Minimalist psychedelic hypnotism of a particularly repetitive and stubborn, timeless variety by frenchman Remy Pablo who, if i'm not mistaken, is also playing in groups such as The Anomalys and Weird Omen. You can hear clear echoes of ol late-'70s and '80s underground groups á la MX-80, Chrome, early Telescopes and Metal Urbain while further comparisons might just as well be made to more recent acts like Peace de Résistance, A Place To Bury Strangers, Jean Mignon and Writhing Squares.
It's a new LP by the Detroit group and as you might already suspect, there's not a whole lot in the way of surprises here, which is totally fine for their particular local flavour of garage mayhem. As far as fairly traditional, heavily Stooges-/MC5-informed garage punk (and just maybe, a hint of Feedtime?) goes, it doesn't get much better in terms of raw, primal energy. This is the kind of record which convinces almost exclusively by virtue of brute force and boy do i feel saved now, which is to say: Ouch!
More beautiful delightful garage punk mayhem by the dungeon-dwellers from Karlsruhe, Germany, this time in a slightly less lo-fi yet perfectly potent sound aesthetic. Once again you might be remembered of acts like Strange Attractor, Salamirecorder and, most of all, various incarnations of Thee Oh Sees over the years. My Spell, then again, sounds a bit as if the latter had been crossbred with the no-wave infused drones of noise rockers Spray Paint.
My best effort to describe this work of the devil channeled by some St. Louis, Missouri dude is this: An overabundance of stupid demented shit condensed into fun little garage tunes in the vague neighbourhood of Buck Biloxi, Strange Attractor or, alternately, Dead Moon & The Dead Milkmen, maybe with some Wild Man Fisher thrown in for good measure. I think i'm just about dumb enough to appreciate that!
The newest EP of Rhode Island one-man-band Germ House aka Justin Hubbard carries another strong batch of songs in their trademark juxtaposition of rustic post punk abstraction and a folky undercurrent. Especially in the first half, these songs feel a tad more developed than usual this time while still retaining their overall quirkiness and their minimalist, fragmentary charme.
When this New York dude's enchanting and bewildering 2020 debut EP Hedgemakers hit, i didn't have the slightest clue who's the mastermind behind Peace De Résistance. Turns out it's none other than Institute vocalist Moses Brown - yeah, kinda makes sense in retrospect, i guess. Dunno how i missed that. His first longplayer now unfolds a somewhat more elaborate, yet still pretty minimalist soundscape that once again feels out of place in all the best ways - a time capsule of hazy false memories weaving early strains of proto-, art- and post punk into a vivid, semi-plausible case of the Mandela effect.
I gotta say i'm more than delighted with the versatile and smart and weird ways in which garage punk has evolved over more recent years but, you know, sometimes i'm just craving for something more oldschool and primal. Detroit duo 208's new cassette on Painters Tapes does a fabulous job scratching that particular itch, containing the raw, primitive, sweaty and drunken blues variety of garage punk, the kind you need to have a soul but no brain to appreciate. Yeah, i'm aware that the soul is a purely religious construct that has zero evidence going for it in real life. So let's say instead that you need a broken soulful brain to appreciate it, or something like that, okay?. The fidelity of this is just perfect, the kind of production where heavy clipping both digital and analog is a feature, not a bug - a fuzz-saw mangler of jams which might evoke comparisons to mostly older shit like Oblivians, Gories, Pussy Galore, Feedtime, Reatards and whatnot.
This dude from Watford, UK does a lot of things wrong here and i totally fucking love it. You know, like… squeezing 8 songs, 12 minutes of fuzzed out garage rock on a 7" and have that thing spin at 33 RPM for extra negative fidelity. Also, who needs sophistication and nuance in their music if we can simply have everything be very, very loud at all times? Why write a song using three chords if we can do it with just one? Yeah, don't expect anything too smart about this EP but the sheer shambolic intensity makes up for it perfectly. At some points this sounds like an MC5 worshipping incarnation of early The Men clashing with Destruction Unit while more recent groups like Hamer and Super-X aren't too far off either.
I gotta admit i had some trouble warming up to the last few Jackson Reid Briggs releases, whose production seemed just a bit too-much-of-everything for my taste. On this newest EP however, recorded during a breather between Australia's covid lockdowns with a line-up which, i assume, is different from his usual "Heaters", is just bursting with fresh energy channeled into four of his strongest jams, presented in a much slimmed down, unexpectedly playful fashion.
Another excellent EP by Rhode Island's Germ House, a solo project of Justin Hubbard who also happens to be playing in Far Corners. These three songs once again sparkle with his familiar stripped-down lo-fi charme and a sonic range that stretches from abrasive post- and art punk - which surely owes a thing or two to The Fall or Desperate Bicycles - to classic garage rock and contemporary garage punk, while also revealing a surprising catchyness, deep melancholy and a playful vibe reminiscent of The Woolen Men.
