LIMITED TO 500 COPIES AND SOLD OUT AT THE SOURCE!!!!!!!!!
GET READY TO BE ROCKED......P-REX IS BRINGING IT SOGGY STYLE.
We had to dig hard for copies of the newly reissued double LP by Soggy from Memoire Neuve. This is the "lost classic" from the most hard rocking band of the French punk scene. Ferocious unhinged rock n roll doesn't get better than this. Seriously fucking awesome. This is the only time some of these jams have ever been pressed to vinyl and who knows if they'll ever be again. Soggy has lit up the message boards of Termbo and other fan boards across the web, so all you collectors and fans this is your chance to finally own the definitive collection from these crazed French rockers.
File Soggy next to the Stooges and Mc5 in your stacks, or maybe even Motorhead or Judas Priest (who they were supposed to open for on tour, but disbanded instead....not sure anyone would've survived that much rock in one sitting). EQUAL PARTS MOTOR CITY IS BURNING GARAGE ROCK, PROTO METAL THRASHING AND BALLS OUT PUNK SNARL, this is one fucking double shot of 100 proof high octane rock n roll you need to own now.
Memore Neuve is already sold out of this fantastic double lp of Soggy, and only 500 copies are floating around, so act quick. Record One is filled to the brim with all the manic studio tracks the label could pack into one record, and the second disc is all live takes, so you can pretend you were there back in the day seeing Soggy at some French dive bar. For a band that only released one single during their short existence, every cut on this double album is fucking classic.
TRES TRES RECOMMENDED. Don't hesitate one second, this will fly off our shelves for sure.
"Unmanned Ship are active stoners. The difference between active stoners and lazy stoners is obvious. The active ones do cool shit while they’re baked and the lazy ones do lame shit. Unmanned Ship stay busy as bees in Chicago. One of the rad things the Unmanned Ship dudes do is make fucking killer instrumental rock jams. The three of ‘em concoct quite a hypnotic brew. It’s the kind of bubbly, dark, sweet porter I bee nectar fermenting into at the end of summer under less honey-friendly conditions. Coincidentally, their brand of stoner rock has the geometric and psychedelic qualities of a honeycomb. These grooves are repetitive and techincial, but never too flashy and by no means boring. A grounded rhythm section is nicely complemented by hydrodynamic guitar lines and extraterrestrial effects. Not exactly what I’d deem space rock, but a bit arthropodic to be sure. In fact, this whole record would score an Apoidean documentary quite nicely. With the majority of the footage shot within the hive and featuring a substantial amount of bee carnage of course, this would make the PERFECT soundtrack to a Planet Earth chapter on bee fights. I’d buy that for a dollar! This hyper limited, hand-screened, hand-numbered LP full of heavy, buzzing, intoxicating rock is HIGH-ly recommended for stoned drones. The Queen would never approve, but fuck that bitch – she’s fucking all of us." - Lance Barresi // Permanent Records
Trouble In Mind keep uncovering the hit makers of tomorrow and bringin' 'em to you today. MMOSS is their latest signing and their new full length Only Children is not gonna leave your turntable for a very long time.
Good gawd, MMOSS make that kind of music that sounds like it was from another time. This sounds vintage but with such forward thinking song craft this could be from the any dimension. MMOSS's steady psychedelic swirl will have you entranced before opener Spoiled Sun sets and then all bets are off, you're hooked and this hookah huffed mind blower of an album will have you hypnotized and narcotized so yous might as well lay back, get comfortable and enjoy this magic carpet ride as it takes you through all the colors of the rainbow and fills you with sun drenched bliss before leaving you gently nestled in a evening bed of oak leaves.
Gloriously Recommended.
Trouble In Mind return to the fray another banger of good time jangle pop. On this outing Melbourne's Woollen Kits are offering up the quality cuts on their second long player Four Girls.
The self titled Woollen Kits self titled LP on R.I.P. Society got played on repeat for months around the shop so to get another full length is a thing of joy round these parts. And boy howdy! Four Girls let's loose some mega catchy guitar pop complete with frazzled and fuzzed passes of noise pop strum upping the intensity and simultaneously moving forward with their sound (...Is that saxophone we hear? Sounds like some brilliant merger of The Chameleons and early Psychedelic Furs!).
The up-tempo boppers on Four Girls will be soundtracking our days to come as the colder climes begin to creep in we'll be living like its summer as the Kits provide the summer-y jams with much aplomb. Woollen Kits are keeping the underground rock stylings of the Beat Happenings and the Bedheads alive, while adding that Australian flavor that we can't get enough of and further proving the thrilling sonic anomalies coming up from the down under.
This thing will have you sliding around in your socks in the kitchen with enough fun for the whole fam! Mega Recommended.
Returning after a decade of silence, solo and side projects the mighty Godspeed You! Black Emperor are back, large and in charge and once again setting the standard for long-form crescendoing epic musical magic. The formidable Constellation label is behind this momentous event of course, and we gotta write them a thank you note right now. This new lp makes us wonder how we ever made it through the last ten years without another slab of Godspeed's epic post rock cartharsis.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor's "F#A#∞" LP and "Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada" EP that followed were revelations back in the late 90's and GYBE's breathtaking live shows were the thing of legend, a spiritual event even. When they dropped their gargantuan double album length "Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven" it was clear that it was Godspeed's world, we just lived in it. And 2002's "Yanqui U.X.O." was further proof to the uncompromising ways of this collective of artists hell bent on bringing only the highest quality punk orchestra to the revolution as our days are surely numbered.
Now a decade has passed since their last release, but don't let that cloud your vision. If any thing this sleeper cell has honed their particular set of skills to razor sharp dangerousness and upped the drama and tension to tear inducing passion. The 50 plus minutes of material here provide the blueprint for individual thought and the provocation to take action, defying the reality of this fading world.
Super Recommended.
Spectra Spirit is Sisters Of Your Sunshine Vapor second release behind a self titled 2009 album and this 'un is pumping out dusty head nod desert bramble rock n roll that'll have you high as hell by the end of side 1. This Detroit trio has the slow and steady swagger of the Black Angels, the psychedelic swirlings of the Night Beats and the throw back 70's vibe of Dead Meadow. These dudes would fit in fine amongst the Tee Pee Records roster. They have a way of being super minimal in their approach while still sounding super full.
Droning yet melodic organs, vibrato electric guitar strum coupled with acoustic picking, a simple yet effective trap set stomp and a vocal delivery that's cool and even. Sisters Of Your Sunshine Vapor are hypnotic without falling into any trappings of going too far down the rabbit hole, just infectious catchy mid-tempo psych-tinged desert rock that leads the listener on a head in the clouds excursion of sound. These spaced out dirty bluejeans blues often give way to ecstatic fuzz-laden walls of crackle urging one to turn up the volume as these waves of glorious sonics will most definitely infuse your soul with the Spectra Spirit. Super Recommended.
JESUS CHRISTCHURCH! ~ PRE-Tall Dwarfs, PRE-The Bats, New Zealand punk(pop) perfection!
Toy Love only existed for a short time (only 1978-80), but their shadow looms large over NZ music. Oft-considered to be ground zero of what would become the "Dunedin Sound" (The Clean, The Chills, etc) & introduced the world to the manic musicality of one Chris Knox. This LP was reissued ONLY in New Zealand for Record Store Day 2012, but the goddamn SAINTS at Goner Records have reissued it Stateside for all of us non-Kiwis.
IT GETTING STICKY IN HERE.
Trust us - "Live At The Gluepot" WILL remain stuck to your turntable, but it doesn't matter, 'cause you're not gonna wanna remove it ('cuz its' so awesome). The Toy Love records are rarer than Unicorn's horns around these parts, so this live album is all we have for now to convince you of their amazing amalgam of Buzzcocks, Saints, Stooges & VU (a.k.a. "that which would re-shape New Zealand & Australian music for decades to come"), but that's cool - from what we've heard Toy Love 'live' is the way to hear them anyway (the band was notoriously unhappy with the production on their only full-length LP, finding it to be too watered down). The recording is excellent, recorded over two nights at the legendary Gluepot Club with many tracks sounding so good, we're hesitant to believe they're live tracks. But there they are. Astounding. We cannot recommend this LP enough - serious contender for reissue of the year!
We raved about CLASSIC New Zealand reissues from folks like The Clean, The Great Unwashed, The Bats & 3-Ds, so if any of that stuff set your ears ablaze, you best do yourself a favor & go ahead & drop this mutha into your shopping cart - RECOMMENDED dudes, RECOMMENDED.
EDITION OF 500
How any of these are still here is beyond our comprehension! This Black Friday exclusive was the sleeper hit of the day for sure.
Man oh man, House Of Hayduk's City Of Quartz blew us away when we dropped the needle! With that kind of monster line up how could this not rule? City Of Quartz lays in dark and eerie before dropping into some decidedly sinister industrialized din. This record is like the lost soundtrack the greatest movie never made.
The music congeals into some mind boggling concoction of This Heat, now era Oneida, Psychic Paramount, Throbbing Gristle and Goblin and is only intensified by the stunning musical ability by the choicest collection of heavy hitters that are present on this recording. Primarily the fever dream of musical mastermind Mads Heldtberg playing all sorts of various instruments, this record is harnessed by the excellent rhythm section of bassist Billy Gould(Faith No More) and drummer extraordinaire Charles Hayward(This Heat) and then a whole host of musical rippers drop in for guest spots throughout.
City Of Quartz is a stunning statement of looming tension, humungoid production savvy and an utterly beautiful creative endeavor by some of modern times most talented musicians melding minds to make music that melts ours. The Koolarrow label pressed this up in an edition of 500 and its only available on wax! No CDs & no itunes, though it does come with a download of the entire album.
Supremely Recommended.
We scored a stack of the ultra limited clear vinyl version of the debut full length by Brooklyn, NY's Bootblacks. Bootblacks provide the kinda dark paranoid sonics currently being mined by acts like Pop 1280 and Slug Guts and add to the dread with some ghastly doses of Gun Club, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds and even some Sisters of Mercy. These guys are bringing some A-game musical chops to their gothy sunglasses at night post punk with tight and hard creative drum beats, lurching bass menace, late night guitar slashes and a diabolical vocal croon that is sure up the creeps. Speaking of Bad Seeds, these cats enlisted the help of Jim Sclavunos (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds/Grinderman) to assist on the production side of their record and it only adds to the overall shine of the album.
Bootblacks know how add some bouncy groove to their pitch black post punk giving the tracks a sexualized celebratory swagger. Pressed up in an edition of 500 with 350 on black and 150 on clear, we currently only have the clear version. It comes with a full download of the album and a screen printed patch. Mega Recommended.
Whoah! We just had these sweet new LPs from new Columbus "supergroup" Connections drop into our laps! Featuring some C-Bus heavies from groups like Times New Viking & El Jesus de Magico, "Private Airplane" is released on Columbus, OH label 'Anyway Records' and is totally the dark horse record of the week. We mean how does such an awesome record just sort of appear out of thin air ? (A show with our friends Cave and Running might have something to do with it...but still.)
These dudes are totally flying the Ohio flag from all masts here, wearing their influences on their sleeves - GBV, Gaunt, The Mice, even a lil' My Dad Is Dead are all cruising with the top down o'er these grooves. Hell if you told us this was a lost album from the Scat Records Archives, we'd probably believe it!
"Private Airplane" has the just-on-the-verge-of-"in the red" production - we hesitate to call it "lo-fi", 'cuz it's really not, but there's definitely a crunch to the guitars & some tape hiss here & there that add to the charm of the record. Regardless, the hooks are here & they are plentiful, "Private Airplane" is chock-full of mini-anthems that ring with a very real immediacy (most of the album was recorded live to tape at a party & are "pretty much first take"s), that all too familiar guitar tone ringing in our ears (or is that just our ears ringing - hard to tell anymore).
Another killer pop album in a year full of killer pop albums - GRAB IT! Recommended!!!
Hosed is not a split record by two obscuro punk bands, it's the work of one genre defying Florida outfit inexplicably name Cop City/Chill Pillars. The duality of their name might just give you a hint into the post modern rock deconstruction this band has down in spades. One part sliced apart garage rock in the vein of a tape of a tape of tape of the Monks and equal parts early 80s no wave bent punk that no one would dare call new wave, Cop City/Chill Party's second long player is an early Christmas present for those who like their rock and roll dirgy, raw, bleak and mesmerizing. Our friends over at Florida's Dying pressed this mind bending ride to wax, so you know it's worth grabbing.
Some way out there points to reference for Cop City/Chill Pillar might be the Chrome Cranks, Suicide, the late era Scientists, Slug Guts, Degreaser, K-Holes and the Bizarros. But for sure Hosed is a wild ride, falling through the cracks of easy categorization, kinda like playing your favorite Stooges 45 at 33 rpms, or the Devo covering the Residents, or both of those things at the same time.
Cop City/Chiil Pillars pile on the sludge in a way that absolutely sucks you in. Maybe it's the chanting vocals, the stretched out song structure or the haunting barely in tune guitar mess that drips over the sputtering keyboard and the chugging baselines. Maybe it's because it's quite unlike anything we've heard all year. Either way Cop City/Chill Pillars is TOTALLY RECOMMENDED.
ORIGINALS HAVE GONE FOR OVER $75!
Absolutely AMAZING reissue of this Folkways Records rarity by Dariush Dolat-Shahi, who created this group of works in an attempt to "attain the balance of electronic abstraction and traditional spiritualism" & upon listening to this album, we're confident he came pretty darn close! Reissued with love by Dead-Cert Records, who've even gone so far as to re-create the Folkways-style paste-on sleeve.
Total jaw-dropper of an album that seamlessly combines all the things written above - if you can imagine what a jam session between Ravi Shankar, Morton Feldman & Henry Flynt would sound like then you're plowing the right field. To generalize; it's almost Eastern-tinged musique concréte. Dolat-Shahi was a scholared musician, having studied in Shah-sponsored programs in Iran, then studying as an exchange student in Holland as well as the world-renowned Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. When the revolution in Iran went down, Dolat-Shahi just stuck around to - you know, avoid being killed & stuff. Whoah! Recorded in '83 & released in '85, we're not sure if we've ever heard an LP quite like this one - it had us spellbound from start to finish & we even sold a few while we were checking it our for this here review, so if this is whetting your whistle, we'd recommend snagging this one ASAP.
We hope you're as slack-jawed as we were when the ambient frog sounds morph into analog synth blurps. AMAZING. RECOMMENDED!!!
LIMITED TO 2000 COPIES!
If the Dinosaur Jr. archival reissues keep on coming, at
this rate we're gonna have to build a separate annex to our record shelf
to house them all! Merge has unearthed a rare '87 performance by OG
lineup Dino Jr & pressed it up in a limited-edish vinyl pressing.
DUDES. Do we need to say anything more about this one?? PRIME-era Dinosaur Jr. ripping it up for an untamed Dutch audience? SIGN US UP.
(As expected) Volcanic guitar shredding abounds as the band tears through selections from their debut LP & their newly released "You're Living All Over Me" album with nary a fist fight to be heard. Limited to 2000 - which may sound like a lot, but Dino Jr. fans are RABID, so if you're "buy-curious", you best be snagging this one, like NOW! Recommended!
DUDES. Do we need to say anything more about this one?? PRIME-era Dinosaur Jr. ripping it up for an untamed Dutch audience? SIGN US UP.
(As expected) Volcanic guitar shredding abounds as the band tears through selections from their debut LP & their newly released "You're Living All Over Me" album with nary a fist fight to be heard. Limited to 2000 - which may sound like a lot, but Dino Jr. fans are RABID, so if you're "buy-curious", you best be snagging this one, like NOW! Recommended!
After a handfull of killer noise pop lps for Matador and Merge, Times New Viking is returning home with their new ep Over and Over. Not just in the sense that they've hooked up with Siltbreeze to release this new six shooter of a stop gap between albums, but sonically as well. Times New Viking is doing what made they great in the beginning - melodic feedback coated indie rock anthems, the kind made famous by Guided By Voices, their Ohioan brethren. Siltbreeze, purveyor of all things noisy, is stoked to have their prodigal sons and daughters back in the fold, and you should be ready for them to return to your turntable, cause this ep's killer.
For those not super well acquainted with Times New Viking, Over and Over is a great place to start. Their blend of noise pop, jangling indie and 60s pop shot through with analog feedback is perhaps some of the most infectious out there. Not every aspiring young band gets to sign with Matador. Or Siltbreeze for that matter. Fans of No Age, Home Blitz, Sic Alps, the Clean, GBV and Eat Skull will totally NEED TO DEVOUR THIS EP OVER AND OVER.
YEP MORE RECOMMENDED JAMS FROM SILTBREEZE AND TIMES NEW VIKING. Both reliable as ever.
LP - Brian Eno - Lux (Import - 2xLP) - $26.99 - TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK IN CHICAGO, EMAIL IF INTERESTED
- LISTEN 
- LISTEN New solo work from one of the pioneers in ambient music! Eno is back, people & "Lux" is his first album of truly solo material since 2005 & his first on his recent home at Warp Records, who have nurtured some of the more enduring names in electronic music.
Sublime & entrancing! We've heard a LOT of e-chatter about this record being a "return to form" for Eno & while we tend to feel like hyperbole like that can only lead to disappointment, we're more than inclined to say that this is definitely the most immediately satisfying Eno production in quite a few years!
Originally composed as 76-minute accompaniment to an exhibit of Eno's visual art in Turin & now divided into four 20-ish minute interludes, "Lux" finds Eno once again constructing music to sit in a space (or to exist inside of a place), lounging like it was always there, just waiting for you to hear it. Plucked bass, piano twinkles, synth washes & other unnameable acoustic sounds float & drift into & out of focus, exuding a surprising warmth that definitely references earlier works like "Music For Airports" or more accurately "Apollo" or "Discreet Music" - glacial, but with just enough lyrical melody at times to maintain your attention. We were transported!
This "first edition" is pressed on two gorgeous 180gm slabs of vinyl & includes a download & four 11" x 11" art prints too! Recommended? We're not gonna pussyfoot around it - HELL YES it's RECOMMENDED!
Ttotals is a duo from Nashville, TN and Silver On Black is their self released vinyl debut. Three tracks of foggy psychedelic rock by just drums, guitars, various atmospheric samples and a gentle vocal laid atop. Ttotals create a dreamy ebb and flow of guitar driven psychedelic post rock with lulling pauses that decay into nothingness before crashing back into the forefront with powerful drums and crushing effect laden guitar riffs.
Their self styled"outer blues" is lush and textured space rock in the spirit of Loop, Hum and Spaceman 3 but filtered through their own various quasars and blackholes to create a unique take on the genre to make a sound all their own. All in all, here's hoping Ttotals gets back in the stuido asap so we can get our hands on more wax soon. Recommended.
On his Summer Flexi, Griffin Pyn (aka Sewn Leather) declares war! He sounds pretty fuckin' serious too.
He ain't rappin' on "Unclear War", but this is some of the gnarliest booty shakin' hardcore I've heard since the first Death Grips LP. Post-industrial juke core, anyone? Anyone! Pyn drops the mic for the second cut in favor of sampling / chopping / screwing / etc. Subsonic throb, synth blasts, noise fuckery, and delayed beyond recognition samples comprise "120 lessons in Strinth". I don't know shit about The Nation Of Gods and Earths Book of Knowledge, but thanks to one of the barely audible samples, I now know that "A set of 120 shouldn't be online...You need an enlightener to teach you 120 lessons...That's a fact!" WTF? Maybe Griffin is our enlightener. Thanks to a quick Wiki search, I also found out that the Nation of Gods and Earths (aka Five Percenters) coined the terms "sup, G?" (originally "G" means God, not gangsta), "Word is bond," "Break it down," and "droppin' science". Damn. How's that for a weird history lesson? I can get down with that kind of language and, furthermore, I can get down with anybody who samples Five Percenters from Youtube. BTW, SICK artwork by Eighty-five Percenter Otto Splotch. Sewn Leather is droppin' science. Are you picking it up? I am.--Lance Permanent Record-Chicago/LA
Hey Chunklet stop with the teasing!
We already can't wait for the new Man Or Astro-Man? LP that's in the works for 2013, the first Analog Series 7 inch guaranteed that. And now Chunklet is gonna send us into a surf frenzy with yet another Man Or Astro-Man? single. (We might just have to try surfing Lake Michigan after a couple of spins.)
Fans of Dick Dale, Untamed Youth, sci-fi, Thee Cormans, B movies, Mono Men, surfboards, baritone guitars and/or the Ventures must grab this record now. There's not much to say, other than Man Or Astro-Man? are the best at what they play: surf bent punk from the cosmos. And three new songs via our friends at Chunklet is always a good thing. RECOMMENDED TO EVERYONE IN OUR GALAXY. Just make sure you grab this one now, it's limited.
