More brainfuck and brain fog than brainwash, this kinda baffling new EP by italian gentleman Leonardo Carlacchiani aka Purp, an immersive flood of Lo-Fi DIY noise and psychedelia hellbent of clouding and overwhelming, rather than breaking, your headspace. The opener Mind Space comes across like the anthemic folk-y power pop of Vaguess being transplanted into the blown-out fuzz pop context of fellow italians Mustard/Metal Guru or of Dadgad’s most recent EP, then morphing towards a more relaxed midtempo indie rocker reminiscent of Treehouse or early Tape/Off in Labyrinthorama. Reminder Demons With Gufo Mangia Sale is pure psyched-out space blues abandon. Astral Angel sounds a bit like early Pixies slowed down to a depressing crawl with a distinct taste of ’90s Chokebore. Ladybug’s Ballata With Bobby Chombo pulls a kind of No-Fi My Bloody Valentine and Dinosaur Jr. pastiche through a psychedelic Flying Saucer Attack meatgrinder, followed by I-Ching sorta bridging the gap between early Japandroids and late 2000s / early 2010s noise-/fuzz pop shredders á la No Age, Wavves and Male Bonding.
Another Achterlicht EP, another high-octane blast from these dutchmen who have no doubt delivered their best set of tunes so far on this new cassette. The group has never sounded this tight on record before and the songs themselves also show a huge leap forward, delivering a non-stop barrage of dangeruous hooks and catchy tunes roughly in the vein of such garage-/synth-/eggpunk heavyweights as Dadar, Satanic Togas, Research Reactor Corp. and Gee Tee.
Wow, now that’s is one marvellous debut EP by this Philadelphia group dealing in a kind of earthy, dissonant and eccentric, yet equally graceful blend of art- and post punk. The monotonous no wave-ish strumming of the opening track The Shield calls to mind the minimalism of Shop Regulars or Honey Bucket while Green Man has more of an early eighties The Fall vibe with further commonalities to, say, fellow philadelphians Toe Ring and B.E.E.F. 39X. The vicious grooves of Gangstalker, holding a delicate balance of dissonance and catchyness, are then approximately channeling some more spiky version of Lithics coupled with some dissonant Glenn Branca- and eighties Sonic Youth guitar work, a bit like we’ve more recently heard from Self Improvement, for example.
This Leipzig group could quite easily end up filed away right next to other german-language post punk acts like Hyäne, early L’apell Du Vide, Kalte Hand and Die Wärme… you know, the genre’s – mostly berlin-based – usual suspects and as natural as this comparison feels at first glance, there’s quite a bit more more going on here than just another competent rehash of the tried-and-tested formula and i see just as much similarity to a bunch of international acts – Criminal Code first and foremost but also comparisons to the likes of Negative Gears, Sievehead, recent Longings and Pyrex don’t seem all that far-fetched to me.
