***"Big Hotel, the sophomore effort of Winged Wheel, is an evolutionary document. Core members Cory Plump (Spray Paint, Rider/Horse, Expensive Shit), Fred Thomas (Tyvek, Idle Ray), Whitney Johnson (Matchess, Damiana), and Matthew J Rolin (Powers/Rolin Duo, solo) expand their lineup to include Lonnie Slack (Water Damage) and Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), and instead of the entirely remote method utilized to create their 2022 debut No Island, the far-flung party convened in person in Kingston, NY for a long weekend of live studio recording. The results are undeniably compelling. The band’s signature cyclonic energy is simultaneously augmented and refined with the approach of real-time collaboration. After tracking three days’ worth of group improvisations, weirdly-born songs, and other spontaneous creations, the hours of material were edited with a similar intensity. Half-hour jams became three-minute ragers and fragments were looped into infinity, calling on the same spliced aesthetic as some of the most adventurous material by Can, Faust, or more recently the experimental production of the International Anthem camp. The stereo field has been torn apart and sewn together again, rerouted with strange and mesmerizing left turns. Vignettes of ambiguous construction, both tightly coiled and exploding, revolve around themselves, gathering intensity and mass, coalescing into something greater than the sum of its parts. 'Demonstrably False' swells into existence like a motorik tidepool, tossing fauna onto the shoreline where it sprouts legs with a steady gait lying readily in wait within them. The controlled frenzy of 'Sleeptraining' marks a determined dash to a patch...
LP $23.50
05/03/2024
***"Volume, repetition, volume, repetition, volume and repetition, this is the sonic mantra of Austin, Texas's Water Damage. On their new record In E, Water Damage continues to scorch the earth with walls of punishing sound. It's no secret that something truly special can happen to the psyche when you are being pummelled with trance inducing drones, you can transcend time, you might laugh, you might cry but hopefully you look inward, letting a calm wash over you with metric tons of distortion. Water Damage are the rare 'rock' band that follow in the lineage of artists like Faust, Tony Conrad, Steve Reich and Pärson Sound, one that creates such heavy yet minimalistic audio treasures that not only hit you viscerally but also give space to contemplate on your place in the cosmos. Their longest offering yet, Water Damage hits you with 4 side long tracks of krautpunk ending with a cover of 'Ladybird' by Shit & Shine featuring Craig Clouse on vocals. Drone until you hear god speak."—Joe Trainer, Dummy Water Damage is Mari Maurice, Thor Harris, Jonathan Horne, Nate Cross, George Dishonor, Travis Austin, Mike Kanin, Greg Piwonka, Jeff Piwonka and Lonnie "Palmtree" Slack.
2XLP $34.50
04/12/2024
***"At the very dawn of the 90s, Love Child's debut 7” made a splash on the burgeoning scene of shambolic bands and lo-fi recordings. Back then, they were mentioned in the same breath as Pavement, Sebadoh, or Beat Happening. But Love Child’s two great albums and sparkling singles have become the stuff of record collectors, unavailable vis streaming and out of print, until now. Never Meant to Be: 1988-1993 pulls from these releases and some unreleased radio sessions, unearthing a trove of lost gems by a band that could be the bestof all of the 90s buried treasures. Culled from their smashing debut 7-inch, their two full-length albums, another great single and some unreleased radio sets (including a Peel Session), Never Meant To Be has catchy hooks, gritty noise, sneakily-deft playing, brainy but blunt lyrics, and lots of other awesome stuff. Love Child were part of lo-fi’s beginnings, but also had the NYC pedigree to absorb predecessors like the Velvet Underground, the Voidoids and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. (Their swirl of brightness, brains, and brawn led Byron Coley to liken them to a fantasy VU made up of Moe Tucker, Doug Yule, and Angus MacLise). Will Baum started Love Child while a student at Vassar College, bringing on classmates Rebecca Odes and Alan Licht. At first, Baum wrote the majority of the songs, bringing a Modern Lovers-like garage-pop attack to the band’s 19-song whirlwind debut album Okay? (Homestead, 1991) But Odes and Licht contributed songs as well, each with...
2XLP $39.35
03/08/2024
***"Activator is the third installment from the trio of Jayson Gerycz, Jen Powers and Matthew Rolin, who respectively need no introduction writ-large. For anyone observing the American underground in the last decade, whether live, on tour or across various listening formats, these names are attached to the crucial goings-on propelling the Rust Belt and beyond. Here we find the trio expand their collaborative vernacular across two sides of vinyl starting with the steady strumming of 'Entrance', a paradox of pensive riffing and anxious percussion where Gerycz and Powers meld into a nebulous cluster of shapeshifting staccato and phantom rhythms. Tracks like 'Sun Rays' and 'Ivory' walk a tightrope between structured songcraft with chord patterns and concise riffs held together by steady cadence, ranging from hand bells to the bombastic, full-kit eruptions Gerycz has perfected over many years. As each piece ascends and unfurls, Powers provides a gentle tessellating from her dulcimer, with each strike landing like raindrops upon shallow puddles. The title track 'Activator' displays the full range and might of the trio, highlighting and merging the many facets and abilities each individual brings to the table, forming the singular identity that has made the project so beloved. Starting with slow dulcimer swells, watery bells, and mellow, motorik electric guitar, the track slowly tangles up its own elements and tumbles itself with grace and patient beauty while ascending to an ecstatic explosion of distortion and thunderous drumming before dissolving into an iridescent singing bowl meditation. Activator leaves it all on...
LP $23.50
01/12/2024
***Sarah Black played bass and guitar and wrote music in several Minneapolis bands including Kickball, Period, Plain Jane, the Bleeding Hickeys, the Lie-Ons, the Pointing Geenas and Brandy Thunders. In the Minneapolis performance scene, Sarah was a performance artist, drag and burlesque performer. Sarah is also a scenic painter and welder who worked on commercial sets, films, and music videos including some rock sculptures that can be seen in Prince's video 'The Holy River.' Jenn Gori trained as a vocalist and was a member of impossibly nerdy musical ensembles and performance groups, singing and arranging music for multi-part vocal compositions including madrigal music, a cappella, and improvisational harmonies. After moving to Minneapolis from Boston, Jenn ventured into punk, drag and burlesque performance, songwriting and playing drums in the Bleeding Hickeys, the Lie-Ons, Pointing Geenas and Brandy Thunders. Chris Brokaw was and remains a member of Come, Codeine and the Martha's Vineyard Ferries, sometimes Charnel Ground, sometimes the Lemonheads. He makes solo albums and film scores, and teaches guitar + drums. Chris and Jenn + Sarah made odysseys living in New York and Seattle for several years each, at exactly the same times, without being aware of each other, all ending up (back) in Boston at roughly the same time a few years ago, apparently following the same north star on the same crooked path. Chris met Jenn + Sarah at a yard show at Brad Searles' house as the pandemic was cooling in 2021 and connected further via the Mr./Mrs....
LP $23.50
01/12/2024
***The fourth album from amazing Dutch four-piece Lewsberg. Since forming in 2016, Lewsberg have gone from strength to strength. Despite never really considering themselves as a ‘productive band’, together they have released three LPs, one EP and a series of cassettes and 7”s including 2022’s "Six Hills" which was released via Speedy Wunderground's singles series. Lewsberg are named after writer and fellow Rotterdammer Robert Loesberg, famous for his dangerous novel Enige Defecten from 1974. This is one of the band’s main sources of inspiration: the counterculture and big-city cynicism of the 1960s and 1970s. Yet there is also a softer side to Lewsberg’s music and lyrics. On Out And About, this side is more present than ever. Rudimentary pop and rock songs are deliberately kept bare, only occasionally embellished with a violin or organ part. In the lyrics, the tendency towards existentialism and black humour is nuanced with an almost naive openness and engagement. Recorded in Amsterdam in Spring 2023 with producer Yulya Divakova, Out And About sees founding members Shalita Dietrich (vocals, bass guitar), Michiel Klein (guitar) and Arie van Vliet (vocals, guitar, violin) joined for the first time on record by drummer and vocalist Marrit Meinema, who joined the band in the Autumn of 2021. Out And About embraces a collaborative spirit, allowing each member to contribute their unique songwriting talents. The result is a collection of tracks that capture the band's collective creative energy and their individual perspectives. The lyrics for "A Different View" were written via...
LP $23.50
10/27/2023
CD $13.50
10/27/2023
***More Water! More Damage! The second proper LP by this Texan juggernaut is even more biggerer than the first, a head-drowning pair of new 'reels' (every Water Damage tracks generally take up a reel of tape, hence the 'reel ____' song titles) that makes you feel like you’re swimming in a sun-drenched river of sound. Two drummers, two bassists, and tons of vibrating strings are once again a recipe for massive rocking-drone fires. Two Songs has two songs, and they’re kind of the yin/yang of Water Damage: one toned very low, growling and roaring, groaning over a beat, while the other hums high, troubling the treble clef and ringing like a bunch of church bells that don’t want to be in church. They’re more alike than different though, divining momentum from repetition, flying forward by staying in place, climbing a mountain that they’re building as they go. Enough ink has already been spilled about the previous-band pedigrees of the players in this hurtling collective, and by this point, the past seems way less relevant than the present when it comes to Water Damage’s present-pounding sound. These people know what they’re doing, sure. You don’t need a resume in front of you to figure that out. It’s there in every second of this gigantic, eternal music—in all the strings being bowed, the skins being slammed, the rumbles being rumbled. You might notice that this time around, Water Damage haven’t just given their tracks reel numbers. They're also called 'Fuck This' and...
LP $21.95
06/02/2023
***The first vinyl edition of NYC trio Weak Signal's second album, 2022's War&War, originally issued digitally by Colonel Records. Weak Signal is Sasha Vine, Tran and Mike Bones. Ryan Sawyer plays additional percussion throughout. Sarim Al-Rawi plays additional guitar throughout. Cass McCombs plays guitar on "Spooky Feeling." Produced and Mixed by Jonathan Kreinik at Vitos Fall 2020 and Union Pool Spring 2021. Mastering and lacquers by Carl Saff. War And War is a novel by László Krasznahorkai. "crazily focused & powerful"—Jennifer Kelly, Dusted "a slyly incendiary collection wracked with rippling tension"—Raven Sings The Blues "a mesmerizingly morose journey, yet a scenic one too. Just don't whack it on the turntable when you're feeling at your most fragile."—JR Moores, The Quietus
LP $21.95
06/02/2023
***Rocket 808’s self-titled debut album came out in late 2019, and luckily, absolutely nothing happened in 2020 to divert the world’s attention away from the release. Combining the primitive analog drum machine of 1970s New York underground icons Suicide with the raw guitar of Link Wray, Rocket 808 blasted rock n’ roll guitar into our new, weirder present. Now Rocket 808 returns with a new LP, House of Jackpots, taking up where the previous record left off while adding some new elements to juice things up. Still channeling Alan Vega, the Cramps, and Duane Eddy influences from the first LP, House of Jackpots further explores 1980’s television cop show themes and Ry Cooder film scores. “Punk rock Mike Post” might not be something you knew you needed, until you hear the first cut of the record. Slide guitar gives you your own personal screening of Wim Wenders’ "Paris, Texas" in your mind’s eye, or imagine if instead of the Barry De Vorzon intro, "Simon & Simon" opened with a trash-rock instrumental instead. Saturated in big-screen iconography whether its surf tunes for 100-foot waves or David Lynch soundtracks for a grimy 1970s Las Vegas strip, House of Jackpots takes you out of our current reality that frankly, we all probably want to forget anyway. Covers of 1950s proto-goth Jody Reynolds and reviled eighties electro-rockers Sigue Sigue Sputnik give nods to the obscure rock n’ roll weirdos of the past while dragging them into the future. Recorded by Grammy-winner Stuart Sikes and...
LP $21.95
05/12/2023
***"In 2022 they invited me to participate in a small festival in Florli, about an hour from Stavangar. It's only accessible by ferry and there's not much there. Year round population is about ten people, and it's most famous for its 4444-step wooden staircase up the side of a mountain, big hiker attraction. The 'festival' turned out to be more like an artists' retreat, combined with the wedding of Iver and Marit. My involvement was kinda last minute but I was very happy to be there. I met some great artists, experienced some cool and unusual performances; and played 2 solo sets, one electric in this giant decommissioned power plant, and one acoustic in the living room of a cabin. Both were thrilling for me; my new friend Jim Dawson recorded the electric one. This tape is that whole performance. As 'post covid rejuvenation get togethers' go this one was pretty great; the tape a good memento to an inspiring weekend."—CB, Cambridge 2023. Edition of 150 copies.
MC $14.50
02/03/2023
***Winged Wheel is made up of four musicians whose worlds have intersected for years without them ever all being in the same room. Cory Plump (Spray Paint, Expensive Shit), Whitney Johnson (Matchess, Damiana), Fred Thomas (Tyvek, Idle Ray), and Matthew Rolin (Powers/Rolin Duo, solo) have been longtime participants in various d.i.y. communities, crossing each others’ paths through shared gigs, working on releases, or taking the stage at Cory's small upstate NY bar. Each player has developed their own personal practice of improvisation and home-recording, and Winged Wheel began by chance when Cory asked Fred to send over some rawly-recorded drum loops to jam over. Cory tracked rangy guitar and bass parts over these repetitive loops and songs slowly started taking shape. Matthew's guitar layers took these foundations to a whole new level, and Whitney's submerged vocal tracks solidified everything, elevating the project from a soup of partially formed ideas into something intelligible. The entire album was written, recorded, and mixed in remote collaboration, eventually turning into a balancing act of precisely arranging sonic details and maintaining the formless excitement the music began as. This paradoxical process can be heard in the final form of the album, a continuous zone that manages to be strange and amorphous while still carving out space for four distinctive musical personalities. It’s a sound that hovers and stumbles as often as it takes declarative turns in unexpected directions, the circles getting smaller the closer you zoom in.
LP $19.95
05/13/2022
***"Sometimes change comes with big shocks, sometimes it comes with small steps. On In Your Hands, Lewsberg’s new album, a bit of both seems to be happening. Take the second song, ‘The Corner.’ A remarkably discreet song: a violin plays a simple melody; a gentle drum loop keeps its finger on the pulse. 'This brick is a brick to build,” it sounds, though a little later: 'This brick is a brick to throw.' A brick offers many possibilities, for those who want to see it. One time as a part of something bigger to come, the next time just as a simple stone, left on the ground. After all, most things are relative. Sometimes one can achieve more by breaking something than by building something. If you think you can determine which of the two is needed, you’d be fooling yourself. In Your Hands embodies the moment when all the bricks are there, but the wall has yet to be built. It’s a moment with perspective, a moment where everything still seems possible, but caution is advised. The album sounds both smaller and more spacious than the previous albums. Guitar chords are plucked instead of fiercely struck, the bass guitar is given more room for melodic explorations, the drum kit is dismantled to just a tom and a tambourine. There is doubt in the lyrics, but it’s a strong kind of doubt. A doubt that can stand in the way of a wrong decision but also invite for a good...
LP $19.95
05/13/2022
***Gram Parsons coined the phrase "Cosmic American Music" to describe the synthesis of country, blues, rock and soul that he traded in. Sheridan Frances ‘Francie’ Medosch wouldn’t be born for another 28 years after Parsons’ 1973 death, but that Cosmic American sound was waiting for her all the same. On 'Big Fall', she embraces it like an old friend. Medosch grew up outside of Philadelphia in a family home that encompassed three cats, a dog and a pig. Her mom loved music; she played all kinds of stuff around the house, but mostly alt-country like Gillian Welch and Wilco. 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot', the seminal 2002 album by the latter became formative to a young Francie’s love of music - “I never really got into 'Sgt Pepper' or anything, so I think that album kinda took the place of that.” She learned violin for a while, then she was a natural on piano, but that stuff bored her. Eventually, her mom bought her a guitar. “I was actually very bummed out at first. I think I wanted an Xbox or something that year. But I came around to it very quickly,” she laughs. As a teenager she got into obscure underground rock and power pop, influences she channeled in the band she initially named Francie Cool, which would later transition into Florry (these days it’s a solo project, in which she’s backed by Jared Radichel on bass, John Murray on guitar and Joey Sullivan on drums). In 2018,...
LP $19.85
10/15/2021
***After a six-year absence, The Dead Space returns with Chlorine Sleep. Recorded days before their breakup in 2015, this album marks a turning point, both the trio of Quin Galavis, Garrett Haden and Jenny Arthur, as well as for their collective scene in Austin, Texas. The Dead Space never quite fit in since forming in 2008, and never really cared to. The trio quietly managed to craft their own brand of tightly wound art rock, equal parts bleak and brooding, presented in stark tones. Whether their allergy to artifice was a roadblock, in keeping with their character or some combination of both, it's hard to say. Either way, the band was very much on the outside looking in prior to the release of their well-received first album, 2014's Faker. And when it finally seemed they could reach a broader audience, they did what any good band should do—they broke up. Slightly before that, however, the band returned to Ian Rundell’s Second Hand Tacos studio to record Chlorine Sleep. The record carries their history forward with arduous blasts of force, contrasting with lean efficiency, exposing a sense of fragility and vulnerability atypical of their prior works. With guitarist Garrett Hadden’s return to Texas after an extended spell in Seattle, the group are readying a return to the stage later this year and next with a renewed vision and sense of purpose. The Dead Space’s ferocious second album expands on previous themes while forging a new path all their own....
LP $19.85
05/28/2021
***Del Rio is the third album from the Austin triumvirate of guitarist Craig Clouse (Shit and Shine), bassist Nate Cross (Marriage, Expensive Shit) and drummer King Coffey (Butthole Surfers) and the band’s first release to feature vocals from Colby Brinkman (Taverner). While their two prior albums (2017’s Laredo and 2019’s Matamoros) were somewhere on the periphery of rock music, Del Rio is a step or several beyond and a real testament to human imagination (maybe you’re impressed by Tesla Powerwall batteries but that’s because you’ve not heard “Soft Taco,” yet). Coming off a pair of records their respective labels could barely keep in stock and critical assessments that put reviewers’ own chops to the test (see below), USA/Mexico have delivered their most fully realized statement to date.
LP $17.75
03/19/2021
***Written and recorded amidst the devastating bushfires which ravaged his adopted hometown Canberra, just before the wave of pandemic broke, Shoot Out The Cameras reveals John Sharkey III to be a master craftsman; honing in on the existential dread of living in a burning world, and the imperative to find beauty in what remains. Perhaps best known as the creative force behind Clockcleaner, Sharkey’s credentials include Cleveland's 9 Shocks Terror and more recently, literate rock explorations as Puerto Rico Flowers and Dark Blue., the latter having released a pair of 12XU full-lengths. It was love (of course) that brought Sharkey from Philly to Melbourne in 2008, where he worked behind the bar at beloved venue, The Tote. Sharkey and his partner Yasmin moved back to Philly for several years; then, amid the darkening landscape of US politics, the couple decided to settle in Canberra, Yasmin’s hometown. At a physical but not psychological remove from the horrifying dysfunction of Trump’s America, Sharkey watched catastrophic bushfires encircle Canberra, raging through the hills of the Southern Tablelands, the city glowing orange, the suburbs suffocating in smoke. This is when the songs of Shoot Out The Cameras took form. As if to echo the craters of “before” and “after” that apocalyptic events leave in our collective consciousness, the songs arranged themselves into a cinematic narrative arc, from the foreboding of disaster (Side A) through its aftermath (Side B). The background horrors of totalitarianism, paranoia and surveillance also stalk the album—he cameras of the title...
LP $17.75
03/12/2021
***Voice Imitator is the collaborative project of Per Bystrom, Justin Fuller, Mark Groves, and Leon O’Regan. All four have been active as part of numerous, cross-genre ventures in the Australian underground for many years. Bystrom has offered a rhythmic heart for Exhaustion and Leather Towel, whilst further expanding on metrical ideas in Compound, his solo electronic undertaking. Zond, TOL, Grane and various solo outings have all showcased Fuller’s severely manipulated, hallucinogenic guitar and unsettling electronics. O’Regan has provided lithe, turbulent and imaginative bass guitar for The Bunyip Moon, and antagonistic industrial electronics as Dire Ears. Groves, as vocalist, has previously oscillated between the idiosyncratic combination of drily delivered text, close-miked voice and concrète sound for Red Wine and Sugar and solo project Absurd Cosmos Late Nite, as well as functioning as frontperson for noise rock and heavy electronic acts True Radical Miracle and Dead Boomers. In Voice Imitator, these four pursue mutual auditory fixations and eccentric individual inputs toward a distinctive and cohesive unit. Groves’ texts are the outcome of anxious and fatigued surveillance, emerging as bleak satire and quietly surreal flashes drawn from the mundane. Vacillating awkwardly between barely contained frustration and ironic detachment, this voice is ushered by a relentless ostinato pulse, washes of heavily effected guitar, subterranean electronic noise and a tense ambience of self-conscious nervousness. Recurring undercurrents of motorik rhythm, and motor city techno draw shared obsession together, providing an altogether new construction. Much like the allegory of a boiling frog, here tension slowly...
LP $17.75
01/15/2021
***"CHRIS BROKAW is the consummate underground rock musician. In a career spanning thirty-plus years he has been in countless bands (COME, CHARNEL GROUND, CODEINE, and THE LEMONHEADS to name a few) has been a sideman with everyone from Thurston Moore to GG Allin, pounded countless stages on nonstop tours, and played on over seventy recordings. Puritan is his tenth solo album and it's a killer. From the hypnotic repetition on the extended instrumental outro of title-track opener 'Puritan', the wounded grace of 'Depending,' to the fragile beauty of the Velvets-esque duet with Claudia Groom, 'I'm the Only One for You,' and the ghost of Alex Chilton echoing through 'The Bragging Rights,' onto the GBV-like firestorm of 'Periscope Kids,' and ending with the On The Beach-era Neil Young minimal strum of his cover of Karl Hendricks’ 'The Night Has No Eyes,' Brokaw has crafted an understated masterpiece. Puritan is an album that is all heartache and rebirth, resignation and joy, the kind of record that is so needed but all too rare these days. A classic from front to back."—Mark Lanegan 2020
LP $17.75
01/15/2021
***What happens when Detroit's WOLF EYES and Austin's BLANK HELLSCAPE team up to provide a suitably nightmarish backdrop for USA 2020 vanquished by fear, greed, incurable disease, etc.? Fuck if I know, it's not like they recorded their tracks in the same room while watching cable news. I mean, credit both ensembles for having an imaginative bone in their bodies or two. On the left, we have Michigan's synapse-snapping heavyweight champs. On the right, 3 fellas whose 2019 Diseased Tapes debut was one of the year's most harrowing listening experiences. This EP required no fewer than 3 mastering engineers, 2 personal trainers and 1 and a half psychologists (there was a credentials question) to complete.
12" $17.75
01/15/2021
***BACK IN STOCK!!! The second album by Rotterdam-based LEWSBERG and their first US release. The quartet’s latest offering seeps into your consciousness in a different way to their debut, though their tendency towards existentialism and black humor is present throughout. Harsher in sound, but more humane in spirit, In This House refuses to let the listener settle for a single moment. The metallic, atonal guitar strum on opening song “Left Turn” leaves no room for discussion. This is Lewsberg at work. The unnerving sound of a revving car, handbrake on, suddenly coming to an abrupt and silent halt. Is the title of this opener a warning for the listener for the rest of the set, as if we’re going down Robert Frost’s “road less traveled,” or is it just a description of this lonesome character’s unexpected behaviour in this particular song? In This House is full of surprises. The teasing guitar break on “From Never to Once.” The two instrumentals “Trained Eye” and “Interlude.” The emotionally affecting ballad, “The Door.” And there’s the pairing of the last two tracks: the fatalistic “Jacob’s Ladder” and the wild, evocative “Standard Procedures”—-as if each piece works independently from the other, gazing back occasionally on what came before and, in turn, adding a different flavour to what comes next. “Cold Light of Day” and “Tbrough the Garden” are textbook Lewsberg; B songs, provocative and enchanting in their minimalism. Whilst “At Lunch” is seemingly innocent and carefree at the start, ultimately conjuring...
LP $17.75
05/08/2020
***"Why do people start bands anymore? To get rich and famous? Compliment re-tweeting? To gain the respect of their peers in the RIAA? I don’t know, and I don’t have a computer so I can’t look it up. But I bet sometimes bands get started with no goal at all, beyond basics like don’t lose the keys to the practice space, and to share the excitement of making music together. From there, the goals become things like, get better at it, and do it more. But, again, no computer here, so, don’t know 100%. XETAS have been doing exactly that, making wired, joyfully intense music ever since their first 7” in 2014. Their first two albums, The Redeemer and The Tower, are compact, high-voltage, furniture-throwing gems. With The Cypher, they emerge after a year of work as a one-minded beast. The songs blast off and burn, but carry a new depth and weight. Inside gusts of ferocious noise there are subtly sweet melodies that stick in your head; volume gets quiet, tempos charge, slow down, stutter, and implode. The sounds are of a deeper dimension, surprising glimpses of (what’s that?) and (huh wow!). It all creates a rich emotional dimension, which you feel even while the band is thrashing you around in its jaws like an alligator. Instantly you notice the vocal arrangements. Everybody sings every song, whether dividing verses or in unison, in true crew fashion. It’s a moving statement of intent. Punk rock? To be sure, but punk...
LP $17.75
01/24/2020
***Into The Country was recorded throughout the year of 2016 in-between touring/working and CORY & CHRIS moving to Mexico and Australia respectively. Basic tracks were recorded by longtime collaborator IAN RUNDELL in his studio and then messed with in our practice space at the Monofonus compound in Austin, TX. Chris did most of the heavy lifting. Cory did some of the drum machines, and GEORGE was fiddling with some electronic gadgets, with lyrics once again mined from the info wars comment section and various other stressful situations like airports and hospitals. This is the first proper SPRAY PAINT LP since 2016's Feel The Clamps (Goner). Since then collaborations with Protomartyr, Ben Wallers, Ben Mackie, and Dan Melchior have been released.
LP $17.75
10/25/2019
***BACK IN STOCK!!! Following a late 2018 debut 7", ROCKET 808 is the eponymous debut LP from the latest brainchild of JOHN SCHOOLEY, a guitarist with an impressive resume in the American underground going back a couple of decades with bands including but not limited to the REVELATORS, THE HARD FEELINGS, JOHN SCHOOLEY'S ONE MAN BAND and MEET YOUR DEATH. This, however, might be his most daring gambit to date. Combining the primitive analog drum machine of 1970s New York underground icons Suicide with the snarl and twang of guitar progenitors Link Wray and Duane Eddy, Rocket 808 has created a unique aesthetic mixing minimalist proto-punk noise and roots guitar into a new futurism, finally giving us the tomorrow with flying cars we were promised in 1950s EC Comics, Blade Runner, and back issues of Popular Mechanics. If Martin Rev had produced ZZ Top’s Eliminator, or if Ry Cooder’s score to Streets of Fire was instead heard on Sid and Nancy, you’d have an idea of how Rocket 808 blurs the lines between guitar-heavy styles and eras using artificial percussion. Just as The Cramps updated their 45 collection for a new generation, Rocket 808’s cover of Suicide's "Ghost Rider" exists alongside rockabilly classics like Ersel Hickey’s "Goin' Down That Road," while the band name conjures images of both Ike Turner’s supposedly “first rock n’ roll song” "Rocket 808" and the Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer, the world’s most famous drum machine. ORVILLE NEELY of OBN IIIs...
LP $17.75
10/18/2019
***Over the course of the last 8 years, Orlando’s GOLDEN PELICANS have made a compelling case for themselves as one of the planet’s most relentlessly malevolent ensembles, both live and on record. Thankfully, however, this is not an episode of “Hot Bench” and rather than finger-pointing and tearful recriminations, I’ll offer as evidence their succession of titles for the Total Punk and Goner labels with which the quartet of vocalist ERIK GRINCEWICZ, guitarist SCOTT BARNES, bassist SAMMY MENESES and drummer RICH EVANS have made reached American punk’s apex in the 2 thousand teens more than once (like goalposts, the thing moves around a bit). On the band’s 2019 entry, Grinding For Gruel, recorded by RYAN BELL of GG King / Predator, Grinewicz’ fatalism and Barnes’ not-nearly-heralded-enough virtuosity are captured with the sort of chromatic sheen that would’ve at one time been considered unthinkable (well, before electricity was invented, anyway). Is this the finest, most fully-realized Golden Pelicans release to date?
LP $17.75
06/07/2019
***BACK IN STOCK!!! Received a 7.3 rating from Pitchfork. "As a young person I frequently heard tales that high-end stereo shoppes used Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon as a demonstration disc, in order to fully document the prowess of their impossibly-expensive wares. I rarely frequented any of these establishments but always took these stories on faith. I’m no audio guru, but it seems to me that someone attempting to do the same thing in 2019 could do a whole lot worse than adopting USA/Mexico’s long-awaited 2nd album, Matamoros for similar purposes. The trio’s first album 2017’s Laredo might’ve been a worthy candidate for a test-spin in the Bang and Olufsen showroom, but the successor is the sort of record that really makes if you’re the sort of person who can appreciate the BACKES MÜLLER BM 100 loudspeaker (list price $500,000.00 USD). Once you’re comfortably settled in, you’ll find that the all-star team of guitarist CRAIG CLOUSE (SHIT & SHINE) drummer KING COFFEY (BUTTHOLE SURFERS) and NATE CROSS (MARRIAGE, WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH) have done everything possible to help you expand your sonic palette—some might say they’ve even done too much! Either way, these guys are as unselfish as they are loud. Or perhaps they’re as selfish as they’re quiet—I do hope you’ll agree their motives are less important than the results, and in this instance, those results are nothing less than a staggering sensory overload.
LP $17.95
04/26/2019
***Victory Is Rated is the 3rd studio album from Philadelphia’s DARK BLUE, following 2014’s Pure Reality and 2017’s widely acclaimed Start Of The World. Over the course of the last half decade, the ensemble—helmed by CLOCKCLEANER / PUERTO RICO FLOWERS founder JOHN SHARKEY III, have walked a thin line between defiance and fatalism, often trading in the anthemic with equal doses of the sardonic and the melancholy. That all of it is increasing informed & influenced by the real goddamned world probably helps. There’s some cruel irony in Sharkey’s (second) self-imposed exile from the USA occurring right after completing the recording of Victory Is Rated with conspirators ANDY NELSON (CEREMONY), MICHAEL SNEERINGER (STRANDS OF OAK, ROASLI) and B. DAVID WALSH given that this is by far, Dark Blue’s most fully realized statement—in some alternative universe where this band toured consistently, they’d be way too big for this label (frankly, they already are), but really, what has America done to actually deserve their brutal honesty? Sharkey says the album’s main themes are class war and mortality. I’m not entirely sure there are other themes (not simply on Victory Is Rated, either) , but we’re very fortunate he’s so skilled at writing about those two. He also likens the record to “if Blitz went Brit pop” and while that ticks off a couple of crucial boxes for me, let’s get something rather thorny out of the way. However many allusions you’ve seen to some subculture you either dislike or can...
LP $17.75
02/22/2019
***MISSING PAGES is the new project from STEPHEN SVACINA (SWEET TALK, JONLY BONLY, ex-MIND SPIDERS) featuring ALI DITTO (TALKIES, MEAN JOLENE), GABRIEL PASTURA (SEAN MORALES, CHURCH SHOES) and GARRICK THURSTON (SLOW). Taking cues from genre benders before them and shaped by the musical overload of the Austin live scene, Missing Pages meld together a sound both brooding and hopeful, sincere while rejecting the sentimental; power-pop hooks ensnared in a wiry tangle of dark, splintering edges. On their blistering 7" debut, Missing Pages channel the anxiety, exasperation, and jubilation born of those delicate moments in life when the casual comforts and routine are stripped away, forcing us to confront the ugly truth of who we really are. These songs represent both the high and—more importantly—the comedown, and coming to terms with what it all means.
7" $7.75
10/12/2018
***Since the mid 1990’s guitarist/vocalist JOHN SCHOOLEY has been performing CPR on a succession of raw musics—as of this moment in time, he’s the only person who can claim to have been a member of the Crypt, Goner, Sympathy For The Record Industry and 12XU rosters, which either qualifies him for a plaque or combat pay. While this label presided over projects as idiosyncratic as Schooley’s acoustic collaboration with Walter Daniels (2014’s Dead Mall Blues) or the electric Meet Your Death (2016), neither are sufficient preparation for John’s other one-man project, ROCKET 808. An ingenious mix of 1970's analog drum machines with raw guitar, this is less of a style clash and more akin to a minimalist tour de force. Like Suicide adding Link Wray as a third band member, Rocket 808’s debut single is an incandescent, noirish hint of what’s in store for a full-length album in early 2019.
7" $7.75
09/28/2018
***"I've grown weary of calling BORZOI one of the nation's best live bands, not because it isn't 100% true, but because I've long ago stopped making excuses for how their prior recordings failed to capture the full range of their muscularity, their absurdity or nearly boundless level of invention. Thankfully, though, others actually liked those recordings. Of the Austin trio’s 2017 Surrender The Farm EP, The Wire’s Byron Coley called the 7”, 'very thudly' ('slams straight along like a cement truck full of corndogs'), while Yellow Green Red’s Matt Korvette hailed the band’s 'mangy form of post-punky garage-rock, equipped with a nimble heaviness and plenty of dirt under the nails,' On the way-too-long-in-the making, A Prayer For War (expertly recorded by IAN RUNDELL, notable for recent works from Xetas, Spray Paint and Exhalants), I’m happy to confirm Borzoi are exponentially less mangy though improved production values have done nothing to quash the band’s idiosyncrasies. While fellow travelers plunder the early ’90’s Amp Rep catalog and perform spirited mimicry of The Year ____ Broke, Borzoi’s RHYS WOODRUFF (drums/vocals), ZACHARY WOOD (guitar/vocals) and TAYLOR BROWNE (bass) are operating on another level altogether, and if completing a conceptual K.O. like this album hasn’t entirely cured them of self-saboteur moves (ie. blatantly lying about where they’re from— though under the circumstances, can you blame them?), they’ve set an awfully high bar for what any remaining deep thinkers might attempt, lyrically or musically (though truth be told, their fixation with life during wartime is no...
LP $17.75
09/21/2018
***More than 4 years have elapsed since UNHOLY TWO's Talk About Hardcore rendered what was left of the nation’s alleged “noise-rock” milieu as obsolete as the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Though naive, feeble competitors struggled to keep up during that period, Unholy Two instead retreated to their Columbus, OH compound where exhaustive attempts to top a universally-acknowledged masterpiece began. Nearly 51 months (and hundreds of dollars) later, the duo of CHRIS LUTZKO and KELLIE MORGAN-LUTZKO have re-emerged with the 3rd Unholy Two album, The Pleasure To End All Pleasures. Putting the O NO in “monolithic”, the Lutzkos have made zero concession to past or present notions of rock, underground or otherwise. With scattered allusions to some of history’s most malignant figures (Peter Kürten in the album title, Chris Benoit in “Master Of The Crossface,” the Rev. Jim Jones in “Let The Night Road,” Godsmack in “Woodstock ’99”), the two guitar onslaught sounds closer to two hundred. The end result is nothing short of musical obliteration and the most fully realized document of this band’s nightmare vision.
LP $17.75
09/14/2018
***CHARNEL GROUND is a meeting of CHRIS BROKAW (COME, CODEINE, THE NEW YEAR, etc.) on electric guitar, JAMES MCNEW (YO LA TENGO, DUMP) on bass, and KID MILLIONS (ONEIDA, MAN FOREVER, etc.) on drums, dedicated to exploring the outer and inner regions of instrumental rock music. Charnel Ground was recorded in Brooklyn NY in 2016, and informed and dedicated to pivotal transitions.
LP $17.75
04/06/2018
***It’s 2018 and it’s another shite year in America. But hey, the Philadelphia Eagles finally made it to the Super Bowl, so it’s only fitting there’s a new DARK BLUE single recorded by none other than JEFF ZIEGLER, The band’s 2016 LP—Start of The World—was as much an ode to the powerless as it was an effort to lay bare uncomfortable realities: the working poor keep working only to get poorer, oh and ICYMI, there’s a violent occupation happening in Palestine. Dark Blue’s latest 7” for 12XU continues to sing to the unsung with two tracks that are unwilling to sugarcoat issues many seem to turn a blind eye to. The A side, “Fight to Love,” is a brit-pop ballad that feels arena huge thanks to JOHN SHARKEY III's distinct vocals, which are the strongest and most emotional they’ve ever been. Like all Dark Blue songs, bleak is always embedded in the pop. This track rails against gentrification, which according to Sharkey, doesn’t matter if it’s lead by “slime who dress their rescue dogs in Lycra,” or if it’s cloaked in Zionism. The flip side to this is a reimagined version of Anti-Nowhere League’s 1983 classic, “For You.” Instead of the cut’s street punk grit, Dark Blue turns the track inside out to expose a song that goes right for the heart instead of the usual brick to the gut.
7" $7.50
03/02/2018
***Once upon a time in Spring Branch, TX five legends went back to the future and formed THE GOLDEN BOYS. Created after a long drive in a pickup truck with a 12 pack of beer, founding members JAMES ARTHUR (FIREWORKS, NECESSARY EVILS, FEAST OF SNAKES) and MATT HOOPENGARDNER (WHITE HEAT) sat on the edge of a cliff staring at the sunset. Soon after, extreme super hobo JOHN WESLEY COLEMAN III rode up on a wild coyote named FIRE DEMON. The group quickly formed a sold nexus and foundation for the Texas psyche blues texas rock texas jam texas pop etc. After much whiskey on the basement floor, NAY NAY (KACKACKA BUTT BOMB) and BRYAN SCHMITZ (MANHUNT, Feast Of Snakes) appeared in a powdery puff, followed shortly after by the verdant recruit, PHILLY PAT TROXELL (CREEPOID, PLAQUE MARKS). After multiple years toiling in obscurity alongside the Spider Bags and Strange Boys, the Golden Boys were saved by international playboy and THE GOSPEL TRUTH's founding member, PATRICK TRAVIS. Coming 5 years after the acclaimed, Dirty Fingernails, this is the band’s 6th album. No one thought it could be done (and no one cared) until Gerard Cosloy asked, “Hey, are you guys making another record?”, to which The Golden Boys replied, “will you buy us some Texas Chili Parlor?” He said, “yes” (EDITOR’S NOTE : I do not remember this conversation). STUART SIKES (Loretta Lynn, Manhunt, A Giant Dog, Grifters) presided over the remarkable recordings. So here we are, with our newest and...
LP $17.75
11/19/2017
***Scattered to the separate winds of the USA, Mexico and Australia, Austin's SPRAY PAINT reconvened earlier this year and teamed up with ENTITLED TOURIST #1 aka vocalist BEN MACKIE of Melbourne destruction crüe CUNTZ. The resulting two song 7", "Friendly Moving Man" b/w "Dumpster Buddies" will be released on 12XU September 15 in a limited (BUT NOT LIMITED ENOUGH, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN) quantity. Meetings of the musical minds of this caliber don't happen that often and if you've never stayed awake at night wondering just what this pairing might sound like, what in blazes is going on in that brain of yours in the darkness? It's at times like these that I thank fucking god I'm not a mind reader because if I had the first clue what you're really thinking, there's every chance I'd either call the cops or volunteer for the space program.
7" $7.25
09/15/2017
***BACK IN STOCK!!! The long-awaited/rumored/feared debut recordings from Austin, TX trio USA/MEXICO are finally upon us. Guitarist CRAIG CLOUSE (SHIT & SHINE, TODD), drummer KING COFFEY (BUTTHOLE SURFERS, RUBBLE, HUGH BEAUMONT EXPERIENCE) and bassist NATE CROSS (MARRIAGE, WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH, EXPENSIVE SHIT) have somehow created a musical landscape that exceeds present day reality for absurdity and nightmarishness. There's faint (oh ok, try "loud") echoes of their past works but their combined forces have resulted in an album as bludgeoning and all-encompassing as any that's occupied shelf space in my home or yours. Five originals plus deadly dense covers of The Fall's "L.A." and Drunks WIth Guns spinoff Bullets For Pussy's "Bullets For Pussy." No Export to UK/EU.
LP $15.50
07/10/2017
***That we’re nearly midway thru 2017 and some segment of the allegedly savvy music world has either slept on Cleveland’s LAMONT (BIM) THOMAS aka OBNOX or continues to damn him with some faint “prolific garage rocker” praise is nothing sort of criminal. OK, not WAR CRIMINAL, but certainly a brand of cultural c(r)ock blockery that neither historians or your kids will look kindly upon. Niggative Approach—a knowing nod to Ann Arbor’s other N.A. (with an opening cameo from JOHN BRANNON) is the 7th album in Bim's astonishing unbeaten streak that began with 2011’s I’m Bleeding Now and shows no immediate sign of ending. While Thomas’ past genre-defying works have brazenly taken a torch to such record store bin cards as “punk”, “psych”, “hip hop”, “funk”, “new arrivals” and “MISC. O”, Niggative Approach is his most bold, fully realized statement to date. There’s no one in what’s left of the underground with a sharper take on the ties that bind these genres, and no eyewitness to the nation-going-to-shit as quick to stand up and throw down than Obnox. If you wanna settle for half steps, by all means, be our guest, but Niggative Approach shouldn’t merely challenge you to imagine the possibilities, but maybe dare you to get your hands dirty in making them happen.
LP $15.50
06/02/2017
***"The most dangerous letter in the DIY Greek alphabet, XETAS are greeting 2017 with their sophomore album and spring tour, serious as a heart attack and more fun than the drugs they give you in the hospital after the medics bring you back to life. Pumping through Austin's clogged Red River arteries since 2014, the Austin firebrands have temporarily broken their vows of Shaolin silence with ten tracks of unadulterated defibrillation—an electrifying monument to distorted melody and verbal hooks brought to a full boil. This, after spending most of 2016 dedicating their lives to anonymity and heated discussions as to whether the city's most indispensable soundperson sleeps in his jacket. Propelled by a new drummer—O.D.J.—who will one day drum a hole to China solely using jazz brushes, Xetas seemingly are on a collision course with the halls of power, despite the absence of any campaign coordination with the Russian ambassador. Add in the blitzkrieg guitars, bass and vocals of D and K respectively and you've arrived at a collection of tools of the trade turned weaponized instruments the likes of which are sure to provoke many a sleepless night at NATO Headquarters. Recorded over a 24-hour period in the fall of 2016 with engineer Ian Rundell (Carl Sagan's Skate Shoes, Spray Paint, Empty Markets), the 37-minute, 10-track album was recorded in less than than 7 minutes --a testimony to the band's energy and capacity for bending time and space after years of monastic devotion. The melodies are dirty,...
LP $15.50
04/14/2017
***"I haven’t seen a better live band than Austin’s BORZOI in the last two years. That I’ve been under house arrest during that stretch should not diminish the importance of that statement. Either way, they've pivoted from a powerful debut 7″ for Austin’s Pau Wau label to a genre-obliterating, pneumatic noisy-as-fuck-all 4 song EP on 12XU this Spring (more Ron Jonnson than Ron Santo, though I sincerely doubt they’re fans of either). catch the trio on tour this May or watch ‘em from the back of the room like a smug, self-satisfied cultural tourist at SXSW this March."
7" $7.50
04/07/2017
***16 song, career-spanning compilation dragging together the most malevolent bits this Mobile, AL assemblage has released on CHAD BOOTH's own Jeth Row label as well as assorted sides for Total Punk, Bat Shit, Scavenger Of Death and Pelican Pow Wow. Apocalypse-level murky madness from one of the U.S underground’s most crucial characters. RIYL : sending .zip files to help Levitation Fest’s creditors thru a spate of bad, bad news. Two records, black plastic, sick gatefold sleeve, obligatory download card hardly anyone will use.
2XLP $30.50
03/24/2017