise of Pareidolia is sure to excite a different (though not without overlap) segment of listeners: metalheads. Muir constructed Pareidolia from a rich sound-bank of death-metal and black-metal intros, outros, instrumental interludes, ambient passages and dungeon keys (both kinds: synth keyboards and crusty keys clanking on an iron ring). He warps, elongates, distorts and layers these samples, though their inherent spirit remains: frostbitten, God-hating, isolated and mournful. With today’s DAW technology, Muir probably could’ve fashioned the exact same sonics out of field recordings from Denny’s and Waffle House, but a good part of the fun is knowing that he immersed himself in kvlt metal to extract the dozens (hundreds?) of samples that comprise this album, rendered unrecognizable even to the Fenrizes and Mortiises that originally birthed them. It’s true to the originators intent, at least: Pareidolia makes for a cold day in Hell.

Raya 13 Bardo Rafting LP (Protopost)
Nina Harker, Ssabae, France, City Dragon, Troubadours… the list of truly out-there French artists actively releasing records continues to grow like a mysterious vine no one recalls planting. My newest infatuation from this fine country is Raya 13, a fresh trio with some electronic affiliations: member Alan Briand releases new-age ambient as Shelter; the other two contribute to the electro-acoustic collective MOAB. Raya 13 is a guitar and bass-guitar band though, and their trip is one of a kind. Operating percussion-free, Raya 13 take their sweet time winding through mystical-yet-approachable riffs and melodies alongside vocals muttered (and effected) beyond comprehension. I’m reminded of that recent Cancer House album in its similarly mysterious, bare-bones presentation, though Bardo Rafting never raises its temper or shows any sign of stress… this music is deeply subdued, unconcerned with our earthly squabbles. How about this: imagine the surprise eighth Wooden Shjips album from the distant future (recorded on Mars), some sort of secret slow-core Clikatat Ikatowi session that they didn’t invite Mario Rubalcaba to, Shinji Shibayama attempting and failing to make an emo record, and Moin fully supine after digging into the bag of downers that produced Frigate’s Dreams Of The Deep. My mind would be spinning with questions if Bardo Rafting didn’t coat me in its thick, viscous syrup, a bizarre yet calming presence to which I keep returning. Highly recommended!

Reckonwrong How Long Has It Been? LP (New Year)
We must protect Reckonwrong at all costs! This charming man blew me away with the brow-raising mix of left-field house and heartfelt vocals that appeared on his twelve-inch EPs – the last two Whities releases are particularly stunning – before disappearing like an early-morning dream. Did he wander off into a maze of cosmopolitan skyscrapers, or perhaps a remote cabin in the lowland forests? Whatever sojourn or lack thereof, Reckonwrong has returned to christen his label New Year with his first full-length, How Long Has It Been?, and he turns the tenderness up to eleven. Eschewing techno and house moves entirely, the music here is low-key singer-songwriter pop performed on Rhodes-like keys that twinkle with the warmth of Edison bulbs. Singing to friends and lovers (and, in my best guess for “Winter Visitor”, perhaps a beloved cat?), Reckonwrong’s miniatures cut straight to the heart of the matter, an effortless exhibition of low-lit torch songs. A stylistic heritage can be found in the softer side of Christopher Cross and Michael McDonald (two notoriously aggro tough guys), but there’s no layer of fancy studio bloat or radio-chart aspirations here, no name in lights on the marquee. From start to finish, these songs burst with the unguarded emotional sincerity of private correspondence between beloveds, what must’ve been cathartic to write and perform even if artistic liberties were taken to protect the innocent. The title track is particularly naked and yearning, but I’m not going to look away – Reckonwrong guides us through this tour of his heart with confidence and grace.

The Sleeves The Sleeves LP (12XU)
The experimental tide seems to have turned – rather than seeking to push away timid audiences through shock-based aesthetics, confrontational sounds and violent affects, the current underground vanguard is more interested in the ways that vulnerability, serenity and compassion can be innovatively wielded. Alongside the rise and dominance of neo-new-age ambient, I’m thinking of groups like Still House Plants, Chronophage, Schatterau, Tara Clerkin Trio, A Happy Return and now The Sleeves as well, the quietly charming London-based duo of Jack Cooper and Tara Cunningham. The Sleeves’ dual-guitar / dual-vocal style seems to reduce Chicago’s ’90s post-rock scene to its emotional and melodic core, kind of like what Young Marble Giants did to post-punk. The Sleeves’ guitar phrases are as pleasant to listen to as they are atypical – I can’t help but picture the soft rise and fall of sleeping cats’ bellies during “You, Now, Again”, or Sam Prekop tucking Tim Kinsella under the covers in the Goodnight Moon bedroom during “Procedure”. The comfort and familiarity Cooper and Cunningham show towards each other through their music isn’t something that can be forced or faked or shortcutted; it’s a large part of why their music together is so remarkable and unique. Maybe we should force Bill Orcutt and Chris Corsano to cover “Rip It Up” – the essence of their performance will reveal once and for all if they genuinely love each other or have been faking it all along.

Smog Marines Opus LP (Obsolete Universe)
Seems like every month I’m beside myself with surprise at the latest instance of an unknown punk rock gem brought to light, and at this point, I’m going to have to apologize for my naivete. This is simply the world we live in now, this endless bounty of incredible undiscovered-until-now punk and hardcore artifacts, and I am simply going to revel in it. Even considering the high quality of other recent discoveries, Opus by Smog Marines is the finest punk relic in a while. Formed from the ashes of the band called Opus (check the Discogs price history of their sole seven-inch and weep softly to yourself), Smog Marines are first-stringers who somehow failed to make the team. Recorded in 1980, Opus is the missing link between the classic Dangerhouse sound, the earliest Dead Kennedys material and the formative death-rock style (meaning a more theatrical spin on brooding post-punk). I really can’t believe songs this good sat around gathering dust all this time: “Neon Full Of Fear” (what a title!) calls to mind the greatness of The Cheifs (sic), feeling like some punk classic I’ve known my whole life (but only heard for the first time like a week ago). Even when they get a little new-wavey, it works: “Between A Dream” and “Bright” are darkened power-pop ala The Sound’s early work, deserving of its own sleeveless Ork release. I hate that I had to wait ’til middle age to hear the Los Angelean punk song “Dilated Bullshit”, but I guess that’s why we bother to keep living, right?

Team Work Somebody’s Gotta Do It LP (Feel It)
Odds are strong that any given Feel It debut might very well knock your socks off – it’s happened to me before and I’m sure it’ll happen again with this stalwart punk label. The latest incidence comes care of Team Work, which is not a recontextualization of the New Jersey youth-crew hardcore label of the same name (where is their Numero boxset??) but an intercontinental collaboration between Maraudeur’s Lise Sutter (in Leipzig) and Spllit’s Ronni Bourgeois (in Baton Rouge). Both of their ‘main’ groups are responsible for some of the most authentically-cool dance-y post-punk of recent years, and while evidence of their shared appreciation for Lizzy Mercier-Descloux and Y Pants can be found within Somebody’s Gotta Do It, Team Work’s sonic boundaries are pushed far beyond, maybe even dissolved entirely. They deconstruct the genre with curiosity and glee, each subsequent move less obvious than the next. In that way it’s similar to Lavender Hex and This Heat, as the duo utilize their absolute freedom to create something intentional, not aimless. Tricky musicality appears out of nowhere and cuts off abruptly; minimalist dance grooves U-turn into quiet acoustic-guitar emo(?) or Lolina-esque studio chicanery; clipped samples and cut-and-paste keys slap up against live instruments like a wet kiss. I don’t care if Somebody’s Gotta Do It will be toured live or banished to the hard-drive on which it was conceived – it’s one of this year’s brightest post-punk offerings.

Twisted Teens Florida Water Blues LP (Going Underground)
My sources are reporting that Twisted Teens are on schedule to release three albums in twelve months, this being the second. With more than a little hype behind them and plenty of good-natured wind in their sails, this New Orleans group are simultaneously on a roll and in the zone. I still can’t get enough of their prior full-length, Blame The Clown (how long do you have to wait before you can describe an album as “timeless”?), and now I’m quickly settling into Florida Water Blues as well. If you’ve somehow managed to avoid Twisted Teens Fever thus far, I can briefly explain that they play an extremely palatable form of swampy, Southern-fried blues from a DIY punk frame of mind. It’s not a style or aesthetic I find myself typically drawn to, but guitarist / vocalist / captain Caspian Hollywell is downright captivating in both tone and lyric (raspy and quick-witted like a true son of a gun). The man is drowning in casual rizz to the point where his songs won’t simply take your mind off the disgusting soles of his feet when he kicks them up, they’ll make you want to lose your shoes too. The songs here wander a bit further outward than Punch The Clown – imagine discovering Swell Maps and Neu! records in George Thorogood’s personal collection – but they maintain the same high caliber of songwriting finesse and unpretentious grit. “Florida Water Blues” is gorgeous (and has the most vibe-establishing music video I’ve seen for a band in years). “Javelina” is a tender swine-riding fantasy, whereas “Business” is a righteous screw-you delivered to a deserving target. It’s more grade-A material from this unique group, almost enough to warrant a reassessment of the crusty oogle train-hopper lifestyle – let’s just be sure to stop before anyone brings up the possibility of a Soophie Nun Squad retrospective boxset.

Franck Vigroux Sonnailles 2xLP (Raster)
We call him Big Franck around these parts: master electrician Franck Vigroux has been pumping heavy weights for years now, each new release seemingly more robust and domineering than the last. His 2015 collaboration with the late-great Mika Vainio brought him to my attention and I’ve tried to check up with his busy release schedule at least once a year ever since – it’s like going to see a doctor who punches you in the arm instead of checking your blood pressure. Good thing I did, as Sonnailles is absolutely monstrous! I expect the lights to flicker and dim as opener “Mordor” hits, as vigorous (Vigrouxous) as Ben Frost at his angriest but a deadly rave weapon for club DJs. Vigroux somehow manages to maintain a dynamic field of sound while absolutely bludgeoning at near-gabber speeds, with all the exquisite sound-detail one comes to expect from a Raster release (and friend / former collaborator of Phil Niblock). It’s too industrial in a ’90s dance sense to be considered techno, too meticulously designed to fit cleanly under the industrial tag, and far too physical to be filed next to all those bespectacled professors in the “modern electronic composition” section. Vigroux’s path is his own! I’m reminded of that great Merzbow quote about his practice which I’ll paraphrase as “trying to create a continuous Jimi Hendrix guitar solo” and imagine the same sort of approach for Vigroux, if you substitute the moment when “March Of The Pigs” kicks in for Hendrix. Across two LPs, the IMAX helicopter-chop and midnight-metallic sheen of Sonnailles is enough to windburn your face, cinematic yet unfit for film – his music is so striking that the visual component wouldn’t stand a chance.

Now based out of another ground-zero for hardcore, Washington DC, Russin plays bass and sings in Glitterer, though he most famously did the same for Title Fight, a group’s whose stylistic evolution continues to reverberate with hardcore obsessives and dabblers alike. They’re one of those rarified bands whose legacy has consistently expanded through their absence, having played their last show nearly nine years ago. Never say never, but Russin has always focused on the present rather than the past, and he does so with candor and contemplation, coming from a self-evident love of hardcore and its underground community. When it’s in your blood, it’s in your blood, and it wouldn’t make sense any other way.

His takes in the Joint Custody record-shop newsletter (go subscribe now!) offer valuable insight into the way his mind perceives, wrestles with and falls in love with music – that whole crew is deeply thoughtful without being pretentious about it, but Russin’s writing goes especially deep, his passion undeniable. As he confirms below, his sights remain on what’s next, so I’m extra thankful he was willing to think back for a moment and share his worst song with us, which you can listen to here.

NR: Okay, I’ve been writing and releasing music since I was twelve years-old but it feels a little unfair to pick on those songs. It’s tough to flat out say “worst” but the song I wish we either left off the record or worked on more is a Title Fight song called “Calloused” off Floral Green. It’s on the B-side of the record when things start to wind down and it’s supposed to be this anthemic moody alt-rock kind of thing but I have a few qualms with it.

One: I used a distortion pedal on the bass. I never used pedals, partially on my Ian shit, but also because I know I would destroy them if I brought them on tour. I wanted to expand my tonal palette by adding some different sounds and threw a random pedal in front of the amp. At the time I wasn’t very interested in or knowledgeable about pedals, or gear at large for that matter, and not that I really am now but I know enough at this point to know that the cheap Tube Screamer clone was a bad choice. Not my best tone moment.

Two: I think the chorus is lacking. The hook really became Jamie’s response vocals, and more specifically the “baby” was what made me most interested, and the little guitar lead, but what stands as the chorus right now is really a pre-chorus in my mind and nothing comes to back it up.

Three: In terms of sequencing I think this screws up the flow, shifting the momentum laterally rather than moving forward. I also dislike records with an odd number of tracks because it makes the sides uneven, but that’s not reason enough to dislike this song, just another reason in my mind to make an excuse why it’s a potential contender for the chopping block.

YGR: I get the impression that you’re someone who really appreciates the album format, and the fact that you’re bothered by the placement of this song relative to the rest of the album seems to back that up. Do you write music with a sense of where you’d like it to end up – say, album opener, interlude, side two breather, etc. – or do you just write song after song and then figure out how to best fit them together after the fact?

NR: It’s a little of both. Starting out, it’s always just writing songs. There are definitely some ideas whose placement is pretty easy to see early on, but it’s just a very rough sketch. Then, once we hit a certain point where a record starts to take shape, I just try to take stock of where we’re at. You don’t want to have too many songs that have the same kind of components, so I’m always trying to just make sure it’s varied yet cohesive, and then later once we start to sequence it, that it has some sort of propulsion.

YGR: What’s your relationship like with pedals now?

NR: I’ve got a drawer full of them. I use them for demoing at home but mostly just offer them to friends when they’re playing a show or are recording. I don’t really know why I have them to be honest. I play in one band in DC where I use an octave pedal, but that’s it.

YGR: Your “worst song” pick strikes me as a rational one, based more in logical reasoning than any sort of emotional gut reaction. Is that fair to say? What’s your relationship like with your songs once you’ve shared them with the world – do you view them more as your precious babies, or your quality goods, or not remotely either?

NR: Yeah, I think that’s a fair assessment. I mostly feel like when a song is done and recorded, it’s done and I don’t want to go back to it. More like a kid I’m sending off to college than a precious baby. You’ve put in the work and you got it as figured out as you can, and then you just let go and cede control hoping you got it right. I obviously try to reflect but I try not to stew. I want to keep moving forward instead of focusing on the past.

City Dragon Smokes And Mirrors LP (Bruit Direct)
Parisian trickster Max Kaario empties out his junk drawer as City Dragon, offering thirty tracks in thirty-four minutes with Smokes And Mirrors. Or, if not an actual junk drawer, at least a pile of unlabeled USB sticks, full of half-remembered ditties, acoustic noise-improv, cheap keyboards mixed liked rocket engines, incomprehensible off-key singing, domestic clatter and layers of itchy effects dropped like water balloons on essentially every track. It seems City Dragon has tried every method of ruffling the good taste of middlebrow society he could conceive of here, if sometimes only for a minute or so. I prefer the jarring flurries of unfamiliar and unexpected noise to the purposely-bad singing, though much like a bag of kitchen trash, there’s no separating the individual pieces that inhabit Smokes And Mirrors from each other: your hand is going to get sticky no matter what you’re trying to pull from it. Reminds me of something Yamatsuka Eye would randomly release on a street-corner without warning… preposterous music from the margins. I’m not sure it even makes sense to its creator, but who said anything about making sense anyway? This is a Bruit Direct joint.

The Drags Set Right Fit To Blow Clean Up LP (Total Punk)
Total Punk continue their self-appointed mission to dredge up all the Drags albums for reassessment, and I for one an glad they did. The Drags weren’t a group I really thought about in their heyday or since, but I’m kicking myself for having missed out on Set Right Fit To Blow Clean Up until now. Their third and final full-length is an absolutely wicked brew, starting in trashed-out garage-punk but boiling over into a variety of dangerous directions, clearly too combustible to sustain. It sounds like someone is accidentally sitting on a theremin for the duration of this album, which would be a wild enough distraction on its own, but it competes with a constant stream of sweat-soaked guitar solos and amp-scalding riffs. It’s bonkers, especially when considering the dark period of underground rock in which it arrived (1999). Imagine Nebula, Mudhoney and The Hospitals all crammed into a station wagon with their gear and a bag of Comets On Fire’s speed – even with four dudes stuffed in the windowless trailer, someone has to ride on the roof. Really, truly blows my mind how great this record is, so far beyond the typically conservative retro-garage moves of its time. “Modern Man” goes so hard on the harmonica that I can only assume C.J. Stritzel accidentally swallowed it following that take. I wonder if you can still hear it in his esophagus when he laughs.

Eddy Current Suppression Ring In Light Of Recent Events LP (Suppression)
As proof that the world isn’t all bad, Eddy Current Suppression Ring have shaken off the dust of the 2010s and the early 2020s, now playing shows with increasing frequency and offering up their fifth full-length album, released on the band’s own Suppression Records. It’s like the reassuring hand of a loved one on your shoulder, this gentlemanly garage-rock band that has more of a trademarked sound than pretty much any of their peers, thanks to the inventively-colloquial riffs of guitarist Mikey Young and the guileless lyrics and vocals of Brendan Huntley. I don’t think they’ll ever top Primary Colours as far as pound-for-pound hook-laden glory is concerned, but this is a band that has never been engaged in competition, even with themselves. These new songs are as disarming and tender as newborn babies, with Huntley going misty and nostalgic (“Turtle”, “Swimming Hole”, “Past And Future”) while crowdsurfing like he’s still in his twenties. “Swimming Hole” is the insta-classic – you just know The Chats looked up to Eddy Current because of songs like this – but my favorite is “Empathetic”, thanks to Huntley’s stupefying vocal performance. He repeats single words over and over like Tom Green doing an impression of Axl Rose covering Flipper’s “Ha Ha Ha”. I’m filing it away in my “exuberant Eddy Current moments” folder, which was already bursting at its seam.

Fake Dust Decrepitizing Din Of The Cerebral Psyopticon LP (Iron Lung)
Oh a decrepitizing din indeed! Precisely when I assumed grind-core had given me all it could give (which, for the record, is already a life-affirming abundance), Iron Lung went and released what is in serious contention for best grind-core album of the 2020s, Fake Dust’s Decrepitizing Din Of The Cerebral Psyopticon. It’s a masterclass, really: this relatively new Portland band read the grind-core playbook from cover to cover and didn’t simply memorize it, they had each word trepanned into their skulls. The father, son and holy spirit (Discordance Axis, Arsedestroyer and AC) are communally summoned to perfection, with a whirlwind of immaculate blast-beats, technical riffs that are too down-tuned and muddy to tell what’s happening, and a vocalist with two settings: acid shrieks and guttural barks. Truly the definition of sonic brutality! Drummer Brennan Butler is just too good – at this level of talent, he probably has his own popular YouTube or TikTok “drum channel” – but rather than fall into anything lofty, divergent, gimmicky or (gasp) musical, Fake Dust are devoted to true underground grind-core as an ethos and practice, bringing a single tear to the eye of every last member of Napalm Death, all three hundred of them. It’s enough to scare the carbonation right out of a case of Liquid Death (Grimm Thrashberry flavor).

Googoosh Dolls A1000 LP (Drifting Boat)
For a cheap laugh, Ariyan Basu and Ramin Rahni referenced the immortal Iranian pop-star Googoosh in the name of their intermittent dance-music project, and that same cheeky-yet-benevolent attitude is present in their music, which celebrates Y2K Iranian banquet tunes by retooling them for today’s metropolitan cognoscenti. Rendered almost entirely on the Yamaha PSR-A1000 workstation, Googoosh Dolls craft high-energy party music with distinctly Middle Eastern melodies and syncopations, ready to electrify any given family reunion or wedding reception in Tehran or its global diaspora. One gets the sense from A1000‘s rigorous, meticulous design that Basu and Rahni could be making Autechre tracks if they wanted to, but they apply that precision to gaudy pads and ostentatious thrills, the sort of full-throttle, keyboard-controlled jams that might inspire Legowelt to dunk his head in the punchbowl. As a bonus, they share their process via “keyboard playthrough” videos on Instagram, textured in the style of ’80s VHS music lessons with a similar A/V sensibility to my beloved Torn Hawk. At six tracks and over thirty minutes, you’ll break a sweat just sitting in place with A1000 cranked, not only because the air conditioning has been on the fritz, but also from those last few dazzling minutes of “Movement”, where the music transcends higher than any of us could have thought possible.

Iceage For Love Of Grace & The Hereafter LP (Mexican Summer / Escho)
Post-punk princes Iceage have hit album number six, once a nearly inconceivable feat considering the feral recklessness with which they first appeared. For those of us who first fell in love with New Brigade and the scowling youths that made it, that image of Iceage is an everlasting one, akin to Jonathan Taylor Thomas – sure, we logically understand that he’s a grown-up now, even if the idea of that doesn’t make any sense. I’ve enjoyed all the Iceage records I’ve heard (though admittedly spent the least amount of time with 2021’s gospel-choir-enhanced Seek Shelter), and appreciate that they’re still self-serious enough to agree on For Love Of Grace & The Hereafter as an album title. They’ve long since aged out of their youth-center flailing fury and into the Bad Seeds-esque sport-coat-sex-god whiskey bar (it suits them too!), and with this new one they settle into what might be their easiest listening yet, tailored closer towards American indie-rock of all things (not that you’d ever catch them wearing sneakers on stage). While I’ve seen this album’s similarities to Pavement suggested and concurred with, I’m hearing it as their timely spin on the newish crop of Madchester-genuflecting indie ala Fontaines DC and Shame (and to a lesser extent, Dazy and Geese?) alongside the secret-weapon influence of Sort Sol’s jangly cow-punk (whose songs they’ve covered and ex-members they continue to work alongside). Disco beats and snare-rolls used as rhythms (not accents), manic “do do do”s, post-punk funky guitars… it’s all that Elias Rønnenfelt needs in order to shine like the too-sexy stepson of Conor Oberst and Tim Armstrong. These sly devils are going to age like Keith Richards, aren’t they?

Ruth Mascelli & Mary Hanson Scott Esoteric Lounge Music Now LP (Disciples)
I appreciate the urgency here: who wants to wait around for esoteric lounge music?? You might recognize Ruth Mascelli as one of the more mild-mannered members of Special Interest, and their ketamine-flavored sensuality is a perfect match for the soothing reeds of Mary Hanson Scott. Together they make narcoleptic, fiendish trip-hop in that Coil sorta way, a calming resort getaway with champagne sweating in the ice bucket, satin sheets on the bed and, if you pan out a little further, a gimp in heavy rubber bondage quietly laying on a nearby tarp. Certain songs, like “Vaseline Lens” and “The Fool”, go down so smoothly that their intoxicating properties can sneak up on you, like that gummy you forgot you ate an hour ago. Hanson Scott’s horns are the guiltiest culprit, as she adds a new-age jazz flair to Mascelli’s low-lit synths and nonchalant drum loops to makes the affair irresistible. In its own way, Esoteric Lounge Music Now subtly queers up Air’s Virgin Suicides score, Thievery Corporation and some Badalamenti, freeing those gloomy dream-sounds from a humdrum heterosexuality. Kinda surprised they didn’t throw in at least one downtempo dance-floor banger here, but I get it: dancing is a vertical practice, whereas Esoteric Lounge Music Now is primed for horizontal behavior.

Nirosta Steel My Skyscraper 2xLP (ULYSSA)
Truly fascinating document here from Mexico’s ULYSSA label: a definitive (at least for the moment) collection from one Steven Hall AKA Nirosta Steel. Let’s get the record nerd bat-signal out of the way first – Nirosta Steel was a long-time friend and collaborator of Arthur Russell (who appears both physically and spiritually throughout this collection), and if you’ve been longing for more of Russell’s non-discriminatory technicolor approach to art and life in general, this collection offers a shockingly fresh abundance. Nirosta Steel’s range is as varied and omnivorous as Russell’s, as you’ll encounter downtown mutant funk, low-lit acoustic balladry, red-wine pop-rock, avant glam and party sleaze here, and if you’re like me, you’ll be shook on two fronts: how it’s so good and how you haven’t heard it before. I can’t speak to the lack of Nirosta Steel’s recorded output, as he’s only been commercially releasing music in tiny editions since the 2010s; not sure what took him four decades, but regardless, My Skyscraper is far better late than never. I go crazy for the glam-funk of “Lost In Music” and shed a tear for “Go For The Night” (co-written by Russell), with images of pop’s fallen, forgotten and beloved superstars racing through my mind, from Patrick Cowley to Ariel Pink to Bruno Mars to Steve Hiett to Tatsuro Yamashita. And I haven’t even discussed the two extra-long acoustic strummers on side C; the label throws the term “Buddhist bubblegum” at them and I’d say it sticks. What a talent – I feel like I’ve been listening to this non-stop for days and have yet to appreciate the full depth of My Skyscraper.

No Peeling EP2 7″ (Feel It / Wrong Speed)
No Peeling wrote seven songs for their debut seven-inch EP and have now written seven more for this follow-up – you cannot deny their commitment to value. One could comfortably file this Nottingham group under the ever-expanding tent that is egg-punk, though connoisseurs like you and I could pick them out in a lineup of lanky guys with mullet-mustache combos and women in homemade miniskirts and day-glo tights (nerdy glasses and dangly earrings on the lot of them). No Peeling offer a distinctive approach, writing songs with rhythms that can’t be casually bopped along with, almost Melt Banana-esque in nature: riffs change abruptly, drum patterns rarely last more than a bar and the songs themselves seem eager to crack up with an abundance of energy, all signs of today’s baseline attention-deficit. If they weren’t so tight, their songs might be harder to cling onto, but No Peeling perform as a single-celled germ and are equally contagious. Each snare hit is perfectly matched by the strings; same goes for the vocal melodies with the synths. The debut EP had a bit more squeal to it, whereas these songs tend to lean ever so slightly towards a more digestible pop polish, due in no small part to vocalist Sophie Diver. She sounds effortlessly chic and in control no matter how nutty her bandmates get – when they tie her shoelaces together, she slips them off without looking down or missing a step.

Patois Counselors Protection Racket LP (Ever/Never)
The Patois Counselors in my mind are perpetually locked in the raucous jangle of “Repeat Offender”, “Terrible Likeness” and “Probably No One”. That can happen with bands we love; we unintentionally freeze them in an old moment that continues to resonate. Of course, the real Patois Counselors have continued to evolve into something more tender, less upbeat… they’ve always been mature for their age, but that maturity is even more outwardly visible in Protection Racket, their fourth full-length. I’m almost tempted to describe it as sounding “defeated”, but that implies a hopelessness that I’m not necessarily hearing – let’s just say that Patois Counselors have expertly assessed our current situation, and their conclusions are less than desirable. Across slower tempos and smoother melodies, they tackle modernity’s most pressing concerns with wit and acuity, both overt (“Cop City”) and nuanced (“Generational Riffs”). I still love their earliest material (a provocative Men’s Recovery Project sticker on a Parquet Courts guitar), but I’m settling into the subtleties and refinements of Protection Racket easily, something closer to Protomartyr spending a late night at Pere Ubu’s loft (and look, label-mate Richard Papiercuts just arrived with some top-shelf gin). Patois Counselors still have poison in their veins, it’s just that they’ve come up with some new life-hacks to keep from visibly frothing at the mouth.

Poguba Noč 7″ (Autsajder Produkcija)
There tends to be a manic chill inherent to Central European strains of hardcore-punk; it can often sound like music made by people locked in an industrial freezer who scrape the metal walls with their fingernails to escape. It’s an alluring vibe (and an undoubtedly authentic one), and Slovenia’s Paguba channel it here and now with Noč, their vinyl debut following two cassettes from last year. None of these six songs hit the two-minute mark, but their brevity does not translate to formlessness – a lot happens within these songs, the work of a band that can portray their strained, wit’s-end emotions through a few different hardcore-punk tactics. Much of it sounds like Die Kreuzen’s self-titled album hosed down with that Central European iciness, no doubt. The opening title track, “Tank” and “Darila” bring a merciless, herky-jerk speed to their frustrated grumble, like a pestilent creature freshly awoken from hibernation, and there’s no going wrong with that. “Hočm Bit Str” wrings some melody out of their blacks and greys, not unlike their Croatian pals Indikator B, whereas the false-start, false-stop of “Maximum Rokenrol” is outlandish in the way that early hardcore bands used to be – I’m reminded of Pillsbury Hardcore’s “Hey Bob What’s Up?” or Nihilistics’ “Appreciation” for how punk freaks did it before the rulebook was decreed. My sense is that this all deeply means something to Poguba, and like the basement mattresses in a Slovenian punk squat, that feeling is infectious.

Profligate Chewed Up 12″ (no label)
Profilgate left us much to chew on with his last two LPs, 2018’s Somewhere Else and 2020’s Too Numb To Know, genre-defying works of unsettling textures and emotions both raw and guarded. Now he’s chewing us up with this new self-released EP, going back to the project’s roots of bludgeoning techno and EBM. Chewed Up offers six different ways to die (all at the scene of the dance-floor), and I’m glad I’m not forced to choose only one. “Bin Men” doesn’t introduce itself politely, it immediately lands in a tumbling scuffle, rubber meeting steel like Phase Fatale remixing Portion Control (and apropos of Meredith Sellers’ gorgeous cover painting). “Hook And Pull Gang” is hyperactive ala drill n’ bass but punched down to industrial tempo, homemade Foley sound effects spronging against the bars of its cage. Noah Anthony (that’s the name on Profligate’s passport) has always demonstrated a novel approach to aggressive electronics (let’s not forget the crucial electro-crunch he added to the Disintegration album that topped this very blog’s 2024 best-of list), and though I haven’t heard much club-oriented material from him in a few years, he hasn’t lost a step, demonstrating the nimble movements of Objekt, the dark mischief of Peder Mannerfelt and the cyborgian gristle of Blawan. “Wrecked Exotic” isn’t just the name of one of this EP’s most slamming cuts, it’s a fitting shorthand for his musical ethos, too.

Sa Pa Girls On Tour EP 12″ (Dub Techno For Life)
Sa Pa’s recent releases on Short Span revealed a desire to redact techno down to its most cast-off frequencies: a clipping buzz or airy knock becomes the hypnotic centerpiece, not a rough edge to sand down. I love it! With his recent recordings veering far from the club network, the Australian producer wanted to remind us that he initially found his artistic footing via minimal techno, and has now inaugurated his own label, the cornily-named (on purpose or not?) Dub Techno For Life, with this four-track EP. It comes with its own rough title, the (presumably unintentionally) bro-ish Girls On Tour, and well, I’m fairly certain I didn’t need it. “Mokira Ultra Dub” opens the EP and is its finest offering, a 2016 rework of Mokira’s “Manipulation Musik” that pulls and sloshes like tide pools filled with amphibious creatures. Alongside a soothing chug, it flows like light filtered through cloudy water for nearly ten gratifying minutes. The rest of Girls On Tour leaves me underwhelmed. “Waiting For You” was slated for a Giegling release years ago but never left Sa Pa’s hard-drive, and I’m not surprised – it’s a bit undercooked compared to his 2015 FORUM debut. “Modular System” is a one-take jam that sounds like a one-take jam – far more fun to make than listen to, and “World Saving Banger” is more nonspecific dub techno; like “Waiting For You”, perfectly passable genre fare for the sake of genre fare. As Sa Pa has proclaimed that dub techno is for life, I’m hoping he’ll take the next opportunity to spice it up a bit.

Snailgun Glass Walls LP (UnDunn)
The proliferation of new Aussie rock bands leaving their stickers in dive-bar bathrooms is as consistent as the odor, and Melbourne’s Snailgun are here to claim their rightful spot. With the vast history of underground rock music to pull from, they deliver their own specific formula, one that gets more interesting the longer you return its glare. From a wide lens, Glass Walls sits comfortably among the many loud rock records that took inspiration from early ’90s grunge-adjacent indie, but dig in a little deeper and its idiosyncrasies start to become apparent. I’d point first to “Labyrinth”, a bouncy groove ala Deaf Wish-meet-Pixies that just keeps on going and going, a simple idea that manages to gain power, or at least a manic momentum, through its nearly six-minute runtime. “Midway I” sounds like Shellac wearing Dischord t-shirts, leading into “Midway II”, which sounds like something Dischord would’ve actually distributed (say, Maximilian Colby or 400 Years): hand-stamped, local-scene emo-core. And opener “SD” offers an alternate history where John Lydon forms Soul Asylum instead of PiL. Glass Walls reminds me how arbitrary and illusory all those critical genre distinctions of the ’90s underground were, that the difference between one band selling 100,000 CDs and another selling 500 seven-inch EPs was driven by marketing, aesthetics and personal values more than overt sonic differences. Luckily for Snailgun, they exist in an era where no rock bands really sell any records at all – the pressure is off!

United Stare Voice Of Change 7″ (Kill Enemy)
Anti-social punk and hardcore is a fact of life in Pittsburgh, with new bands (and new configurations of old punks) popping up like warts on toe. United Stare is one of the newer offerings from Pennsylvania’s second-best city, formed by Justin Danylko (of the very raging Speed Plans), and they refuse to be pinned down. Following last year’s tape of swaggery punk, this Voice Of Change single offers three unrelated songs that showcase the various ways they might stick you in the ribs – the EP’s sonic incongruity is reiterated with a picture of Stonehenge(?) on the cover. “Voice Of Change” is my kinda punk rock, chunky and Dead Boys-y but also with the street-punk mindset of those essential early Fucked Up singles or even a touch of the trendy Oi influence currently running rampant through La Vida Es Un Mus’s recent catalog. “Burning The City” slides even further from hardcore and into some of Johnny Thunders’ disgusting trousers – kinda makes me want to get the Chiswick logo tattooed above my bellybutton, but only if I’m the first guy to do it. Neither of these tunes prepare us for “Moon Landing II”: it’s nearly seven minutes of kraut-y proto-punk determination, incriminating evidence that they got into their older sister’s weed stash and forgot to put away her copy of Here Come The Warm Jets. No vocals on that one, proof positive they were zoned out in a, you guessed it… United Stare.

Birth (Defects) Fictional Days LP (Reptilian / Expert Work)
Traditionally, the covers album that arrives at the end of a band’s life cycle isn’t their finest moment. I suppose The Spaghetti Incident? is probably someone’s favorite GnR album (and I hope to meet that person someday), but in Birth (Defects) case, the band seems both at ease and inspired by delving into some of their direct influences on Fictional Days, touted as their final record. Here, four original songs share space with five covers: Sonic Youth, The New Flesh, The Comsat Angels, Nirvana and SSD. One could easily suss out the group’s interest in cloudy post-punk, seminal hardcore, self-destructive noise-rock and 1992: The Year Punk Broke from their original material, but there’s something freeing about taking a song you already love and splattering it with your own paint. I still don’t need to hear another Nirvana cover for the rest of my life (I’ve got eleven words why: “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (Cinematic Version)” by Tommee Profitt featuring Fleurie), though while I thought the same for SSD, Birth (Defects)’ extended take on “How Much Art” closes in on the divine, like Clockcleaner’s rendition of “Ready To Fight” had they thought it through for more than two seconds. With that sentiment in mind, I’m having fun imagining their originals as covers: in another reality, Laughing Hyenas could’ve written “Youth” in a stained-carpet practice room; “Deceiver” could’ve fired up Rein Sanction’s debut EP.

Callahan & Witscher Sorry To Hear That 2xLP (Post Present Medium)
The music of Callahan & Witscher allows itself to be approached from a couple of different perspectives. You can crack open a Super Lyte by the above-ground pool and blast them on a digital-streaming playlist full of Sublime, Lit and Sum 41 (free tier, full of loud ads), your tropical-bubblegum vape on hand to quell any remaining brain activity, or you can get situated in your friendless, meticulously-curated apartment next to your rare noise-tape collection with their lyric sheet in hand, mulling over the multitude of insider quips, sarcastic jabs, experimental Easter eggs and ironic mockery that fuels these songs. That’s the mix: extreme low-brow pop meets extreme high-brow conception, both ends of the spectrum delivered with such fluency, potency and self-disgust that the whole thing bewilders wildly; even the duo themselves seem disoriented by what they’ve created. My personal approach to their music has been closer to the former scenario – I love a good sticky-sweet pop song, the more unabashed and shameless the better, and for as non-musical as the majority of Callahan and Witscher’s respective discographies are, they sure know their way around bawdy, major-chord hooks, delivering them in an overloaded, internet-native manner. For as deep as I am in our shared underground space, a significant portion of their references or call-backs fly over my head, and as their intentions often seem to be rooted in some sense of negativity (what the internet used to call “butthurt”), I am content to not dig too deeply, if only for my own safety. You don’t create your own personalized Funkopops and Airbnb-aesthetic fake neon wall decor if there isn’t some serious loathing going on, be it inward or outward.

Genre Is Death Attractive People LP (In The Red)
Hightail it from Atlanta to New York City, grow your black-dyed bangs out over your eyes, record your debut album with Martin Bisi in Gowanus. Genre Is Death recognized a successful life trajectory when they saw one, and have been rewarded with an In The Red full-length debut as a result. Don’t let the confusing band name confuse you – this duo (with uncredited drummer?) plays music steeped in the tradition of early no-wave noise-rock graveyard blues. Cramps bootlegs, Teenage Jesus’s twelve-minute discography, Live Skull, Boys Next Door before they became The Birthday Party, there’s a rich history of skinny, black-clad outlaw artistes that Genre Is Death undeniably draw inspiration from. Nothing wrong with that! Their songs are methodical and repetitive, often without any sort of payoff – imagine Kilynn Lunsford covering all of those noisy, two-note Lamps songs with half of either’s intensity. The lyrics are repetitive as well, with song titles doubling as choruses and oft repeated for two, three, four minutes. In that way, it can kinda drag, but I’ll cop to spinning Attractive People stone sober in my tidy little room, a sub-optimal experience for their brand of noise-rock sleaze. “I See Red” should be experienced in the bowels of CBGB, Lydia Lunch walking masked boys on leashes as Jayne County and Bob Bert toss GG Allin out on his ass for the fifth time that night.

Gentilesky Dream LP (Slovenly)
Slovenly Records, punk rock diplomats to the world at large, snag a winner here with Gentilesky’s sophomore album. The group is based out of Sardinia and Turkey (wish I could say the same), and they take a familiar punk style and deliver a fresh kick to its keister. Theirs is a tensely charged post-punk aesthetic, similar to legends like Wire, Mission Of Burma and Gang Of Four (“One Way Out” and “Dreamland” really bring the GOF vibes), though future legends like Sweeping Promises bear a similar resemblance to much of the material here as well; maybe even a lil’ Sleater-Kinney and Nape Neck managed to sneak in there too. Gentilesky present with an urgency that makes the music feel important, particularly evident in “Chasing The Light” and “Money Making”, the one-two punch that opens the album. It’s a winning formula: you tether some athletic bass-lines to a shrewd drummer, send the guitar darting wildly around it, and find a singer who belts it out like it’s their last chance on Earth to sing. And it’s garage-y enough that your small-minded leather-jacket crowd won’t have any complaints either (not that we’re concerned with their pleasure). Here in my large American city, I am privileged to witness exceptional post-punk bands rolling through town on a constant basis, yet the urge to trade it in for Gentilesky and a stone Sardinian farmhouse is undeniable.

Jasmín It’s Girls Night / Longhair 12″ (fabric Originals)
Amsterdam’s Jasmín offers a fresh perspective on the concept of “girls night” with this quick new EP from the fabric Originals label. Her “It’s Girls Night” isn’t suited to pomme frites, Caesar salad and chardonnay at a post restaurant with a selfie wall – it’s gurgling, hyperactive techno ready to ruin your outfit like you’re at a GWAR show. The track has that propulsive feel of early ’20s Blawan, and while the grid is firmly shibaried in place, there are all sorts of additives popping off, not least the escalating four-note melody, deployed like a poison-dart. At a brief five minute runtime, there’s no need to bring it all down to the kick, but Jasmín does precisely that three minutes in. Stuff your rules! “Longhair” also eschews any obvious correlation to its title. This one lurks menacingly – if it were a member of the mob, it’d be the young guy with face tattoos and sunglasses who guards the door, his eccentricity tolerated by the old-school bosses due to his loyalty and unflinching viciousness. Are people really dancing to “Longhair” at fabric London, and if so, how? Slow-motion simulated knife fights? Gratuitous PDAs with untrustworthy exes? With more questions than answers, this two-track EP makes for an alluring tease.

Simon Joyner Tough Love 2xLP (Sophomore Lounge / BB*ISLAND / Grapefruit)
You’d think that after something like thirty full-length recordings, Simon Joyner might’ve run out of songs to write, but this here is an authentic, rare-breed singer-songwriter. If anything, his wits continue to sharpen and the lens through which he views the world grows clearer, to the point where he might just non-consensually steal your heart if given access to six strings and a microphone. The forebears to his artistic form of choice jump from the music immediately – Lou Reed, Townes Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen – and while there probably isn’t room left on the pedestal of seminal rock legends for anyone born after World War 2, Joyner’s body of work speaks for itself. A real “hidden gem” of a singer, and nowhere is that gem-status more clear than on Tough Love – with guitar in hand and understated rock-band accompaniment when necessary, he peers into the heart of life with tenderness and wonder. His lyrics are a treat (Sophomore Lounge’s Ryan Davis releasing this record is a clear-cut case of “real recognize real”) and easy to follow, even if the paths they take are unexpected, funny and bittersweet. Lemme pass you the tissue box if you’re queuing up “Last Call For Karaoke”! And in an inventive conclusion, all of side D is dedicated to the title track, a deep rumination of family and love so potent I’ve been avoiding listening to it, lest I turn into a teary wreck right before dinner. Joyner’s music works like an emotional fracking pump when you least expect it, dislodging your deepest buried feelings. He must get a perverse thrill from it, the sicko.

L.O.T.I.O.N. Multinational Corporation Machine Hallucinations LP (Toxic State)
I hope to someday live in a world where L.O.T.I.O.N. is no longer needed, but unfortunately it seems their presence is more essential than ever. They recognized that big-tech was burrowing into our brains well before this whole nonsensical AI Ponzi scheme appeared like a herpes sore on the chapped lips of American capitalism. Our digital-surveillance hellscape might not have bloody eyeballs popping out of uzi-wielding robots, but it’s a hellscape all the same. L.O.T.I.O.N. cover all of this in grisly detail on Machine Hallucinations, which is almost too fun for its own good – how can I turn my rage into action when I’m too busy headbanging to these exhilarating blasts of digital metal? It might be their catchiest album yet, with any fraying elements of hardcore giving way to a brash, no-nonsense take on the industrial groove-metal of greats like Ministry, Rob Zombie and KMFDM, alongside gabber techno, cyberpunk aesthetics and that Spawn (The Album) soundtrack (Slayer and Atari Teenage Riot’s collaboration in particular). It’s really banger after banger here (with an unexpected electro-twee ending!), this frantic concoction of speed-metal guitar riffs, vocals indebted to the acid froth of Japanese noise-core, and the hook-laden industrial style that Ministry pioneered. When I pull up Instagram, I should be fed grainy clips of “Absolute Insanity” performed on an outdoor festival stage to 60,000 Brazilians waving anarchist flags and going nuts, but L.O.T.I.O.N. remain an underground organism, probably forever. How long until my phone can predict and fabricate my wildest dreams?

Malaphor Frogs In The Pot / In The Waves 7″ (Related)
Malaphor goes hard in the paint, and by paint I mean “funky, piano-forward alt-pop”. There was a time when I couldn’t turn on MTV without being accosted by some new spastic, smirking Poindexter – Harvey Danger, Barenaked Ladies, Fastball, it goes on – and now that we’re so far removed from this era, I’m kind of starting to miss it, even if that notion fills me with shame. Enter Oakland’s Malaphor: their song “Frogs In The Pot” is an absolute romp that nods in that general direction, a ’90s coffeehouse sound with the zing of three espressos. With all hands on deck, they sound like Ben Folds Five after sitting on a bee, the music bouncing good-naturedly as vocalist Brendan Casey offers a tidy metaphor for the state we’re in. “In The Waves” calms things down with a tender waltz, recalling John Grant’s commanding, sardonic croon. If this Malaphor single completed one of those “what TV show are you?” internet questionnaires, it’d be Party Down for sure: lovable underachievers too smart for their own good, suffering as they serve all sorts of unreasonable twits who inexplicably have all the money and none of the sophistication. They’d deliver a silky-smooth rendition of “In The Waves” and you just know some jerk would come up and request Billy Joel, without tipping no less!

Mermaid Dub Forever LP (Beer &)
Tokyo dub scientist Mermaid charmed my pants off with his debut album Dubmaid last year and does it all over again with Dub Forever, his second proper album for the exquisitely-named Beer & Records label. His music will pull a smile out of the sourest faces, linking ’90s digital-dub soundsystems with the cutesy vibe of cat cafes and the wonderment of a record shop’s well-stocked dollar bin. Typical dub conventions are folded into paper planes and tossed off the balcony, with big sine-wave bleeps, dazzling dub effects and a big yellow sun with a smiley and black sunglasses looking down from above. It’s inherently fun music in the spirit of the Jahtari camp, with the firm belief that anything can become a dub if you have enough love in your heart. Check “Money”, which gleefully swipes from Sam Smith’s “I’m Not The Only One”, or “Gavotte”, which flips a late 18th century François-Joseph Gossec composition into a cuddly Pokémon lullaby. The amount of fun being had here is outrageous, as Mermaid casually showcases the borderless joys and omnivorous appetite inherent to dub music. Try napping to “A Nap” and you might float away entirely if you neglect to use a weighted blanket.

Octonomy Saturnalian Rites LP (Hosianna Mantra)
If purple smoke arises from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney during the papal conclave, it means that they are currently listening to Octonomy’s Saturnalian Rites. Catholicism is just one big creepy cult anyway, right? Heidi Lorenz’s Octonomy project delves deep into such scenes of occult intrigue with her mood-darkening electronic music. Saturnalian Rites is her vinyl debut (her discography began with the most ominous of formats, FLACs), and it delivers a cohesive mix of varied-yet-connected styles. The (pre-)industrial rhythms of Test Dept, the shadowy spelunking of Lustmord, wordless chants from unholy choirs, gleaming new-age synths that beam like light through the cracks of a prison tower’s stones: they all conspire to form a steady-flowing suite of dark-ambient electronics. It would take years of research to grasp the topics that Octonomy is delving into through the album’s imagery and its accompanying instrumentals (a brief scan of Wikipedia wouldn’t suffice) – Saturnalian Rites demands cracking open ancient dust-covered texts that might accidentally release a demon, straight from Giles’s library (RIP). It’s precisely the wrong time of year for me to be blasting “Winter Solstice”, but by the time I’ve reached “Ruined Abbey of Thelema”, the cold, musty air of a freshly unsealed crypt envelops me…

Puriden Public Aging LP (God Of Whine)
“Getting old” is a universally unappealing (and generally avoided) topic for popular music of any strain (brief exceptions granted to Leonard Cohen and Johnny Cash), which is probably why the contrarian in me finds it appealing. Philly’s Puriden cut straight to that point by titling their debut album Public Aging, and they kicked it off with a song called “My Body Is A Machine That Hurts” for good measure. And the irony is, when compared with today’s headlining emo pop-punk acts, they’re not even that old! While some of their grey-bearded peers are still singing about first kisses, dumb jocks and prom night, Puriden take a more age-appropriate path, writing about overdraft fees, religious hypocrites and the ways that love can devolve into complacency and isolation. Musically, Puriden are rooted in that late ’90s emo-infused pop-punk era, and they mix it up quite a bit within the vicinity: I’m hearing The Anniversary, Grade, Braid, The Jazz June, Knapsack and Hot Rod Circuit if I want to leave room for two friends in my MySpace top eight (whose Vagrant Records sampler CDs I’m currently borrowing). There are poppy guitar leads, introspective swells of emotion enhanced by guest violin, vowels pronounced like Tom DeLonge, jazzy chord changes and upbeat “do do do” Third Eye Blindisms; Puriden keep things lively and engaging, balancing out the often dreary, reality-stricken subject matter. Might be tricky to get noticed within such a corporatized, well-trodden, social-media-gamed genre, but hey, at least they’re old!

Traumprinz Life 3xLP (All Possible Worlds)
Much like an actual prince in your dreams, Traumprinz arrives unexpectedly and breathtakingly. This German ambient-techno producer is arguably the German ambient-techno producer, having refined his techniques through numerous releases on the still-killing-it Giegling label before moving to his own All Possible Worlds imprint. Under a handful of aliases, he continually goes big in ways no one else thinks or cares to do, ways that seem designed to tantalize the home listener (and frustrate the second-hand vinyl market). He casually released an eight-LP set as Prince Of Denmark ten years ago (with different mixes appearing on different records, distributed at random!), and now under his trusty Traumprinz moniker we get Life, a Soundcloud dump from a few years ago available on limited triple LP vinyl. If you were lucky enough to order one in the hour-long window they were available, you know that he also included an additional, exclusive LP in the package for free, just because. What a mensch! The music here is vast, over ninety minutes (not including the untitled fourth LP); these tracks spread their wings with grace and confidence, locating the pleasure zone through patient repetition, subtle variation and a deep sense of heart and soul, blatantly contradicting the idea of techno as the music of unfeeling electronic machines. Singling out any one track feels shortsighted here, but if you want a taste, jump right to “Trippyaf”, where he combines a robotic pulse and outer-space zaps with a wordless vocal(?) that travels for minutes without interruption.

2601 Untitled 12″ (Heaven Smile)
Last month’s Storm On Earth EP from the endlessly-monikered René Pawlowitz inspired me to peep a new one from another highly-regarded polyonymous techno producer, Mammo. He’s apparently so good at aliases that his legal name remains a mystery, putting him a step above Buckethead. He’ll occasionally release music under his first name (Fabiano), but he consistently changes project names between releases. Alongside Mammo and Fabiano, you can find his records credited to glorified matrix numbers: EPs from 2301, 2302, 2401, 2501 and now 2601 (all of which correlate to the year of production). Unlike his more abstracted Mammo material, 2601 offers two cuts of effervescent tech-house, as clinical and unidentifiable as their name. The a-side establishes a choppy beat upon which a dub effect is stretched like taffy for a good seven minutes. The flip is less club-friendly, working a Detroit-style subterranean feel with a bank of sonar sound-effects you’d expect to hear from mission command in some ’90s military submarine movie. Nothing wrong with either, though there are dozens if not hundreds of dollar-bin techno singles from the last thirty years that offer precisely the same sensations and, in many cases, feel far more genuinely anonymous. Dig in the beat-up dance boxes on the floor and the shop clerk will hand you change if you pay for Snow Bones’s Remote Viewer EP and Snookerboy’s My Lovely Pixel with a ten-dollar bill. Or, play the long game and wait to see if Untitled ends up alongside other under-appreciated gems in twenty years.

Uriel’s Bath Uriel’s Bath 12″ (Felt Sense Recordings)
Researchers have failed to genetically fuse ambient electronics and twee… until now. The Australian duo of Julia McFarlane and Thomas Kernot are blissed out and taking us with them, as these four songs (released earlier in the year on CD) have hit vinyl for your favorite after-hours spot. These delightful tunes all rest in the folds of trance-y electronica, with McFarlane’s voice guiding us safely through the softest trip possible. “Two Great Lamps” sets the tone early, spaced-out arpeggios pacing back and forth as McFarlane’s clipped syllables breathe some humanity into the music’s shiny plastic shell. “Beautiful Hats” features the most direct vocal from McFarlane, singing like she’s in Dolly Mixture or Girls At Our Best over cosmic squiggles, and it’s a dazzler – I can already picture NTS’s phone-lines lighting up when the resident ambient DJs spin this one on a quiet Wednesday evening. “Your Humble Servant” is the first track to bring in a hi-hat pace – there are no kicks or traditional-techno rhythmic elements to be found here – and it captivates with an odd violin(?) loop and some hushed chords. They end with “Uriel’s Bath”, a playfully-creepy lullaby that doses the bizarre synth-led storytelling of Call Back The Giants with the wave-pop sensibility of Australia’s early pioneers (Essendon Airport come to mind). “Ingenious” feels like too strong a word, but how else might I explain that I just ordered a copy of Sarah McLachlan’s “Fallen (Gabriel & Dresden Anti-Gravity Mix)” single in a misguided attempt to replicate the pleasure of Uriel’s Bath?

Yambag The Psycho 7″ (Convulse)
My favorite scrotally-inspired hardcore band fires up another eight blasts of high-velocity hardcore-punk, once again care of Convulse Records. The formula hasn’t changed here: the Cleveland group favor a fast-core sound not unlike the turn-of-the-century action on 625 Productions and Six Weeks, that moment where the relentless speed and sudden time-changes of power-violence met the cascading riffs and circle-pitting rhythms of old-school thrash-core. Yambag never rest on any particular part for long, but the ferocity of these eight songs is pretty unwavering, often sounding like No Comment covering Circle Jerks songs at four times the speed. Every element is delivered in a rapid-fire style, which means that sure, the drummer is blasting away, but the bassist is also breaking his wrist to keep up and the vocalist is spouting off full lines of lyrics in the time it takes to cough. A seven-inch is the perfect format for this style (and, honestly, the perfect format period), and eight songs is neither too much nor too little. And while I’d expect the requisite live shot on the cover to display a singer jump-kicking twenty feet in the air for this sort of aggro hardcore style, Yambag takes the moment to remind us of their freaky Cleveland heritage: I’m not certain if the band on the cover even is Yambag, and the singer is wearing a huge papier-mâché mask that nearly doubles his height, enough to make Snooper green with envy.

JP: Man, my brain immediately went into panic mode trying to figure out which is in fact the worst, as there are quite a lot of bad ones. I have pondered this idea and I think I landed on a song. It was a collaboration with Designer Drugs called “Dead Meat”. It was so bad that I wrote a book about it called How To Lose Friends And Irritate People. I suppose that would be the song to pick, but there are so many to choose from that are total bullshit.

YGR: Is your dissatisfaction with “Dead Meat” solely a personal thing? For my ears, the beat is fairly typical EDM for its era, but your vocals bring the manic energy I think we’ve all come to expect from a Justin Pearson vocal track. Is it wrong that I think I like it?

JP: Well, first off, thank you. I respect you and your resumé. But I think you may have nailed it, specifically with the point of it being “fairly typical EDM”. That is the first issue. I had also written a few verses, and a “chorus” which was scrapped. I assumed I was tracking vocals on a demo, or a version which would be built upon, but nope, it was just farted out there as such. With EDM, I have high(er) standards for what I consider good. Artists like Panicker, Otto von Schirach and MSTRKRFT are more in my realm. But using that criticism there as a departure point, I ended up writing that book partially based on my experience with Designer Drugs. As much as I assume I talked shit, I really wanted to point the finger at myself for being a dumbass and doing that collaboration. I should have stayed in my lane.

YGR: What do you consider to be ‘your lane’, exactly? I feel like you’ve successfully ventured in, out of and around hardcore for many years now… the opposite of a purist.

JP: I’d say my lane would be a bit less conventional, and maybe more creative, which does not translate to “good”, or “talented”, or certainly “successful”. But, if you consider the stuff I am known for, The Locust, Deaf Club, Dead Cross, etc., it’s not in the realm of, say, subpar EDM. I ventured into the EDM lane with a band called All Leather, and that seems more adjacent to the stuff I rambled off, as opposed to your average dance music.

YGR: Hypothetically, let’s say you are invited to contribute vocals to some other straight-up dance project of your choice. Is there a dream collab that comes to mind? Or are you just totally burned on the idea of main-stage EDM from “Dead Meat”?

JP: Oh, I’m not burned on the idea at all. I love a lot of EDM, but I do have “musical standards” for the most part. The artists I listed – Panicker, MSTRKRFT, Otto Von Schirach – are all people who I’d love to collaborate with. I grew up obsessing over bands like Sigue Sigue Sputnik and Wall of Voodoo, and I’m a big fan of a lot of electronic cumbia-based music, too.

Zoh Amba Eyes Full LP (Matador)
Zoh Amba has built up an impressive resumé as an out saxophonist, but Eyes Full is a hard turn down the dirt road of rockin’ Americana. Why not? Their vocals on Jim White’s “I Don’t Do / Grand Central” were a highlight of my 2025, and while Eyes Full is far more straightforward singer-songwriter fare, it showcases Amba’s rambunctious style nicely, passionate bordering on volatile. On the acoustic guitar tracks, Amba channels Bob Dylan in an Appalachian setting, picking and strumming with callus-building abandon; if we needed someone to flip the dreaded stomp-clap whoa-oh into music worth listening to, I’d nominate Amba for the job. It’s not all campfire rollicking, though – they dip into slackerish indie-rock befitting the Matador seal of approval as well, plugging into some road-worn cabs with the boys. “Dead End Street” (which, like many of the songs here, features Jim White on drums) certainly exists within Pavement’s universe, “Odd Jobs” behaves like Sheryl Crow on dollar Coors night and “Thousand Years” could’ve found a comfortable home on any of Mudhoney’s last few albums. I’ll concede that electric/acoustic rock music isn’t the trickiest sound to find one’s way into, but Amba is naturally, immediately comfortable on Eyes Full, their jeans worn down ragged over time, not factory distressed. I’d love it if Matador could finagle this into a full-scale genre exchange program – we might finally get the spiritual jazz album that’s been lurking under Kurt Vile’s MF Doom trucker cap all these years.

Anadol & Marie Klock Manivelles LP (Pingipung)
The connection between Istanbul’s Anadol and Holving, France’s Marie Klock continues to bear fruit. Weird-ass fruit, mind you: think of a pawpaw, something that looks like a pear, tastes like a banana and scratches like a mango on your tongue. Their initial collaborative release from 2024 delighted in its made-up world of oddball retro-pop, and Manivelles moves onward in delirious good nature, as pleasantries have been established and their friendship has solidified. Anadol is still on the control board, swirling together Turkish pop, French chanson and German krautrock with ease, kooky joy and unfiltered cigarettes. I’d love to see all of her keyboards and synths, because the sounds they conjure are uncommonly vintage, recalling anything from the original Nintendo Entertainment System, Switched On Bach, Stereolab and Klaus Schulze, often at the same time. I continue to resent my linguistic failures, as I really wanted to know what Klock is on about here – the title translates in English to “Cranks”, a funny self-dig in line with Klock’s brazen playfulness. Lucky for me, English translations appear on the inner-sleeve (and accompanying Bandcamp page), and I’m not disappointed. “Rentrer à la Maison”, for example, describes familial neurosis from the feminine perspective with a chorus of “whenever you go home / you start off with great intentions / and then shove ’em up your ass / nice and deep, nice and deep”. Now that’s a universal language I’m sure many readers can share: the annoyance in dealing with well-meaning yet clueless parents.

Container & Will Guthrie FERN 10″ (Cave12)
With safety in mind, I put on my coveralls and oversized goggles prior to spinning this new collaborative EP from American noise-techno juggernaut Container and Australian percussive polymath Will Guthrie. Neither of them are known for stepping lightly – while their typical sonic modes differ, the sense of being vigorously shaken by the collar comes part and parcel with their respective bodies of work. Of course, neither are beholden to satisfying preconceived expectations either, as FERN is textural, nuanced and playful, not the full-throttle squash for which I was prepared. Opener “Murky” lives up to its title, with Guthrie running through an array of percussive elements over a notably placid buzz from Container’s box of tricks. “Sifting” is a quick splash of Container’s Fort Thunder influence, replete with intercom-squawk voice and emergency buzzer, whereas the second shortest track, “Maybe”, paints layer upon layer of drum-roll cacophony like a Sissy Spacek seven-inch. “Tablecloth” is the rightful centerpiece, and closest to what I expected from these two: after a purposely slow start, Container builds a restless groove and Guthrie cooks it to a crisp, reminiscent of Mindflayer but also just, well, better. I don’t want to say that the zero-dynamics wall-of-sound is beneath them at this point – routine sonic enemas are good for one’s health – but Container and Guthrie have too many ideas, and too many tools with which to realize them, to take such an easy route.

Crown Flash Crown Flash LP (Union Editions)
Union Editions takes a modern approach towards being an underground, avant-garde record-label. Rather than simply release records, the label exists through a variety mediums: records and tapes, sure, but also apparel, posters, patches, books (both art and written publications), silkscreens, football scarves… I can only assume perfumes and tinned crudité are in the works. It’s a cool approach, building out their own aesthetic community through limited-run physical objects, and one of the label’s latest offerings is the debut album from Crown Flash. The duo of Filippo Brancadoro and Francesco de Figueiredo have pursued the fringes of noise, psych and experimental music separately since the pre-Covid age (remember Heroin In Tahiti?), and as Crown Flash they offer a suite of stylish, gallery-ready electronics, keyed up to troll any narrow-minded audience. Their music is techno-informed but experimental in nature – any chance of a straightforward beat is lovingly tweaked and prodded into forms too antagonistic or abstracted for dance crowds. “Trauma Plot” is a good example: a cool break-beat dominates, though they can’t help but manipulate it into twists and overlay bizarre vocal manipulations. It’s mildly sinister in a way that shows a reverence for the IDM forms they are manipulating and distorting, somewhere between Aphex Twin, Amnesia Scanner and Vanity Productions. In Crown Flash’s hands, no ambient passage is safe from harsh disturbances, no sleek runway groove free from the possibility of being abruptly ripped off-grid.

Devon Rexi Meets John T. Gast Breathstep LP (Accidental Meetings)
John T. Gast has been like three steps ahead for years now, even if those steps often lead to strange, enigmatic places few people will ever aspire to wander. You just never know what the guy is going to do, only that it will be worth hearing, and this new collaborative album with equally inscrutable (though lesser-known) Dutch trio Devon Rexi is case in point. Breathstep combines richly international AutoTune vocals with early dubstep beats – a selection of alternate musical histories aligning towards a hazy future. I’m going to assume Devon Rexi are actually doing the Farsi vocals themselves, though I’m not ready to rule out the possibility that they simply swiped some of them from secret YouTube channels and pirate radio stations on the opposite end of the globe, and it often sounds like Coki remixing early ’00s Damian Marley tracks with the voices and musical signatures of electro-shaabi. Lots of clean dub sounds and dirty effects, with the sense that MIDI sampler keyboards small enough to fit into backpacks are the primary culprits. It reminds me of the adventurousness I’d find on labels like Bokeh Versions and Heat Crimes, cryptic and fascinating music that doesn’t offer an obvious way in – you have to run your fingers across the ornate hardwood door until you find the little notch that clicks open to the secret chamber beyond. “2furious (Liberate Mix)” is a great way to start your search: a dark-sided dub with jammed frequencies and wet-echo vocals wedged in every open gap.

Feeble Little Horse Bitknot LP (Saddle Creek)
When Feeble Little Horse cancelled their big summer tour in support of their 2023 Saddle Creek debut, I felt their pain without bearing direct witness to it. For as long as I’ve been around, there’s never been a harder time to be a cool young band in America than right now (nepo babies and private-school millionaires excluded); Feeble Little Horse’s Bitknot, poppy as it may be, flashes those warning signs of fatigue, frustration and malady. It’s also inventive, charismatic and catchy as hell, and while I need to go back to their first two to make sure, I’m gonna go wild and say that this is their finest yet. As with prior efforts, they continue to scrappily re-imagine poppy emo indie (ie. Horsegirl, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, Wednesday, etc.) through a post-100 Gecs, post-Sophie digital frame of reference. They’re a real band, and they take their real guitar hooks, sugary vocals and immaculate drum fills (the drums are so good!) and jam them all into a sticker-covered laptop through a frayed USB cable, digitizing and crunchifying the sound of bedroom-basement live action into something uncanny yet human. I’d probably enjoy their sound as a thrown-together mess, but it’s evident that Feeble Little Horse’s wild choices are deliberate, simply because there’s no way they’d end up with this captivating, smoothed-out-slappy sound by sheer luck. If your head isn’t bobbing and swaying to the tweaky hooks of “Poison” and “Dior”, I’m going to assume you’re wearing a neck brace – let’s hope you heal up in time for their substantial tour schedule this July and October.

God’s Hand Police Lorry / Wind-Up Toys 7″ (Hard Art / Illiterati)
Cover art of the month goes to God’s Hand, delivering some sort of heavy-leather furry police fetish that I didn’t know existed (and I’m not just saying that to misdirect you from the heavy-leather furry police outfits in my closet). The photo is credited to “BULLCOP 54″… do I dare google? On second thought I think I’ll leave them be, and while I wish Sargeant Bulldog Officer was in the band, I’m content to imagine him singing “Police Lorry”, a fine slab of British street-punk from Iowa City (where else?). It’s melodic and un-intimidating in a UK Subs sorta way, perhaps akin to Pork Dukes if they stopped trying to be so crude for two seconds. “Wind-Up Toys” isn’t too far off, sounding like The Dickies or The Ruts or something aspiring to them, first-wave Chuck Berry-inspired punk that makes its way to a fun shout-along chorus, something to rev up the boot-boys in the back of the pub. It’s certainly more straightforwardly punk than God’s Hand’s debut EP (also reviewed in these pages), and while it doesn’t elevate beyond the confines of the well-established form, God’s Hand still has a powerful ace up their sleeve: that damned rubber-fetish cop-dog on the cover. He’s still lurking out there somewhere, I can feel it.

It’s A Setup It’s A Setup 7″ (Two Two One Press)
With their debut EP, Spokane’s It’s A Setup throw it back to the time before things all went wrong for screamo. Their sound hearkens back to the dirty, spastic hardcore offshoot of the late ’90s, one still inherently rooted in DIY ethics, where the term “screamo” itself was a self-deprecating shorthand for hardcore that integrates emo’s quiet / loud dynamics, metal-core’s chaotic patterns and the blast-beats of grind (often with song-intro samples that sound like they were taped off the TV, also found here). Were it 1998, It’s A Setup would’ve had the same shot at making it to No Idea, Sound Pollution or Hydrahead, but most likely would’ve just released their seven-inch themselves, stuffing a manilla envelope sleeve with inserts. I’m hearing Ottawa and MK Ultra in particular in this self-titled EP, where stoner-y intros lead into frantic blasts and voice-cracking screams, all with community college production (and that’s not a diss – this EP was recorded at Spokane Falls Community College). Amazingly for the style, they aren’t old folks reliving their youth, but apparently young enough to write a song like “21+ Punk Show Is An Oxymoron”, bemoaning clubs that deny teenagers at the door. Relish these days, fellas! It’s all downhill from here!

KiMiMi ИМА LP (Calax / Conatala)
One thing that happens when I write all these record reviews is I subject myself to the threat of overexposure: take a thing that I enjoy, overload myself with way too much of it, and then notice as the dislike or resentment starts bubbling up. I feel like that’s happened to me with music in the “random field-recordings” style, either as an embellishment or central motif, but as I sit here now, batting my eyelashes with infatuation at Shinya Ohno’s KiMiMi project, I realize that a great record can cure all negativity in a heartbeat. An AI overview might explain KiMiMi as “experimental folk over a backdrop of construction field-recordings”, and while I required a mere gallon of water to type that myself (I’m a thirsty guy!), ИМА is far more beautiful than that basic description implies. The construction sounds (recorded on site at the “Arimasuton Building”, an improvised(!) building primarily of reinforced concrete) are near and dear to Ohno, having a personal relationship with its inhabitants and creators, and his music, majestically orchestrated, mirrors that gentle intimacy. The instrumentation is dazzlingly vast – melodica, ukelele, gaida, guitar, flutes, organ, xylophone, and more – and almost falls backward into the children’s ball-pit bordered by Phil Elvrum’s early work as The Microphones, the domestic strum of Tori Kudo and the avant-garde experimentation of Robert Ashley. The sounds of chatter and distant drilling help triangulate a physical space, one that KiMiMi fills with tenderness and warmth. I forget whoever originally made that “dancing about architecture” line, but I invite you to look up pictures of the Arimasuton and tell me it’s not architecture that dances to the dulcet sounds of ИМА!

K Wata Give U Space 2xLP (Short Span)
Emptiness never sounded as gorgeous as it does on K Wata’s full-length debut for Short Span, Give U Space. Short Span’s covers are consistently attractive, but I don’t think any of them have fit the music as perfectly as what we see here: an antiseptic 3D rendering of “a room” at its basest level, something I’d imagine the initial 1992 digital sketches of Doom might resemble. K Wata’s music revels in its behind-the-eyelid colorlessness, a dub techno that feels like it was vigorously disinfected before being allowed entry into the open world, yet teeming with cinematic intrigue. The beauty is that the disinfection was incomplete: there are voices, scratches, unexplained motions and swerving tension within these downtempo grooves… imagine a pond’s flat brown surface with an assortment of predators lurking below. I’m reminded in ways of Space Afrika’s murky elegance, Jan Jelinek’s cut-up clicks-in-dub and also those earliest Hyperdub EPs, the immediately pre-dubstep era when artists like Burial, Kode9 and The Space Ape knew they wanted to make melancholy electronic music that spoke to the impending social digitization and were still figuring out how. While like-minded in many ways, K Wata drafted his own template here, soft enough to fall into and disorienting enough to keep you from climbing out.

No You No You LP (VP Texi)
No You is the pairing of Davy Kehoe and Suzanne Kraft, arriving with this fully-realized album right from the jump. Davy Kehoe is responsible for introducing AutoTuned harmonica to the world on his solo debut Short Passing Game (one of 2017’s very best!), whereas Suzanne Kraft (real name Diego Herrera) left his fingerprints on all sorts of cool productions over the last few years, from chill-wave to Balearic to downtempo house and so forth – there’s even a killer Soft Rock For Hard Times single. I can sense a little nervous, first-date energy on No You, resulting in a somewhat conservative display of the duo’s talents. No You falls closer to rock than techno, though it’s certainly not either – think more along the lines of downtempo synth-wave, electronic music that favors rock instrumentation if not its harder-edged stereotypes. Both Kehoe’s penchant for staccato krautrock rhythms and Kraft’s pastel haze are all over the record, but it kind of plays out like a testing of the waters – you can sense that the duo want to jump in with an obnoxious cannonball but decide to calmly use the ladder instead. There’s no shortage of ideas – certain songs have me remembering Blank Dogs (and their penchant for burying the vocals in ten layers of effects), others strut upright with a Pender Street Steppers vibe, and then there’s “Invisible”, a blatant My Bloody Valentine tribute that pretty much nails it, guitars swirling and percussion absent. I’m going to keep spinning it for now, and hope that this is the inception of a long and productive relationship.

Storm On Earth Storm On Earth 2 12″ (Storm On Earth)
In an excellent feature on the First Floor newsletter, René Pawlowitz AKA Shed goes into a few dozen(!) of his various aliases and explains what they signify or aim towards with regard to the music he creates under them. He describes his Storm On Earth project as “peak-time techno tools with no soul … hard drums and repetitive grooves with no bigger ideas behind it”. I was already deeply endeared to the man, but I find this coldly-stoic (and extremely German) admission of Storm On Earth’s “no soul / no bigger ideas” deeply satisfying. I know that he means it, and isn’t self-negging in hopes of praise, but the four tracks found on this new EP are masterful in their hard-charging brainlessness. “Stale II” hits like an anonymous Hard Wax purchase from any of the last three decades (this is a positive thing), and “Fish” is briny house music, ready to dislocate the wrists of any hardcore voguers trying to keep up. It’s absolutely nothing special, but as we now know, “nothing special” is admittedly by design – if you love the discrete elements of pure techno music and want to bear witness to a master building, layering, tweaking and orchestrating them, Pawlowitz takes you straight to the source as Storm On Earth.

Tara Clerkin Trio Somewhere Good LP (World Of Echo)
Like many of today’s interesting new groups, Tara Clerkin Trio don’t invent a brand-new aesthetic so much as offer an exciting combination and refinement of pre-existing styles – a few base familiarities to guides us into the new. “Curation” is kind of an ugly word, but I can’t help but hear that in the music of Tara Clerkin Trio, that this is a group of deep music heads who have the talent and good taste to mix and match a range of stylistic elements until arriving at a distinctive Tara Clerkin Trio Sound. Prior releases had established the trio’s general parameters, and Somewhere Good is now their finest effort to date. Within, you’ll find the post-jazz / math-rock fusion of late ’90s Thrill Jockey; Bristolian trip-hop; the contemporary jazz of downtown NYC; indie-pop; psychedelia; dub. These are all very good things, and Tara Clerkin Trio are so at ease with each other that a sharply-cut guitar loop, twinkling keys and fat techno bass pads flow together into charming pop song with the complementary timelessness of screaming over a blast-beat. I’m reminded of Antena and The Xx, Dido and Astrid Sonne, K Freund and Valentina Magaletti, sometimes at the same time, other times separately, mixed up so vigorously and joyously that it all turns the color of Tara Clerkin Trio. Which, betraying their deeply British origins, is so bright you’ll want to wear shades.

Timmy Vulgar / Jimbo Easter Timmy Vulgar & Jimbo Easter 7″ (Celluloid Lunch)
Detroit is full of real ones, but Timmy Vulgar and Jimbo Easter are two of its realest. (The last time I saw Timmy Vulgar, he was laughing maniacally in a parking lot about my band’s rider as we drove away… a tale for another time.) You’ll surely recognize Vulgar from his work with Human Eye and Timmy’s Organism (among countless others), whereas Easter has done time in The Piranhas and Druid Perfume (among his own wooly assortment of bands, projects and criminal charges). Their paths have naturally intertwined through the years, this most recent check-in taking place on one brain-blasted seven-inch EP. It’s free as free can be, two guys with guitars, synths and at least one functioning drum-machine swinging wildly out of orbit. Trying to make logical sense of it is a fool’s errand (and you’re hearing from one now), but from what I gather, Vulgar composed the three a-side tracks and Easter led the charge on the flip. The a-side is full of acid-soaked guitars and gook of a gobbeldy nature – it sounds like Electric Eels and Dan Melchior licking every last toad in the swamp (which, incidentally, is literally what Vulgar is singing about on one track). The six(!) b-side tracks are even less formalized, zonked-out caveman damage befitting the cover image of Vulgar and Easter as obelisk-gazing primates. They’ve already written enough formal songs to last us a lifetime – Vulgar and Easter delved deep into the primordial source here, and they didn’t even have to shine moonlight into their anuses to get there.

David Watson & Bill Nace On Bats LP (Amish)
For your newest bi-monthly Bill Nace offering, I submit this collaborative album with bagpipe player David Watson, released care of the Amish Records label. I sense that Nace is at his most energized when performing alongside someone who can match his sustained, fiery tones with a prominent level of their own, and that’s certainly the case here. Watson unleashes those familiar, soul-stirring bagpipes into incensed and dazzling new configurations and Nace wields his taishogoto as both sword and shield. With the bagpipes more or less a constant sonic presence in the air, Nace has decisions to make: does he plow straight through, carve out a serpentine detour, or remain in place while hopping on one foot? As a collaborator, Nace is a keen listener – all paths are considered, and they squeeze a whole lot of juice out of their relatively simple setup. “Wishbone” in particular lets it all hang out, with some of Nace’s fastest finger-work yet handily matched by Watson, like two sprinters who set their best times when racing each other. It’s crazy to me that there is some other band calling themselves Geese when the moniker is far more befitting the racket that Watson and Nace have conjured here, a ferocious battalion of honks, squeals and electric sighs.

Appropriately elevated to podium-height were Heavenly Bodies, a trio of friendly locals who I tend to see hanging out at a variety of guitar-centric gigs more than I see assembled as Heavenly Bodies on stage. I knew from prior shows and recordings that they were going to slowly melt a block of psych-rock ice this evening, and that’s precisely what they did. Drummer Shaun Bailey embodied a patient restraint, lightly sprinkling his floor tom as Dustin Burrows looped and layered the delicate meanderings of his guitar. Dustin’s sister Ashley Burrows soon joined the conversation, plucking decisive, resonant notes from her bass, as sedate as the late-night SEPTA schedule. They built up from a sleepy din into a blustery storm, Bailey giving those crash cymbals a pounding as both Burrowses unleashed the full capacity of their instruments. It was a severely incremental process, stretched out so far that any chance of assigning “Point A” and “Point B” to the music became impossible. After the initial deluge, Bailey fell into an upbeat, neo-motorik groove, and the guitarist Burrows stepped up to sing, only for his voice to be effectively inaudible to the audience as well as the rest of his band. He glanced over to the sound-person for a little sonic first-aid, but their head was hunched over, either deeply zoned out from the soothing vibes of Heavenly Bodies or actually asleep. The minor kerfuffle drew a big wide smile out of his sister – even on stage, siblings remain siblings. When a friend casually dismissed their performance as an “anyone can do that” act of amateurish simplicity in the following intermission, I felt myself bristle internally, suddenly aware that I was on Team Heavenly Bodies all along.

Shortly thereafter, TAKAAT unraveled their dual pedal-boards on the floor directly in front of the pulpit, still warm from Heavenly Bodies. With a small container of ear plugs directly in front of their gear, a few attendees sheepishly wandered over and helped themselves in direct refutation of Keiji Haino’s “no one should wear earplugs” dictum (source: The Wire, issue 488). Was it going to be that loud? TAKAAT is essentially Mdou Moctar’s rhythm section, the pared-down duo of Ahmoudou Madassane (guitar) & Mikey Coltun (bass). Drummer Souleymane Ibrahim wasn’t in attendance, though an inconspicuous rhythm-box lurked amidst Coltun’s pedals, ready to fire off a groove.

Coltun opened with some tidal-wave-shaped bass chords, a mighty backdrop for Madassane’s introduction. From the jump, he chose to shred excessively, establishing the dominant mode of unrepentantly glorious guitar. With all the available white wall space, someone should’ve projected an AI-generated remake of that giant battle scene in 300 where the Greeks and Persians are replaced by armies of Jimi Hendrixes and Randy Holdens, if only I had thought to request it sooner. The duo bounced between drum-loop tracks and percussion-free passages of psychedelic Tuareg desert-rock, a style that even NPR has probably told you about by now. They took turns amping up the energy and lulling us back to safety – I think it’s the same general principle behind water-park wave-pool regulations where they have to turn off the wave machine every fifteen minutes. I’m certain that the promoters weren’t properly insured for the occurrence of an entirely dance-oriented setlist.

And speaking of dancing, in an interesting flip of live-music norms, the crowd that gathered beyond the immediate seated area started to dance after a couple of songs, an inverse of the mosh-pit’s typical stage-relative location. The outer-rim dance party continued to grow in strength and number as TAKAAT played on, eventually spilling out directly in front of the band for the final, thrilling number. It was heartwarming and also a little funny, watching this crowd attempt to dance in 3/4 time with any sort of groove; no fewer than two different people pointed out to me the crowd’s likeness to the classic Peanuts dance scene (as a sign of endearment rather than derision, of course). With whatever idiotic “travel ban” is currently in place in this stupid fascist scam country, we shared a collective understanding that there was no straight answer as to when Madassane might be able to return to the US after this tour, or if he’d even feel compelled to do so under the increasingly extenuating circumstances. The preciousness of the moment was not lost on this appreciative crowd, as I weaved past the sizable line to the merch table on my way out.

Carla dal Forno Confession LP (Kallista)
International woman of mystery Carla dal Forno is back, with her first cover photograph that doesn’t look like it was taken by a private investigator – as far as album portraits are concerned, is she this generation’s Jandek? Dal Forno’s hair blowing in the hillside breeze is a fitting image for the music of Confession, which sounds as though an emotional weight has been lifted from her shoulders. The melodies dip out of the shadows and into the light of day… there’s even a song called “Blue Skies”, which I submit as irrefutable evidence of the album’s hopeful slant. As a long-time dal Forno fan, I’m on alert for these subtle differences, as Confession displays the usual similarities to the rest of her discography. She’s been working the dubby bass-line / tiny programmed drums / haunted vocals thing to perfection for years now, but if I’m being honest, I’d love it if she changed up the unwaveringly methodical tempo, verse-chorus song structure and/or instrumentation by a larger increment here or there. That’s not because I don’t enjoy her typical style – I very much do – but because I already have like four or five records of this stuff, and I’m selfishly curious to hear her venture into the unknown. In that regard, Confession might drag a smidge for listeners already intimately familiar with dal Forno’s oeuvre (and, as on previous records, a jerk might describe the instrumental tracks as “filler”), but her charm remains intact. Confession is a great introduction for those unversed in dal Forno’s bewitching post-punk pop, while us established fans (Fornographers?) will enjoy familiarizing ourselves with the new-wave pop nugget “Alone With You” and the acoustic-gaze of “Gave You Up”, two of the album’s highlights.

Del Paxton / Retirement Party Dogeared / Nothing To Hear Without A Sound 12″ (Storm Chasers)
Poppy emo comes from three trustworthy sources: soul-sucking suburbs, quaint college towns and blue-collar cities. Don’t accept it from anywhere else (imagine emo from Los Angeles or Berlin, yuck!), and take comfort in knowing that this handshake-split between Del Paxton and Retirement Party comes from Buffalo and Chicago respectively. Del Paxton won me over with 2023’s Auto Locator, and their three songs here behave similarly, combining the zig-zag guitar parts of Braid with the zhuzh of Glitterer and the boyish charm of The Promise Ring. I just noticed that these songs are all like five minutes long, but they don’t feel long, a testament to their ability to write engagingly. Chicago’s Retirement Party is new to me; these four songs have been called up from the digital Bandcamp minor-leagues to the other side of this vinyl record. Retirement Party have that sort of elder-millennial professional-podcaster vibe that feels unfair of me to say out loud, but I will counter that with the notion that their brand of indie-punk is a whole lot of catchy fun, too. Immediately I’m thinking of Something To Write Home About-era Get Up Kids and the final Jazz June record, but Avery Springer’s got a voice of her own, which has lodged itself in my brain in the form of “Sixth Sense”‘s chorus. I’ll also add that this particular vinyl record is mastered sharp and hot, noticeably louder than most newly-pressed records I pick up these days, even ones on labels with actual budgets for that sort of thing. Multiple lessons on how to do it right await you here.

Disket Running / Vamos A Ganar 7″ (General Speech)
Three members of Disket are sporting impeccable winged eyeliner on the cover and then… the other two failed to complete the assignment. Why not go five for five and achieve maximum punk-rock hotness, dudes? Perhaps they’re working up to it, but either way, this “double A side” single is an excellent start for the new NYC quintet, sporting members of Baby Shakes and fellow General Speech recording-artists Vaxine. Disket play power-pop borne of leather-jacket punk, proving that New York City still imbues some level of urban grit no matter how many Montessori pre-schools and beauty spas for dogs have recently opened. “Running” is ninety seconds of punk ready to make that Rolling Stone “100 Best Punk Albums” list shrivel up like a salted slug. Joan Jett meets Nasty Facts, what else do you need? “Vamos A Ganar” is twice as long, a full three minutes of hip-shaking cheetah-print speed with just enough darkness around its edges, reminiscent of No Hope For The Kids and Gorilla Angreb but spared of any early ’00s feel. The artwork’s soccer (excuse me, football) theme will surely appeal to the elder punks sporting scally caps, sideburns and scarves, though “Running” makes me want to kickflip down a set of stairs with a security guard chasing me as much as score on an in-bound header.

Evil Sword / Miss Pussycat The Skit Split LP (Rhinestone)
On this split between Philadelphia’s Evil Sword and New Orleans’s legendary Miss Pussycat, the hijinks, tomfoolery, whimsy and all-purpose kookiness are maximized. It starts off with Evil Sword, who could misleadingly be described as a bass / drums / vocals duo, as they treat their instruments more like props or noisemakers than the typical elements used to compose rock music. Over stomped-trash percussion, wiggly little bass runs and Looney Tunes sound effects, vocalist Kate Ferencz is a lovable Tasmanian devil, with an elastic, theatrical delivery that reminds me of both Jehnny Beth and Kathy Acker (smushed together under an Acme anvil). Evil Sword’s ten songs follow a script, full of bells, whistles and wacky narration, like one of those mildly hallucinogenic children’s TV shows that young hip parents will insist is actually really good. Miss Pussycat has been putting together her audio plays for decades now: live with puppets, on video with puppets, and on record with the imagination of the listener’s mind’s eye. We get a full eighteen minute audio-play here, “MG Xing Ever Gras”, which follows two kittens through a Mardi Gras costume-shopping adventure, Miss Pussycat’s pitch-shifted vocals as DIY and endearing now as they were twenty years ago. Similar to how Never Mind The Bollocks inspired so many kids to pick up guitars and make wild noise, I can only assume The Skit Split will have a similar effect for slide whistles and papier-mâché.

The Family Men Co/de/termination LP (Welfare Sounds)
If you’re of the same micro-generation as myself, you might’ve discovered major-label alt-rock as a pre-teen by scamming your way through a Columbia House CD haul. It’s with great delight then that I am sharing with you the fact that Co/de/termination, the debut album from Gothenburg’s The Family Men, is wild fun in that sonic tradition. I’m talking Nine Inch Nails, Filter, Ministry, Melvins, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, KMFDM, Orgy, The Jesus Lizard, Skinny Puppy… The Family Men somehow channel all of those freaky legends here, and it’s deeply, infectiously satisfying. That’s what a lot of these modern-day industrial goth-rock acts seem to miss, the sheer excitement of being able to smash keyboards and slam guitars at the same time; The Family Men absolutely go to town, showing everyone how it’s done. Opener “Calamity” is like every ’90s hacker-rave scene jammed together at a dangerous speed, Run Lola Run thrown into a mosh-pit with Go‘s Las Vegas scenes (ie. Fatboy Slim) and Johnny Mnemonic stage-diving. What a rush! It’s not all high-velocity damage though – “AOR” sounds like Tom Morello and Dave Navarro sixty-nineing, whereas “Scanner” is the bowling ball and all these lightweight nu-gaze revivalists are the pins. It’s over the top, unafraid to be cheesy, and just so bold and entertaining that I personally can’t get enough. Why settle for another geriatric reunion tour of ’90s has-beens when the newness and vitality of The Family Men is sitting right here, waiting to be devoured?

Folded Group Folded Group 7″ (Open Mouth)
It happens to the best of us sometimes: Bill Nace is in love. As such, the only reasonable response is to make a record with your beloved, which is how Folded Group came to be. Alongside Nace’s loops, voice and mini-synth, his partner Lena Kolb contributes the sounds of viola, a loom (she’s a weaver / textile artist) and her voice as well (albeit buried far below). The two tracks are abstract and textural – it often feels like I’m listening from the raw thread’s perspective, sharp needles and a rickety machine expertly poking and prodding me into a woven fabric. “Shaft” opens a tiny portal with clicks and warbles, a secret chatroom for crickets to shoot the breeze before Kolb’s voice bubbles up from an underground chamber. “Harness” delves further into clickety-clacks – “shaken bag of seashells” isn’t listed in the credits but they replicate this clatter precisely. Soon enough, Nace’s voice enters through a makeshift flying saucer, Kolb responds even further down in the mix and we’re treated to an intimate conversation rendered unintelligible by effects, like side C of I Am Sitting In A Room, or people moving about behind drawn shades, the blur of shadows only occasionally recognizable as the human form. Although I cannot deny the two nude figures sketched on the cover, or the possible implications of the track titles, I’m not trying to be lascivious here – Folded Group retains its personal privacy nicely, like the locked account of an Onlyfans creator.

Guttersnipe Extinction Burst! LP (Night School)
In 2002, “Oops! The Tour” recalibrated the ears of the American art-punk underground, bringing The Locust, Lightning Bolt and Arab On Radar (and Wolf Eyes and The Flying Luttenbachers and Erase Errata and even The Blood Brothers) to young audiences ready and willing to have their minds blown. That in-your-face noise-punk spirit echoes in the unhinged caterwaul of Guttersnipe’s sophomore album, Extinction Burst!. The Leeds duo play guitar and drums the way a blender plays frozen fruit – after the tentative, sour twinkles that open “Alive On Tuesday”, Guttersnipe jump in feet first without looking, thrashing out lengthy, loosely-structured “songs” not unlike the hot asbestos breath of Air Conditioning and Lambsbread. It’s dense and attention-demanding, with the same predilection for high-note irritants (see “Primordial Invagination”) as Arab On Radar, delivered with the cyclone fury of Lightning Bolt and the room-clearing thrill of Sightings. Much as the class of 2002 had their own perspective and place in the world, Guttersnipe’s is as immediate and unflinching as their prickly, bruising noise-rock: they’re outspoken xenofeminists and happy to explain what that actually means. Like their music, if you’re cool and you get it, it’ll all make perfect sense.

Hand Model & Gloved Hands Chudo Pustih Ruk 7″ (Dumb Edge)
All the essential ingredients for a good minimal-synth project appear in this cover photo: QWERTY keyboard, box-screen monitor, rickety metal table upon which they rest, cheap microphone at waist height and tilt-up garage door to conceal it all from the outside world. It’s the debut EP from Hand Model (the vocals) and Gloved Hands (the music): four sullen gusts of rudimentary synth-pop. While peacefully residing in California, Hand Model (if not also Gloved Hands) is a Russian native, and puts those ESL skills to good use here, dolefully lecturing in his native tongue over Gloved Hands’ routine bleeps, blorps, blops and bloops. “Teflon” might be my favorite, if only because mentions of “Pink Floyd cassette” and “Beach Boys cassette” stick out among the otherwise Russian lyrics – some phrases are simply exclusive to the English language, “Beach Boys cassette” undoubtedly one of them. As is the case with any miniscule-edition lathe-cut record, Chudo Pustih Ruk is more of a curio than a formal release, though in this age of digital supremacy, anyone can type the name and title into their web browser of choice and listen to these songs on Bandcamp within seconds, so there you go. It’s nice to hold it in my hands at least, especially right after pulling it out of the industrial-grade freezer where I keep all my synth-wave singles. Audiophiles take note: they sound best at a crisp 33°F.

Memotone Warm Shadows LP (Accidental Meetings)
Will Yates is one of the most reliable and trustworthy producers of whatever you wanna call today’s post-club avant-garde style: nu-ambient, post-jazz electro, dream-pop, or simply “the list of artists playing Making Time”? One look at Memotone’s discography and you’ll realize you have a lot of catching up to do if not already familiar – Yates has been at it since 2011, and his productivity has risen as of late, with three full-lengths in 2024, two in 2025 and now Warm Shadows to inaugurate 2026. I’d say that Warm Shadows works as a strong overview not just of Memotone, but for the aforementioned (and poorly-designated) genre as a whole, where dub, techno, jazz, ambient, modern composition, post-punk and new-age collide… the sprawling valleys between Laurel Halo, Astrid Sonne and Félicia Atkinson. Opener “Warm Shadow” pairs rain-dappled drums with sweetly seductive horns – file under Sam Gendel / Eli Keszler / Lemon Quartet – and it’s followed by “Laimèti Pavyksta”, which taps into the post-R&B Copenhagen scene care of Ugné Uma’s seductively-aimless vocals. For a change of pace, “Round The Bend” works a rock-band setup (featuring folks from Jabu) for some ’90s-inspired alt-strum you’d expect to hear on the Julia’s War label. It goes on like this: all the niche styles of the cool-kid electronic / indie / experimental section get some shine through these eight tracks, a satisfying Boomkat For Dummies study-guide in one tidy record.

Neptune Play Some Music LP (Sleeping Giant Glossolalia)
There’s just something about a rock band starting off as a “sculpture project” that lends itself to kicking ass. That’s Neptune’s story at least, and it dates back quite a while, somehow to 1994 in fact; the group has maintained a somewhat consistent presence since. The whole sculpture thing is also an active concern, as Neptune perform their post-hardcore on literally-homemade instruments – their brutalist metallic pieces aren’t trying to cosplay as Fender knockoffs. That’s a strong enough gimmick for a mediocre group to comfortably coast on, but Neptune are a cut above. Their music retains an enigmatic edge, with shamanic drumming and guitars that grind like molasses mixed with playground sand. The sonic elements are ready and waiting to slap you unconscious, which is why Play Some Music is particularly infatuating – Neptune never move in for the knockout blow. Instead, these songs creep around the corners of the room like feral animals trapped in a human residence, burrowing under furniture and attacking only if provoked. Think of Crash Worship and Missing Foundation if they made it to middle-age and matured into nuance, smarter, calmer and more self-assured than their violent twenties. The vocals (from both drummer Daniel Boucher and guitarist Jason Sanford) are downright sedative, their soft-spoken voices arriving like nurses during a surgery you somehow retained a slight consciousness through. If they added some synthetic atmosphere, it might be haunting, but Neptune refuse to lean on cheap tricks. These three guys all wear corrective lenses now; they can see right through that nonsense.

Saint Abdullah & Jason Nazary Wiretaps For Oral LP (Disciples)
Iranian-Canadian duo Saint Abdullah and American jazz drummer Jason Nazary hit us with a sublime “two different radios playing at the same time” vibe on Wiretaps For Oral. Any two sounds can be mashed together – whether or not it works is an entirely different story – but the mix of Saint Abdullah’s rapid-cut sampling and Nazary’s crisply improvised percussion is choice. For starters, I’m not entirely sure how they did it, which is a positive trait. The radio / television / street / field samples of Saint Abdullah come fast and layered, like one of those Glands Of External Secretion summits with Orchid Spangiafora, and Nazary seems to be interacting with them in real-time (not entirely unlike Jack Bauer), sticking and weaving through the chop of uncredited voices. At times, it can feel like Madlib’s sampling techniques at his most frenzied – maybe it’s the occasional dip into boom-bap trap-kit drumming – but it also feels like something from the insane and unknowable deep-end of the Sublime Frequencies label… the final mysterious transmission from Alan Bishop before he walks into the Sahara, never to return, Chris Corsano sunburnt and searching for his friend. “Strangers At The Gun Range” is a personal favorite, a low-slung drag-and-scrape that splits the difference between an MF Doom instrumental interlude and, I dunno, Esplendor Geométrico? Even if it was all meticulously edited from files without any in-person collaboration (I don’t know either way), Wiretaps For Oral shoots sparks.

Schatterau Wir Gingen Durch Leere Stunden LP (Hands In The Dark)
Wir Gingen Durch Leere Stunden is the third full-length from German duo Schatterau, and it’s another hefty collection (fifteen tracks!) of bespoke sonic cinema. As beguilingly German as pumpernickel bread, Schatterau sketch out multiple variations on the same emotional themes of isolation, sorrow and beauty. I’d also add “confusion” to that list, but that one’s on me, as I remain pitifully non-fluent in German and its various regional dialects. The soft-spoken voices spotlighted here provide me with sentiment if not understanding. The resulting album sounds barrel-aged, “songs” rich with flavorful sediment and minerals that took time to seep in. I feel like you could still vaguely connect Schatterau’s last LP to post-punk, but Wir Gingen Durch Leere Stunden is smooth as a rain-slicked granite slab – imagine if some of those extremely mature ’80s post-punk acts like The Blue Nile, Eyeless In Gaza or Section 25 were stripped bare of rock aesthetics and traded in for soft tape loops, melodious drones, looming bass-lines, delicate synthesizers and a crumpled sketch of Klaus Kinski drawn by Graham Lambkin. In that way, they’re similar to Deux Filles or Brannten Schnüre, but all of these duos have succeeded in crafting their own vivid realms, like neighboring theaters in a particularly exciting art-house district.

Seefeel Sol.Hz LP (Warp)
I love the concept of guitar bands who evolved / dissolved into electronic music over time, real or imagined. Black Dice is a good one; I think legends like Kraftwerk and New Order mostly count too, and Seefeel as well, whose early and sustained Warp Records affiliation confirmed their outsider status. While I understand that the sound of the guitar still exists within Sol.Hz (care of founding member Mark Clifford), it’s as obscured and unrecognizable as any of the sounds he’s drafted up here. Clifford handles mostly everything besides vocals (contributed by longstanding Seefeel member Sarah Peacock), and the artwork and typeface, both redolent of the spaceship interfaces you’d find in Ridley Scott’s last few Alien films, confirm the music’s sense that ancient organic life has given way to futuristic electronic processes. I’ve seen Sol.Hz described as Seefeel’s “dub record”, and I’m not sure I’m totally hearing that – there are a few tracks that manage to keep their feet firmly planted in bass, but the beats are as apprehensive and guarded as you’d expect to find on a Pop Ambient compilation, light palpitations caught in the ambient swirl like the heartbeat of a fetus. The whole record hovers cautiously in the distance, often more typically categorizable as intros, segues and outros than songs. That seems to be the point – even at their most rock-oriented, Seefeel’s music has always revealed an aeriform condition, like one of those surreal gas-giant planets, surfaceless and sprawling.

Who Cares? Who Cares? 7″ (Purely Physical Teeny Tapes)
Alright, so the name of this group makes you think of the thirtieth-best band on some Mystic Records comp from 1983, but those of you willing to look past your unfounded assumptions will be richly rewarded by this fantastic EP. Who Cares? are a trio out of Melbourne, not a city in dire need of more ramshackle indie-pop, though none of it offers the same heady, witchy aura of Who Cares?. An acoustic guitar’s chords are strummed over atmospheres both ominous and tender while Zarnie Morcombe’s vocals shine like a candle carried down a centuries-old hallway. It’s like if Comus were a UK DIY group who only released one seven-inch in 1979, Anika lost at sea in a paddleboat with an acoustic guitar, or a Ouija board that occasionally flirts back. “Discipline” isn’t a Throbbing Gristle cover, but the title couldn’t be a total accident – either way, it’s one singing-saw away from a classic Black Heart Procession tune. These are four pop songs, no doubt, but with an alluring, occult-like pull that reminds me of those incredible Ssabæ and Bassæ records on the Few Crackles label, a nascent magic (or is nü mægik more appropriate) strain of quiet underground guitar music to unite us. Recommended!

World I Hate Total Nuclear Annihilation LP (Convulse)
It’s simple, really: if Infest started in 2020 instead of 1986, they’d be World I Hate. This Milwaukee group simply sounds more pissed-off and brutal than their peers, with songs capable of the most dangerous parkour moves, scaling vertical surfaces and hurdling gaps that risk severe bodily harm. Their music pops every visible vein, a non-stop intensity from dirge-paced pile-ons (“Incentivized”) to grind-core immolation (“Closing In”) and what sounds like Integrity turned up to eleven (“Bullshit Faucet”). Their songs are agile and monstrous, very much in line with Infest’s No Man’s Slave, but there’s also the clear and present influence of today’s beatdown hardcore flavors. I have no doubt these guys enjoy Trapped Under Ice (they named their band after a TUI lyric), Fury Of Five and Bulldoze, and that appreciation finds novel ways to seep into their songwriting. It’s an ingredient but not the dominant one, as World I Hate are at their peak when blasting out pitch-perfect grind – the title track is up there with Terrorizer and Insect Warfare, a statement I don’t make lightly. If World I Hate didn’t have the benefit of forty-five years of the form to draw from, I might even be so bold as to say that Total Nuclear Annihilation bests some of the undisputed legends at this extreme form of hardcore, but I don’t want to get carried away. What I know for sure is that some of World I Hate’s peers are playing ADIDAS cross-fit brand-activation parties, and they should tread lightly: World I Hate could easily grind their bones to make their bread.

YGR: Alright, so I don’t think I would have predicted your choice of “I Let Him Deal” if you gave me a dozen guesses. Why’s this your worst?

DG: Well truth be told it started out as my favorite song on Carnation. In fact, I drove out to Chicago mainly to get my man Jim Elkington’s chilly, serpentine guitar style laid down on top of it. And I thought what he did on this was awesome, to be honest its only redeeming quality. But prior to bringing it to Randall Dunn, the producer of Carnation, the song was quiet, dreadful, dreamy, with percussive elements so teensy that the song felt like malarial delirium. I wasn’t quite done shaping, but I knew that there was room for a more dynamic chorus, and probably only something a studio session could deliver. I wanted the thing to feel like waking up from a gentle nightmare on a raft in a slow moving river into a paralyzing death by orgasm or something.

So our first stop on the recording tour was in LA at Matt Chamberlain’s studio. And again this song was at the forefront of my mind, not as a single really, but something I thought was the most evocative, a centerpiece if you will. Matt is a brilliant drummer, Randall a brilliant producer, what could go wrong? But I have a strong belief that an entire song is shaped by the sonic character of a snare drum. This, unfortunately, is modern music making and the snare is the fulcrum by which all of culture spins. So we tracked drums, I told Matt to go with the guts. And what he played was something so huge, so burly, and so sharp, that I immediately got tricked by its power. Now the song takes a new direction in my mind. Big mistake. I was already off course, but it’s something I’d agreed with.

The problem with a big snare drum in a verse is you leave nothing for a death by orgasm chorus. It was a tense, dreadful verse, with smoky, mutating Lynch guitars, only now with a big ol’ crack every two and four. So we sauntered up to Seattle to finish with other musicians. And because of that snare drum, we had to start adding competitive sonics; beefy guitar strums, gnarled synths, the whole thing. Maybe even a freakin’ horn. Problem is, the chorus was already built with subtle washes, and kind of complicated vocal melodies and harmonies. It’s propulsive, but not something that asked for the musical equivalent of Mankind falling from a sixteen-foot tall cage onto an announcers table. And that was when I knew something was really wrong. Now we’re chasing around bigness in a song that wanted to be creeping and seductive, but way smaller. Like a hot, but evil, fairy.

So the entire time during mixing I’m just wincing. Everything cool is getting washed away in large, stray sonic ideas. I protested but keep getting reassured that it’s fine. I’m telling you the outburst bubbling up in me about this mess would have destroyed the entire session right there, I was feeling very Klaus Kinski about it. But you get second guessing in the presence of maybe more experienced producers who you respect and admire. So I just shut the fuck up.

At the end of it, we added so much horseshit to that damned chorus, just to get it to keep up with a snare drum that was already leaving the song bereft of dynamics in the verses. Chasing around a Sasquatch when I had something menacingly delicate in the first half hour of the song’s life. So yeah, if it were possible to break the “skip” button on your music system of choice I would have done it every time this song was on deck.

YGR: Can you think of any instances where a sort of ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’ moment struck gold for you? Or one where perhaps your initial vision was switched up for something you liked more in the end?

DG: I’m usually tyrannical in a studio setting where other musicians are involved. John Baizley came into the Me Moan sessions completely hobbled by a terrible accident Baroness had in England. I mean, he wanted to do the session, but in the moments of tracking, my sympathies seemed to melt away and I worked him extremely hard. Consequently, I too suffered during those sessions from extremely high blood pressure. I went to a doctor in downtown Chicago complaining of dizziness and unusual fatigue and she mentioned being one systolic point away from the ER.

So by the time of the Carnation sessions I made a conscientious effort to tolerate just about everything. The result is a record I don’t listen to very often.

But to your second question, one song I love a lot that turned around completely was called “Won’t You Climb” on Me Moan. I tell you I grinded on that bastard for months trying to unlock what I insanely thought could be Glenn Campbell mixed with something off Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III, mixed with “Steal My Sunshine” or some other 90’s Mixolydian slice of heaven. Anyway in this case persistence paid off by one single lift of a bass note going into the chorus. Song unlocked and under my nose the entire time.

Choncy Trademark LP (Feel It)
It was only a matter of time before someone in Choncy decamped to New York City – you can’t play punk this swaggery without feeling compelled to try to make it in the Big Apple. Some of the more conservative members of the group remained in Cincinnati, where one can survive by working twelve hours a week at the Feel It record shop and snacking on buckeye nuts fresh from the tree, and thus Trademark was born (and recorded) in joint custody. Not that you can tell – these jokers sound tighter than ever, weaving their influences (punk, post-punk, egg-punk, garage-punk, hardcore-punk, not ska-punk (yet)) into a tangle you won’t want to escape. Imagine Parquet Courts going twice as fast, Uranium Club if they could grow facial hair, Le Shok if they never tried cocaine or the perfect Mother’s Day gift for the mom who only listens to Sweeping Promises, Plugz and Eddy Current Suppression Ring. These guys are subtly wacky in a modern way (mustaches, glasses, props and other aesthetic choices not entirely dissimilar to Oliver Tree) that can easily lead to solo-laptop hyper-pop projects, so I’m glad the four of them decided to be a band instead, their individual powers boosted in the form of a traditional rock band. If you love Choncy, let them go – if they manage to stay a band after driving across all of Ohio and Pennsylvania and back, it was meant to be.

John Dieterich & Michael Krassner Bullish(ish) LP (Moone)
Beloved American indie-rocker John Dieterich (of Deerhoof, outspoken Spotify hatred and a million other creative and/or noble causes) makes friends everywhere he goes. This includes Phoenix, AZ, where he met fellow guitarist Michael Krassner and subsequently played together back in 2018. Their introduction led to a weekend-long recording sesh in Krassner’s studio, which led to the recordings I am about to describe to you, Bullish(ish). The a-side reveals loose, bantery guitar-improv, full of garbled half-riffs, off-kilter amp tricks and polite conversations in noise. When it teeters towards some scantily-clad form of the blues, I’m reminded of Tetuzi Akiyama’s improvisations, though the overall feel lingers closer to the stringy, sticky mess of Bill Nace’s solo guitar recordings and Max Nordile’s musical negations. The b-side offers an entirely different frame of mind, heavenly harmonic drones that rise, crest and decay with the grace of William Basinski on roller-skates. For a duo who just met, the b-side feels surprisingly vulnerable and personal, like a couple moving in together after only a handful of dates. I guess that’s what Dieterich does to you – you think your heart’s gone cold and then he shows up at your doorstep with a bouquet of tulips tucked under his guitar’s strings.

Ecology: HomeStones The Cruel Quick Reverse LP (no label)
Lots of artists are interested in the idea of building a world around their music, but in the case of Ecology: HomeStones, the music seems to be but one aspect of an already sprawling cosmos. Having garnered a massive online following from an ongoing series of uniquely peculiar video shorts (the kids watch them on the TikTok), I’d like to relate The Cruel Quick Reverse as the sonic extension of Ecology: HomeStones’ dark-web presence, but that might be confusing because I’m not referring to the parts of the internet that avoid Google’s indexing – I’m talking about an actual dark web, a crawlspace overrun with generations of arachnids, poorly lit and crammed with detritus. Many of those Ecology: HomeStones fans who come for the videos might be baffled by The Cruel Quick Reverse, but those of us with a penchant for gnarly home-brewed electronics will immediately connect. Picture Mat Brinkman’s Forcefield project (costumes included) given a modern blade-sharpening ala Vessel’s Punish, Honey. The serrated electro-rhythms unlock novel ways to pulsate madly, strobe with epileptic danger and trudge ahead on dying batteries. “Buddycrusher” is like Queens Of The Stone Age bum-rushing a New Blockaders performance; “Fear Of Objects” is Coil without the weekend-long bout of ketamine constipation. Compared to the more abstract, harsh-noise textures of previous Ecology: HomeStones musical releases, The Cruel Quick Reverse is practically pop, at least for those of us who find Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” as old-time cutesy as “Surfing Bird”. I’m personally too scared to ever watch an Ecology: HomeStones feature-length film if/when it arrives, so The Cruel Quick Reverse is the perfect solution.

Sam Gendel & Sam Wilkes Unrelated LP (Sam Gendel)
Few albums touched me like Music For Saxofone & Bass Guitar, 2018’s emergent duo recording from Sams Wilkes and Gendel. It revealed hidden tunnels between conservatory jazz and weirdo new-wave post-punk, delivering the epiphany that not only could you combine elements from both, the results could be quite thrilling (but in a chill way). Since that time, Gendel has released about a metric ton of albums: all sorts of collaborations, traditional ideas, triple LPs, bizarre experiments… he’s been going for it. It’s great to see Gendel and Wilkes back together with a similarly-designed (if you wanna call it that) cover, but the results are decidedly whatever. Whereas that original collab paired curious melodies from bass and “saxofone” (both in composition and texture), Unrelated doesn’t seem to have the same level of big, cool ideas behind it. Loops linger in place, with a focus on synths and pads, and resolve without undue delay. File under chill-wave, if there’s still any room left for new records to be filed there, though the genre’s sense of esoteric wonder is absent. The ECM smoothness isn’t stark enough, the emotion is hard to place, and even the cheese isn’t cheesy enough. Gendel’s discography is full of truly incredible records, as well as records that kinda miss the mark for me; unfortunately, this one’s landing in the latter category.

Gush Splash Of Milk LP (Huntleys + Palmers)
Steven Warwick drafted some of the finest wackadoodle art-pop of the 2010s, first as Heatsick and then under his own name. (He also delivered the reportedly drunkest performance of all time at Philadelphia dive-bar Kungfu Necktie back then, which is neither here nor there.) Show me what you’ve done lately, I say to anyone of this (still ongoing but) post-Covid era, and he’s answered with Splash Of Milk. Gush features Warwick on vocals (and presumably some programming) alongside Iván Brito, whose Vanya project exudes a similarly over-the-top approach to electronic dance (question mark) music. If you told me Slash Of Milk was a new Heatsick record I wouldn’t think twice, as the music continues to gesticulate like an Optimo DJ set with the erudite humor that can only be unleashed by gay men in vibrantly-colored outfits. There’s certainly a “Walter van Beirendonck at Berghain” sensibility at play here, from the alarming cartoon cow on the cover to the commingling of camp, aloofness and hedonism, all with an effortlessly cool soundtrack. Warwick remains an excellent narrator, shouting over the post-punk breakbeats of “Over” like a voguing Sleaford Mods and channelling the kind of synth sleaze that Dark Entries has spent tens of thousands of dollars reissuing on “Naked In Netto”. I’m only smart enough to understand half of what’s happening here, and I’m perfectly satisfied – imagine what it could do for someone like you!

Indikator B S/T II 7″ (General Speech)
Contrary to the plethora of record covers that showcase the violent, outrageous energy of hardcore-punk, I love when bands take a more honest approach. Look at the shadowy figure on the cover of Indikator B’s second self-titled EP… hands in pockets and shoulders hunched, he’s sandwiched between graveyard fence and prison fence, awaiting a bus that will never arrive. It really sets the mood for this Croatian hardcore band – their music rages with a post-war coldness, the scent of societal failure lingering in the air. “Ovdje, Baš Tu” is panicked and guarded, to be played with fingerless wool gloves and a moth-eaten scarf blocking the bottom half of your face, like Kalashnikov’s sole EP and Junior Achievement’s (likewise sole) LP. Unlike much of today’s hardcore-punk (even the really good stuff), these four songs don’t sound like the product of thorough studying, but rather a natural reaction to life’s pressures. The guitar is raw like The Faith, and vocalist Karlo (who also plays the guitar) knows when to throw in a melodic ahh-ahh-ahh (just once, halfway through “Zadnja Stanica”). At three minutes, “Ukopani” walks with a limp as it mourns some sort of tragedy. Indikator B are clawing their way out of the muck, even if muck is all that’s visible for miles around. Recommended!

Intensified Chaos That’s Not Freedom 1982 LP (Nausea)
The 1982 Maximumrocknroll compilation Not So Quiet On The Western Front wasn’t simply a formative record for my personal journey into underground punk, it was the record, played incessantly once I hooked up my parents’ old turntable a good thirteen years after it was released. Intensified Chaos kicked it off with the magic of a song also called “Intensified Chaos”, and while those fifty-five seconds are permanently etched into my memory, I now have five other tunes and a live set to enjoy in the form of That’s Not Freedom 1982. Good news: “Intensified Chaos” is featured not once but thrice here (the Not So Quiet version, mysteriously lacking the original sample, plus two live versions), and while the other songs are on par as far as sound quality and style, like many obscure punk reissues, it’s a release that best serves enthusiasts and completists, not dabblers, poseurs or cops. I personally can’t get enough of vocalist Rob Noxious’s phony British street-punk accent (he’s gotta be what, one of at least a thousand “Rob Noxious”es out there), and it was illuminating to hear his self-described boot-boy status (“Boot Boys”) and religious haranguing of the audience (“Romans I & II (Live)”). Even with a growing number of retrospective collections from this unruly stable of bands (that Maniax Lost Tapes collection remains the pinnacle), so many mysteries from the Not So Quiet roster remain – who will pry open the remaining vaults of Lennonburger, Bent Nails (pre-Mr. T Experience!) and Juvinel Justice?

Jailed Rebirth EP 7″ (Olde Fade / Carnalismo)
From the ashes of West Bay hardcore outfit Healer comes Jailed, committed to holding down the strict gangsta integrity of Plutocracy and No Less. Healer’s nimble, blinked-and-missed approach to post-power-violence hardcore-grind is sanded down to an even sharper point as Jailed; while there are nine different tracks on this EP, I’d be surprised if the entire record breaks three minutes. In true West Bay fashion, song and dialogue samples bridge these microscopic hardcore blasts, almost all thematically linked to heavy drinking here. The songs themselves are two or three parts at best, epitomizing the short, fast and loud aesthetics that a zine dedicated to this particular scene once named itself after. It’s almost as if those Bllleeeeaaauuurrrrgghhh! comps were the work of one focused band, completely content with writing songs that are shorter than the average professional bull ride. I’m not entirely sure who is in Jailed versus who was in Healer – it’s probable that Tony Molina and Frank Marchi (of Agents Of Satan and Plutocracy!) are/were in both – but this scene has always venerated the tightness of the crew over the popularity of a specific individual. We could learn a lot from them: the power of the tightly-knit collective and danked-out hardcore riffs.

Jump Source Fold 2xLP (NAFF)
Jump Source throw it back to the cusp of the digital era with their full-length debut, when stuffing a compact disc with music was your best bet for getting your name out there. Fold has that turn-of-the-century dance-music feel of albums-as-events, where a single, lengthy release was purposely crafted to navigate all of the evening’s moods, from lightweight warm-ups to ecstatic release to post-rave comedowns. And they nail it! The Montreal duo’s nimble, pop-friendly techniques hit big here, calling to mind all of those indispensable Luomo albums (some of which still somehow haven’t been pressed on vinyl). Cool guests vocalists are all over this one: Helena Deland is a provocative diva on multiple tracks, POiSON GiRL FRiEND offers her uniquely narcoleptic charm on “Close”, and you’ve even got billy woods’s breathless flow on “Empty Bars” in true Galcher Lustwerk fashion. These eleven tracks bridge the gap between short-form pop nuggets and extended dance mixes, ready to engage today’s dopamine-damaged Instagram user-base as much as old-heads who fondly recall digging through bins of well-worn Kompakt, Force Tracks and Perlon twelve-inches (back when hamburgers cost a nickel and rent was pay-what-you-wish). If I blare “Fold” loud enough in the dark, I find myself transported to a pre-9/11 dance-floor… maybe it’s still the year 2000 in Canada?

Landowner Assumption LP (Exploding In Sound)
Assumption is an indie post-punk record vividly, indisputably borne of Trump’s second term. Even the privileged are no longer able to smirk their way through things: the dark comedy of it all has simply turned dark, those hurt before are hurt worse, the rest of us newly hurt, and Landowner are painfully aware of these pitiful circumstances, seamlessly infusing it into their music. With nary a distortion- or fuzz-pedal in sight, the dual-guitared quintet set their fingers ablaze with simple-yet-maddeningly-cyclical patterns as vocalist Dan Shaw reads today’s internet back into our wearied faces. Right now, it’s unpleasant to dwell on, but if we someday come out of this on a happier, greener side, schoolteachers will look to “Expensive Rent”, “Assumption” and “Unboxing” to explain what American life in the 2020s was like to their engaged student body. When the songs are fast, they share the feel of RMFC (like a rollercoaster with the brake lines cut), and when they move a little slower I’m reminded of The Embarrassment and The Feelies. It’s the snark of Shellac with the acumen of Protomartyr that shines through consistently, and Landowner, uh, own it. The world really doesn’t need any more self-assured white guys telling it (hollering it) like it is, but until we somehow manage to learn more productive social skills, Landowner’s Assumption is a positive outcome.

Mai Mai Mai Karakoz LP (Maple Death)
Italian artist Antonio Tricoli has pursued a darkened path through noise, industrial and experimental territories for over a decade now. These travels have been more than just conceptual: in 2024, he underwent a six-week residency in Palestine (care of Radio Alhara), in what must have been a deeply emotional (and undoubtedly dangerous) engagement with traditional musicians from Bethlehem and Ramallah. Palestinian artists such as Ussama Abu Ali and Maya Al Khaldi contribute to Karakoz, an album that is not simply inspired by Palestine and its people – it couldn’t exist without it. Understanding this, Tricoli is more of an assembler than a composer here, blending traditional singing, percussion, the yarghul and the bouzuq (and archival recordings from the Palestinian Sound Archive) among his own understated synth warbles and humming textures. The similarities to works by Muslimgauze and Zoviet: France are overt, though it feels like Mai Mai Mai really has skin in the game, a grateful outsider who lived alongside and learned from this resilient, besieged population. The progenitors of industrial music have alleged that their shock tactics were in hopes of pulling back the curtains of social decorum and revealing the unflinching truths of the world. Some misguidedly interpreted that as infatuations with serial-killers, BDSM or even right-wing theories, but for Mai Mai Mai, it’s the mournful beauty of Karakoz.

The Reds, Pinks & Purples Acknowledge Kindness LP (Fire)
It’s crazy to me how people continue to hem and haw over supporting Morrissey in 2026 when Glenn Donaldson is calmly sitting right over here, absolutely not preaching xenophobia or right-wing nonsense. And removing the personal from the equation, Donaldson’s work as The Reds, Pinks & Purples is culminating into some quiet form of genius regardless of how you stack it, his charming, insightful, whip-smart lyrics central to the experience. The music has always seemed to arrive painlessly for Donaldson, quick sketches of silver-lined indie-pop to carry his words (ala The Cure, Another Sunny Day, Brighter, etc.), but Acknowledge Kindness feels ever so slightly more labored over, as though there might have been someone else in the room during the recording process. There are overdubs and distinctive leads, with various shimmering textures to pad out the sentimental moods while stepping out of the closed-door bedroom and into the fading sunset horizon. “Houses” could be his Goo Goo Dolls “Iris” – it has that same tender, catchy sway – but it never feels like Donaldson is toying with our emotions so much as bloodletting his own. He’s written an incredible number of songs in the last few years, and I’m glad that process took him to “Emo Band”, an appropriately stinging take on the reunion industrial complex: “I saw your emo band / keep it going if you can / another show, can you still pretend / to have feelings inside again”. You can scream and curse all you want in your songs; Donaldson’s droll delivery is responsible for some of the most brutal blows.

Elori Saxl & Henry Solomon Seeing Is Forgetting LP (True Panther Sounds)
Might this be the first True Panther Sounds release that actually sounds like a true panther sound? Keyboardist Elori Saxl and woodwindist Henry Solomon have struck dusky, velvety gold with this collaborative album, comfortably situated within today’s neo-new-age jazz-ambient fallout zone but an exemplary offering at that. Saxl’s keys radiate warmth like the belly of a sleeping cat – just peep the restorative flutter of “Dream” and nestle in close. If Brian Eno was an electric vehicle, you’d want to hook him up to this track when his battery light starts flashing. These nine tracks follow their own paths, be they playful dance choreography, fog-sector levitations or jazz-in-dub, all with the high-gloss shine of modern pop production. Unhurried, outward-facing and opulent, Seeing Is Forgetting often feels like curtains pulled wide open after weeks of rain. Opener “Reverence” reminds me of Earthensea’s recent live performances (a lone saxophone beaming out all the stars of the galaxy); “Raindrops” feels attuned to Laurel Halo’s exotic-virtuoso landscapes. “A Thousand Steps” is the cosmic jazz-trance cousin of Donna Lewis’s “I Love You Always Forever” you might not have thought you needed… but I knew. I knew.

Yu Su Foundry LP (Short Span)
I wish there was another way, but really, you just have to send all your money to Short Span. I know, it’s climbing up to like fifty bucks an album now, and it hurts, but in the end it’s only money, and you’ll have a stack of exceptionally-crafted electronic records to enjoy in perpetuity. With every detail smartly considered (right down to the artwork design), Short Span Cares™, so the ongoing partnership with talented and adventurous producer Yu Su makes perfect sense. This relatively succinct album builds off last year’s twelve-inch single – “Foundry” was the a-side of that one, and its encore appears here in the same party-pumping guise, the upbeat centerpiece of a collaboration-friendly album whose gorgeous still-life electronics generally maintain a lowkey demeanor. “Os Cionn” plays with light and texture in a way that almost feels like techno, and “Ripe Fruits” pulses through a number of ornate little rooms, but Foundry on the whole welcomes seated, motionless listening. “Sunless” (featuring Memotone) trips out on some Jon Hassell-esque new-age styles; the Seefeel-assisted “One Place After Another” lounges on the softer side of electronic shoegaze techniques before a dream-like spoken word borrows stage settings from The NeverEnding Story (1984, dir. Wolfgang Petersen). It’s peak-operational Yu Su: graceful, playful electronic music that sways like fields of tulips in colors you’ve never before seen. Remind yourself of this when you overdraft your account for the second time in a month.

Zaliva-D 好奇 Curiosity LP (SVBKVLT)
There are claims that electronic duo Zaliva-D hail from Beijing, but the slimy metallic residue that trails behind their music appears interplanetary in origin. I often seek out techno and industrial music that comes with an otherworldly sheen, but few aspects of Zaliva-D’s music are customary or routine. The pacing is ritualistically slow, their sounds merge the animalistic and the digital, and perhaps their most signature motif is this crazed, vocoder-like effect that simulates some big wet slug baby giving birth to goats, over and over again, the viscera all different neon shades of green and purple. Real body-horror electronics: the dank slurp of “长淫 Long Obscenity” spells it out quickly, whereas “不是歌谣 Inexistent Ballad” is Drexciya at quarter-speed, with some sort of parasitic nest lurking behind the walls. Amazingly, Zaliva-D have developed this sound for over a decade now, 好奇 Curiosity their most purposeful and direct statement yet, substituting some semblance of pop structures in place of the harsher tones of prior releases. That’s ostensibly a repeated verse happening on “蟒头果实 Boa-Head”, even if it sounds like an eel has wriggled down the vocalist’s esophagus prior to singing. For however weird I’m making 好奇 Curiosity out to be, trust me – it’s actually weirder.

Our persistence was rewarded with Cleveland’s Yambag, who played shortly after what ended up being our perfectly-timed arrival. They play what I will accept as my favorite form of hardcore: blasting fast-core with grind and US ’82 influences. The singer’s bucket hat flew off within a couple songs and they absolutely flew through what must’ve been a lengthy selection of tunes, enough song titles to fill one of OFF!’s Dead Sea Scrolls-looking set-lists. Drummer Drew Vaccaro set his crash cymbals at a comical height ala Lucky Lehrer, and as I watched the right wrist of bassist Nick Kroh vibrating in place for twenty minutes straight, my own carpal tunnel symptoms started to flare up in empathy. As my friend pointed out, they were undeniably “tour tight”, and the crowd response was accordingly appreciative, full of unserious sideways speed-walking, fevered fist pumps, a small handful of firecrackers (which continue to follow Cleveland hardcore bands around since Nine Shocks Terror first cursed the city), and some of the weakest approximations of Ray Cappo’s iconic toe-touch jumps I’ve ever seen. It was glorious.

Reek Minds were next, and I want to take a moment to say that I love when bands have such a unified look that they could pass as siblings or cousins (or at least’d make sense crawling out of the same manhole). These shaved-head mooks look like they benchpress cinderblocks and eat collared-shirt wearers like me for breakfast, and they clearly knew they had the tunes we all wanted to hear: ugly thrashing power-violence mixed up in a scrum with Poison Idea and the X-Claim! discography. If the number of beer cans hurled at the performing band were counted as votes, Reek Minds easily won the evening, and they even upped the ante by introducing dirt and gravel as possible projectiles – the vocalist’s only real banter was a strained “give me… dirt!”, and he didn’t have to ask twice. Instead, he screamed so hard that the speakers would frequently overload and cut out, giving his voice the feel of a garbled trumpet – Gutalax, eat your heart out! While the portable PA and outdoor acoustics make for a less-than-desirable sound, Reek Minds sounded surprisingly full as the air turned chilly; even the drummer’s snare, somewhat lost in the wind for Yambag, cut through nice and sharp. When the apocalypse inevitably arrives, I want these guys on my side – after their music blows the windows out of a Cybertruck, the five of them could lift it and toss it in the river.

While listed first on the flyer, Early Grave grabbed the headlining spot, a practical move to keep their local friends in check (and make sure the out-of-towners had their fun, in the case of a bust). For as ramshackle as the show was, they were the first band to suffer any real sort of technical difficulties – at first the faltering microphone, and later the bass amp after two rowdy showgoers piggypack-rode directly into it. Those were only slight hiccups for this great new Philly trio, who harnessed the slimy menace of Crazy Spirit and Dawn Of Humans with their grotesque interpretation of hardcore-punk. The vocalist barked his vocals from under a tight black hoodie (a poise and stature redolent of Poison Ruïn’s Mac Kennedy), and they kept pace with the touring acts nicely. For whatever reason, it took a few songs to warm up what was an already-warmed-up crowd, but once things were in full swing they truly swung, with the widest, dustiest pit actions going off and surprisingly few bodies hitting the floor (mercifully so, as the ground’s craggy cement chunks and sewage run-off could cut your skin and infect it in one fluid motion). They sounded great, though as I watched Jim Shomo (of Dark Thoughts and Delco MFs) absolutely raging along in stationary position (when he wasn’t actively helping to fix the mic or bass), I couldn’t help but think that hardcore bands usually have stand-alone lead vocalists for good time-tested reason. Had Shomo grabbed the mic and took over for a few songs, I would’ve had no choice but to crawl up the bridge’s graffiti-covered pier by my fingernails and backflip down into the shadows. Instead, we made a hasty exit on the smooth side of the Superfund landfill this time, microplastics and silica dust shining our way along the dirt path like magic treasure.

Some thirteen years ago, I interviewed Tony Molina for this very blog, and when I came up with the idea for this new Worst Song series, he was high on my list of hopeful contributors. His discography runs deep, with a list of songwriting credits that must run into three figures, and as his quality has always run high, I was dying to know what he felt worst about. Tony has taken a strict anti-social media, anti-internet, anti-promotion stance for a few years now, and it was only him wanting to “own up to making bad music” (his words, not mine!) that he decided to participate. I do miss his online banter (he once described a Trump vs. Clinton presidential debate as “two fools who have never heard Excruciating Terror”), though I am thankful for his wonderful music and the inspiration to throw my phone in a lake, or at least turn my laptop off once in a while. His worst song can be found here.

YGR: Alright – so why is “No One Told He” your worst song?

TM: Before we get into that, we should start with that I got sober in August of 2022 and am still sober today, no alcohol, no drugs, and I even quit cigs in July of last year. I think this song was written in 2014 when my drinking took an ugly-ass turn, as it did all the time, progressively, until I quit. I was real faded and very sick in all aspects when this song came about. I think at the time in my barely-functioning, cooked-ass brain I thought I was doing some kind of ‘68 Beatles / George Harrison nod with this one. Now in 2026, I have the mental clarity to realize that this song is more of a nightmare early ’70s soft rock AM radio, Crosby Stills & Nash, barefoot-bearded guy, CIA plant, hanging in the Canyon asshole nightmare song from hell. Basically everything gross, swagless and bad is front and center in this song.

There’s a part in the Stooges doc where Iggy is talking about The Stooges being a direct response to the late ’60s hippie-lite, boardroom-created, sellout federal-agent music that “still smells”. This song is totally coming from those things Iggy and co. were railing against.

YGR: As a sober person, are you happier with your songwriting in general? Or is that not a significant influence in the quality of your work either way, and it just happened to take a wrong turn for you here?

TM: No, I made a lot of bad music in my drinking years, I just think this one is number one. One character defect I can tell you about is that when I was drinking, bad music would find its way into my life. There’s a lot of manipulating factors out there, if you go on the internet at any time there’s a million people on there trying to sell you objectively bad music and then trying to manipulate you into believing it is good. And then you got played! I think I just didn’t have the mental clarity or intuition or any real ability to know what was what back then. I quit social-media for good in 2016, so those two things – being offline and sobriety – restored my overall focus, taste, ability, work ethic, and I also got more serious about record collecting and digging deeper and educating myself on music more than making music myself, all those things times ten. It’s like night and day, the difference.

YGR: This feels like sage advice, no joke. Any tips for those who want to kick social media (or drugs) but don’t feel empowered enough to do so?

TM: I think the first thing is understanding that Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, the Spotify slimebag, Jack Dorsey, and any / all of these techie gentrifier colonizer pigs are true scum of the earth that do not have anyone’s best interest in mind. They one-hundred percent are trying to keep you addicted, manipulated and powerless, they will rob you of your dignity and integrity, strip you of your desire for honest and true self-expression, condition you to prioritize capital instead of the spiritual value of art. They will condition you to publicly log your character defects to the world, they will erase and wipe out real culture and replace it with swagless garbage, they will make your band suck ass and you will be spending your days thinking of ways to sell the shitty record you made to the public instead of writing real songs; they will sell you garbage and essentially give you brain disease for the rest of your natural life. Nobody needs it for anything, especially your band. I completely stay away from the internet and I’m doing better than ever – I even started a record label extremely recently (Olde Fade Productionz) with no social media or Bandcamp and the orders haven’t stopped coming in for weeks now. And I’m a cooked middle-aged dude at this point, I’m nothing special, so just like sobriety, if I can do it, anyone can. Only a manipulator who is trying to sway the narrative to get something from you is going to tell you otherwise.

Bitter Fictions Amethyst & Emerald LP (Shaking Box)
Kind of a Polyvinyl-ish emo name for a project, but Bitter Fictions takes a far more conceptual route to your heart. It’s the guise of one Devin Friesen, a Canadian who begins with his guitar and discovers what curious new delights might bloom from it (like one of those mail-order mushroom logs). Opener “Sapphire” wrings a mysterious ringtone out of his guitar as a soft electronic tumble offers some sense of momentum, almost like that Richard Youngs “techno” record, whereas “Garnet” delivers nearly ten minutes of shimmering guitar improvisations. Maybe it is kind of emo, in that if you were able to capture the actual underlying guitar melodies of “Garnet” and “Aquamarine” like fireflies in a jar and hand them to American Football, they could probably construct a suitable living arrangement. Bitter Fictions has been opening for Body/Head and Merzbow, though, so he celebrates those rougher textures as well, like the out-of-nowhere synth zaps on “Aquamarine” and the thick palisade of noise-guitar that sends the side-long title track tumbling from the clear night sky deep into the muck below. The aggression points to Ben Frost, whereas the fragility points to Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, ready to be purchased with currency that points to Canada.

Cancer House The Moth LP (Motion Ward)
You know how there’s that Plantasia album of synth music you’re supposed to play for your plants? I’m recommending that you play Cancer House’s debut album The Moth for all the neglected, dying and dead plants in your home, not in hopes of healing them but as a somber farewell before you toss them in with the weekly trash. This is deeply unwatered music with no sign of natural light: guitars, banjos, violin, drums and bass-guitar are plucked with deep remorse, resulting in an updated version of emo that harnesses the scalding bleakness of black metal without any of its other aesthetic signifiers. It’s like the mysterious sounds of Don Martin Three rendered even more inscrutable by the post-rock innovation of Gastr Del Sol, and as it’s released on a label known more for ultramodern ambient/techno electronics than guitar bands (they might be the only one?), there’s a sense of that experimental abstraction in here, too. As you might expect, The Moth is kind of an uncomfortable place to dwell, but once you get a feel for the pitch-shifted vocals, tape-hissing samples and the way that Cancer House seamlessly tailors it all (see the beautiful “Flowers Over There”, it’s like Moss Icon living inside of Grouper’s haunted attic), you might want to linger long past closing hours. Cancer House’s music is divinely morose and frightened, and appropriately enough, it feels like the near future.

Countach Power EP 12″ (Feel The Four)
No sooner were Ghösh gaining momentum in the digital-hardcore clown-rave scene (look it up) than they vanished in a puff of green smoke, leaving Zachary Fairbrother to reconfigure himself as Countach. Once you feel the pull away from guitar bands and into Detroit-style acid synth arpeggios, it’s a craving that cannot be ignored, and that’s precisely where Fairbrother is at with Countach. These four tracks are DIY dance-floor munitions, teeth bared and ready to jack. “Feel The Power” establishes the parameters – acid-on-acid crunch, diabolical vocal sample – before my favorite of the EP, “Any Other Way”. Featuring the charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent of none other than Morgan Garrett, Garrett’s bloodshot deadpan over Countach’s gated electro-rhythms recalls another Philadelphian original, M Ax Noi Mach. Garrett has been more than ready for his “Jesus Built My Hotrod” moment and this very well could be it. “Gauntlet” goes full-throttle ascending-acid, receding only for a quick Legend Of Zelda breather, just long enough to cast your die before the ogre awakes. “Who Is In Control?” swings from the windows to the wall, classic 303 and 808 sounds that result in involuntary screwface when the sampled guitar solo hits in classic Bomb Squad fashion. Feel The Four should’ve pressed some of these on old-timey shellac discs, so you can shatter it over your own head after listening.

ex_libris ex_libris 003 12″ (ex_libris)
Like a handful of other forward-thinking post-dubstep producers (Guy Brewer AKA Carrier immediately comes to mind), Dave Huismans’s decision to pause old monikers (in his case, 2562 and A Made Up Sound) and rebrand with a fresh new image has succeeded. His self-released series of EPs under the guise of ex_libris are flying off the Bandcamp shelves (and onto Discogs for inflated prices), and it’s not hard to see why: he’s pursuing a more uniquely personal sound and has graced these records with an individualized touch. Continuing with the attractive Pantone color schemes and a dash of hand-stamped abstraction, this third installment is comforting, soft-spoken and begging to be played over and over. “#6-27 (untangled)” opens with a gauzy puff redolent of the Music From Memory label before its gears start to turn. It’s got that sense of sweet European strangeness I’d associate with early ’80s records from Michael Rother and Mœbius & Plank, but the ex_libris screen is filtered to remove all warts and wrinkles – if it was a bed at the group Airbnb, everyone would be trying to claim it. “#7 (cosmic ripples)” moves in more of an outlandish dub-techno direction, like a Pole record comprised of carnival sounds, or Augustus Pablo getting a new high score on Cruis’n Outer Space (an arcade racing game I have just now invented). Across nine minutes, it folds back into open-air bliss, giving way to “#31 (reprise)”, freaked-out effects unmoored from grid-based time and loving it. Huismans is not short on dub/ambient/techno experience, and in this most humble and relaxed mode, we are treated to his brightest side yet.

Hoavi Architectonics LP (Peak Oil)
Peak Oil’s commitment to top-shelf electronic music is unwavering, and the people know it – rarely will one of their releases remain available to purchase on Bandcamp for long. Architectonics is Russian producer Hoavi’s second for the label, and it hits on a sweet spot, blatant catnip for those of us who seek the head-rush that comes from richly detailed electronic rhythms. Wielding the sword and mace of today’s experimental vanguard – his phone and a contact mic – Hoavi built up a formidable library of percussive effects, ran them through enough filters and software systems so as to no longer resemble their source material, and built out impressive webs of Gamelan-inspired rhythms. The tracks are as overactive and dazzling as any Nonesuch collection of Gamelan recordings, and while he could’ve tipped it over into some sort of hyper-real IDM zone clearly beyond human capacity, these eleven tracks feel like they exist within our earthly realm, just a highly stylized version of it… Avatar-ready rave music. It falls between the ruminative pacing of De Leon and the alien-native rhythms of Shackleton, and while the conceptual boundaries are firm, there’s plenty of room to play. “After The Cyclone”, for example, stirs up some unconventional horn sounds, a flock of gulls soaring through a thicket of interlocking percussion that would make Philip Glass blush. Hoavi created a richly detailed world, and we owe it to him to explore.

Ignorantes No Hemos Inventada Nada Ni Nos Interesa Hacerlo LP (General Speech)
“We have invented nothing, nor are we interested in doing so.” The English translation of the title of this new (and final?) Ignorantes album brings a tear to my eye. So eloquent! So righteous! Their Chilean punk rock is mid-tempo (very pogo-friendly) and inherently raw, a timeless tradition that rejects innovation in favor of stinking, pulsating immediacy. No Hemos was recorded in 2021 and left to languish in a digital-only Bandcamp purgatory until now, and I’ll admit that I wouldn’t have noticed had General Speech not stepped up to the plate with this appealing vinyl edition. It’s so difficult to make simplicity sound so thrilling, but the two-note riff that comprises “No Tenemos Propuesta” has me hammering all nearby flat surfaces with my fists like an idiot. “Sapos” manages to mimic note-for-note obscure ’90s crusters Vile Horrendous’s “Dead Nazis Don’t Hate”, a melody that sounds fantastic when either band does it. With seven straightforward attacks and a lengthier, spookier closing song, it’s the perfect length for the perfect form of music. For fans of Peggio Punx, Germ Attak, Crazy Spirit, Kangrena, B.G.K., Confuse, Blazing Eye… (please send SASE for complete 4,526 for-fans-of band list).

Index For Working Musik Bunker Intimations II LP (Tough Love)
News of a new Index For Working Musik album is met with jubilation around my neck of the woods, but not so fast – it turns out Bunker Intimations II was originally released as an enticing enhancement to a deluxe edition of last year’s Which Direction Goes The Beam. My copy of that album was a plain ol’ regular one, so I missed out on the limited cassette that came along with it, that is until Tough Love issued it, standalone and on vinyl, as Bunker Intimations II. Apparently recorded under self-imposed duress – written (actually scratch that, improvised), recorded and mixed in three days – these lengthy instrumentals diverge from the already-divergent style I’ve come to associate with this bold post-punk group. It’s as loose-limbed and unresolved as you might expect from such creative limitations, group-jams without a clear leader, evocative atmospheres if no distinct sense of purpose. As an add-on to Which Direction Goes The Beam, it’s a treat, a little “Director’s Commentary”-style bonus for infatuated fans to dig even deeper, but it’s not leaving much of an impression on me from its own merit, certainly not the way their ‘real’ albums have. With a scant two hundred and fifty copies pressed, I am certain there are enough loving homes to go around – maybe in a few months I’ll stop by for another visit.

Microwaves Temporal Shifter LP (Decoherence)
Nice to see Neil Burke’s day-glo imaginary landscapes all over this new Microwaves album. For decades now, if his art graced the record cover, it offered a seal of weirdo-punk authenticity – it’s uncompromising in a way you have to respect, even if it ends up on something as nonsensical as the Towel eight-inch EP on Vermiform (though Burke only “art directed” that one, to be fair). Microwaves are an underground institution as well, Pittsburgh guys-with-jobs who never really seem to have toured in their twenty-five-year-plus career and don’t seem particularly pressed about it either. Even after all these years, Temporal Shifter stays true to the root cause, one where bass and drums dig Melvins-sized ditches as the guitar dabbles in math-rock and metal of all stripes (even hair-). Guitarist/vocalist David Kuzy often sounds like he’s trying out for Van Halen by playing various Castlevania themes, all while his two compatriots barely notice, so deeply locked into their airtight post-hardcore grooves they must eventually turn blue in the face. Personally, I like it when they go off the deep end a little – I think it’s the hidden track on their debut System 2 where a pitched-up voice keeps giggling out the phrase “he took a picture of blood!”, a musical moment that comes to my mind way more than it should – but Temporal Shifter is a proud display of noise-rock muscle and bone. If they’re suffering from arthritis at this advanced stage, the meds are doing a great job of hiding it.

My Wife’s An Angel Keep Honking I’m About To Fucking Kill Myself LP (Knife Hits / Broken Cycle / Grimgrimgrim)
Local Boys Make Bad: Philly’s My Wife’s An Angel continue to shine a light on the most abhorrent personality types with their second full-length, commonly referred to as KHIATFKM (y’know, like TAGABOW). Their debut album was a clean way to experience a deeply messy band – you could listen at home without fear of vocalist Garrett Stanton Vandemark tying you up with his mic cord and hanging you upside down – and they lean into that filthy underbelly of blue-collar city living here. Their music is ninety-percent Landed and ten-percent TAD – it’s a thrillingly toxic cocktail, like the neon-swamp liquid that collects in the bottom of a dive bar’s trash bin, and for some reason My Wife’s An Angel took a sip without waiting for someone to dare them. Over these inebriated noise-rock riffs (and splattered with infernal sound effects), Stanton Vandemark goes full-method with his character portrayals, a rogue’s gallery of the absolute worst guys at the bar. I can practically smell the coke addict who refuses to pay rent to his parents, the Eagles fan who failed the background check to get the mall security job, the ex-jock hopped up on testosterone cream and ZYNs who refuses to believe all his money is gone… Stanton Vandermark commits like DeNiro in Taxi Driver to his impressions of these heinous men, and I sincerely hope he’s been able to find his way back out. He was recently spotted army-crawling across the city with a GoPro on his head (I’m not joking, it’s floating on the web) – if he turned his limitless energy towards high-definition AI mapping, we’d all be getting around town in driverless hover-pods by now.

Night Of The Hunter Night Of The Hunter LP (Curious Electricity)
With sub-genres splintering into sub-sub-genres as artists hope to claim their own hyper-specific niche, it’s kind of refreshing to be met with an all-purpose goth record like Night Of The Hunter. The group hails from the vampire capital of the USA, Los Angeles, and they even have names that read like the character list of an episode of The Vampire Diaries: (the human) Jeff Browning along with the mononymic (both undead) Ezrah and Thorson (with Aradia (demon prophet) providing guest vocals on “Safe Inside The Storm”). Over eight tracks, Night Of The Hunter cover a lot of stylistic ground, not mixing it up so much as doling it out separately, like a mixtape to satisfy all of their nocturnal denizens. Their sound lurks in the ’90s for sure, with overt similarities to Machines Of Loving Grace, Marilyn Manson and Black Tape For A Blue Girl, especially when the guitars kick in. Other more synth-forward tracks recall Balaclavas, Nine Inch Nails and November Növelet, and not simply because there’s no way I could make it through this entire review without at least one umlaut. It’s over-the-top dramatic in the way that goth should be, a caricature of wicked lust delivered with the self-seriousness you’ve come to expect from people who, if they haven’t purchased their own bespoke dental fangs, have at least given it some thought.

No Nose Party In The Sky LP (No Nose)
Copenhagen’s hottest artist is a contested field, but Copenhagen’s weirdest has gotta be No Nose. They’re friends first, band second, a pointedly guitar-less rock group (bass, drums, keyboard, vocals) who are keen to take a silly idea and run with it, trip over it, get up and run with it some more. They’ll repeat “I lost my credit card” (on “Creditcard”) like they’re trying to seduce you, chant “CIA invented the dentist” like they’re rooting for their favorite football club (“Ciainventedthedentist”), and fill up any empty space with plenty of boldly off-key trumpet. One solid night at the pub spent shouting hilarious and bad ideas at each other could have spawned the entirety of Party In The Sky. Is “The Lowtalker” Carla dal Forno with a Residents infatuation? Party In The Sky is kind of like late ’80s Butthole Surfers in the way that it frequently misses, but then you wonder, was missing the actual point? And further like Butthole Surfers, it never feels as though No Nose are pandering for our acceptance, or even giving us a foot in the door to laugh along with them. We are voyeurs at best, trying to make heads or tails of these sleepy dub-, indie-, space-rock tunes that go on for way too long, provoked only by No Nose’s indifference to provocation.

Scissor Fits It Wasn’t Nothing LP (Minimum Table Stacks)
Another obscure UK DIY group finally gets their roses: this time it’s Twickenham’s Scissor Fits, care of the well-considered Minimum Table Stacks label. The bald femme that graces the cover of both of their 1979 EPs is cover-bound once again, dealing both previously-released EPs along with a comp track and a handful of unreleased tunes. Scissor Fits were clearly a fun band to be around, as they offered both the jouissance of immature knucklehead humor and the well-rehearsed chops of a headlining local band. Scissor Fits were too good to pretend to be bad, so they wrote a bunch of charmingly spunky, mid-tempo rock tunes, clearly aware of NME-favored outcasts like The Magic Band and Ian Dury, though they mostly kept things crowd-pleasingly in the pocket like then-contemporaries Dry Rib and Television Personalities. They didn’t make it easy on everyone, though, happily spoiling their otherwise respectable songs with lyrics and titles like “I Wish I Hadn’t Shaved My Pubic Hair Off”, “D.H. Lawrence Wasn’t A Mexican” and their all-timer, “I Don’t Want To Work For British Airways”. Every small town had its own Frank Zappas and Johnny Rottens in the late ’70s, and Scissor Fits clearly had a ball thumbing their noses at the established decorum of the day, made available again here for the delight of today’s DIY post-punk enthusiasts. The insert comes with a tender little “current whereabouts” update on the band’s members (all impressively still alive!), but I won’t spoil for you which two are currently playing in bands with their sons – you’ll have to pick up a copy for yourself.

Suitor Saw You Out With The Weeds LP (Feel It)
It would seem that Ohio’s punk underground no longer allows for idle spectators – if you haven’t gotten a band going, they simply assign you one, like teams in gym class. I’m not complaining, though, as Cleveland and Cincinnati are hotbeds of punk-related energy, with Suitors being one of the newest to be delivered from Feel It’s soft palms. They already seem to know what they want to go for, and that’s the kind of edgy middlebrow zone of today’s cool non-shoegaze rock sounds. I’m talking Wet Leg, Dry Cleaning, Mannequin Pussy, heterogeneous underground stars that balance melody with discordance, probably adore The Cure, wield deadpan sarcasm like a knife and re-imagine a ’90s post-grunge era that wasn’t just dudes with pointy goatees and frosted tips celebrating misogyny and abuse. At times, I’m hearing Helium if they played like a punk band, and on certain songs (let’s say “Televangelist”) Suitor remind me a whole lot of that last Priests album, if perhaps a bit more technically solid (no offense, Priests, I’m sure you understand). It’s like Chaotic Good “indie”-rock without the unpleasant sense that you’ve been gamified by a wave of algorithm-shifting bots, because we all know that Feel It would never do us dirty like that… at least until Marvel throws them a million dollars to license “I’m An Adult Baby” by Vanilla Poppers. Only a matter of time.

Tapetud Rott See Mees / Lähme Õue 7″ (Porridge Bullet)
Every region of the world has its own signature export: Southern Europe’s red wine, East Africa’s coffee beans, the United States of America’s imperialist violence, and Northern Europe’s black metal. Black metal is like ninety percent of Finland’s GDP the last time I checked (the other ten percent is Angry Birds), and even when you think you’ve found a safe space, like the Estonian left-field dance label Porridge Bullet, this classic corpse-painted aesthetic will sneak up and deliver a jump-scare. Tapetud Rott is a new project from Estonian dub maestro Robert Nikolajev and Mikk Madisson, and while its origins may be digital in nature, the results are as grim and frostbitten as the wolf on the cover of Ulver’s Nattens Madrigal. “See Mees” is grueling and miserable, a theatrically-heightened despair that may appeal to fans of Dom Fernow’s various attempts at black metal. “Lähme Õue” picks up the pace with traditional helicopter-chop black metal drumming (of a digital nature) and guitars as brittle and unpleasant as permafrost’s crispy outer layer. It’s over in a blip, and to what end, I’m not certain, as this EP seems predestined to miss its aesthetically-aligned audience, what being distributed by European dance-hub Rush Hour and all. The cover’s nod towards a homoerotic black-metal fan-fic further muddles Tapetud Rott’s intentions – is it sincere, or a Limp Wrist-ified gag, or simply their civic duty?

Upsammy & Valentina Magaletti Seismo LP (PAN)
The hardest working drummer in improvised showbiz linked up with an unorthodox techno genius and the results are understandably spectacular. Apparently borne of some sort of museum-sponsored collaboration (cool progressive arts funding inconceivable to us Americans), the duo literally wandered the museum recording “improvised percussive sounds”, the seed from which Seismo sprouted. Neither Upsammy nor Valentina Magaletti are ever short on inspiration when it comes to seeking out unexpected rhythmic pathways, and while I would’ve been happy with a live, one-take improvisation from the two, Seismo is clearly an orchestrated affair, in line with Upsammy’s modern refresh of Aphex Twin’s braindance techniques and Drexciya’s thermal hydraulics. Here, we get Magaletti’s nimble and inventive drums in various designs, from spicy-hot trap-kit fills to patterns and sources less easily discerned. It’s a vibrant haul of ingredients for Upsammy to cook up her high-speed twinkle jams, and cook she does – “Superimposed” sounds like Eli Keszler trying out for Mahavishnu Orchestra; “Mementoes” is a postmodern anime dream in the clouds. It’s technically advanced and exquisite yet easy to appreciate, and if you want the true museum experience, you can ask a friend to stand in the corner in a cheap suit and stare at you disapprovingly while you listen.

Taking place at the pestily-named & Space (that band “@” should play there), we strode up past the BDSM burlesque show on the warehouse’s second floor and into the third floor venue, nestled in a quaintly decaying corner of the Chinatown neighborhood. Greeted warmly at the door, the instructions were to remove our shoes and find a spot to sit on the sprung subfloor of what was an avant-garde dance studio by day. I confirmed that we had arrived a little too late to catch the opener JS, one of the evening’s many mysteries… if it turns out I missed a solo performance from John Sharkey, it will be my biggest regret of the season.

After snagging a spot on the floor behind a guy in an unraveling Comme des Garçons sweater (worn inside out so the tag was plain to see), LN Celestine met us at our level, crouched on the floor like a catcher as she powered up her circular arc of small electronics and effects pedals. Through live looping, Celestine built up a lonely battalion of drones, bowing her violin and singing wordless notes into a microphone in sparse iterations. For a crowd dressed almost exclusively in browns and blacks, this sort of Realtree hunting-cap ambient fit right in, summoned to life over the hiss-cracks of freshly-popped seltzers and beers in the audience. The Grouper aesthetic tells us that the end is near, that the technology we so desperately cling to will soon be dumped in the woods next to yesteryear’s tractor, rusted and mossed over, and it clearly resonates with this generation of art-minded young people who have only ever read about prosperity. LN Celestine offered a peaceful space for decay.

As LXV pulled his folding table over to the front of the room with the help of a friend, I couldn’t help but wonder if the Miller Lite company is aware of how many table-top noise sets it has fueled. This Philadelphia-based “sound arranger and independent researcher” had too much intertwined gear to carry piece by piece, and once situated, he began his set softly, can of Lite on hand. The crowd talked over it for at least a good five opening minutes, though as LXV offered no visual or overtly sonic signs of a performance taking place, it was excusable, maybe even desired by this field-recording-friendly artist. As the crowd quieted, he created an amorphous buzz of static and nocturnal thump with slow, unhurried changes. I was reminded of Fennesz’s Black Sea, were the filthy contaminants of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River flushed into those sparkling waters, though mostly LXV’s set captured the restless, inert sensation of when you’re trying to fall asleep on a plane but can’t. The performance probably went on a little too long for my tastes, eventually, slowly wrapping up in what felt like footage of a waterfall played in reverse at quarter-speed.

As I willingly forwent the empty Togo-style chair in the back of the room for a floor spot front-and-center, Chicago’s Cancer House situated themselves among their travel-sized amps and pared-down trap kit, the band only half-honoring the venue’s no-shoes policy. This quintet are copacetic with the not-yet-codified crop of younger artists who are finding novel ways to fuse aspects of emo, drone, noise, folk, electronics and shoegaze into something identifiable as new, a penchant reflected even just locally by groups like They Are Gutting A Body Of Water, Scena, Her New Knife (a personal fave) and Chemical. Cancer House’s songs this evening were elegiac and pointed – the mix of expansively forlorn guitars and in-the-pocket slow-core drumming was decidedly Earth-like (circa Hex and The Bees Made Honey), though the softly vulnerable vocals, risky guitar phrasing, technical flubs and sensitive delivery recalled the more esoteric end of ’90s emo ala I Hate Myself, Still Life and Don Martin Three. I didn’t realize I wanted or needed the concept of an emo Earth, but Cancer House made it irresistible – I even found myself on board for the sole screamo breakdown of the set, multiple vocalists doubled-over screaming (with or without microphone assistance) in the manner of Saetia and Jeromes Dream. Bassist/vocalist Lily Sharratt’s voice added a calming presence, with the same wide-eyed, unintelligible delivery as Bilinda Butcher, like a deer in the headlights who knows something you don’t and centered far more live than on their album The Moth. I’m not sure Butcher ever scrolled through the lyrics on her iPhone with her big toe while playing, though. All in all, a captivating performance, and I hope our discouraging world offers them enough time and resources to see where it might take them.

Bound By Endogamy Steamy Highways Have No End LP (Pinkman)
Go on, I’ll wait while you look up what “endogamy” means… I know I had to! I can’t say it brought me any closer to understanding what this Swiss duo are on about, though their shared language of industrial EBM synth-wave is borderless and universal. Steamy Highways Have No End is a stylish, cosmopolitan affair (I spy lyrics in at least three different languages) but avoids ever feeling passive or hollow as an unoccupied Bottega Veneta boutique might. Full of hostile drum programming and overactive synths, the album is sleek enough that the fog-shrouded ballads (“Krematorium”, “Never Wake Up Again”) are crucial elements within the black PVC tapestry Bound By Endogamy have unfurled. When they really get banging, one can’t help but notice the similarities to ADULT., Dopplereffekt, Marie Davidson and Front Line Assembly (vocalist Kleio Thomaïdes even resorts to screaming on “March To The Drums”), but they feel like a natural extension of those shared properties rather than pastiche. It’s never not serious, but it’s also awfully fun – how else can Thomaïdes get away with a line like “wake up, eat, fuck, oh yeah, if you don’t fuck you’re finished”? The programming is attention-grabbing and hectic, though any half-firing brain on the dance-floor will immediately connect with its primal, body-moving energy. If Dais and Sacred Bones aren’t squabbling over the North American distribution rights for the next Bound By Endogamy album, I’ll choke on my croissant!

Burned Up Bled Dry Next Stop… Dead Stop… LP (Prank)
The rumors are true: Arkansas’ finest hardcore export (at least until Chelsea Clinton’s d-beat band releases a demo) Burned Up Bled Dry are back! Of the many groups ostensibly inspired by His Hero Is Gone in the ’90s (I’m looking at you, My Hero Died Today), Burned Up Bled Dry were a cut above, leaning into shorter song-lengths and the fist-on-brick power of hardcore-punk as opposed to extended harmonic d-beat passages or the oppressive atmospheres that Neurosis taught us (who, well what do you know, are also back). Prank Records is a perfect fit, having been in the anti-commercial hardcore mix both then and now; it’s a crusty class reunion with significantly fewer white-guy dreads (we can only hope). Burned Up Bled Dry arrive as if freshly thawed from 1998: twenty-six(!) tracks, the majority under a minute, blast-beats and thrash beats and moshable dirges all chopped into fragments and re-glued into new configurations of hardcore brutality. I’m hearing touches of Tear It Up, From Ashes Rise, No Man’s Slave and of course the immortal echoes of His Hero Is Gone (who I commend for being one of the few greats to not come back for their victory-lap reunion, box-set promotion and/or giant check), which is to say, the music of Burned Up Bled Dry really hasn’t aged in any discernible fashion. I wonder if they can say the same about how they feel when they get out of bed in the morning.

CIA Debutante Trespass LP (Siltbreeze)
Trespass is CIA Debutante’s fourth full-length LP for Siltbreeze, and I’m already eager for four more. Their particular concoction of chilly post-punk mechanics, fractured, glowing electronics and deadpan spoken vocals is wide open for unexpected possibilities, with plenty of room to grow, and pretty much exactly what I want to spend my free time listening to. The chemistry between Nathan Roche (vocals, guitar) and Paul Bonnet (everything else) really pops here, Roche’s calmly considered voice and flustered guitar comfortably nestled amongst Bonnet’s reliable electro-rhythms, warbled pulses and even a woodwind or two. The similarities to Cabaret Voltaire and The Shadow Ring are evident sonically, but also in the group’s willingness to follow through on any idea no matter how bizarre, with the sense that no convention or dogma could ever constrain them. For example, the menacing beat behind “Flesh Microchip Repair” recalls Suicide, though the repeated rhyme of “Hieronymus Bosch / McIntosh” is without easy explanation – it just works! The same intrigue runs through the halogen-burn of “Cergy Prefecture” and the Matthew Bower-esque guitar squall of “Spill” – it’s enigmatic, it’s infatuating, it’s CIA Debutante.

Avalon Emerson & The Charm Written Into Changes LP (Dead Oceans)
Avalon Emerson’s evolution from peak-time American DJ in Europe to outdoorsy dream-pop sensation has been a fairly straightforward one. For as big-tent as her musical ideas tend to be, she’s always moved with sincerity and thoughtfulness, one of those artists whose interviews I read in full because there’s always some insightful kernel of wisdom to be gleaned. I’m not sure her music with (or perhaps more appropriately, as) The Charm will deliver the same goosebumps as “The Frontier” on a physically-fit sound system, but as for sugary, feel-good pop? This is pretty much where it’s at. Emerson’s voice shares the same uncanny crystalline delivery of james K and ML Buch throughout (new ML Buch album when?), alongside upbeat re-imaginations of baggy trip-hop, ’00s mall pop, the lighter side of MTV alt-rock and so on. It’s kind of where everyone’s heads seem to be these days, this nostalgia for a kindler gentler Y2K that may or may not have actually existed (Len’s sunshine has most certainly been stolen by now), discarding the parts that aged poorly and streamlining it with the studio wisdom of today’s top production teams. I’m reminded of Matthew Dear’s Bunny, Caroline Polachek’s playlist toppers, Madonna’s Ray Of Light and Carly Rae Jepsen’s deep cuts, teeny-bop music not for teenagers but hip city-dwelling young adults who have decided a cute dog beats having kids. I’m not sure if Emerson will reap the same rewards as some of her fellow dance-y indie-pop travelers, but she’s got the record-selling behemoth of Dead Oceans behind her – who better, and when better, to swing for the fences?

Fcukers Ö LP (Ninja Tune)
With a reputation for rebellious party-starting and a purposefully eye-catching name (I hope they’ve got a sponsorship deal going with French Connection UK by now), Fcukers are poised to level-up with Ö, their debut album for electro powerhouse Ninja Tune. The NYC duo (or occasional trio?) have taken the commercially-aspirational steps of enlisting Grammy-winning engineer Tom Norris, wild-card trendsetter Dylan Brady of 100 Gecs and producer du jour Kenneth Blume (don’t you dare call him Kenny Beats anymore) to craft Ö, and I’ll admit, it brings me some speck of happiness to see that big-budget pop upgrades still mostly suck. No part of “the music biz” from twenty years ago resembles whatever is happening now, so it’s a precious small comfort to listen to the phoned-in dance-pap of Fcukers and be reminded that joy can only be sparked naturally, not gamed into existence by the business-vampire simulacrum that ingests and distorts it. Of course, Fcukers were never about sincerity or politics or emotion – vocalist Shanny Wise has always sounded like her mind was elsewhere, a sort of Julia Fox Jr. that can make the worst fits look cool due to the invincible combination of youth, arrogance and New York City. It’s party music for club goons, the soon-to-be-cancelled and friends of friends of Xaviersobased, and while I respect music that speaks to a re-imagined “indie sleaze”, I want it to be slutty, shocking or otherwise unforgettable, rather than the safety-gloves, focus-grouped equivalent I’m hearing here. Ö hits like a Flo Rida x Liquid Death collaboration, when it’s PFFR x Sparks that I’m after.

Foote/Dickow High Cube LP (Geographic North)
The genre of “two electronic musicians jamming in a room together without forethought for a concise period of time” is ripe for collapse (laziness, lack of ideas, lack of coherence, etc.), and yet each time one of these new collabs hits my desk, I find myself enthralled. That Multiples album is great (Speedy J and Surgeon) and now this new one from west coast alt-techno mainstays Brian Foote and Paul Dickow has me wondering why anyone ever bothers rehearsing their downtempo techno in the first place. There’s just something special about the immediate spark of an idea that infuses electronic music’s compassionless hardware with heart and soul – Joey Beltram was recently talking about how he recorded his classic tracks live – and though Foote and Dickow maintain a calm demeanor throughout High Cube, their human presence is squarely felt. I’m reminded a bit of another American experimental dub-techno duo, Protect U, on a track like “A Dragon’s Treasure Is Its Soul”, where rhythms swerve and luxuriate over sparkling thrum and dub-fried effects in a manner that lightly disorients. It’s never overstuffed, and the two years-long friends are clearly listening to each other as much as you and I, volleying patterns and overlaying synths with the loving care a parent shows their sick child. I’m not sure I’d even recommend standing upright when High Cube spins – this is deep couch music, the listener’s inner balance playfully tested as if on a cruise ship voyage.

Glasspack Double For Horse Dancer LP (Gateway Gardenia)
Keep honking – I’m currently trapped in a transcendent inter-dimensional pathway thanks to Glasspack’s Double For Horse Dancer! They’re a relatively new duo comprised of Henry Birdsey (of pastoral New England drone unit Tongue Depressor) and Ian McColm (of CT avant-psych trio Nagual), and though their iteration of that trendy bumper sticker does not yet exist, I continue to succumb to their long-form electronic re-compositions, gladly in fact. Double For Horse Dancer takes organic source material (Birdsey’s bagpipes for sure; what else I’m not exactly certain) and re-chains its base chemical compounds into extravagant double-helixes. Glasspack bridges the gap between the left-field drone experiments found on Bill Nace’s Open Mouth label (Matt Krefting, John Truscinski, Jake Meginsky et al) and the minimalist-drone practitioners of yore like Terry Riley and Steve Reich, though it’s not a large gap, comprised more of institutional funding than anything else really. There’s a rich and worthy conceptual framework no matter how you slice it here, and Glasspack speaks the language fluently – these tracks are full of strobe-light sparkle, richly churned low-end and a sense of vastness as entertainment, like when you’re sitting in a planetarium and the show begins, galaxies whizzing across the dome so as to induce a light flutter of motion sickness. Closer “Fort Lee Double Rainbow” yanks the quantum physics e-brake and throws these celestial drones in reverse, black holes giving birth to white dwarfs. It’s about time someone spiced up the space-time continuum.

Lost Air Cloudmirror LP (Framework)
Something profound seems to have happened to Ryan Taylor, and if I’m to offer a guess, it was either the birth of a child or the death of an elder. You may recall his work in Boston hardcore rippers like Exit Order and Brain Killer, but under his solo Lost Air guise, Taylor pursues a dark-ambient form of post-rock, perfect for contemplating life, death and the horizon where the sea meets the air. (The gloomy cover image offers precisely the latter.) Cloudmirror is at least his first public attempt at longer-form instrumental soundscapes, and while there isn’t much in the way of risk-taking or uncharted territory here by the genre’s established forms, it’s a proper working document of curlicue drones, spacious ambient drift and patient melodic touches. The “haunted attic” quality reminds me a bit of Leland Kirby, whereas some of the elementally-rumbling forms position themselves similar to the ground-level textures of a Godspeed You! Black Emperor track. It’s not as cinematic as other genre practitioners, but I appreciate the home-spun feel, an effective way to communicate dark emotions where words may fail. And if you somehow miss those feelings, titles like “Home Pain”, “Indoor Fog”, “Into Wind” and “A Crawling Mist” nudge you toward their path.

mclusky I Sure Am Getting Sick Of This Bowling Alley 12″ (Ipecac)
Like a bad rash or a successful horror villain, enduring noise-rock jokesters mclusky keep coming back. At this point, modern first-world life has caught up with (and surpassed) the depressing absurdities found in a typical mclusky song, but I can understand why they’d feel compelled to keep their high-wire noise-rock act going: what else is there to do? Following last year’s proper comeback album The World Is Still Here And So Are We, this new six-song EP confirms the blokes are older and thriving, if not in fighting shape then at least capable of shaming their opponent with a well-timed zinger. I’m not sure this is a band that ever felt like they had “something to prove”, but it’s clear that even if those were once their intentions, they’re clearly only here to amuse themselves, which by proxy works well for those of us eager to enjoy antagonistic post-hardcore riffs led by a singer who refuses to fall in line. In “I Know Computer” and onward, it’s not just Andy Falkous’s voice that sneers – his guitar, Jack Egglestone’s drums and Damien Sayell’s bass all seem to be jeering at us, well-deserved schoolyard jabs with a lingering sting. “I Know Computer” has me wishing A Frames would finally come back too, while the rest of the EP navigates a zone from IDLES to The Fall to Cake, with plenty of over-the-top vocal affectations and catchy pop hooks dressed up in an abrasive noise-rock disguise. If you’re not having fun, they’re not having fun… but it sure seems like they’re having fun.

MM/KM Velours 12″ (Kimochi)
Some of you I’ll have on board with as little as “dub techno incoherence”, others will be tempted once I say “pressed in a sparse limited-edition with hand-painted covers in typical Kimochi style”, and the remaining few who still aren’t impressed? I will light a candle for your hardened souls. I’m already starting to reflexively cognize “KM” as Kassem Mosse when I see it, paired up here with Mix Mup for a brief foray beyond our comprehension into fields of baffling dark matter. At first, it makes sense: “Ford Sierra In Dub” (song title of the month) stares bloodshot into the after-hours with a bed of skittering hi-hats and a persistent low-key thump, akin to Kyle Hall’s inscrutable techniques. “Gedanken” follows with startling signs of decay: the track consists solely of some farty little bubbles all by themselves. The title track then captures those bubbles and slaps them onto a vast and empty grid, resembling something Actress would dare to dream. It’s the ten minute “Delphinpanik” that is the greatest cause for concern, however; “ambient” in the sense of an empty supermarket after close, Mosse and Mup test out some gear in the loneliest corner of Guitar Center until they get kicked out. It’s not dance music so much as the alarming lack thereof, a bold piece of art that only gets bolder once you realize they actually sent it to Kimochi, Kimochi actually approved it, and a record pressing plant actually manufactured a couple hundred polyvinyl chloride copies for commercial sale. They all believe in it – do you?

Opal Sunn Liquid – Phases I – III 12″ (Test Pressing)
Remember Red Bull Music Academy? If Sketchy Ketamine Music Academy existed, Alex Kassian and Hiroaki Oba would be tenured chairs for their work as Opal Sunn. “Liquid – Phase 1” is deep, deep Balearic house, a dance cut that confuses the psychic borders separating total exhaustion and insatiable horniness. What’ll it be, sleep or tantric sex for the next forty-eight hours? Might as well dance while you decide! When the godlike voiceover hits, I feel like I’ve joined a polycule based on that picture of Sting and his wife in a candlelit boudoir (please, quickly google if you haven’t already been blessed by this image). “Liquid – Phase II” is a proper dub rinsing, a sensual orbit that affirmatively answers the question of “can humans be seduced in outer space?”. If any of your particles remain untitillated, “Liquid – Phase III” delivers the faintly glimmering embers of its proceeding phases, a reflection pool that reveals your newly nourished, post-Liquid self. You can buy as many expensive serums and organic cleanses as you want, I support that, just understand that nothing will revitalize you quite like a private session in Opal Sunn’s Liquid flotation tank.

Bill Orcutt Last Days LP (Fake Estates)
Many Bill Orcutt fans made the pilgrimage to New York for his recent weekend-long showcase at Roulette, and I regret not being among them. It seems to have been a new career highlight for this American guitarist who, in his sixties, probably still hasn’t peaked just yet, but I find these snarky computer-composition albums, released on his Fake Estates label and never performed live, to be just as thrilling in their own way. I’m not sure he’ll top A Mechanical Joey (a minimalist new-music piece comprised of a counting-off Joey Ramone), but Last Days is immediately up there with it. The concept is equally stupid/brilliant: take the first eight notes from Slash’s iconic “Sweet Child O Mine” intro and flip, layer, rotate and loop it across two fifteen minute chunks. There’s nothing more (and nothing less) to it; Slash’s beautiful harmonics, once in the shape of a three-dimensional prism, are refracted through spools of diamonds, a thrill bordering on madness. Undoubtedly, it’s only a matter of time before whomever you’re with asks you to turn Last Days off – Orcutt loves nothing if not testing one’s patience – but it can be a handy way to measure that person’s tolerance of blinding beauty, their willingness to fully submit to objectionable, crazy art. I’m not sure I’d want to spend time with anyone who can’t tolerate a full side.

Poison Ruïn Hymns From The Hills LP (Relapse)
Sketches of a new world could be gleaned from 2023’s Härvest, but Hymns From The Hills offers a detailed rendering of Poison Ruïn’s alluring realm. It cracks open a Middle Earth filled with punks and skins in place of hobbits and orcs – the hand-drawn map detailed with craggy, mist-shrouded mountain ranges, mysterious caves and circle pits of unknown origin sadly doesn’t exist, but the spirit of Gary Gygax remains. Instrumental passages redolent of Manowar, Blue Öyster Cult, Asunder and the Poison Ruïn dungeon-synth side-project Shadow Knell fill every porous surface with color (or should I say cölör), but no one is gonna want to hang too long if they don’t have the songs worth sticking around for. Poison Ruïn have sharpened their songwriting blades as well, sounding less like anyone else and more like themselves (the New Kings of the Four-Minute Punk Song), which inhabits a fairly wide stylistic range, from blackened, doomy punk ala Raspberry Bulbs to the heathen strum of The Wipers, the bloodstained aggression of Tank and whatever “Lily Of The Valley” is… pub-punk from a pre-Christianity Ireland, before the snakes got chased out? Mac Kennedy’s voice is commandingly large, gruff and weathered in a similarly-different way to Dickie Barrett and Shane McGowan. The group even flexes their black-metal muscles on closer “The Standoff” for a moment, if only to ease into another mid-paced spiked-gauntlet fist-pumper that rallies the righteous. For a shout-along chorus to work, you need the people behind you, and Hymns From The Hills is filled with moments that shatter the passiveness of social etiquette and rouse folded arms up into the air.

Poison Suckers Charmer 7″ (Transistor 66)
One of the distinct signifiers of modern punk is its fluidity between band, solo- and studio-project. It used to be that you had to hang out with three other degenerates, even if you didn’t really like them (or they didn’t like you), for the opportunity to create parent-torturing rock n’ roll, but now all you need is an internet connection (complimentary at Tim Hortons) and you can whip up something worth posting online. I can’t quite tell if Winnipeg’s Poison Suckers qualify as a ‘real band’ or what, as these four songs feature Joe Warkentin handling drums, guitars and vocals with Jo Jo Rodriguez on lead vocals, but at least as a duo, they’ve got the photoshoot charisma and yards of animal-print fabric worthy of a gander. I prefer the trash-rock garage of “Slash Tires” and “I’m A Zero” to the slow-dance ’60s pop of “Charade” and the Canadian rockabilly of “Viper Winds” (I’m still recovering from Orville Peck PTSD), but the whole thing is recorded crispier than tavern-style pizza and satisfies just as simply. I love a snare that sounds like pebbles inside a washing machine, and alongside Poison Suckers’ winged-eyeliner and mustache combo, it’s making me want to order the filthiest cocktail at the tiki bar and drink it in one gulp, dry ice included.

whitepicketfence whitepicketfence 7″ (Exotic Fever)
Don’t let the reissue-fication of emo fool you – it wasn’t always bespoke box-set packaging, clearly delineated recording specs, half a dozen 180-gram vinyl variants, well-written yet rose-tinted essays, collector-squeezing pricing tiers and some deeply implied sense of importance. No, it was kids (and eventually, adults) making something by hand in their basements and garages that looked, sounded and smelled like it was made in their basement and garages by hand. It was entrusted to and distributed through a network of likeminded (and mostly unpaid) people, not a distribution conglomerate, and it looked and sounded quite a bit like whitepicketfence. Their debut EP is barely on Bandcamp – each of the four songs has their own separate release page (why!) and there’s no obvious way to buy the record (double why!) – and I’m delighted that they didn’t seem to know any better when it came to designing the package, too: a sleeveless clear vinyl record (like that Sleepytime Trio one) in one of those plastic picture-disc sleeves that will eventually off-gas a muddy haze onto the grooves. While fully grown adults, the guitar/drums duo of Chris Lauterbach and Katy Otto continue to bash on their respective instruments and sing from deep within their hearts as they’ve done in numerous bands prior. It’s messy like Frail, moody like The Evens and abstract like The Dead C, with amplifier radio-interference for atmosphere and melodic vocals sung in unison over fuzz-pedal guitar. This is unself-conscious, imperfect and DIY music from people who deeply believe in it – in other words, emo.

Welcome to the inaugural edition of Worst Song here at Yellow Green Red. I had the dubious idea of a short interview series wherein I ask artists I admire about the worst song they ever wrote (in their personal opinion), with the caveat that it has to have been recorded and released. What’s the fun if we can’t hear it?? Katie Alice Greer is an appropriately bold artist to kick things off, though honestly her song isn’t bad at all, even if I get where she’s coming from. Katie sang (and rotated through other instruments) in the DC punk band Priests before moving to Los Angeles and cutting out on her own, releasing the excellent debut Barbarism on FourFour Records in 2022. Coincidentally, her follow-up, Perfect Woman Sound Machine, Vol. 1, came out last week on her own GAK Records imprint. Her worst song can be found here if you’d like to listen along.

KAG: I think there are lots of bad songs in my overall catalogue; I’m not saying this to be self-deprecating but more because I tend to aim for making stuff that feels (for me) like I’m taking a big swing creatively, ideas where I’m not sure I can pull it off. For instance, Priests covered a song from one of our favorite tour van albums, “Mother” by Danzig. I was listening to a lot of Nile Rodgers projects at the time and wondering, could we make a disco version of “Mother”? Reader, I revisited this track a few months ago and regret to inform you we could not. However! I don’t think this is my worst song. I also don’t think the outtakes from my first solo album that got released a few years ago are my worst songs, even though I’d be so happy to get some of those off the internet. Many are unlistenable! But, I think especially in this day and age of inoffensive, safe, often boring music being made to fill playlists, it’s important to keep being a freak and making weird stuff that might not work. It’s important to record in strange ways and make stuff that makes some people wanna turn it off. There’s nothing wrong with pleasant or forgettable music, but it takes all kinds. To me, maybe my worst song is an old Priests track called “Lillian Hellman”. I just think it’s a little lyrically uninspired. I’d literally read a book about Lillian Hellman (an actual line in the song) and wanted to do her justice and I don’t think I did. It’s not shockingly bad or anything and my bandmates contributed perfectly fine stuff. I just think what I did there was filler, probably the worst creative offense.

YGR: That’s probably one of my biggest fears: not to make bad music, but mediocre music. I can see how learning about Lillian Hellman could inspire a song, though. You’ve always integrated real people, real historical events into your work… how do you approach that?

KAG: I think for me it’s almost a question of how to not do that. Some artists seem most comfortable writing directly about their own experiences and emotions; that’s much harder for me. My own experiences and feelings are fluid, they’re harder to grasp how I permanently feel about them. It’s not that I’m ignoring my feelings or experiences, I’m just not usually creatively excited by them. Whereas a good story, whether current or from the past, that’s riveting stuff! I want to try to hone in on what about it has captured my attention or feelings. Again, that’s just for me. I love stuff other people write about their own life. Joni Mitchell is one of my favorites. You seem really good at that too actually, though I guess I assume a lot of your lyrics are about real life, maybe they aren’t. Maybe everybody is writing about a character, even when they’re writing about themselves — and maybe everybody is writing about themselves even when they’re making up characters or telling stories?

YGR: How much did you contribute to the music with Priests, the stuff that wasn’t lyrics and singing?

KAG: I don’t love breaking down the contributions in that band because we split all the songwriting credits four ways on purpose (or three when it made sense to). Being like “that part was mine, that part was theirs” doesn’t feel like the spirit of the band, which was also the really frustrating part of it sometimes, too. But there were times I was humming a riff or suggesting a rhythm idea. It’d be hard to only ever write lyrics or top lines.

YGR: Was there a clear moment where you felt like, “I am now a musician”? Do you even feel like a musician now?

KAG: I write songs but I don’t consider myself a musician. I just cannot bring myself to get passionate about getting good at instruments. It doesn’t get me excited at all. I always tell people I’m a musician like Irving Berlin, and I’m absolutely trying to be funny when I say it, but as I understand it the guy couldn’t really play piano and he never let that stop him from contributing some of our greatest entries in the great American songbook. Not saying I’ve made anything like that, but I think about how he never let that stop him if I’m feeling bad about my musicianship. My ego is not in the technician aspect of instrument-playing, but I know my rudimentary way around the basics of a few. On this new record it’s mostly me and my producer Meg playing or programming stuff, and then Gleb Wilson on drums (“Unglued”, I think a few others) and “Expo ‘70” bass. Mastering engineer Roberto Schilling added some low-end in a few places like the “I’m Your Man” cover, and then there’s a great guitar cameo from Forest Juziuk on “Unglued”.

YGR: Have you learned anything from “Lillian Hellman”? Or is it simply just your least favorite if you had to pick, which you so kindly did at my request?

KAG: I think so, because even though I’ve written stuff that I later think is bad since then, I don’t think any other song makes me wince in quite the same way as that one. I have songs where listening back, I’m like JFC, what exactly did I think I was doing here, but then I remember what I thought I was doing (“I was being Nile Rodgers”, “I was being aggressively literal in a way that I thought would come off cool and exciting but maybe sounds more like a bellyflop”) and I don’t feel that bad about it. I think you should only feel bad if you’re phoning it in or playing it safe. Everybody should be aiming for the extremes where you’re either going to be fantastic or sucking really bad a little more.

Abyecta Inténtalo O Muere 7″ (Metadona)
Concurrently residing in Chile, Spain and, surely worst of all, now even the United States, Abyecta pack a lot into this seven-inch single. This is music made by punks who take two hours to get dressed for punks who take two hours to get dressed, the charged-hair, boots n’ braces realm of underground punk that I’ve always admired if not personally belonged. At five and a half minutes, “Inténtalo O Muere” barely fits within the confines of a seven-inch record, but the track benefits from its relatively epic length. Imagine Randy Uchida hitching a ride with The Varukers down the highway to Hell, or the Epic Handshake meme (you know the one) where the two muscular arms are “heavy metal” and “punk rock” and the handshake is “spiked gauntlets”. Songs like this are meant to be five minutes long, with extended instrumental guitar-solo breaks, aggro bridges and fist-pumping choruses. “Amo Y Esclavo” welds Judas Priest / Grim Reaper guitar lines to the powerful gallop of hardcore-punk drum patterns, with no qualms about an epic ninety-second instrumental opening passage. It’s larger than life (metal) and street-level urgent (punk), befitting an unsanctioned outdoor punk fest with active volcanos in the distance, preferably full of melting cop cars.

Bill Converse Zone Zone 2×12″ (Fixed Rhythms)
Lace up those Chuck Taylors and let’s roll out, Bill Converse is playing tonight! The Austin-based DJ/producer is known for his atypical triple-turntable setup, though unlike Queensrÿche’s drum kit, there’s a keen purpose to Converse’s excess. The evidence couldn’t be clearer, as the second record in this double twelve-inch set showcases an absolutely mind-melting live set at Jackie O’Body in Denton, TX, sometime in 2024. It’s a thrilling acid rollercoaster, though if I insist on likening the performance to a carnival ride, the bumper cars are a similarly-appropriate attraction. Arpeggiated acid lines are bouncing from all angles, but Converse has a keen sense of order and pacing, whipping up a hero’s feast of analog dance grooves. Don’t let the live aspect scare you, either – the recording is crisp and full-bodied, if lacking the screams and hollers of what must’ve been a frenzied dance crowd. The studio tracks are great in a different way: “770” is like a Satanic mass derived from the Dr. Katz and Seinfeld themes; Converse’s plucky MIDI bass over pitched drums is a highlight. “Lure Me” chops it up with a laser security system fit for the Bellagio, and the title track is a steam-engine running on acid, like when Jamal Moss presses all the buttons at once and it somehow sounds euphoric. I’d say someone should get Converse a fourth table, but until we understand the possible ramifications, certain forms of power are not to be messed with.

Early Grave Sewer Baby Eaten By Worms 7″ (Stupid Bag)
Philly upstarts Early Grave have fun with metal aesthetic signifiers (see: band logo, cemetery-themed art, machetes and scythes brandished in group pic) while clearly worshipping the one and only true god: hardcore punk. They released this nine-song demo late last year, which Stupid Bag has now upgraded to an attractive seven-inch slab. They’ve got a great thing going: the music recalls the frantic speed-runs of Neos and Gang Green with a smidge of Septic Death’s gloriously-confusing songwriting and the occasional fast-core bludgeoning redolent of Slap A Ham’s late ’90s output. Perhaps it’s the vocals where the metal influence seeps in, as they reached into the cauldron for United Mutation’s grizzled mutant intonation and accidentally pulled out a severed larynx with the fiendishness of Glen Benton. As a trio, it’s either the bassist or guitarist responsible for the vocals (no front-person!), which is far less prevalent in hardcore than metal. But I digress: Early Grave named their damn thing Sewer Baby Eaten By Worms and seem to approach their frothy speed-core from the perspective of that sewer baby, writing and contorting among so much unspeakable vermin.

FRKSE Through The Slow Dusk LP (Iron Lung)
There’s a rich allegory to be gleaned from the arresting cover of FRKSE’s Through The Slow Dusk, though it’s unclear to me exactly what the decapitated horse-head’s vomited objects imply. It’s been fun to ruminate on though, particularly while jamming FRKSE’s newest iteration of discomfiting underground electronics. Through The Slow Dusk is the closest FRKSE has ever come to sounding like a “real band”, with recognizable percussive elements (is that a trap-kit in there on some tracks?), synths and vocals, recorded by none other than Martin Bisi. As such, it sounds like Public Image Ltd. had they signed to Broken Flag instead of Virgin, with imposing fields of dub-constructed post-punk given an early industrial walloping – the punishment is in fact the reward. FRKSE aren’t interested in glorifying historical frights, though… the group has always wielded a dark-knowledge, deep-web lexicon rooted in the contemporary, and the lyrics of tracks like “Sort” (“Forbes list of dilettantes: / spreadsheet / populate the cells”), “Coax” (“Online broker / saw me in a magazine”) and “Fled” (“I want to be white / I want to be white like overexposure”) don’t play games. For those intrepid Iron Lung Records fans who listen to more Einstürzende Neubauten than Infest, their misanthropy is once again rewarded.

Giallo Tenebrarum LP (Convulse)
The black leather glove has been enjoying a resurgence in hardcore-punk’s popular imagery. It’s kind of the perfect visual signifier for modern hardcore bands who want to imply some level of dark trangressiveness without actually getting in trouble for it. Mercifully, the days of bands using pictures of scantily-clad, suffering women without getting called out for it have passed, so the black leather glove offers a reasonable solution: perhaps sleazy celluloid violence is implied, perhaps consensual BDSM is implied, or maybe they just want you to think someone in the band knows how to operate a motorcycle, but whatever the case, it’s safely edgy territory for would-be Youth Attack bands who release records they’d never show their parents. The gloves are central to Giallo’s debut full-length (complete with two band members wearing them in the live photos), but their form of contemporary hardcore hits pretty hard, even if they went bare handed. Giallo’s sound is indebted to groups like Civilized and Vile Gash (and with the slasher movie aesthetic, City Hunter’s presence looms especially large); it’s an overtly aggressive approach, shrouded in feedback without any creeping metal influence, and they do well by it. Their songs are faster than typical, even the parts that benefit from being slow, and I appreciate that about Giallo’s approach – “Sleepwalking” is a shock to the system when it kicks into high gear. The two extended songs on the second side show signs of curiosity: a creeping, textural synth-scape from Terror Cell Unit leads into a demonic, sax-laden slam with throat-clearing coughs reminiscent of Pharmakon’s Hoax-album starter. I hope Giallo washed their hands after, but what do you know: another great reason for those gloves.

Annie Hogan Tongues In My Head LP (Downwards)
There are a dwindling few among us who can claim to have worked closely with Nick Cave, Lydia Lunch, Marc Almond and Foetus; of those, there’s an even smaller percentage that continue to make meaningful work. Annie Hogan is that rare character, having shot through the early ’80s industrial/goth milieu and, like a rent-controlled pioneer, lacking any good reason to leave. Tongues In My Head is her latest for Downwards (champions of all darkly-shrouded musics) and it’s a deviant joy to behold. These six songs are slinky, deliberate and cunning… elegiac synth-pop brimming with trippy peculiarities befitting a morbid German folktale. Think of Leslie Winer if her modeling career started in Alice’s Wonderland instead of New York City, or November Növelet if they were estranged from each other, if or if Kate Bush joined Current 93 in 1984 and was promptly never heard from again. These are fun fantasies for me to conjure up, but I want to make clear that Hogan knows how to write songs, not merely moods or atmospheres. If we still made mixtapes and you wanted to seduce a completely inappropriate crush (your professor, your bully, your stalker fan), “Scorpions” would lure them to your doorstep promptly, handcuffed and desperate. Sorry to talk like this, but why don’t you spend some time with Tongues In My Head and try to not act creepy after!

Julian Heresy Julian Heresy LP (No Coast)
Madison, WI has a rich history of stoner metal with ties to the punk scene, care of labels like Bovine and Rhetoric (both of whose proprietors suffered weed-related arrests and incarceration, if I’m not mistaken!). They lived for it out there, and if the recent arrival of Julian Heresy is any indication, that flame continues to burn eternally. This new group features Bobby Hussy on lead guitar, apparently shifting his worship from the altar of one devil (Jay Reatard) to the more traditionally red-tailed, pointy-goatee-with-pitchfork variety. Hussy enlisted some friends, with none other than Mikey Makela of Bongzilla to lend his vocals to these sloth-paced stoner epics. Makela sounds grizzled on opener “Stash Jar”, but by the time his voice hits on “Emerging From The Quantum Extremal Surface”, he’s more like a rotisserie-marinated Gollum, not dead but far from alive. These boilerplate, slow-shifting riffs demand a good fifty to sixty percent of his throat, but he’s giving one hundred and ten percent here, primed to scare the neighbors so long as Julian Heresy is blasting at the appropriate volume. “In Vino Veritas” takes the angst down a notch, almost sounding like Nothing were they a thousand years old; a brief dual-guitar composition leads into the final track, “Illium Township”, a righteous Spirit-Caravan-on-ludes chonker that praises Sabbath with every fiber of its being. Bringing it back to Gollum, riffs like these bear strong similarities to The Ring – when you feel their power in your hands, it consumes you.

Low Jack Market 7″ (Bambe)
As we usher in the backyard-party season, be sure to have some fresh tunes ready to scare off those stragglers who insist on lingering past their welcome. Low Jack is a great producer when it comes to dance tracks with alienating energy, as “Market” reiterates on this all-too-brief seven-inch single. “Market” was originally composed for an “immersive installation” by Australian visual artist Thomas Jeppe, but we receive it in “Radio Edit” form here, a disgruntled array of samples organized in dancehall formation. Pounding low-end meets chattering typewriters (or automatic rifles cocking?) and thrillingly garish siren effects for an energetic sound-clash sure to leave your clothes smelling like some form of smoke. It’s a party ambulance from Sodom, and as the track fades over a bed of rain and reverse-flanged doinks, I’m wishing this track was given an additional five inches of vinyl to explore. Bambe label-head Bambounou snagged the b-side for himself, flipping the original into a vicious electro groove, JJ Fad all dressed up like Mad Max‘s Furiosa. It’s less feral but equally dangerous. Now that I think about it, no one is gonna want to leave if you start blasting either version of “Market” – you’re going to be pulling partygoers out of your futon for weeks.

Jae Matthews Man On The Beat 12″ (Heartworm Press)
Boy Harsher have been on the top of the minimal-synth-pop heap for a while, yet their banger output has all but dried up. Careful is seven years old, “Pain” dates back even further, and while all the soundtracking work has kept them creatively busy (not to mention Gus Muller’s time well spent with Safe Mind), the lack of new club material is glaring. Vocalist Jae Matthews reassures us then that she hasn’t forsaken the dance-floor with this new single for Wes Eisold’s Heartworm Press label, a cover of Buzz Kull’s “Man On The Beat”. Buzz Kull has been lurking around the Heartworm corridors for a while now, their sexy, fashion-forward dark-wave a latex-tight fit, and Matthews takes the opportunity to reassert herself as the most gorgeously bleary dark-wave siren in the game. Over a nimble synth sequence, an unflagging goth-industrial beat and some atmospheric pads to help dim the lights, Matthews’s breathy intonation will have all the bat-kids flapping their wings long into the night. In true new-wave fashion befitting a Kaos Dance Records release, the b-side is an extended version, care of the Los Angeles duo Spike Hellis, splicing in the original Buzz Kull vocals alongside Jae Matthews for a celebration of all things black, leather and lust-scented (I think I may have just described a specific Diptyique candle). It’s not quite Lemmy Kilmister with Wendy O. Williams, but what is?

Minot Walls / People Pleaser 7″ (no label)
Just had a great idea: what if there was a band where the drummer stands, and the bassist, guitarist and singer all sit? It’d be a refreshing change of pace for what is one of the most worn-out and predictable features of rock music. Missoula, MT’s Minot can take my idea for free, as they’ve already got a standing drummer in Noah Mackinnon – all he has to do is tell Flora Holland (guitar) and Alex Molica (also guitar) to take a seat. Thanks in no small part to the Wäntage USA label, I’ve always had fond thoughts of Montana’s underground rock scene, of which Minot reside; on this self-released lathe-cut single, they showcase their rudimentary fuzz-pop leanings. “Walls” locates the urinal in the far corner that still has Cramps and Dead Moon stickers from the ’90s on it and dumps a fresh bucket of ice cubes in there. I prefer this stripped-down and first-attempty style to “People Pleaser”, which looks back to the flower-braided ’60s for inspiration, a sound I personally am content to leave undisturbed in the mold-riddled dollar bin. Not sure I need to harp on such details, though – if I’m going to experience Minot, it’s hopefully blaring from the other end of the bar while I’m doing shots with Mordecai, and then faintly audible across the street once Mordecai have convinced me to steal a horse from the nearby stable and ride it home without a saddle. Welcome to big sky country!

Pura Manía La Banda Es La Ley 12″ (Roachleg)
By the early ’80s, punk rock began to fantasize how it might sound in a post-nuclear fallout situation. It’s no wonder that in our current moment, punks are drawn to similar aesthetics: desolate, flanger- and chorus-effected guitars; primal, tom-heavy drumming; a synth that buzzes like some sort of infrared scanning device used to locate survivors. Vancouver’s Pura Manía are preparing for the wasteland with this new six-song EP, a spikier counterpart to fellow Second Empire Justice-worshipping Canadians Home Front. “Zona De Alto Riesgo” translates to “High Risk Zone” and it ties today’s anxieties to that paranoid, retro sound nicely. It’s almost a comforting nostalgia when those woah-ohs hit two minutes in, at least until you remember the rate at which innocent people are dying. Pura Manía have every right to hammer on the negative endlessly, but they wisely mix up the vibe, going from warning-alarm downer punk to major-chord crowd pleasers like “Planeta Gótico” and “Amor De Coladera (Veneno Y Glam)”, the later of which is a perfect set-ender for when you just want to lock arms with a stranger in a Templars shirt and sing along to keep from crying. The cover lightens the mood as well, a mischievous gang of punxsploitation Madballs ready to swipe all of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera’s acid for themselves. It might not seem like it at the moment, but the punks are bound to win.

Reek Minds Eternal Reek 7″ (Black Water)
Portland’s Reek Minds share multiple members with Alienator, whose profile is steadily growing if the number of t-shirts and hoodies I see people wearing is any indication. Don’t think of them as twins, though, unless you’re thinking of Basket Case, Reek Minds being the malformed, basket-transported monster. Eternal Reek is their third and newest seven-inch EP, and it remains far too frantic and unsavory to move a lot of merch. While still a tangled mass of hardcore patterns (blast-beats, d-beats, scissor-beats… maybe even a false-start breakdown or two), the recording is ever so slightly cleaner this time around, and their songs showing a willingness to honor the mid-tempo menace of local legends Poison Idea, if only for brief flashes of time. They remain indebted to Siege, but by allowing other hardcore reference-points to enter their pungent brew, Reek Minds avoid writing the same songs over and over. “Desolate” could’ve been an Alienator song, as far as the crawlspace-tight filthy crossover thrash riffing is concerned, but Reek Minds gather a gang of those DRI skankermen and beat it to a pulp. If the increased technical prowess concerns you, fear not: their hearts still went with fresh entrails on the cover.

Sealer Sealer 12″ (The Ghost Is Clear)
Against all conceivable odds, cool music continues to proliferate in the generic-store-brand state known to us as “Ohio”. Cincinnati’s Sealer are fresh as a daisy, though their stylish noise-rock is fixing to trample any nearby bouquets. From the jump, “Seeing/Peeling” hits you with an upper-register monotone vocal delivery and fist-hammered notes redolent of the one and only KARP. I’d be happy to settle into a full album of pure KARP worship, but Sealer doesn’t go easy on us, adding some satisfying bounce to the song before dropping off into a saxophone-aided dirge. It feels like going from sober to wasted in two minutes, and it’s a nice way to kick things off. The five other tracks play around with post-hardcore noise-rock’s conventions like chewing gum on a finger, extending breakdowns into full songs and bending Black Flag riffs into Jesus Lizard angles. It doesn’t feel like this music is particularly dangerous or disturbed, but rather true to the group’s married-guy noise-rock essence, one of mostly-stable men pursuing healthy and creative ways to blow off some of the steam that builds up no matter how seriously they might practice yoga or not. Been there!

Ben Vince Street Druid LP (AD 93)
We were due for a fresh solo full-length from collaborator-about-town Ben Vince, and that time is now. Check any hip London-centered experimental release from the last five years and there’s a good chance that Vince lent a helping hand, or at least is tight with someone who did. He generally contributes his tastefully-processed saxophone (that Joy O collab from 2018 is ace), but on Street Druid it’s all-hands-on-deck for Vince, as he utilizes guitar, bass, voice, synths and drum programming to flesh out these pieces. Anyone familiar with his work might expect a tasteful, warm-ambient melange of horns, synths and electronic rhythms, and I’ll assure you now: that general assessment rings true for the album’s duration. For as pleasant as Vince’s music always is, there’s something about Street Druid that clocks as directionless… all the proper parts are in order, but it can feel as though Vince forgot to bring an itinerary or even a map. “Sentient Kinetics” is one of the more vigorous pieces here, reminiscent of Shackleton in a way that makes me want to put on Shackleton. “Deepbluereflection” is as beautiful as the title implies, but it feels comfortable as a background setting, the atmosphere to support something more interesting (or, God help us, vibes-based social-media content). Street Druid is soothing, artfully-crafted music, but by the lofty bar AD 93 has set for its visionary outlook, it falls a little short.

Winged Wheel Desert So Green LP (12XU)
Winged Wheel’s existence has been defined by transformation. The group started as a long-distance project, a successful series of file swaps turned into a band once they gave it a name, and then in 2024, Winged Wheel actually sat down in the same room, further unfurling their dextrous Americana-psych. I forget what year we’re in now, but Desert So Green is yet another reinvention, and perhaps the most exciting one yet, the sort of thing that will get you to stop calling them Winged Wheel and start calling them Winged Wheel. The band, featuring a variety of underground rock stalwarts (Fred Thomas, Matthew J. Rolin, Steve Mutha F’in Shelley and more), dug their heels into songwriting (rather than vibewriting) this time around and the results are glorious. You can’t pin their sound on any conspicuous set of influences, though their approach isn’t so foreign as to fully bewilder. Oren Ambarchi gone post-rock tropicalia? Stereolab dressed as Sigur Rós for Halloween? Kevin Shields’ missing 1995-2005 songs discovered by Jeff Parker and intercepted by Colin Newman, glam-era Brian Eno sitting shotgun in the getaway car? These are all wrong statements, but I’ve accepted that I’m losing to Winged Wheel this round. If every band was able to bridge the gap between the fresh and the familiar like Desert So Green, I’d stop yapping so much and simply sit back and listen, wrapped up in the sensation of previously-unconnected cerebral neurons firing back and forth for the first time.