Jean Mignon - AN/​AL

Garage Punk with a weird the­mat­ic fix­a­tion on mope­ds and but­t­holes by some New York dude which sounds a lot like his city ca. '73-'77, in­hab­it­ing a son­ic space some­where in­be­tween the pro­to- and ear­ly punk of the NY Dolls, Mod­ern Lovers and Dead Boys, with fur­ther echoes of the wider ear­ly US scene á la Pa­gans, Black Randy and the Met­rosquad on the more re­laxed side of things as well some se­ri­ous ear­ly aus­tralian Saints- and Bird­man en­er­gy in its wilder mo­ments.

Al­bum-Stream →

S.U.G.A.R. - II

Fol­low­ing last year's some­what un­even de­but LP of this Berlin group, their newest al­bum is a huge step for­ward in every as­pect - the huge­ly im­proved song sub­stance be­ing dri­ven forth with un­re­lent­ing mo­men­tum and cap­tured in a mid-fi aes­thet­ic that fits them per­fect­ly. Sound­wise, they're clear­ly tak­ing cues from a long lin­eage of pro­to- and old­school garage punk - ob­vi­ous­ly Stooges, MC5 and Death to be­gin with, in ad­di­tion to Dead Moon and some Wipers touch­es but, most of all, that austal­ian breed of groups like Saints, Ra­dio Bird­man, Sci­en­tists ap­pear to have left their mark in their sound, not to men­tion the larg­er-than-life fuzz punk one-hit-won­ders God - but while the lat­ter seemed to flame up and burn out over the short du­ra­tion of one glo­ri­ous A-side nev­er to reach such heights again, S.U.G.A.R. show no signs of wear yet, re­peat­ing that mar­vel eight­fold for a cer­ti­fied all-killer-no-filler al­bum.

Al­bum-Stream →

Peace De Résistance - Bits and Pieces

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.

Al­bum-Stream →

Society - All Flies Go To Hell

Four-and-a-half fun litte strum­ming ex­cer­cis­es of the heav­i­ly pro­to punk in­spired kind, done by a dude who al­so hap­pens to be a mem­ber of Toe Ring. Sounds a bit like a mix of Peace De Re­sis­tance, Woolen Men and Hon­ey Radar with a hint of Mod­ern Lovers on top.

Al­bum-Stream →

Peace De Résistance - Hedgemakers

Now this is some pret­ty in­cred­i­ble shit right here. The min­i­mal­is­tic DIY garage rock on this tape by some NYC dude (or band, not sure about that) sounds kin­da like some lost pro­to punk rel­ic and would just as well blend in on any one of those Messthetics/​Homework com­pi­la­tions. The sparse per­cus­sion, weary vo­cals, over­all lean arrange­ments and Lo-Fi pro­duc­tion val­ues all do their part in lend­ing these songs a par­tic­u­lar qual­i­ty that feels both grit­ty and drowsy.

Al­bum-Stream →

Super X - Super X

This tape by Mel­bourne group Su­per-X isn't ex­act­ly new stuff, but that shit is way to strong not to be men­tioned here. Wit­ness a son­ic spec­ta­cle un­fold, fus­ing the old garage-/pro­to punk fuzz of Fun House-era Stooges with spaced out vibes not un­like De­struc­tion Unit or ear­ly Tele­scopes, all the while drag­ging along with it some traces of con­tem­po­rary post punk.