Shopvac - Fugue State

Monday, January 6, 2020 | Tracks

EP1, out Jan­u­ary 10th via Bust Nev­er Sleeps.

Acid & Eltern - Demo

Monday, January 6, 2020 | Records |

In re­cent years, Cologne has de­vel­oped quite an im­pres­sive track record of folks putting on DIY garage shows, thus i al­ways won­dered why i didn't get to hear much in terms of lo­cal bands, even less in terms of record­ed ma­te­r­i­al. How­ev­er… Acid & El­tern are in­deed a band from Cologne and their first de­mo makes for a thor­ough­ly pleas­ing lis­ten. Record­ed in raw and fuzzy mono, I'd lo­cate their sound - among oth­ers - rough­ly in the realm of Ex-Cult, Use­less Eaters and the mud­dy LoFi-Aes­thet­ics of ear­ly Erik Ner­vous.

Al­bum-Stream →

Discovery - Demo

Monday, January 6, 2020 | Records | , ,

California's Dis­cov­ery de­liv­er an­oth­er two short but po­tent blasts of this par­tic­u­lar fu­sion be­tween blown out fuzzy hard­core & garage stuff that, in re­cent years, seems to be crop­ping up from every crack in the as­phalt, a fact i couldn't be more hap­py about.

Rancher - Pummeler

Monday, January 6, 2020 | Records | , ,

What we got here is twelve min­utes worth of min­i­mal­is­tic, un­com­pro­mis­ing DIY in­dus­tri­al noise/-punk shit by some duo from Riv­er Falls, Wis­con­sin. Be­ing more of a clue­less id­iot tourist in this par­tic­u­lar field, i'd de­scribe this as what a ful­ly elec­tron­ic vari­ant of Big Black might have sound­ed like. Or maybe draw par­al­lels to the more re­cent but com­pa­ra­bly min­i­mal­is­tic noise by Black Pus.

Al­bum-Stream →

Pink Guitars - We Are Made Of The Sun

Monday, January 6, 2020 | Records | , , , ,

Just like its pre­de­ces­sor, the sec­ond EP by this band from Buf­fa­lo, NY turns out to be an­oth­er high­ly con­cen­trat­ed dose of un­con­ven­tion­al, in­ven­tive and at times strik­ing­ly melod­ic hard­core fun, al­so ex­pand­ing its styl­is­tic ten­ta­cles in­to places of garage-, fuzz- and KBD style punk.

Al­bum-Stream →

A whole buttload of mixtapes

Monday, December 30, 2019 | Mixtape

Bring­ing back the tape in mix­tape. I didn't do a great job this year at keep­ing a steady sup­ply of these go­ing. To make up for it, here's a whole bunch of those things be­fore the year ends. One with your usu­al stan­dard­ized 12XU fare. One full of warm and cozy pow­er pop. And as an an­ti­dote to the lat­ter, a kin­da gruff one, lean­ing to­wards the hard­core side of things. So at least i can say i made four mix­es this year.

In case you won­der what verspan­nungskas­sette means… Keep won­der­ing be­cause it's a pret­ty much un­trans­lat­able play on words.

Verspannungskassette #2 (C-90)

Side A

(FLAC via Archive.org)

Track­list:

Pro­to Id­iot - Sit Back, Re­lax, En­joy
Neu­trals - I Can Do That
Hu­man Beat - Punc­tu­al Punks
Aus­ter­i­ty - Herd­ed
Over­time - De­hy­dra­tion
Ba­sic Hu­man - Shame
San­dré - Po­tu
Ku­mus­ta - Car
2 Stroke - Cri­sis, Cri­sis
Emer­gency Con­tact - Build­ings
Rank/​Xerox - Cra­dle of Life
Spray Paint - Look­ing For Work
Big­pig - Eyes
Trash­dog - ADHDEMON
The Nico Mis­sile - Put It On The Ta­ble
Den­nis - Knives
Cat Scan - Com­modi­ties
Ura­ni­um Club - Two Things At Once (Part 1)
The Cow­boy - Swim­ming with the Fishies
Pist Id­iots - Mo­tor Run­nin

Side B

(FLAC via Archive.org)

Track­list:

Penance Hall - Cov­ered In Shit
Nick Nor­mal - Win­dows Paint­ed Shut
Iso­la­tion - Shift
Mi­ni Skirt - Pret­ty
Pat­ti - Col­or Kill
Ukryte Za­le­ty Sys­te­mu - Swiat Ma Ksz­talt
Lost Sys­tem - State Of Re­al­i­ty
Gam­ma World - Mid­night Sniper
Acrylics - Haze
Ar­se - Pres­sure Test
John (timest­wo) - Dog Walk­er
The Missed - Tel­luri­an Mis­take
Dee Bee Rich - Vom­it
Prison Af­fair - Mas­tur­ba­tion
Crown Mould­ing - On The House
Civic - Vel­vet Casi­no
B Boys - On Re­peat
Ex-Gold - Red Light
Ed­dy Cur­rent Sup­pres­sion Ring - Hu­man Race

Entspannungskassette #1 (C-60)

Side A

(FLAC via Archive.org)

Track­list:

Mick Trou­ble - He's Frank
Sob Sto­ries - Dan­ny Reed
Lost Bal­loons - Feed the Pain
Scup­per - Pass Me By
Opos­sums - Promis­es
Woolen Men - Brick Hori­zon
Leg­endary Wings - Weath­er Ad­vi­so­ry
Bed Wet­tin' Bad Boys - Plas­tic Tears
Warm So­da - I Don't Wan­na Grow Up
Vaguess - A Long Time
Vi­tal Idles - Sec­onds
Chronophage - Wed­ding

Side B

(FLAC via Archive.org)

Track­list:

The Res­onars - The Gold­en Age
Alien Nose­job - Peo­ple Stairs
Chook Race - At Your Door
Seablite - Heart Moun­tain
Omi Palone - Void
The Love­birds - Streets of Rage
The Per­sian Leaps - About Your Record
Land­lines - Signs Of Life
EggS - I Fell In Love
Ra­dioac­tiv­i­ty - Sleep
Wire­heads - The Overview Ef­fect

Verspannungskassette #3 (C-60)

Side A (red)

(FLAC via Archive.org)

Track­list:

Neo­types - Banned in Ham­mond (Live)
Ex­pose - Mo­tive
Skele­ton Glove - Gimme Gimme Choco­late
The Dorks - Syco­phant
(The) Liq­uid As­sets (of Ot­tawa) - Mur­der­er
Cells - My Gun
Rax­il - Un­known Ti­tle
Miedo - Bá­jate de tu nube.
Op­tic Nerve - Sniper
Sick Head - Pis
Fos­ter Care - Rack Brain
Dregs - Mar­fa Creep
Ubik - John Wayne (is A Cow­boy (and Is On Twit­ter) )
Xenu & The Thetans - No Es Tu Causa
Lux - Ac­tion
Warp - Sheet Cake
Speed Plans - Hell House
Goon - Ain't Rite

Side B (black)

(FLAC via Archive.org)

Track­list:

Fried e/​M - Un­ti­tled 2
Dots - De­throned
Big Hog - Big Hog
Rinse - Pest Con­trol (song For Hell­strom)
Dry In­sides - Dawn Of The Skull
Lead - The Bad Sleep Well
Glue - Dis­grace
Alien Nose­job - Bond Clean
The Uglies - Tone Deaf
Gut­ter Knife - Abuse of Pow­er
Physique - The Rhythm Of Bru­tal­i­ty
Das Drip - Gym Rat
Tem­ple Dogs - Ra­bies
Hwan­za - 인간공장
Blue­print - Dis­gust
Holo­gram - Sim­u­la­tion
Rat-Nip - NC
Ztuped - Threat of Death
Con­so­la­tion - Head Down
An­nées Zéro - Rup­ture
Fuckin' Lovers - Con­trol

Isolation - Isolation

Thursday, December 26, 2019 | Records | , ,

Ba­si­cal­ly, this Fal­mouth, UK band's line up con­sists of lo­cal punks In­ter­nal Cred­it mi­nus one dude. Com­pared to the latter's rather straight­for­ward garage punk, Iso­la­tion roll out a some­what more rigid sound on their de­but EP, ex­pand­ing their sol­id garage foun­da­tion by a cer­tain post­core edge, bring­ing to mind Hot Snakes or Youth Avoiders, as well as melod­ic post punk acts like Red Dons, Day­light Rob­bery, Anx­ious Liv­ing, Ner­vosas and maybe some tiny traces of Wipers. What's not to like about that?

Al­bum-Stream →

Speed Plans - More Hardcore

Thursday, December 26, 2019 | Records | ,

Okay… this is an easy one to ex­plain. You just put equal amounts of MC5 and Bad Brains in­to a blender and the re­sult will have a taste sim­i­lar to what­ev­er this group from Pitts­burgh, Penn­syl­va­nia does on its third not-quite-an-LP. As sim­ple as that and every bit as elec­tri­fy­ing as you might hope for.

Al­bum-Stream →

Unclaimed Diamonds - The First Five Slabs

Thursday, December 26, 2019 | Records | ,

This Philadel­phia band's de­but tape via State Cham­pi­on Records al­ready makes an ex­cel­lent first im­pres­sion. Dis­tinct­ly 90's in­die rock vibes akin to Breed­ers or more re­cent stuff by Melk­bel­ly col­lide with rather con­tem­po­rary sound­ing post punk el­e­ments, somwhat com­pa­ra­ble to WALL or The Ba­by, ra­di­at­ing a won­der­ful­ly crude, off-kil­ter charme through­out.

Al­bum-Stream →

The Cowboy - The Cowboy 7"

Thursday, December 26, 2019 | Records | , ,

Cleveland's The Cow­boy are back! Two years af­ter their ex­plo­sive de­but al­bum, the group fea­tur­ing mem­bers of Plea­sure Left­ists and Ho­mostu­pids haven't lost their abil­i­ty to kick ass with a sound os­cil­lat­ing be­tween garage- and post punk, noise rock over­tones, an abra­sive sur­face com­bined with dis­arm­ing catchy­ness. All this re­minds me of bands like Plax, Ex-Cult, Shark Toys and Flat Worms. Al­so, in a rather un­ex­pect­ed turn of events, we get ex­posed to a laid back in­die­rockin' in­stru­men­tal tune on the b-side.