Not too long after the recent During 7″ on Chunklet Industries (a full length of that group should be expected drop soon) we already get to hear another group featuring Spray Paint vocalist and guitar player Cory Plump. As Rider/Horse he’s teaming up with a dude named Chris who has in some unspecified capacity worked with the likes of Les Savy Fav and Trans Am. Together they’re creating a sound that’s taking the more electrically driven vibe of the most recent Spray Paint releases into a dark and hazy, heavily industrial-leaning psychedelic nightmare kind of realm somewhat reminiscent of Exhaustion, Haunted Horses or Danyl Jesu, as well as the dub-infused soundscapes of Exek, with whom they also share that certain taste of Swell Maps.
Some weird-ass shit, this archival release containing the complete recordings, made in or around 2016, of a short-lived Brisbane group… and of course it doesn’t take a fucking genius to figure out this is yet another project revolving around eccentric avant-garde guitar torturer Glen Schenau of Kitchen’s floor, plus two other dudes who played in Sydney 2000 and Piss Pain respectively. It might be their involvement rendering this stuff almost approachable for a Schenau-related artifact, although by approachable i mean: No more approachable than, say, early The Fall or Membranes records are approachable. If that sounds approachable to you, then this will too!
It took the Portland, Oregon trio a few releases to get there, but their newest 7″ is pushing all the right buttons for me with its no wave-infused as well as Gang Of Four-inspired danceable post punk, which in this particular case reminds me especially of Brighton group Austerity.
Whoa, what a beautifully crude piece of DIY lo-fi fuckery in the twilight zones of slightly no-wave-ish post punk and garage rock, this digital release by some unknown Hicksville, NY entity. Kinda like an incredibly weird incarnation of The Woolen Men intermingling with Half Japanese and The UV Race. This is just gorgeous!
Now this one’s a curious beast. Nashville group Donors already won my attention two years ago with their first EP and a somewhat more conventional mix of garage- and post punk, but this is a different level of weirdness altogether, as they infuse their sound with increasing amounts of dissonant no wave havoc and proto noise rock á la Flipper, No Trend. What in the world could i compare this stuff to? Tyvek or Constant Mongrel reimagined as a no wave act? Spray Paint as a garage band? I’m not entirely sure what they actually set out to do but there’s no doubt they’re succeeding with flying colors. Just when you thought you made sense of the whole thing, the closing track Fine Print manages to surprise once again by adding some Haunted Horses-style industrial flavor to the mix.
At first listen, i can’t help but think of the texan (neo) no wave/chaotic noise rock connection around bands like Flesh Narc, Gay Cum Daddies and a few other projects sharing much of the same personnel. However, this band is from Philadelphia, making any association with those rather unlikely. Also, on closer inspection, their sound and songs come across a lot more structured, compared with the kinda semi-improvised feel of the Denton scene’s output. Soundwise, this is somewhat less in the no wave camp, leaning more into the noise rock side of things and now that i’m thinking of it… I also see quite some similarities to their geographically much closer New York contemporaries Spray Paint and Big Neck Police, as well as a hint of canadian noise punks Sopcans.
