LARVAE

The world of regional USDIY '90s hardcore has yet to be fully explored. So many bands that existed - and thrived - in their own (then) isolated pre-internet areas and then faded away....legacies that are little more than legend and short run demo tapes. LARVAE is one of those...the 1995 demo (more on that later) is a ripper, but this collection of tracks from the following year is colossal dual vocal political crust in league with MANKIND? and other more revered acts. Ten tracks, and the whole thing fukkn cooks...even through a less than optimal demo quality recording. But everything is here, and tracks like "Ruled By The State" show the chops and vision of a band that deserves more than some grey bearded boner blabbing about them on the internet twenty years in the future. Picture this band blowing DEFIANCE out of the room, this is why '90s hardcore fukkn rules. 

LISTEN

Check the post of LARVAE's 1995 demo here, and read a story about a dude named Jizz and his friend Shitbong. Even if you remember the story from when I posted that demo two years ago (yeah....as if you remember that shit), it's worth revisiting because good stories are always a good time. And who doesn't like a good time? Dummies. That's who. 

ASASIN PARANOIC

This shit. All day long....and hopefully all night. Primitive bedroom electronic/industrial brilliance, there must be legions of these acts releasing tapes in sub-dozen runs that will just languish until inevitable obscurity. There are so many of them. It's impossible to think one could find them all, so we enjoy what we can get our hands on. Fire In The Sky is a three part opus - a murky and relatively mellow wash shielding erratic beats and awkward sounds from direct engagement. Things really get rolling around the six minute mark of Part II, but by then (if you've been listening properly) you'll be in a haze anyway. Folks from Nostilevo, SIOBHAN, LFA (in case that stuff matters to you). Shit is real ill, enjoy.

FIRE IN THE SKY

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. 

BERT // HORDES

The HORDES side of this split listens like an underground subway ride...dark, murky, wet...emerging from a tunnel at daybreak as the light struggles with clouds and the ominous weight that is darkness. 

One the other side, BERT deliver the kind of sounds that stop me dead in my tracks. Far from the ambient music that is sometimes relegated to the background by distraction or boredom, "DN" is brilliant in its simplicity, and I ended the 31 minutes lying on the floor bathed in emotion. The piece is about patience, about beauty, about power...and maybe The Whole Thing really is as simple as a piano calmly offering a sequence of single notes that we have all heard before. Incredible. 

GROWN LONG

SICK LLAMA

2009 cassette from SICK LLAMA, one of the (many) aliases of Fag Tapes empresario Heath Moerland. It's like a digital stream of consciousness, but with a constant and underlying surge. I find Equity particularly engaging, and have for years....imagine the intersection of blips and whirrs noise and mesmerizing ambient electronics....can you imagine that? I can. So can SICK LLAMA.

EQUITY

CONTROL GROUP

Below this text, lurking behind the green highlighted text that says CONTROL GROUP, you will find five of the noisiest, most fukkd sounding minutes ever shared on The Escape. I know I've said before (many times) that bands are taking the noise punk thing to new heights, but this one is something different. There are songs in there...(somewhere)...but it's like they are breaking everything in an AM radio broadcast studio trying desperately to be heard. The mosh part in "Junk" is the thing that madness is made of. CONTROL FROUP is fukkn insane. 

CONTROL GROUP

SIOBHAN

More trance inducing electronic dirges from SIOBHAN. It's like you're hosting your own dance night in a dark, filthy alley half a block away from the techno club and find a way to amplify the distorted, distant sounds emanating from inside the brick walls and underneath the dumpsters. It's the dangerous, fascinating version of the music Other People listen to mindlessly...and it's wonderful. 

OMEGA STAMP

FIGHTINGxCHANCE

Quintessential early '00s SXE hardcore. Melodic guitar leads, earnest lyrics, circle pit parts and dogpile parts...shit is all here, kids. FIGHTINGxCHANCE was a short lived project made up of Detroit and Toronto punks...captures the era perfectly. Members went on to play in NO WARNING and, if the internet is to be believed, this.

FIGHTINGxCHANCE

I've never fucking done it, never fuckin will

drink a fucking substance, I know can fuckin kill

social status, do it because it's cool

do it to be accepted, you're plain [sic] the fucking fool

-----------------

you say he made you do it, you try to shift the blame

but who drank the liquid? you're all the fucking same

too weak to take control, too weak to quit the game

drinking's not a "disease," it's just fuckin lame!

ZAP

Sweet PENTAGRAM drum intro, my dudes, but after that it's all hiNRG punk all the time. Spastic weirdo mutants with a penchant for classic rock grooves crammed into little freak show dioramas. But if you think about it: when SSD started, Led Zep III was only eleven years old and TOTAL CHAOS started playing seventeen years ago...so those Blackmore licks seem a little cooler now, don't they?

ZAP

MEDIEVAL

More than we need to make ears bleed...

Kalamazoo, Michigan. MEDIEVAL play heavy metal music...their history is well documented, so I'll spare you the drivel. 1984's All Knobs To The Right is heavy metal music, and it does not give a fuck. Nuclear War Now gave the band a proper reissue last year, but one listen to "World War IV" should help you understand why I wanted to make sure this made it into your earholes. I like to help. 

ALL KNOBS TO THE RIGHT

SLAYMAKER WELDING

I was immediately drawn to the tuneless and abrasive churn, reminding me of instantly of primitive organic noise mongers. I can't really imagine that early industrialists cared if a single second of their sounds were deemed "digestible," and I see Detroit's SLAYMAKER WELDING in the same light Rhythmic, distorted, atonal, mournful in its repetition, twenty minutes of monotony that will make you feel trapped and, if played at the appropriate volume, paralyzed. 

OV MELT RUIN

Treat yourself here, you're worth it.

GULAGS

Haven't posted any lo-fi blown out distortion-laden punk since I came home, so here's GULAGS. Detroit noise mongers bashing through amped up pogo punk dished out with gratuitous chaos seeping into every crevice of the mix...but check the sneaky hooks in "Preach Roses," there's more to this than just power and fury. The vocals throughout are powerful as hell, landing somewhere between VIOLATORS and ICON GALLERY...repeat listens confirm that she has a no bullshit set of pipes, and subtleties like that make it well worth digging through the distortion. But if you aren't interested 

in subtleties and just want to rage, GULAGS have got you covered.

GULAGS

LARVAE

I like stories, and tour stories are especially appealing. I like hearing them, and I love telling them. Understandably, stories evolve over time...as our memories become more memories of the story and less memories of the actual incidents, embellishments and distortions are inevitable. But that's a part of it, and a part of what makes a good story. I can't tell you how many times I've heard a story and thought "I don't want to know if that's true or not, because it's a great story." We aren't news reporters and we aren't writing critical historical accounts, we are passing legends within our own small society, and that's what history is. I'm not supporting factual inaccuracies, but we need to acknowledge that an acceptable amount of distortion, revision and adaptation is to be expected in the interest of a good story. Enter: Shitbong. This is the way I remember a certain show on the FUCKFACE/HICKEY tour in 1996....

We rolled up to a house in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A young gentleman named Jizz greeted us at the door and showed us around the place we would be playing and staying...it was cold as shit, and the oldest person in the house seemed to be 15 years old at best. These kids were young, like "where are their parents" young, and had us all wondering if there were would be "adults" present. Not that I'm opposed to a 15 year old getting wild and partying (quite the opposite), but my grown up California ass in a house full of plastered runaways is a tough thing to explain to the cops that are inevitably going to come bust the show...these are things you think about in a free society, I suppose. Jizz introduced us to the kids, showed us to the basement that was barely big enough for our gear and only left space on the stairs for anyone to watch the band (should they even decide to pry themselves away from the party long enough to try....which seemed unlikely). After the basement, we saw a lethargic young man sitting on the couch, hovering over a giant pile of weed on the coffee table. Jizz introduced the guy as Shitbong. "Don't call me Shitbong man, that's not my name. My name's Mike," was Shitbong's reply. Jizz laughed, "Whatever, Shitbong." The show was fun, it never got warmer, kids did indeed crowd the stairs while our bands played, and I have no idea if we slept there or not. I'm sure Shitbong's given name has changed countless times as I've recounted the story over the years, but "Don't call me Shitbong, that's not my name" has been enough of a constant that it's crossed over into "don't care if it's true or not" territory.

I ran into Jizz a few times in Milwaukee, years after our initial meeting he was working in a tire shop and was always filthy with adult work scum instead of youthful party scum. He left town shortly after I arrived...and I eventually met (and worked with) a woman who knew Jizz in Grand Rapids and confirmed my memories of the punk house as a repository for wayward youth. Then I got this LARVAE demo from my pal Daniel a few months ago. Grand Rapids catchy hardcore circa 1995, anti-government, hell bent on partying, and unhinged as fukk. But more importantly: Shitbong was real!!  If only I remembered meeting Spitter or Penis Dan - and I'm sure they were there - the story could be so much better. 

LARVAE

SCUM

And, three years after their last visit to The Escape, Detroit noise mongers SCUM are back with more raw, noisy hardcore. I like that these maniacs keep things ultra chaotic, even within the admittedly restrictive confines of DBeat based noise punk...you get the feeling that they would be just as insane sounding with a thunderous production and that the insanity is real regardless of how it presents itself. Bass intro to "Living In The Shadows" is crucial shit. A few tracks here were initially presented on previous demos, but sometimes you like getting your ears blown out all over again.

SCUM

KATA SARKA // BODDICKER

Ripping blackened crust from Indianapolis' KATA SARKA. Grinding blackened crust from Detroit's BODDICKER. Sometimes, this is exactly what I need, and tight now is one of those times.

KATA SARKA // BODDICKER

REDROT

My first exposure to REDROT was their self titled release last year, which I loved. Since then I've snagged a couple of also excellent older recordings, but I think On Drowning might be the most impressive statement from this long running and prolific machine. Powerful electronics mingle with heavy dance beats and gratuitous noise, hints of Wax Trax-era CONTROLLED BLEEDING suffocating on a fog of sound. "sekrets KILL ME sekrets" is the burner for sure, but check the synths on the title track and feel the seemingly erratic beats on "The Disclaimer" before you close the book here. Ryan Oppermann has outdone himself here. 

ON DROWNING

BODDICKER

Downtuned blackened crust/grind from Detroit, absolutely filthy. "The Deceit Deposit" is like a fukkn bulldozer, shit is so good. This tape is from 2012, and BODDICKER's subsequent output has continued on the same devastating trajectory - maximum intensity, maximum anger, maximum attack. File alongside current heavyweights like PROTESTANT and NEGATIVE STANDARDS. Get pissed.

MITCH IS THE BASTARD...

ICING ON THE GRAVY

Conceived sometime in the early '00s by a dude from THE END OF THE CENTURY PARTY but not released for several years, this comp is an excellent time warp if nothing else...but fortunately it is also smoking. A veritable who's who of bands that rarely got the recognition they deserved while they were around: FAT DAY, PRETENTIOUS ASSHOLES, GODSTOMPER, EPAJAESTYS, DENAK, along with some heavyweights of the era: KUNG FU RICK, PALATKA, ASSHOLE PARADE. Czech Republic's MRTVA BUDOCNOST and Japan's D.P.P.S. were surprises, but the penpal was a powerful thing in pre-message board punk world. AUTORITAR, VILENTLY ILL, DEAD END, CROOKED COPS, WARSORE, KATASTROFIALUE and CHAPTER 13 round the tape out, I miss comps like this.

ICING ON THE GRAVY

WEIRDING MODULE

On 2010's New Age Series Vol. 003, WEIRDING MODULE produce hypnotic primitive electronics that draw you in as much as lull you into submission. Subtle waves and meticulous transitions, the second side opens with ten minutes of FROESEian atmosphere and closes with a six minute awakening, making me wonder what Vol. 004 (which does not, as near as I can tell, exist) would have sounded like immediately after. This one is for a dark night - transformative and deep far beyond the mere drone of an analog synthesizer.

NEW AGE SERIES VOL. 003

SEDITION

I don't know enough about SEDITION to put them in any kind of context, but I know the sound of punishment when I hear it. This demo churns out four downtuned burst of hatred, but it sounds like every moment is a struggle but emotionally and musically. The determination is visceral and pure, the final minute of the tape ("Killing With Intrigue") is a crushing (p)re-interpretation of ramshackle hardcore but through a lens of primitive crust/grind - awkward metallic breakdowns are the only break from the constant surge of primal power. Make no mistake, I am not implying that SEDITION are amateurish in any way - from the very first notes of "Caught In The Middle Of A Pissing Contest" you know you are in store for an absolutely disgusting aural beating and for six minutes that is exactly what you get. 

SEDITION