Keeping it trim, for your sanity and mine. Too much good music released this year, again, but nothing topped the swirling, weighted haze of "Everyone Thought You Were Dead.”
While I'm very strongly in favor of buying music and supporting artists, consider also a donation to Gaza Soup Kitchen and The Sameer Project.
Happy New Year, and thanks for reading. On with the show:
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No radio show this past week, problems with the streaming server, so if you tuned in, you got the Week 3 encore. Community radio, baby. Back to words about records and tapes, some genuinely exciting music to help you ride out this godforsaken month.
Åthävor, 2 CS (Satatuhatta)
Stunning second release from Åthävor on Satatuhatta, just as cloaked in mystery as the first - no credits, no song titles - but twice as satisfying. Some of the rough edges from the self-titled tape are sanded down on 2, and this time around I'm reminded of Illusion of Safety, Incipientium's Belastning LP, Tim Hecker (track 3 and the end of track 4) and Negativland when they use spoken word samples. There's still plenty of industrial rumble, dusty tape loop hum and crackling speakers, it's just now shellacked into place, smoothly transitioning from track to track. The sound is booming - track 1 pops straight outta the speakers, a call to attention - and makes for a fully immersive listen, and one where you're not waiting through shuffling paper and interminable clicks and pops for the crescendo. There are peaks, though, and the yawning feedback on track 7 is a favorite, sounds reverberating off of metal or glass inducing a pleasurable unease. Every movement within the album is slow and patient, unfurling steadily but preserving the ability to grind or shock at will. Åthävor might mean an odd gesture, but they're playing the part of the measured, confident elder scene statesman at this point. Can the noise tape of the year be released on January 1? Sources say "yes."
Chopping Block, Disfigured EP 7" (Blood Soaked Records)
A mere 35 years after their first 7", Chopping Block returns with a new vocalist/bassist in Trevor Vaughan (Wound Man) and a fresh 7" to tide us over for the next 35 years. Apparently Trevor was the catalyst for the whole Chopping Block revival, according to guitarist/Blood Soaked Records owner Dave Keck. He also mentioned that drummer James Wilinski can take up to two hours to track a 40-second song, probably a well-known fact of recording that gives one a new appreciation for the endurance test that is powerviolence/grindcore. Anyway: Disfigured rips, three short fast tracks and one longer track per side, and the second side barely takes it over the first. Trevor's vocals are a welcome update from those on the previous 7", full of menace and disgust, and his performance makes tracks like "Cemented Fate" and "Pitted" hit twice as hard. Real mean, violent shit, captured and presented exquisitely; you're gonna want this one. Should still be available direct from Dave/BSR, or grab one from Iron Lung.
Den, Post Pink LP (Digital Regress / Lulu's Sonic Discs Club)
Seven years after their debut LP, Den reemerges with a svelte look and streamlined sound, not to mention a lengthy press release from DX himself. Den's Deep Cell remains a strange trip; it's like they took the keyboards from Thergothon and married them to bitter post-punk, and wrapped the whole thing in turn of the century sci-fi art. I'm unsure if there's been a shift in personnel or ethos, or both, but Post Pink arrives beautifully adorned and fully formed. That DX wrote the album's accompanying blurb seems appropriate, since Den channels Total Control's "Flesh War" or "Safety Net" across the album's length. A more astute comparison is Wire's seminal 154, when Wire loosened up structures and became deliciously languorous, a jumping off point few contemporary bands manage to land. But Den do just that on Post Pink: "Extraordinary Wealth," "Presence of Mind" and "Site 42" are all fantastic examples, persistent, driving, occasionally uplifting songs that transcend genre limitations through soft power. Even better is the circular chorus of "Lesson of a Line" and the deceptively catchy "Restaurant," high points on an album full of 'em, layered and still leaving space, drums high in the mix and guitars sparkling more than crunching. There's a lot of repetition across Post Pink, without overextended song lengths, making each track drunk on its own mythos, the precision required met without sacrificing depth or feeling. Really strong record, one that was quietly released at the end of last year and one that I keep coming back to for a palette cleanse or six. Step inside.
Life Expectancy, Sold CS (Iron Lung)
Second cassette on Iron Lung from Liverpool's Life Expectancy, and it's a beaut: Sold sounds like it was recorded in a steel tank, the lines between harsh noise and hardcore nearly eradicated, for better not worse. Both commenters on the Bandcamp page for Decline mentioned G.I.S.M., but here Life Expectancy brings to mind Haijokaidan more than the revered Japanese hardcore icons. It's especially apparent on the title track, a ruthless vortex that keeps pulling back and striking, an infinity spiral that ceases to retain any semblance of structure when you're mired in it. Once you've listened through Sold a few times you can just barely make out the band through the fog, like on "Screw" and "Accept," but even then it's like trying to listen in a wind tunnel, and about as exhilarating. Ah, the pleasurable pain of tinnitus activation. I'm all for PMA but things just aren't getting better, and if you haven't been this mad the past few months, where you at? Sold's the bomb-blast your consciousness needs to clear the rubble.
Emily Robb, Soundtrack to The Space Between Attack and Decay LP (Petty Bunco)
There's not a lot of solo guitarists I follow, let alone down the path of soundtrack LPs, but Emily Robb's one of 'em. I've not seen the associated film to this soundtrack, though that does little to dampen the listening experience: the sounds here feel appropriately spacious, something that might soundtrack a road trip through the harsh, beautiful landscapes of west Texas or New Mexico, and they're augmented by occasional drums, trumpet, water drops and snippets of dialogue from the short film. The bulk of what's here sounds like stems to what the band on Fire Walk With Me played at the Roadhouse, waiting to be augmented by a full band, which is exactly what Emily's doing live now with the ER Band. ("Limo Music" also sounds like music David Lynch would use to soundtrack some amateur sleuthing in the Twin Peaks series.) I'd point to the two tracks right in the middle, "Dance Music" and "Ocean Scene/Underwater Theme," as my favorite, Emily letting loose some smoldering guitar on the former before the still ambience of the latter. Sparse and evocative, doing exactly what a good soundtrack does, and I'm sure there's more money in this than releasing 300-run LPs on an independent record label. While the soundtrack's secondary to her two previous LPs where she follows her own intuition, I'll take as much new music from Emily Robb that I can get.
Split Apex, Thoughts In 3D LP (ever/never)
From the ashes of Mosquitoes comes Split Apex, featuring bassist/vocalist Peter Blundell (Mosquitoes, Komare), and Jussi Palmusaari on everything else. That "everything else" is the key to Thoughts In 3D, a record that splashes bits of color on the standard grayscale palette for those operating on the far fringes of traditional rock instrumentation. The result is still stark but with texture other than grating and grinding, at points nearly lush amidst the spikes of guitar or acrid stream of electronic noise. There's the throbbing opener "Peninsula," which recalls Sightings with its clipped rhythm and unbothered vocals; the synthesizers acting as flare signals on the title track, illuminating the jazzy bassline that moves with a careful drunken sway; and the dissolution of "People, Nerves," the previous four tracks broken into fractals of light to close the album. Blundell's vocals are scattered phrases, sometimes drifting into the paranoid ("Crux Machine") but often unbothered, delivered with conviction, like a bemused cult leader. With Palmusaari's support, the vocals become thick with meaning, words or riddles drifting in and out like eerie flickers of light, a necessary touch to ground the album, however unorthodox. It's an inspired record, one that has been played to near death here, a mystery sewn up tighter with each listen. Probably would've been my favorite album of last year had I come around quicker, but it's been a fine balm through the endless February this year. Limited to 300 copies - float to it.
