PÁLL PARKER

Welcome to a 22+ minute mindfuck courtesy of Iceland's Páll Parker. Buried beats, gross manipulations, and an overall presentation that will have you wondering if there's something a bit off with your download interface wiring harness capacitor because things just aren't supposed to sound this weird, you dig? It starts to really (really) get fukkd around the 15 minutes mark - the beats build in presence and intensity and trigger staccato washes of white noise, panic inducing sounds I can only compare to dreams of drowning...dreams that start to feel like reality as To Smear The Sexual Organs begins a cool down/breather before the finale that dissolves into just that erratic beat pulsating as though your life is skipping. And who is say that it isn't......?

TO SMEAR THE SEXUAL ORGANS

JOCK CLUB

I still sometimes think about that MARSHSTEPPER show at The Lab in SF a bunch of years ago, when I showed up on time (stupid) and waited for HOURS before anything happened and then when something did happen it was a fucking laptop techno DJ kid and I was silently fuming because I'm old and sometimes I get cranky and sleepy and I just wanted to fucking see MARSHSTEPPER and then after a few minutes I was like "damn, this laptop DJ kid is fukkn banging" and then I was really happy and MARSHSTEPPER was super good too. Yeah....been a JOCK CLUB fan ever since that night. Good job, laptop DJ kid. 

IN THE JUNGLE

GIDIM

I've been spending most of my recent music listening time with artists that are "heavy," but decidedly outside of the punk/metal sphere/s. BROTHER AHH, PATRICK COWLEY, the recent BILL CONVERSE platter, ALICE COLTRANE reissue/s, and I cannot recommend the Numero JOANNA BROUK collection highly enough - some of the most beautiful and emotive sounds I have ever heard. But....sometimes things pull you back. And today when I got home I didn't want introspection or nuance, but I wanted depth and I wanted power. And I wanted rage.....so I listened to the three tracks on the 2013 GIDIM demo very fukkn loudly. And then.....? And then I listened to them again. Searing and discordant one man black metal....sometimes it's what a person needs. 

GIDIM

SKIN GRAFT

An early portal into the world of cripplingly prolific noise artist SKIN GRAFT, these two tracks take you on a 30 minute journey through ambient field recordings, subdued but harsh industrial and manipulated electronics. Rather than a slap to the face, 2007's Drug Addict drags you through the slog and pulls you under layers of sound until it feels like your drowning so that even 12 minutes into the first track, when the sound starts to release its hold, I find myself bound even tighter. This is lights-off-music, and among the first of many dozens of SKIN GRAFT releases over the last decade...like a premonition of dark Future Times. 

DRUG ADDICT

PISSE

Two killer demos one one killer tape. The third freakout weirdo release from Germany's PISSE, Kohlrübenwinter is such a gloriously chilled out approach to a particularly appealing brand of outsider punk, and it is predictably a favorite at TEHQ. The general vibe is ultra '80s new wave, but the approach is still punk, and it still has teeth. The stomper "Schwätzer" takes the caketape for this listener, but there are zero legitimate bummers contained on this cassette...you know you like this shit, so dig in. 

KOHLRÜBENWINTER

FALLAS

Have you ever said to yourself "Man, I want eleven bursts of blown out, late '90s Mexican punk!" I have...and if I don't reach for the ODIO tape (let's be honest, the ODIO is really for those grindier moments) then I'm probably gonna pull out this FALLAS banger. Eleven bursts of distorted mania from Guadalajara with jerky rhythms and multi vocal shouts...and an intensity that is very raw and extremely pure. You know what I want? I want the guitars that start "Anárquico es el Pensamiento" to be my sonic spirit guide....because fukk are they heavy. So yeah....get dirty. 

MUSICA PARA LA RESISTENCIA

MEMBRANE

Ramshackle, distorted dupa-dupa from Brooklyn circa a few years ago. To be honest, I think that history will be unkind to this particular brand of raw hardcore punk, but good bands are still good bands, and I am sure that future ears will wisely acknowledge those that deserve acknowledgement. So, almost four years removed from the release of this creamer I am asking you to blast "Noose" and ask yourself where MEMBRANE fall in the historical judgement-o-meter......or perhaps we just need to get shithoused and keep listening for a few more years before we can really decide. 

MEMBRANE

LA FRACTION

My introduction to LA FRACTION was in 2002. We played with AMDI PETERSENS ARMÉ and TRAGEDY at Gilman and Billy was wearing a bright fukkn red LA FRACTION shirt and it just stuck out, you know? It wasn't black, it didn't look "punk" in the generic sense of the descriptor, and it just stuck out. I knew all those dudes, it's not like we were tight or anything, so I didn't ask about the shirt and just kinda filed it away mentally....to be addressed later. And then five years later their third LP La Vie Rêvée dropped and I was driving that French band on their US/Canadian tour, a tour that included a boat in Texas and threats of violence in San Francisco and and drugs and botched border crossings at Niagra Falls and a crazy ass frontman in Pittsburgh and a show with WOLFBRIGADE and PISSCHRIST in Milwaukee (epic evening, seriously) and it was fukkn magic. Really, it was. I have toured with a lot of bands...good bands, and good people...and I have had a really good time with most of them. But the bands I have really connected with? I can count them on one hand. LA FRACTION lives on that hand. I could talk about the 450+ mile drive east from Missoula (no stops...my longest stretch to date) with Magali sitting shotgun. I could talk about Dédé showing up in Leipzig and making John and me snort soap (that happened). I could tell a lot of stories that are now a fucking decade old, but my point is that this band is special, and if you have yet to discover them...then today is going to be a very special day for you. Similar to the day I looked up at the Gilman stage and saw that bright red shirt and wondered what band would make a red shirt with an (even/already in 2002) outdated Photoshop 101 image plastered on the front. What band? LA FRACTION. They are from Paris.....and they are (still) fucking beautiful.  

LA FRACTION

This tape was released by Nikt Nic Nie Wie, and contains LA FRACTION's debut LP from 1998 and their EP from 1996. Twenty years cannot dull the power of these songs....

"MY LIFE"

Prepare to enter a mind filled with wonder and brilliance: The mind of August Alston. Almost two hours of improvisations, prose, ramblings, creations, noise, and constructs that will confuse most, annoy some and enthrall a few who appreciate the wavelength of The Other and the existence of The Different. Revolving (eventually) around the recurring track "Condo Woman," My Life aka Not A Lack Of Interest Cover is an actual journey to another place that lies dormant inside and rests just below the surface - a place that is more destiny than destination. Have a nice trip, and I'm not sorry if you never truly return. 

MY LIFE aka NOT A LACK OF INTEREST COVER

CONDO WOMAN: BAD NOISE 2016

NEGATIVE RAGE

It's rough around the edges like drunken garage punk. It's dark and brooding sometimes, but more like COMPLICATIONS than modern day pseudogoth. It's got catchy songs like early LA hardcore, but you don't notice them at first because it's kinda presented like some some kind if indescribably "00s Midwestern punk revival (I know what I mean so you don't have to). Also....it's really good. Let's call it NEGATIVE RAGE.

SENSITIVE CITY

My brain hurts....does yours?

STINGER

A flaming hot staff thrust to the sky: STINGER is ruthless hardcore manifested as war metal.  There's a ripping split with MAULER that came out earlier this year, but I still think I prefer this 2014 cassette release (and not just because I'm trying to be contrary). I just listened to the last 45 seconds of "By The Fang" and my day is pretty much downhill from here. 

STINGER

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...

SLUGBUGS

Freaked out weirdo synth slogs from a crew of Ohio mutants who seem to have dished out two demos a coupla years back and then just slurked of into the mist. TAPEWORM level outsider vibe on these four cuts, the longest of which clocks in around 1:12 (after the intro). Get it. 

WANNA BE SLUGBUGS?

MONOLITH

Seventeen blasts in just over twenty minutes, this is a premium dose of Austrian hc/grind. Guttural vocal (with howling backups), and a high speed metalcrust churn that makes this listener more than a little nostalgic. Check the bass when "Piledriver" starts....then listen to the entire song detonate. See what I mean? Exactly. Now listen to the awkward isolated blasts that stat "I Got My Coffe." See what I mean? Exactly. Now...continue.

SUPERMARKET RACE

SKY JUICE

Wandering solo guitar missives that sometimes border on Americana (in the way Higgs does, but here with more drugs), the first SKY JUICE release in several years makes the return of Fag Tapes to TE even more pleasant than you might expect. There are a couple of short bursts of blown out hardcore to keep you on your toes, but for the most part the thirty minutes that make up The Black Tapes are calming and whimsical. Favorite track: the third one. 

THE BLACK TAPES