Brother Gruesome - Mesa Session [2012]

Brother Gruesome hail from Oklahoma City, a place I know nothing about. I saw them play here in Urbana the other night, and I really dug it. They are a guitar and drum duo who play some melodious jams that can also kick your ass. The sound has a good sense of dynamics, and they're able to get away with some actually good stretches of lyric-less music -- which a lot of people can't manage as just a two-person band. I could make comparisons to the likes of No Age and Pink Reason, or perhaps say they have a kind of a Neil Young thing going on, but that is just the impression I got from the gig. Stream and download this, and figure it out for yerself.

There are two other releases worth checking out on their bancamp. This stuff is all free to download (+pay what you want), but you can grab a tape or perhaps a 7" for cheap if you're going to be in Dallas, TX on April 20.

Brother Gruesome bandcamp

Easter - Demonstration [2011]

On Sunday Mr. J.H. Christ regains consciousness in a dank, cavernous tomb. "Oh my Dad, what happened this weekend?" he thinks. "I must have been pretty hammered for two days to go by like that. I think we had a good time on Friday ... shit." Looking through his hands and feet, he exclaims, "I really got hammered." So he crawls out of the cave on his holy hands and knees into town to find some falafel to try and keep down. His twelve friends came by later to see if he was still passed out, but he had Risen.

So happy Easter to ya, heathen. This band's name is Easter, which is why I'm posting it today. Here is a sixteen-minute demo EP that Kyle down here in Champaign made last year. It's some really good Calvin Johnson-inspired stuff. I think he recorded everything on here himself, but Easter has been playing shows around town as a full band. The sound is unapologetically poppy, but has nonetheless spurred some frenzied moshpits. Have a listen for yourself -- it's as sweet as the chocolate eggs you're scarfing down today.

Easter bandcamp

re-up'd: Les Rallizes Dénudés - Heavier Than a Death in the Family [1977]

Les Rallizes Dénudés (「裸のラリーズ」"Naked Rallizes" in Japanese) are more or less a contrarian underground rock fan's wet dream: from Japan, gigged fairly steadily for three decades, released virtually no official material (but are extensively bootlegged), contains a lot of guitar noise, had a bass player commit some kind of radical leftist plane hijacking -- I could go on but it would belabor the point. With 'backstory' like this surrounding such a reclusive band, there are many who come in with expectations that are somehow not met by the music. So here's the straight dope on this band.

The sound concept is fairly simple -- repetitive rock and doo-wop bass mantras washed over by massive guitar surges, punctuated by Takashi Mizutani's vocal yelps and stretched out to 10 minute(+) sonic endeavors. The insanity is tempered by the electric folk balladry that formed the skeleton of the music when they came together in the late 1960s. Many of the songs were originally developed alongside experimental theater/performance pieces. The vibe is a combination of kosmische punk, dub, and soaring damaged pop greatness. Think of '67-'68 Velvets guitar supernovae out at the far corners of the universe, and the cosmic feedback that such cataclysms would emit. Mizutani's guitar makes the sound of the sky falling, only to rise through the stratosphere at the next moment.

Heavier Than a Death in the Family's tracks are mostly pulled from performances in 1977 (some of them appear on the Rallizes double-disc ur-text '77 Live), one of a number of high points in the band's existence. However, possibly the best piece on here is the ten-minute "People Can Choose," recorded in 1973. It's a powerful motorik beast. Also, for those hundreds of you who downloaded the Dirty Beaches album I posted in my end of 2011 post, you might like to know that this is the stuff that guy was channeling/sampling on "A Hundred Highways."

Basically everyone from Keiji Haino, to Asahito Nanjo (High Rise, Mainliner, etc.), to Acid Mothers Temple, to anyone who claims to play 'shoegaze' takes cues from these guys. It's not so much word-of-mouth as it is word-of-amp. And for some reason, a lot of people are into it. I'm personally hooked. I wouldn't expect everyone to like this -- but for those who do, this is a golden god of Rock.

Rallizes remain largely unacknowledged, both in and outside of Japan. The only people I ever met in Japan who knew of them were record store owners, and even they weren't aware of the recent vinyl reissues being put out in the UK and US. However, with the age of the internet upon us, they are being gradually introduced to the masses, lifted from the depths of the underground and into your auspicious ears.

Les Rallizes Denudes fan site (日本語だけ)
Alleged lyrics
Total cultural assault

Dive Signals - 10,000 Tropics [2012]

Come inhale the mellowness of this submission from Orange, California. Dive Signals is the one-man drone/electronic project of Angel Ortega. This is pretty much exactly what I'd expect to manifest from a place like southern California (but outside of L.A.): the sum-total "good feeling" resulting from the warmth, wind chimes, the waves, palm trees bobbing in the breeze, and all that pleasant stuff. It also gets fairly cosmic on some of the songs. If you're into krauty, electronic drone-type stuff this will be right up your alley. I've found it also makes for great music for reading, studying, or drifting off to sleep. Whether you listen while trying to focus or zone out, it's best heard as one continuous piece. Mr. Ortega recommends headphones and so do I.

10,000 Tropics came out in digital format (free + pay what you want/can) a couple weeks ago, and a physical release is in the works. Keep an eye on Static Reason for details.

Dive Signals bandcamp
Dive Signals tumblr

Nude Beach - II [2012]

A little over a week ago I had the pleasure of seeing the Men in Chicago. It was great show, which involved my being inadvertently crowdsurfed for a good 90 seconds or so ("let me the fuck down!"). But since the Men are pretty well-hyped as of late -- get their new album, Open Your Heart, on Sacred Bones -- I'll write about their fellow New Yorker tourmates Nude Beach. They bring the melody and songwriting and punch you in the head with it. Easy-to-hear sonic influences would be Let It Be-era Replacements, Springsteen, and Big Star, and maybe a little Tom Petty (in a good way). As far as current bands go, you'll probably like these guys if you're into the Men or Kurt Vile/The War on Drugs. Sounds good right? So hit play and download this, or buy an LP.

Nude Beach bandcamp

Buy II at Katorga Works -- they've also got great records by Brown Sugar, Hoax, Rational Animals, Creem, Pop. 1280, Tenement, Crazy Spirit, and many more.

P.S. Somebody taped the Men's set, so enjoy it here:

Disciplina Kičme - Ja imam šarene oči [1985]

This is the second record by Serbian postpunks Disciplina Kičme. It continues in the psyched-out industrial dirge of the first record, and it is just as good. Not a lot of bands utilize a 'lead bass' position, but holy christ is it effective here. The synthesis of massive drum grooves and electrified bridge cable bass clamor give this band an undeniable, heavy swing. Discogs actually has DK listed as a funk/soul band, and while superficially that's way off the mark, it does sort of make sense. The riddm is king on this slab. There's also some free jazz horn wailing on here, but nothing like the sort-of-goofy-sounding Balkan brass arrangements that materialized on later DK records.

I originally heard this from a post at Puke Skywalker some years ago, but that link is dead so I put up my own file.

Ja imam šarene oči Discogs page
Novac neće doći

Disciplina Kičme - Sviđa mi se da ti ne bude prijatno [1983]

Music like this is what compels me to love the internet. It's highly unlikely I would come across something like this any other way. Disciplina Kičme formed in 1981 in Belgrade, Serbia. It sounds like an acid-fried Jimi Hendrix playing bass in a dark post-punk band, informed by the same kind of muddiness that, say, drove the Screamers to eschew guitars for dissonant synths. Yep, no guitar here either -- just bass and drums (well, plus all the pedals). But this is some of the greatest stuff I have ever heard. Fans of Wire, High Rise, and any other Serbian/Slovenian/Bosnian/other Yugoslav stuff from this period will all be at home listening to this band. They had one other great EP, which I will also post. After that, they added a bunch of horns and drum machines and stuff, which was maybe/maybe not good (definitely different) but these first couple of records are essential.

Wiki page on this album
Youth does not justify unconsciousness

Psychic Blood - Strain 7" [2011]

Psychic Blood are a group of noisy punks from Holyoke, Massachusetts. There is a lot of GUITARS on here. It sounds kind of Hüskers-ish -- right up my alley, and many of yours, I'm sure. The idea seems to be 'cram a folk melody under 30 tons of feedback,' and it sounds like flying down a highway at night with the windows down. Bands like this have a tendency to fall flat relying on the noise to cover their lack of songwriting. But that can't be said here. Thankfully, in Psychic Blood's case, the melody comes across pretty much intact, bringing with it all the cool additive chord voicings and resonance that it picked up in the feedback field. This stuff is really good.

Strain will be released as a 7" sometime soon, and Psychic Blood is in the process of finishing up their first full-length LP. In the meantime, put these guys in your hard drive and your ears. At Psychic Blood's soundcloud, you can also listen to their other two releases. All worth hearing.

Psychic Blood website
Strain

Puke Skywalker - Tripper Crust EP [2012]

Puke Skywalker is one of the first music blogs I ever started following, and is responsible for introducing me to some of the bands I love most (Can, Les Rallizes Dénudés, Grazhdanskaya Oborona, etc.). Posting dropped off for a good while there, only to return with some creations of the author himself.

This EP is a bunch of punk/hardcore/crust songs sampled and cut up to create new 'songs.' Which makes perfect sense if you think about it: bands constantly rehash and rearrange chord changes, guitar leads, vocal rhythms, and drum beats when making 'real' punk music; Puke Skywalker is different from that only technically. I'm honestly surprised I haven't heard other people doing this (I assume they're out there).

Anyway, the music is intense as fuck and samples Infest, Anal Cunt, and some other stuff I'm not really familiar with. But I gotta say, there is something incredibly gratifying about hearing blast beats at a speed that may or may not be humanly possible. Also, the artwork is sick.

Fuck the Machine

re-up'd: Disappears - Pre Language [2012]

Here's the recently-released third album from Chicago's Disappears. I remember seeing them for free at Millenium Park a few summers ago; back then they were riding one-chord guitar noise waves punctuated by tight motorik rhythms in a garage sort of style (here's a Chicago Reader article about them from the time). I really liked that whole schtick, and their first two albums, Lux and Guider, nailed down the aesthetic without making the consciously limited style become stale. Since the recording of those two, they've added Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley to their drumkit, and he has definitely helped develop Disappears' sound further.

Pre Language is quite a bit different from what came before, most obviously in the rhythm section. Mr. Shelley and bassist Damon Carruesco carve out their grooves in more subtle and diverse ways than the band did on previous records. The Johnathan Richman-telling-you-what's-up vocals haven't changed much, but no need to fix what ain't broke. The guitars are still noisily psyched-out with plenty of reverb, but the idea this time seems a little closer to Wire than Neu!. I guess that's the biggest difference I could notice on this record; some of the krauty garage scooched over to make room for post-punk.

The songwriting and production are what will get you into this. The intent behind the songs remains rooted in the idea of not getting too fancy -- nobody could ever accuse Disappears of noodling. Instead, they churn out some masterfully-crafted psych-punk jams. And they sound better than ever, thanks to recording in Sonic Youth's personal studio.

I could tell you about the indivdual songs but you should really just get them into your ear without my words diluting the experience. Here's the first song:

Disappears website/tour info
Buy Pre Language on Kranky Records [came out this week, so don't be stingy yo]
Is it real or replicate

MaoTzu - Doodles [2011]

Here is a sweet submission from Chicago. It's another one-man avant-pop project, this one by a certain Jamarcus Drake, and it's pretty crazy. Supposedly created by turning on some TV show and making music while the show is muted, the songs are meant to be partially formed by the subconscious inspiration provided by the shows' images. Or something. It doesn't really need any backstory to be appreciated -- this album's worth hearing on its own merits. The different songs all have pretty different moods, and the music ranges from weird ambience to fully-structured pop (but still kinda weird) songs. There seem to be quite a few instruments one here, all played by Mr. Drake.

The fifth song, 'The Good Ol' Jay Turser, Back in Action,' sounds like Future Days-era Can, which I've really not heard a lot of people steal from very often. Some other sounds I can hear in various parts of the album are Pavement and Sonic Youth-isms, but there is too much originality throughout (jazz breaks, unexpected vocal harmonies, drum solos, boogie piano, beatboxing, wildly optimistic-sounding guitar melodies, etc.) to dismiss this as derivative or something. I dunno, hearing this will give you a better idea than I can provide in words. Best heard in sequence, all in one go.

This album (as well as two other releases) are available for free on MaoTzu's bandcamp.

Don't take lyrics for the truth, I'm probably just sad and high

MC5 - High Time [1971]

In honor of the passing of MC5 bassman Michael Davis, I give you their third and final 'regular' album, High Time.  I won't say too much about it, but this is the Five so you should be getting this regardless. It's probably their best overall, though obviously Kick Out the Jams gets points for being a live thing. But the production on this record is so good and full, I think I have to say it's my favorite. 'Future/Now' gets pretty psyched-out, but mostly they've got some real strong, turned-to-11 r&b sounds going on here; I honestly have a hard time seeing how High Time, judged on its actual merits (the sound and the songs, and ignoring the commercial hindrances presented by saying "motherfuckers" on a record and the whole White Panther Party thing), could not have been successful. These songs are a perfect fit for the radio sounds of 1971, and they'd been pioneering this stuff, yet success eluded them. The Man had it in for them I tell ya.

I prefer side 2 on this record but the whole thing is good.

By the way, does anybody know if the Five's performance at the 1968 DNC in Chicago (everyone else scheduled to play, besides the Five and Phil Ochs, chickened out) was properly recorded? All I have ever seen from their show is this (soundless) clip supposedly taken by the Department of Defense:

Discogs link for CDs and LPs
They don't know 'coz they're stuck in the past

Acid Kicks - Life Dreams 7" [2011]

Acid Kicks is a 4 piece psych-punk band from Philly, and they're fucking great. You might not know it upon first listen, but three of the members play bass. That's right, three basses and one set o' drums. One of the bass players sent me a link to their 7", so here it is in all its glory. The vibe I get from Acid Kicks is similar to that of the Psychic Paramout [see my list for the end of 2011] -- punked-out psych rock on a tight, driving rhythm, with lots of room for noise. However, while that band is almost industrial in their rhythmic precision, this band is more melodic in their approach.

The first song, 'Life Dreams,' starts out sounding a little like that Pink Floyd song 'One of These Days,' but faster (this is punk rock!), with the basses vibing together and colliding in their shiny metallic way. Then the octave-pedal'd bass kicks in with the drums, and suddenly you're flying on a shoegaze air column. The vocals sway in and out like clouds, and with the same cold intensity.

Probably my favorite development in underground music in the last 20 years has been the constant mixing of punk with noisy psychedelic music, often producing new and exciting results. Acid Kicks call their particular concoction 'dream punk,' and they put it like this in a recent article/interview:

There are no limits in dreams. The dreamer can realize her full potential. No obstacles hold her back. “If you’re a lucid dreamer you can figure out how to fly… you can do whatever you want, and there are no consequences,” claims Kavanaugh. The punk, meanwhile, is an always-active, politically charged character who wants the world and wants it now. Merging these two paradigms, the dream-punk is some sort of heroic ideal–an uberhuman capable of doing anything and going anywhere.

Maybe it's an attempt to shake off the apathy, to turn the nihilists into dreamers with active motivation. Maybe it's an escape from the shite reality we've got, to bring the dream information over into this world and create our own reality. Maybe those are or aren't mutually exclusive, but as always, it's up to you to decide.

You can buy the 7" (or a FLAC copy) from the Acid Kicks bandcamp below (orders come with a hand-made dream catcher for a few extra bucks), as well as download two live sets for free (+pay what you want). The more recent one was reviewed over at Spacerockmountain, so click yer way over to that.

Listen to / buy a copy of Life Dreams
I am the valleys

Dan Melchior - Red Nylon Valance 7" [2011]

Another groovy single from the great French label SDZ Records, this one by the prolific English singer-songwriter Dan Melchior. This is way different than the Drosofile 7" I posted from SDZ a coupla weeks ago; while that release had a dreary, sickened, post-industrial decay sort of sound, this is '60s-indebted psych-pop. It's probably lazy writing for me to say this sounds like Syd Barrett, but what else could I reliably compare it to? And it's not like Syd is bad to be compared with, right? Anyway, this came out at the tail end of 2011, so it's still quite new.

The a-side has been stuck in my head for a while now. It's a song any head can relate to, seemingly about getting lost on the wrong side of the astral train tracks ("I lost my balance and the echoes started dancing down the hall ... I don't like it here at all"). If you like Piper at the Gates of Dawn ... okay, I'll try and stop it with the Syd Barrett references. But seriously, this song is great. Check out the video:

The b-side is a liberally psyched-out blues sort of a tune, with a couple of acoustic guitar tracks picking away at your (and Dan's) sanity before the synth comes blaring in. The lyrics are about getting bit by a dog and contracting rabies(?) Anyway it's got it's own subdued freakishness, and I like it nearly as much as the a-side. And what do you know, there is a (recently-released) video for this song as well:

Dan Melchior has been in the game for longer than most people in the garage-psych field, and it's totally apparent in the craft he shows in these recordings, from the melodies to the choices of instruments to their timing in the songs. Get into this already!

Buy the Red Nylon Valance 7" on SDZ
Listen to/download it [cheap!]

Jeff Beck - Truth [1968]

Happy Venereal Day, everyone, hope none of you got dumped today (that'd be too cliché, wouldn't it?). This is an album that should keep your spirits high regardless of your circumstances.

A lot of people who are (ostensibly) into music don't take Rod Stewart seriously -- and given the embarrassing body of work he produced over the lifetime of the average 35-year-old, why would anyone? Because: the guy was involved in some hot shit in the '60s and early '70s (don't believe me? listen to his first three solo albums and his stuff with the Faces, you ignoramus), including this record. The dude was a pop singer; blues rock is what was popular in the late '60s, so that's what he did -- just like he did shitty disco in the '70s when that was on the radio.

Other 'reputable' personnel onboard here: Jeff Beck on guitar (before his offshoot into self-indulgent fusion wankery) and Ron Wood, most famously of the Rolling Stones on bass. The drummer on here is Mick Waller, probably the least well-known guy in the group, but if you must know, he played in the Faces and on those aforementioned Rod Stewart records.

Anyway, the music: there is a significantly large group of people in the world who will tell you this is the best rock album ever recorded. Jimi Hendrix was into it. This album is great if you like the whole Yardbirds/early Zeppelin thing. 'Shapes of Things' was a Y'birds tune, but this version is better. 'Beck's Bolero' is the closest they get to psychedelic stuff on this album, and while it's not crazily so by anyone's standards, it is still an awesome sort of song. Most of the rest is blues stuff I doubt they wrote, played real well for a bunch of honkies. There is a take of 'You Shook Me' on here, much shorter (better?) than the one on Led Zeppelin I.

Compared to some of the stuff I post on this site, Truth is a lot less 'out there.' But it plays so damn well, and is one of my favorite records ever. I don't know how else to convey its greatness. And it's better than hearing 'Stairway to Heaven' for the quadrillionth fucking time. Ask your dad, kids.

I dunno, this'll probably get DCMA'd pretty quick, but I just wanted to write about it. Get it if you can.

Buy Truth on vinyl [not at all rare, so it's cheap!]
Get it on CD [still pretty cheap!]
I ain't superstitious, but a black cat crossed my trail