MEDICATION

Sometimes I can't exactly explain why I love it, or exactly what it is that I love. And sometimes I feel like if I even tried, that most of you would shy away and look elsewhere for aural sustenance. Sometimes there are sounds that just strike a nerve and I need them, even if they are not sounds that I feel like I should "like," per se. Need is stronger than want, and need is certainly stronger than like. "Count Me Out" is exactly what I'm talking about....I was rapt before the music even started, and once it did I was helpless. So today, there are no descriptors. No comparisons. Just.....suggestions. And affirmations.

DAILY AFFIRMATIONS

COLLAPSE SOCIETY

Noisy and chaotic beyond belief, poorly reproduced and suffering from waves of hiss, ramshackle mania with vocals mixed way too high and bass distorted to a near noteless rumble. In other words: perfect. I think this is how these sounds were meant to be listened to, and COLLAPSE SOCIETY has been doing the thing for fukkn 25 years. Noise Not Music, motherfukkrs. 

DEMO '93

CELL ROT

Dear Americans: Hope you had a pleasant weekend, and that your "holiday" was satisfactory. Dear Everyone Else: This holiday weekend thing is bullshit, it's mostly just gluttony and fake appreciation. You know what is not bullshit? The drums during the breakdown to "Punishment." That shit is real as fukk. CELL ROT are from Oakland, and were born out of the ashes of EXHAAUST (basically same band with a different vocalist). Three songs here....and holy fukkn shit are we in for a treat if these fools stick around for a while. Looking forward to seeing them in the flesh on Friday....I guess sometimes living in this cesspool nation isn't entirely shitty. So yeah....it's Monday. Have a nice week.

CELL ROT

MOON BLOOD

Yesssssss punk. Get ready. Tighten your shoe(boot)laces, because you are about to go fukkn wild. Straight for the throat feminist pogo hardcore mania from Las Vegas with vocals that'll make you rip your heart out and die for punk. This is what the shit is about, motherfukkrs, I want more and more and more. Fast, raw, serious fukkn punk. 

CRAMP

GENEVA JACUZZI

Blind purchase here (what's $5 to an uppity dude with a job, right?!), but the second I heard that weird digitized voice from the past pretentiously groaning something about "eating your sex"  I knew that I had made the correct decision. Lowest common denominator primitive proto-electro (techno?Italidisco? house? who knows?!?!) presented with what I can only assume is blatantly calculated precision and an aspiration for something resembling actual and real "success." My assumption here is that this outfit is highly regarded in some alternate universe (read: cocaine users in their 20s), but I confess that on more than one occasion since that blind purchase, GENEVA JACUZZI has filled my home and my earholes. Choice track: "Macho Island." You're welcome. 

TECHNOPHELIA

CHAMBER OF TORTURE

Put your internal serach for peace and light on hold for thirty minutes and sink deep into CHAMBER OF TORTURE's realm of sinister death metal. Do it. I can tell you from experience that it will act as a cleansing...and the more volume employed, the deeper the cleanse. The hate and the dishonesty will still be out there when you are finished, and you will still need to address the ills (of the world and of your soul) just as before - but imagine doing so after a full immersion. It's worth it. 

BEHEAD BEFORE INTERNMENT

ATROPELLO

Ugh....just YES. Eight minutes of light speed hardcore, complete tracks crammed into sub-minute bursts without leaning on blasts or fastcore trickery. Listen to "Control" and hear the vocals shred during the machine gun snare hits that make up the chorus - this is what I want!! - and the mosh that follows is so quick and to the point. Everything is here. This is the first of two demos Buenos Aires, Argentina's ATROPELLO band has given us this year....let's hope that there are more in the future. 

ATROPELLO

LIQUIDS

Like the sharp edge of a knife, but when you're too drunk to be cooking. Smart, snappy punk burners from the same crew of midwest mutants responsible for CONEHEADS, CCTV and a bunch of other shit that the kids scooped up before you even knew you were supposed to like it. Pay attention, and you will be rewarded with tracks like "Piss On Me," which is without a doubt the coolest creamer you will hear all damn day. 

BRANDON'S IN JAIL

11.11.16

I made this mix tape for a friend. I thought I did a pretty good job making everything flow, then got to the end of Side B and perfectly timed the remaining space to a weird CHARLIE TWEDDLE track (as any tape makers know all too well, timing the end of each side is key, and we always keep an arsenal of short, poignant numbers up our sleeves for moments just like these). Boom. It was about to be done. So I dropped the needle, I unpaused the recording and I went to pop open a celebratory beer...because a good mix tape is an accomplishment worth celebrating. And then an enemy known only as "auto-reverse" reared its head, and before I knew it, the first 10 minutes of the Side A had been replaced with the gentle crackle of a needle knocking at the matrix...fuck. Normally, I could have just recreated the first few selections, but I had started this particular mix with a self-edit of PHAROAH SANDERS' "The Creator Has A Master Plan" (a controversial tape making tool, but one I am comfortable utilizing when appropriate) and it would be impossible to nail that timing again...so I started over. Many of the same tracks found their way back into the program, but offerings by SCREAMING TREES, PTARMIGAN and BEHAVIOR didn't seem as appropriate to the overall vibe and were replaced with WAYNE NEWTON, THE BODY and BRUCE GILBERT. I am very pleased with the tape, and have listened to it many times since (re)completion. While it brings me pleasure to share this here, and I hope that it brings you pleasure also...nothing can compare to the feeling of packing up a tape to mail to someone far away. Imagining it reaching their hands and then filling their ears...it's why we do this. And sometimes it's our very reason for existence. 

11.11.16

EARN // MIRROR TO MIRROR

The rain has subsided and the light is oppressive while I type, which makes it hard to take my mind back to the first time I listened to this cassette. Making something that is instantly engaging even when quiet and deliberate is difficult...which makes it even better when it works. EARN works - patient and peaceful ambience, dark without being oppressive or negative...file alongside the things that we feel more than hear, things that are difficult to describe. A natural progression to MIRROR TO MIRROR on the other side...slightly more energy, slightly more hope. Maybe wait until it's dark. 

SYMPATHY // SOFT YEARS

SPRY JAUNT

I ripped this one at the same time as the UHNB I posted a few days ago, and they go well together. SPRY JAUNT come off like a bedroom Beat reject, trapped in another time and/or dimension (or maybe just wandering around San Francisco sometime in the drug addled '90s). acoustic guitar musings and stream of consciousness ramblings don't always work, but Whichever You Prefer hits just right this morning. 

WHICHEVER YOU PREFER

MANIA FOR CONQUEST

MANIA FOR CONQUEST deliver perfectly executed light speed DBeat hardcore. Sometimes you think you know exactly what to expect, you just don't know how good it's going to be - and this is one of those times. They hit every base, and even the atypical diversions ("Noise For Peace," for example) aren't exactly surprising, but fukk do these North Carolina mutants do everything right. You hear a part coming and you think "oh shit - I bet they are gonna do this other thing next!" and then they do the thing but it's faster and tighter and so much better than you though it was gonna be....and this is going to keep happening while you listen, until you find yourself stomping around your room with clenched fists. You've got both demos in the DL today, and certified banger status is guaranteed. 

ARE WE DOOMED TO REPEAT THE MISTAKES OF THE PAST? // DESPAIR CONTINUES

NEMA VOPIA NEDELJOM UVECE

Blistering 1986 Yugoslav comp featuring S.D.T., PROCES, YUGOSLAV SUN (this ska track breaks up the hardcore, and almost ends up being my favorite song on the tape), IDIOTI, OPASNE IGRE, PATARENI and others. Noisy, chaotic, raw bursts of punk and hardcore from a time and place that is long gone.

NEMA VOPIA NEDELJOM UVECE

UHNB

A quiet cacophony of distant sounds, this UHNB recording comes off like some lost VELVETs shit propelled into another millennium....and not necessarily the "new" one. I don't know how to categorize this at all, the sounds are mystical and even transformational, but then they can so effortlessly lapse into impossibly simple acoustic guitar and vocals and it still makes perfect sense. I have zero context for this recording, but these sounds are on motherfucking point, and I appreciate every minute of this cassette. 

UHNB

CHAPTERS

I could write something esoteric here about stages of life and the changes that we live through as we turn its various and sundry pages. I could....but that would be self indulgent, no? Instead: treat yourself to twenty five minutes of dark and haunting noise scapes. CAHPTERS is haunting and numbing, I was immersed instantly. So yeah, turn another page I guess, who knows what the next chapter brings...

DEMONSTRATION '13