TWINK

I work with this dude named Pete. He's a few years older than me, and was geographically blessed....so he saw BAD BRAINS in '79 and SSD in Boston in '81 and the Rock Against Maximum Rocknoroll gig in SF with AGNOSTIC FRONT and FUCK-UPS in SF in '82 where one of the B.A.S.H. boneheads got stabbed in the neck. By contrast, I saw THE DEAD MILKMEN in Tulsa in 1989. You see the difference a few years and a few hundred miles can make? Anyway...while I was getting into Punk, Pete was getting into jazz (he was done with hardcore by then, he's one of those rather annoying old(er) types who thinks hardcore died when they stopped going to hardcore shows. I'm all like "what about NAKED HIPPIES? What about LOGICAL NONSENSE? And that fool just ain't hearing it - at all), but Pete is a record nerd, and a few years ago after he had all of the jazz records he started digging deep into the hard rock record nerd world. He obsesses on $400 bonzers that are sometimes interesting, sometimes only noteworthy because they are rare, and sometimes readily available via reissue....but still, there's some jams in there and the dude's general taste is on point - I've used him more than a few times as a guide and/or advisor into the the jazz/freak rock underworlds, and his assistance is appreciated. So we were working together a few months ago and he was playing some tunes and I was digging them. They were heavy sounds....they were weird sounds...I liked them. The sounds were TWINK's 1970 LP Think Pink. All over the place and out of motherfukkn sight bizarro heavy psych/rock from a dude from PINK PAIRIES, and I was pretty instantly hooked - I didn't care if this was nerd fodder or $1 bin chud because the sounds were pristine. So I used the internet and I ordered a Burger Records 2013 cassette reissue while I was taking a dump (on the clock - "never shit on your time, never sweat on theirs") and before I left work that day a copy was headed my way. The reissue features an entire B-side of outtakes (and, jahbless, they are excellent), and I have listened to this tape countless times since it dropped through my slot. So...even though hardcore didn't die in '84 when Pete stopped going to shows, I am glad that those "other" ears are in my life to help keep mine open. Now....open yours. 

THINK PINK

POST

I got this from Carla at the last North American RAKTA show earlier this year as they were sorting and packing their things to go to Colombia - it hadn't been for sale on the tour, and I was quite happy to help her make some extra space in her luggage for the rest of her journey. Listening to this tape is sublime....but describing it is decidedly more difficult. A (seemingly...or at least mostly?) improvisational two piece, POST wander casually between psychedelia and freeform space jams and dark ambience....but I cannot find a single moment of this tape that is not compelling. And the B-side in its entirety should be mandatory listening for fans of outsider sounds of all kinds.  Carla's Dama De Noite label does not disappoint, and I'm glad that her bags were full. 

SESSÃO AO VIVO

...THERE IS NO EMPTY SILENCE...

SEX OBJEX

Freaked out lo-fi Detroit synth punk with a horror punk bent, this 2013 cassette creams hard - and even harder once you get down with the washed out filter the whole thing is presented under. Fans of SPITS and REATARDS will rejoice, as there's as much garage punk (actual punk) crammed into these sounds as there is weirdness, but then tracks like "Cathedral Fever" and "Pink Clouds" drop and you wonder if these aren't just a coupla drugged out psych mutants who got lucky when they cranked up the speed. If it's luck, then I want some of this juju, but I'm pretty sure that SEX OBJEX are just really good. 

UNPROTECTED SEX

Worth noting that the included link contains six songs. For better or worse, I remain committed to sharing cassettes that I have my hands on, regardless of the intended condition or contents. This release is meant to have twelve tracks, but the A side on my copy is blank...so you get what you get. Of course, moments like this are what The Internet is for - the band's online presence is very helpful if you find yourself wanting more. 

WOLF MEETING: PRÊCHEUR LOOP // SKEPTICS

You know those times when you just open your eyes and you are alive? It's a pretty good feeling, and a feeling that we all should have more often. That doesn't really have anything to do with either of the French bands on this tape, but it's a thing I was thinking while I was listening to it....so maybe they are related. Twee/pop from PRÊCHEUR LOOP, really really good shit. Subdued psych/no wave on the flip..."Spare No Time" is a lost Nugget. Get it...feel alive. 

WOLF MEETING

TRASH MANTRA

This one too me by complete surprise. The artwork led me to believe I was either stepping into a pile of shit-fi noise or was about to be tortured with some awful "ironic" pop punk...artwork lies, my friends. TRASH MANTRA is gorgeous, hypnotic and advanced psychedelic electronic trance brilliance. Simple and raw, not calculated, the half hour of sound on this cassette grabbed me immediately and never let go....listen to the opening of the second track "we are the rats // feeding on your trash" and the careful drunken meander that follows. "Liquor Store" is the closest thing to a traditional "song," and could be reincarnated as a blissed out indie anthem were it not so fukkn weird (in a very very good way), and the tape ends with a driving ten minute synth drenched freakout...it's all here man. And it's all good....like, really good.

TRASH MANTRA

-OTRON

Take a break, my friends. Not like the "cool down" break while the sun is rising after a night of dancing on the beach, but a "clock out" break while the whole world goes to absolute shit. Take a break. Step into a new (old?) and different world where the bad things and the bad times don't just don't matter....they don't exist. -OTRON play other sounds....like Jan Hammer reincarnate (even though Jan ain't dead), every track is a perfect montage. This is perfect prog/soundtrack/synth for a new generation - I just wonder if you are strong enough to submit.

DOZE ON

NATIVE SUN

When people talk about "garage rock 'n roll," NATIVE SUN is not what they mean....but it's what I wish they meant. Soulful and sweaty, bluesy burners, and with a chorus like "I see right through you" leading you right into the screaming solo that kicks in at 1:28? Fukkn A punk, you're doing the damn thing, and you're doing it so well that you have to fade out after the six minute mark because you just don't know how to finish....or maybe because you don't want to stop. Vintage Motor City crashing headfirst into modern psychedelic rehash, and the result here is the very definition of success. 

I SEE THROUGH YOU

DISMAL LIGHT

Crazy addictive, and far more upbeat and animated than 2014's Commute, this offering from DISMAL LIGHT combines hypnotic repetition and subtly inventive beats to create a mysterious minimal techno/psych/trance hybrid. Get way deep into this one, punks...the mastery of The Simple Things is something to marvel at all times, and only emulate when appropriate. 

FERTILE SPORES

This was a part of Ascetic House's "January Program" project in 2014...would love to have the entire series if anyone's holding.

MAMMAL

This offering from MAMMAL very quietly shut down an entire evening. I popped the cassette in rather absently, the presumed background for whatever I was doing around the house...but by the time I got to the creaking and desolate vocals whispering the chorus to "Expiration" I could do little but listen. Profoundly dark and simple industrial psychedelia breaks bread with acoustic sounds stripped of all accoutrements; a minimal presentation that achieves maximum results. 

FRINGE RESIDUE

KUXAN SUUM

An early offering from the Black Twilight collective in Los Angeles, KUXAN SUUM dropped this one track of psychedelic black metal in 2009, followed it up with another in 2012, and then faded into the shadows. Long introductions and limitless ambiance, the band is haunting and distant even when they unleash...almost like you are a part of something that's incomplete. The guitars are ethereal and colossal, but still cling to a sharp, thin quality forever attached to black metal. The shit is out there, and one could surely argue that "Kinich Ahau" is merely a part of the path that took this scene to astounding heights....but sometimes getting there is the best part, you know?

KINICH AHAU

NIGHTWITCHES

Montreal's NIGHTWITCHES spend more than a quarter hour massaging two tracks into a peaceful submission. Numbing, if only in their sheer monotony, these sounds are as crushing as they are beautiful, with ominous vocals soaring over only occasionally. I mean, really it's just two people bludgeoning you with tonnage, but they sound so fukkn perfect when they do it. Fans of IDES OF GEMINI, KARP, RAGANA and the like will want to take note here...it sneaks up on you pretty quickly, but this shit is deadly.

NACHTHEXEN

CORUM

There aren't words that can accurately describe this outfit and the sounds that they present and represent. Psychedelic outsider ambiance with an ear to other worlds both metaphysical and geographical....this release is a start, but you have so much farther to travel, my friends. Pack your bags.

BLACK OR WHITE ORPHEUS 1: VOTIVE TRANSMUTATION SHRINE

ROCHELLE ROCHELLE

Murky, psychedelic sounds that I cannot possible do justice with words. These kids are waaaay out there, like LOVE & ROCKETS taking acid with BEACH BOYS and deciding to make a reggae record. Yeah, shit is a trip. I don't really imagine being able to convince you with descriptors, but those who take the plunge will be rewarded with a half hour journey to a very strange place.

ROCHELLE ROCHELLE

SOW DISCORD

When Dave (IVENS [yes, my link is dead, but the links to the respective bands are still hot, and that's more important], WHITEHORSE [is this not the most foreboding bunch of humans you've seen all day], CONCRETE ISLAND, and more) asks for your address, then you give it to him....because you might get something like this in the mail. He describes it as "bleak techno" and I can't really argue. It's like the thing that the people would want to dance to if the people were wrong. Which is to say, if they were our people. One half hour of the best pulsations. 

MUTATION

Hard copies available from the fascinating Sabbatical label in Melbourne. I don't know why you work, but if you do, then your money belongs here. Rent can wait, there are attorneys to help with that. Take care of yourself first. 

AIR SIGN

This presentation by AIR SIGN listens like an extended raga that morphs into layers of ambient drone and then closes with a high energy/low fidelity monotony backed by primitive drum machines, digital waves and blasting SUICIDE-esque organs. Split into two movements, both fronted by trance like vocals, this tape might take a while to get into, but after the first side crescendos about eleven minutes in with countless tracks of sound and caterwaul and electronics inviting you into another realm so you can truly live the rest of the tape....well, after you've let go, then the rest is pure gold.

OUR GALACTIC COVERED WAGONS TO THE STARS

PYONGYANG HARDCORE RESISTANCE

Manipulated breakbeat and hardcore techno mingle with North Korean pop music and military propaganda samples to create one of the most genuine mindfukks I've ever shared here. Total overload, and it's great. It's also not Korean, but I cannot imagine that you will gave half a shit about that once you let this brilliance seep into you. Do it.

THE HARDCOREAN WAVE

FREDDY K. AND THE BREEZE

A little something different for you, my friends. Maybe you want some weird christian outsider rock with a singer who is (sometimes) a dead ringer for Fred Cole, especially noteworthy on tracks like "The Kids Were Tough As Nails" and "Ineligible Contestant For Life." Somewhere between the story telling style of DAVID ALLEN COE and freaked out acid drenched space folk crashing face first into your annoying dad jamming in the garage after a few too many Old Styles. One of many greats I've scooped from the bins at the St. Vincent de Paul in Albuquerque, second only to the antique mall near my mother-in-law's house for potential scores. I've seen the private press vinyl issue listed for sale as "garage punk," which makes me laugh a bit, buyer beware!! Favorite tracks: "Different Shade Of Love" and "Old Hippies." 

RANDOM ENFORCEMENT

ANIMADVERSION

Tripped out mutant psych punk from Argentina, ANIMADVERSION dole out a mixture of lo-fi and off kilter '90s punk and drench it in a world of weird.  Guitars are damaged and deranged, and I instantly feel a '90s Mission vibe (that's HICKEY, TINA AGE 13, RUDIMENTS, et al) that helps work me through the marginally tuned guitars. Weird hippie shit and punk collide in this collection of tracks spanning a few years in the early-mid '90s, there are live jams and what appear to be rehearsal jams...but give me one creamer like "Loas, Altruista, Magnificente Spid" and my ass is sold. If you want professionalism then move right along (or move on to the band's later studio releases), but this thing is gold.

DE GRABACIONES ABSURDAMENTE ECONTRADAS 1992-1997

PROTODOOM

Brad Misanthropic made this tape for the Milwaukee Mix Tape Exchange in the early '00s, and it's still a regular jammer around TEHQ. An insane collection of crushing '70s heavy rock from an A-List of collector nerd fodder. If you aren't familiar with SEOMPI, DARK, ICECROSS, DIES IRAE, WICKED LADY, BUM (pre- IRON MAIDEN), POOBAH....well, today is your lucky day. A few slightly better known heavyweights are included as well (MAY BLITZ, HIGH TIDE, Brasil's MODULO 1000, T2, JERONIMO), but these are "well known" to freaks and mutants and afficionado more than your average punker. Can't even stress how much this tape jams, listen to the BULLETPROOF track repeatedly. You're welcome.

PROTODOOM

WHAT IS MUSIC?

I've touched on my time in Oklahoma several times in the virtual pages of this e-publication, but it's really difficult to explain how formative those few years were for me. I lived in Norman (about 20 miles south of Oklahoma City) from mid 1990 to January 1994 and many of the bands I was introduced to during my time there are still favorites today. I pull out Violent Religion at least once a month (and tend to jam it a few times in a row when I do) nearly 25 years after its release, I still contend that CONCEPT OF NONSENSE are one of the more under appreciated hardcore bands of the era, and the SONS are no doubt one of the coolest and most unique sounding bands I've ever heard. Perhaps some of the bands don't really hold up to first time listeners who never saw them live but I saw every band I could, from TALL TALES to SUBSANITY and, to an 18 year old who had simply never had the opportunity to see live punk...it was fukkn incredible. This 1992 comp tape from Sound Noise Music concentrates on the weirder end of the punk spectrum...the freaks and mutants and casualties leftover from 1980s hardcore (yes, Oklahoma had that too) and the nasty skinhead explosion that dominated the final years of the decade, and this was the end of the spectrum that I wanted. I didn't yet know that I loved hardcore because, quite simply, I hadn't really heard it yet, so ILLEGITIMATE SONS OF JACKIE O were the fastest and most intense thing on the planet as far as I was concerned (three of their tracks appear on this comp, including a burner called "You're Ignorant" that might be my favorite track of theirs). SONS frontman Dan Riffe is also behind this tape's VAN GOGH'S EAR offerings, and I'm pretty sure he's playing guitar on this incarnation of UNSOCIETY (Chad's band between CONCEPT and BROTHER INFERIOR), who I don't remember sounding this Oi!, but that might be because I also didn't really know what Oi! sounded like. And speaking of Chad, we've got THE KIDS WHO NEVER LEARNED HOW TO COLOR INSIDE OF THE LINES (whose songs were always too long, but who were always a blast live) and THE SENSUAL UNDERGROUND BAND (Sensual Underground was Chad's house, Tulsa's coolest DIY venue, and his record label/propaganda machine). FACELESS UNITY are screaming US hardcore that could have come from anywhere...but should have existed ten years before this tape was released. The highlights of the comp for my ears are the weird shit - there were no rules in Oklahoma, and no one had to sound like anything to be cool (because, unless you were THE LIPS, essentially no one was cool except BLEMISH, but they just thought they were cool), so of course there were a lot of cool bands as a result. First time I was terrified at a show was GLUE in a basement, their pal was collecting money at the door and ran up to the mic wielding a knife screaming "motherfukkr if you don't give me a dollar I'm gonna fuckkn cut you!! one fukkn dollar you piece of shit!!" and the band just laughed, playing on at full volume while the audience crept outside. The GLUE tracks here might not match up to either of their proper releases, but "In The Basement/Party At Perry's" is a total killer and the drums on "Blue Cloud" are textbook awesome. Straight noise freakout from FOREHEAD DAWG, honest poetic weirdness from LONG PIG, and eleven minutes of psychedelic jamming from TATTERED REMNANTS. Think about how warped your adult tastes would be if your first exposures to live underground music were frat bar bands trying to hop on the grunge bandwagon and mutant rock like this...and then look at the virtual pages of this e-rag it will make a lot more sense.

WHAT IS MUSIC?