#minimum chips

9/5/20.

Chapter Music, to me, is a fabled label.  It’s not quite on par with Flying Nun for me, but it’s close.  They’ve released such diverse and amazing sounds for close to 30 years.

Guy Blackman is the founder of Chapter Music and was a key cog in Minimum Chips.  Now he is releasing Thibault, the work of former bandmate Nicole Thibault.  

This is an amazing “comeback” (Nicole had taken time off to raise a family) album.  You can also buy this from Captured Tracks, but the price and shipping are definitely reasonable directly from Chapter Music. I’m going to let the Chapter Music write up tell you the rest:

“Thibault is like if two of my favourite bands, Stereolab and Electrelane, merged together and were made brand new by Nicole’s originality.” - Kathleen Hanna

“Hey turn that up. It’s really good!” - Adam ‘Ad-Rock’ Horovitz

Nicole’s former band Minimum Chips were a cornerstone of Chapter Music’s fabled 90s roster. For a decade or so, Minimum Chips played Moog-driven motorik pop that made them support band of choice for touring artists like Stereolab, Pavement, Bikini Kill and Le Tigre. Nicole’s vocals, trombone, keyboards and songwriting helped grow a cult mystique around Min Chips that persists to this day.

10/2/17.

Chapter Music’s 20th Anniversary 2 LP set is back up (repressed?), and this gem from Minimum Chips, “Jolly Jumper” is the first I’d ever heard of this band.  Upon further snooping, I found this release on Bandcamp (from 2005, but if you check on Discogs you’ll find releases going all the way back to the mid-1990s).  I think Chapter Music describes the sound as lo-fi jazz pop.  I can’t say I hear lo-fi, but there is a loungy pop feel here.

It reminds me of the sound current bands like Totally Mild, Forever Pavot, and Julien Gasc (the last two are French bands).  The vocals and the music’s feel also remind me of some of the finer moments from Speed The Plough or The Trypes.

Beer:  Minimum Chips Lager by Matilda Bay

Draught/Bottle/Can:   Draught

Purchased From:  The St Kilda Branch

First Impression:  Not terrible.  Tasted a bit like the Stella Artois but nowhere near as revolting.  It actually tastes... pale is honestly the best word for it I have.  It’s quite light, and while it’s not particularly bitter, it’s also not particularly complex, so there’s not a lot to offset what bitterness it does have.

As It Goes:  Like all my beer experiences so far, it tasted worse as you drank it.  However Minimum Chips is notable for having a much steeper descent than my other experiences.   It starts out “yeah, not too terrible” but halfway down the glass I was wondering why god had abandoned me.

One interesting thing I noticed about Minimum Chips is that it goes down best slowly.  The longer I waited between mouthfuls, the better it tasted.  If I drank a lot of it in quick succession, the taste got worse.  So clearly it’s a sipping beer.

By The End:  My partner had gotten me a glass of coke zero to have after my beer, since we were eating dinner (eyyy $10 parma night!) and I was likely to want another drink and I tell you what, the last quarter of this beer was me just bribing myself with “if you finish the beer, then you can have coke and wash this horrible taste out of your mouth.”

Minimum Chips also had the worst aftertaste of my beer experiences so far.  It was like a mild case of morning breath.  So having it with food or with another drink afterwards is probably the best way to do it.

minimum chips - goodbye