Castle Face   Page 2

Oh Sees, Thee

Grave Blockers

Castle Face

Encased in a brown paper wrapping like a forgotten bit of smut from behind the beaded curtain, this unassuming disc is a time-capsule back to John Dwyer’s early SF days, janglingly fingerpicked wisps of melody and electronics baking in the all-too anemic sunshine of San Francisco’s elusive summer. Like a seashell to the ear, one can hear within it Baker Beach bike ride excursions, holding court and gently harassing passers-by on a Haight street stoop, and midnight rambles with friends from out of town, daring the sun to come up. Somewhere chronologically between the folky whisper of Songs About Death And Dying and the recently reissued Cool Death Of Island Raiders, this one’s been vexing to find for way too long and Castle Face has decided to give it “the treatment”. May it awaken the gentle glow of possibility dappled with the dancing shadow of danger that it stirs around this castle.

Prettiest Eyes

Volume 3

Castle Face

Last year’s Pools having taken up a sizable chunk of Castle Face’s cold dark hearts, the label was delighted to hear that LA post-industrial trio Prettiest Eyes have a new gang of crowd-stirrers. None too early, either; once one’s become accustomed to their clanging synthetic orbit, it’s hard to find other tunes that truly scratch the same itch. Volume 3 bursts at the seams with chrome-dipped timbres and surprise sharp edges, alien klaxon-calls and wailing dissonance offsetting the ziplock’d grease of their insistent drum and bass grooves. Prettiest Eyes are one of the most exciting live bands going on right now, and Volume 3 catches them in fine fettle.

Oh Sees, Thee

Hounds Of Foggy Notion

Castle Face

***BACK IN STOCK!!! “Thee Hounds of Foggy Notion / Live Performances Sans Stages And Whatnots With Thee Oh Sees (2008), is a film we made just over a decade ago, and this record is the soundtrack. I loved making it, and I love all that were involved. I’m honestly blissed-out proud to hear over the years that it somehow is loved by so many others, too. “I first met John Dwyer on Flag Day. I was blown away by a trio of roving Coachwhips guerrilla street shows that climaxed at the the scenic vista parking lot high above San Francisco atop Mt. Sutro. Amongst the gathered uninitiated hordes of souvenir sweatshirt selling families, and puzzled elderly global tourist translators, and a white weirdo tuxedo wedding party, was the sonic corruption of the Coachwhips...I’m certain that this exact event was the idea seed for Thee Hounds Of Foggy Notion, and that it saved my life a little bit. “When JPD asked me to consider making a video for Thee Oh Sees with the sole stipulation that he didn’t want to do anything fake-y to playback, my head started swimming. What we mutually agreed upon was to essentially reprise Flag Day, and film Thee Oh Sees performing live, but not on stages. “I rented a 15-passenger van, a generator, and the minimal cinematic equipment my trusted cinematographer friend James Wall deemed we needed. Everything sound wise was JPD territory and went through an ancient mixing board that Johnny had housed within a...

POW!

Shift

Castle Face

Just when one thought one knew what to expect from POW! they surprise everyone with a vigorous and rabid album’s worth of moody cybernetic punk that’s frankly their best yet. Their fourth album is oil-dipped in a rainbowed slick of dread, yet the songs are buoyed by tight tunes that seem to have a lot of fun among the ruins of the future, perhaps with an eye to a less gloomy horizon? Melissa Blue’s sharp elbowed synths jostle with Byron Blum’s zap gun guitar in an ominous fog of oscillations, and yet somehow it gets the toe a-tapping. The band got darker and more catchy at the same time, for which some credit is due to the excellent drumming of Cameron Allen and the fantastically future savvy production by Byron Blum and Tomas Dolas. Lots of sticky punk heart resin-layered in a futuristic-scanning bionic bop.

Oh Sees, The

Cool Death Of Island Raiders (reissue)

Castle Face

***BACK IN STOCK!!! The denizens of Castle Face are not afraid to get their shins dirty mucking around in the stacks and they’re well aware of an out-of-press gap of Oh Sees releases right before 2006 when they started the label with Sucks Blood. They’re rectifying that and first among these is The Cool Death of Island Raiders, a particularly dusty gem that merits another look.  Kicking off the record with what should have been the hit of the summer that year but for the hard C in the title, “The Gilded Cunt” seems to clearly preface Oh Sees’ later psych-skewed pop sensibilities. Chirping birds, gently lapping tempos and the nascent harmonization of Bridgid Dawson and John Dwyer detail a definitive highlight of their early quiet period of the band. The tree hangs heavy with Patrick Mullins’ handiwork, manning the musical saw, drums, and an assortment of home made electronics. It seemed a bit radical to be so quiet about it, but the tunes are total ear-worms among the assorted drones, cut-up bits of tape noise, and mellow front porch-vibes, and the whole thing hangs together in a lovely hand-made way, helped in no small part by Dave Sitek’s production (he would later work on Master’s Bedroom as well). “We flew Brigid out a fresh woman and literally sent her home on a plane with a trash bag of her clothes” says Dwyer. Evidently the whole record was accidentally erased at some point right around when the photo on...

Exit Group

Adverse Habitat

Castle Face

From the dank warehouse recesses that brought us Useless Eaters and Dry Erase, Castle Face introduces Exit Group—sharply futuristic post-punk with a pissed-off lean, antisocial lyrics spit over an abnormally locked-in guitar / bass / drums triangle, wound up tighter than a Swiss watch. Post-everything sample tweakery and chrome-dipped guitar tonality lend a darkly robotic sheen, abraded riffs pop up everywhere but where you think they should be, clanging and clanking inhumanly around elaborate Rube Goldberg patterns, tessellating under flickering municipal neon. Adverse Habitat is bone-dry furious, turning on a dime just to slap the drink out of your hand.  “A thrilling disaster I can’t wait to witness first hand.”  —Marc Riley  “A great record from start to finish! Smart and perfectly abrasive.”  —Henry Rollins

Intelligence

Live In San Francisco

Castle Face

“For folks who dig A Frames, Country Teasers, Wire, Gang of Four, pita chips and dad’s boozy breath, may we present The Intelligence, captured live in a truly subterranean underground show space below SF vintage clothier Vacation. “Lars Finberg: a name synonymous with artisanal hand-crafted, locally brewed, and organically-farmed song lasers. Hilarious, fast, tour-tight and ballsy—the band has all these perks in pocket, and all that on borrowed gear! I’ve watched this band go through many variations over the years and in their own right all of them have been marvelous. This particular version of the line up is constructed entirely of road-dogs. These guys don’t fuck around—or maybe they only fuck around, who can tell anymore? They drink, they get bawdy, they shred, and when we asked Lars if the band would be into doing a small show in a basement in the Tenderloin in SF for a live LP, he asked ‘What should we play?’ and I replied ‘nothing but the hits’—and they did exactly that. “The Intelligence and Lars himself are masters at the penning of hits—hit after hit after hit—and with a soft-shoed tippity-tap of crowd work and banter, you can really smell the basement on this one and feel the cobwebs grazing the top of your head as you go deaf in one ear from the eye level PA pointed directly at your soul hole. If you love this band then this is a great live LP of them scorching the hits and talking trash....

Oh Sees

Smote Reverser

Castle Face

***CHECK STOCK!!! Received a 7.6 rating from Pitchfork. Crack the coffers, Oh Sees have spawned another frothy album of head-destroying psych-epics to grok and rock out to. Notice the fresh dollop of organ and keyboard prowess courtesy of Memory Of A Cut Off Head-alum and noted key-stabber Tom Dolas, while the Paul Quattrone / Dan Rincon drum-corps polyrhythmic pulse continues to astound and pound in equal measure, buttressed by the nimble fingered bottom end of Sir Tim Hellman the Brave and the shred-heaven fret frying of John Dwyer, whilst Lady Brigid Dawson again graces the wax with her harmonic gifts. Aside from the familiar psych-scorch familiar to soggy pit denizens the world over, there’s a fresh heavy-prog vibe that fits like a worn-in jean jacket comfortably among hairpin metal turns and the familiar but no less horns-worthy guitar fireworks Dwyer’s made his calling card. Perhaps the most notable thing about Smote Reverser is the artistic restlessness underpinning its flights of fancy. Dwyer refuses to repeat himself and for someone with such a hectic release schedule, that stretching of aesthetic borders and omnivorous appetite seems all the more superhuman!

LFZ

Name Plus Focus

Castle Face

“A glistening field of sport / Mylar turf sucking up to the feet of the future athlete / No noise from the crowd / Hypo-extinct brain waves peak at nominal levels / Mouths hang as they watch the rehearsed games unfold. “Across megalopolis / Handshakes between men and machine / Ply for future rations /Every man for himself that isn’t under the spell of the government’s mind whip / Signals wash out over haphazardly stacked neighborhoods as they sleep / Investing, convincing, planting memories / Fabrication of emotion. “And even farther still / Past the snicker-snack of the city’s air intake fans /A humming drone passes over the green grey canopy of the last forest / The no man’s land / Scanning for heat traces and human sound / Looking for the resistance with its red pin-prick eye. “In the moments between search and seizure / The rebels eat from the forest floor /They climb trees, they commune with the animals / They live life, they stare out to the ocean, past the shanty skyscrapers/ The last frontier. “Sean Smith soundtracks all these thoughts in my mind’s eye / His synth and guitar layered music is the signal / It is the force field, refracting light / It is the chemtrail drifting down like slow motion party glitter / From the heavens settling like moon flakes on the roofs of the cars / On the debris / On the upturned faces of the rabble. “It is beautiful imagination at its...

Uranium Club

Live At Arci Taun - aka Live for the Very First Time (In Italy)

Castle Face

“Nothing like a carb-load Italian pre-show feast and table wine to grease the gears of some live action in Fidenza, Italy. A land-locked classico right where you would pinch to hike up the boot. A club packed tight with handsome men and women abused by sonic marauders.  “Have you seen Uranium Club live? No? Drop everything. They are complete-package slayers. Watch-works drummer power, shred-haired bass magic (glasses flying), ripped twin guitar flexing on nerd beach, vocals poured through the skylight into your e-holes and over your thought center, sunglasses all around: fucking hypno-wheel. “Tough, smart, and wiry, midwest exploded all over the globe. Minneapolis, a city known for producing the best, has taken no nap on these young men: the driest tone, the snappiest hooks. They are simply great and this recording captures a particularly good night. They shred ‘til everyone’s dead, including a nine-minute jam, god help us. “Here’s something to make you feel good about the world, to know that we have extended a strong art-handshake to our brothers and sisters in Italy. Vivia l’italia! Ciao, bella.” —John Dwyer

Once And Future Band

Brain

Castle Face

2017’s self-titled debut album by Once And Future Band landed like the birth of a starchild—fully formed, otherworldly, yet comfortingly familiar in its contours: Pink Floyd, ELO, Queen, Steely Dan, and Beach Boys rearranged into an unapologetically poignant pop moment, underpinned by four guys that could play their way out of a Faustian bargain. While waiting for whatever warlock’s potion they are brewing up next, they’ve pulled the maxi-EP Brain from the vaults for a moment in the sun. All of the expected mastery is at play here; enough chops to make a vegetarian’s mouth sweat, songs that tug at the heart while they play tricks on the mind, and with the steady hand of a of studio wizard sprinkling stardust around the edges just so.

OCS

Memory Of A Cut Off Head

Castle Face

It is easy to forget (especially amidst the ringing of ears and aching of muscles after a typical Oh Sees show) that initially, OCS was a rather hushed affair. After the minimalistic brutality of Coachwhips, the band was the diametric opposite corner of John Dwyer’s musical world, quiet to the point of whispered in the wind, buffeted by the airy whirr of singing saw, soft and strange. Those early records especially had a rather contraband hush about them, as if the party had gone on all night and continued into the morning and everyone’s raspy from talking too much and agrees to whisper and pantomime as they watch the sun come up over the hills.  Since then of course, things got gradually louder, faster, crazier...the band evolved into the Oh Sees everyone knows. For the 20th Oh Sees release, 100th Castle Face title, and 20th year doing it, Dwyer re-examines the quieter roots of it all in particularly baroque and homesteadly fashion. Memory Of A Cut Off Head was co-written with longtime collaborator and vocal counterpoint Brigid Dawson, recorded in total in Dwyer’s own Stu Stu Studio, and it’s lush, sumptuous in texture, but satisfyingly retains the gentle grace of the early stuff. There’s beautifully executed strings throughout, courtesy of Heather Lockie’s fine arrangements, horn arrangements courtesy of Mikal Cronin, and they even brought back the old saw—Patrick Mullins, that is—on saw and electronics. A return and a refinement of old forms, a few solemn meditations on life lived...

Prettiest Eyes

Pools

Castle Face

“Very pleased to be working with Prettiest Eyes. I first saw them ages ago at the Satellite and they were cake-takers that night. Now, they are stronger and weirder than ever. I couldn’t believe this new batch of tunes and their bananas-energy live show and, their fans are hard-core heads, just a soup of dance and mouths agog. Brutal, fractured, pogoing beats played by Pachy [Garcia], also the singer, belching out vocal smoke rings in the laser light above the din—they are flat out commands, militaristic in their delivery and yet catchy, like you like em. Marcos, an extro-sensual bassist who climbs inside of your mind-clothes while grinding out aggressively greasy throbs and pulls and Paco, the keyboardist, who at times plays reeling wailing lines that could be mistaken for a number of other instruments…and the hair on this dude! I have a hard time remembering how nice his face is offstage, all you can see is a whip wigging out. They are captivating, they are odd, they make strange and interesting choices. Futuristic and yet drawn from the same sonic sludge that all mankind derives from, they live and breathe early Los Angeles-punk vibes while still innovating at every turn. There is electricity in this sound, they simply rule and what a pleasure to hear Pools doesn’t stray far from what makes them just melt it in person. Recorded perfectly to harness the animal on a nice inanimate slab of plastic you can take home. For fans of Screamers,...

Flat Worms

Flat Worms

Castle Face

Flat Worms belt-sanded everyone with their 7-inch on Volar, and Castle Face is proud as new papas to present their debut album. The band continues their ride on a buzz-saw wave of feedback-tipped riffs into the middle distance, the smog-choked sunset receding in the rearview, with a thousand-yard dead pan stare surgically pinned to a high octane set of boredom-energized punk pistons. This is an ear-ringing missive from the end of the cul-de-sac, a mirage wavering above a mid-sized American suburb at dusk, with the constellations bleached black by the sprawl. A little Wipers, a little Wire, and a lot of late-capitalist era anxious energy—Flat Worms scratch the itch quite nicely.

ORB

Naturality

Castle Face

An exciting development from under strange Australian lab-lights: ORB re-spawn from last year’s Birth with a further mutated slab of paranoid heavy shred, Naturality. They bring the dread with a kinetic muscularity and a pleasantly evolving synthetic strangeness, as if having eaten of the wrong part of the garden, causing familiar things start to seem less so. The effects of these spores on the modern brain, already clogged with a steady drip of zips and zooms, are fresh and confusing. ORB are young and fleet fingered, and certainly know their way around a riff, but bring everything into an almost alien clarity both blunted and futuristic. ORB, you see, have ripened quite radically, and one can only think at an accelerated pace upon their travels with King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard. This album finds them sprouting new appendages and clawing at their enclosures. This is potent stuff—be careful!

Duds

Of A Nature Or Degree

Castle Face

“When I was first told about Duds, it came with the considered opinion that the guys were far from what you’d call ‘careerists’. ‘They don’t take themselves too seriously’ was another comment. I could have taken this as a warning that they weren’t in it for the right reasons—but that couldn’t be further from the truth. From my perspective Duds simply won’t bend over backwards to ‘get on’. They do what they do and you can take it or leave it. I took it—with both hands…with a vice-like grip. They have the invention and urgency of Edinburgh legends The Fire Engines. The Post-Punk ethic. Short songs, short sets = short album. “They’re one of the most thrilling bands I’ve seen in years—and the fact that they’re releasing this brilliant piece of work on the Castle Face label adds the last piece of a perfect ‘outsider’ jigsaw puzzle. Duds sitting alongside Oh Sees, Ty Segall, White Fence, Useless Eaters, et al. There is a god!” —Marc Riley, June 2017

Stoltz, Kelley

Que Aura

Castle Face

Extra fine songwriter and longtime bedroom-pop auteur Kelley Stoltz delivers on the promise so many of his records slyly hint at. Que Aura is the platonic ideal of a Kelley Stoltz record, which is a very exciting thing indeed. Stoltz embraces his best synth-pop tendencies, with this incredibly self-assured set of tender tunes, combining in his own hangdog fashion both a disco-lit abandon and the attendant post-party sighs of dread and remorse. Great songs come out of Stoltz at an alarming rate on any given day but this particular collection is some of his most effortlessly catchy stuff yet. Ennui under the disco lights suits him very well—there’s a hearty sip of Pulp-ian white Brit shimmy with a wink, a dash of Fleetwood Mac’s cynically professional late ’70s sheen, and even a spritz or two of Echo and The Bunnymen, which should surprise no one who’s noticed Stoltz has been playing guitar with McCulloch and Company for the past year or so. This record cements Stoltz’s place in the power-pop pantheon where he belongs, right between Dwight Twilley and Martin Newell. Let the Hall of Fame know!

Oh Sees

Orc

Castle Face

***BACK IN STOCK!!! Received a 7.4 rating from Pitchfork. The newly shorn Oh Sees waste no time in racing headlong into nightmarish battle with the mighty Orc, clawing even farther up the ghastly peak stormed so satisfyingly by last year’s A Weird Exits. The band is in tour-greased, anvil-on-a-balance beam, gut-pleasingly heavy form, nimbly braining—with equal dashes of abandon and menace—on this fresh batch of bruisers and brooders, hypnotically stirred into to the cauldron of chaos you’ve come to expect. Fresh blood Paul Quattrone joins Dan Rincon to form a phalanx of interlocking double drums, alternately propelling and fleet-footing shifting ground to pinion John Dwyer’s cliff-face guitars to the boogie. Tim Hellman keeps it swinging like a battle-axe to the eyebrows. The tunes veer toward the violence of their live shows, with a few tasty swerves into other lanes: heavy to lush, groovy to stately. Throughout, it remains sinister in its swaggering skulk, manic in its fuzz-fried fugues. They hit all the sweet spots the heads foggily remember, and there’s plenty to sweat over if you just hopped into the sauna. More evil…more complex…more narcotic…more screech… more blare…more whisper…there’s even more Brigid. Less “Thee,” but more of everything else.

Magnetix

Live In San Francisco

Castle Face

“The couple that slays together, stays together: Looch Vibrato and Aggy Sonora, like the moniker of an infamous killing duo, the fucking butchest band from Bordeaux. Looch, with hands like bunches of bananas and songs like flaming arrows. The lovely and tough-as-hell Aggy, crushing the kit. Heavy weird attackers from our sister country. Sludge drips—murder the guitar, usurp the amp, fry the mic, howl like beasts, melt the crowd: Magnetix. We were lucky enough to grab them on one of their rare U.S. shows, recorded in a basement in San Francisco. Here it is in all its gory glory. Let’s go tripping…” —John Dwyer

I.l.y.'s, The

Bodyguard

Castle Face

The latest release from the mysterious, experimental duo comprised of Zach Hill and Andy Morin of Death Grips, Bodyguard also features guitar work from Tristan Tozer (Yah Mos, Drug Apts). “...with Bodyguard, they’ve given us, I would argue, an album a whole lot more bracing and immediate and fun and welcoming than anything Death Grips will ever allow themselves to make.” – Tom Breihan, Stereogum

Male Gaze

Miss Taken

Castle Face

“Matt, Mark and Adam, aka Male Gaze, return quickly from the brainy roar of their previous album King Leer with their six heels hanging even further over the edge of the abyss. Good bands often pull punches but the great ones don’t and these charismatically scarred veterans of romance, gear singed from all too real firefights in the dark world of adulthood, lodge ten new slugs into your vest. Your life was spared but you’ll feel every second of the thirtyfive- plus minutes, grateful that all you got was a bruising. Imagine what it did to them! Have you ever flung yourself out there to such a degree that you risked total humiliation if it all went south, to where the next step would be self deportation to some distant island of annihilation in your mind? How did that work out for you? Don’t worry, Male Gaze knows and they wrote some songs about it. Look out your window, down at the glittering metropolis below and listen to this album.” —Henry Rollins

Dwyer, John

Exploded Globes: An Annotated Collection of Posters 1999-2016

Castle Face

For the very first Castle Face book — a selection from the dusty vaults of John Dwyer’s prodigious poster output! Bold, brash, lovingly imperfect prints embellished with some stories of the nights in question as told by the man himself…don’t miss out on this or your coffee table will never forgive you. From the introduction: “In this book, in no particular order, are the handbills, fliers and posters I’ve made since 1999 or so to present. The style doesn’t vary all that much…similar content…but I think I’ve gotten slowly better over all these years…I’m still a bit too impatient of a person to make “perfect” prints…but I think part of that is my style: a mess sometimes. Nothing wrong with that. I’m really not a huge fan of the typical rock poster. It can be a tedious format to look at, especially after years of playing shows and a million posters, so I try to make something from a bit of a different place. Thanks, and I hope you enjoy, maybe you were at one of these shows? Maybe you thought, who made this shit poster? It was me.” —John Dwyer

Damaged Bug

Bunker Funk

Castle Face

Oh my, what is this? The alien globule of Damaged Bug’s errant planet has circled the sun and is re-entering our orbit where last year’s Cold Hot Plumbs left off. Urgent falsetto morbidities detail this most rhythmically adventurous offering yet: Bunker Funk — syncopating lush landscapes with moon-shot death rays. Witness in horror the tractor beam pull of “Slay The Priest” — a breathless sprint through unfamiliar enemy territory — erratic laser beam synths dredge the lake, hard panned double drums resurrect dead heartbeats: load thy crossbow, friend, this night is long and we appear beset on all sides. The Bug is back and more hideous than ever — join us as we gawp at its iridescent shell, its alien mandibles… and the guts streaming from the wound.

Blank Square

Animal I

Castle Face

When squirming black mold in a dingy Bayshore, CA, warehouse became sentient, creaked and took humanoid form it created Blank Square and their singularly odd-punk debut, Animal I — sounding like the weirder end of Flesheaters but with a sterility that can only be contemporarily compared to Total Control’s Aussie hardcore no-wave and then with a pinch of what made DNA and Mars amazing.  This album is captured with plenty of concrete and sheet metal kept in the mix and a highlight towards dissonant syncopations, as if it was recorded in a empty room minus one chair and definitely down a flight of wet, cement stairs. Featuring saxophone with a mild but nauseating-at-times rippling slap delay, the band cruises on a rhythm section that sounds like the they’ve got another house show to play tonight after this one. Rectangular in all the right places, it’s uncomfortable, like sleeping in a car. For listeners who love art in their sax punk, reaching waaaay back into California’s punk history (SST would’ve undoubtedly dug this). There you go, weirdos.

POW!

Crack An Egg

Castle Face

POW! continue their danse macabre in the laser glow of hi-beam synthesizers, with a new batch of synth-punk candy that will rot your teeth: Crack An Egg. Vacuum-sealed, chrome gleaming, propulsion pounding, eyebrows arched and slightly pixelated, this album is like the cupie-doll face beckoning from a digital billboard outside your hovercraft window. From a none-too-distant dystopia and on to your turntable — VCFs slowly open across a smogged-out horizon as they urge you to take that “Necessary Call,” warn moodily against a “Cyberattack,” and inexplicably “Crack An Egg” in honor of the human race. Synthetic earworms squirm into and out of view like twinkling city lights through evening’s opaque air, feasting on terse punk skeletons. The neon is buffed to an aerosol sheen by Chris Woodhouse behind the blinking motherboards, with a streetlight or two of Gary Numan’s slanting through the door. The automatons know where the party’s at — follow them.

Once And Future Band

S/t

Castle Face

***BACK IN STOCK!!! In the vapor trail of “How Does It Make You Feel,” the first track on this self-titled full length, one can smell the burnt ozone of a seventies-full-orchestra-nebula-pop-odyssey, the flakes floating down and landing like snow, giving grave-chills … the ash of a masterpiece pop song. Once And Future Band: this incredibly accomplished cabal of total prog wizards has circled the earth, but then, these are the accomplished gentlemen of many former pursuits (the formidable Drunk Horse among them) and all of them comets themselves. The very mid-’70s vibe at work here surpasses pastiche, and crests that lovely anachronistic conceptual peak: a fully realized and meticulously arranged psych record, meant to be listened to from top to bottom, with the lights down low and in a comfy chair perhaps, or while gazing out the window of your life pod. The Dark Side of the Moon feel, with shades of early Yes’s technicality, a dash of Steely Dan’s vocal prowess and effortless sheen, and some seriously outsized hooks that call to mind the mighty ELO, Le Orme and, yes, even the unsinkable Queen powered on Brian May’s tape echo jet fuel and sequined power cells. This is a head record in the classic sense but utter fealty to The Dark One insures both being trapped and infected by the pop-parasite. That it is largely self-produced (with tracking / engineering on three of the songs by Phil Manley at El Studio) makes it all the more jaw dropping. Making...

Feral Ohms

Live In San Francisco

Castle Face

The white-hot set of Live In San Francisco not only features Feral Ohms’ shaggy guitar heroics captured directly to ferromagnetic medium for your grokking, but also happens to be their debut record. From zero to vertical from the get of the set, the ’Ohms muscle this one out fast and hot, featuring Ethan Miller of Howlin Rain, Comets On Fire and recent psych-folk breakouts Heron Oblivion. Miller gives free rein to his most pyro-psycho-technic guitar fancies, not to mention a full-throated demon-worthy wail, with Chris Johnson on drums (previously of Drunk Horse and currently of Andy Human and the Reptoids) full MC5 style with freight train pummel, with rides so heavy in the mix it sounds like early Damned. Josh Haynes (of the unGoogle-able Nudity) is a total forehead smacker on bass as he bi-amps a filthy sound while wearing some weirdo humility leather strap face harness—it’s just dirty. “Teenage God Born To Die” indeed. Expect great things from them and this concise set is just long enough to get a dander up for a proper full length, set for release on Ethan’s Silver Current label in 2017. In the meantime, keep an eye out for their live shows and don’t forget the ear plugs, they’ll singe your minge...

Oh Sees, Thee

An Odd Entrances

Castle Face

***BACK IN STOCK!!! From the same misty mountaintop tape spool as August’s A Weird Exits, Thee Oh Sees bring the companion album An Odd Entrances. Delving more towards the contemplative than the face-skinning aspects of its predecessor, this sister album is a cosmic exercise en plein aire with John Dwyer and company double-drum shuffling, lounging with cellos, following a flute around the groove, and spooling a few Grimm-dark lullabies along the way. Lurking in the grass are a snake or two, like the celestial facing instrumental buzz of “Unwrap The Fiend Pt. 1.”… But for the most part this is a relatively hushed affair, a morning rather than evening listen. The band plans on donating half their profits from the first pressing to Elizabeth House, a local charity in Pasadena that specifically helps homeless women with children get back on their feet.

Oh Sees, Thee

A Weird Exits

Castle Face

***Received a 7.5 rating from Pitchfork. Emerging from the distant light is the new double-LP from John Dwyer’s Thee Oh Sees—the first studio recordings to capture the muscular rhythm section of twin drummers Ryan Moutinho and Dan Rincon with ringer bassist Tim Hellman cracking spines.  The groove and bludgeon one has come to expect from the band’s live shows is captured seamlessly here—they go from zero to head-splitter, and on the rare occasions they do let up on the gas a bit, you’re treated to some locked-in hypnotizers, too. The guitar sounds more colossal and ethereal at the same time, riding roughshod over the vacuum-sealed rhythm section, spiraling skywards, and diving into the emerald depths so quick your guts tingle. Synths, strings and smoke-soaked things crawl behind the scenes to make an extra far-out party platter, served on 45 RPM plates for most excellent listening quality.  With amazing visuals (including a side-D etching by airbrush-van-art maestro Robert Beatty) and packed in vape-proof goatskin, it’s a beast and, come August 12th, it can be yours should you so choose. Limited color edition on emerald green vinyl!

Oh Sees, Thee

Live in San Francisco

Castle Face

Perched in the belfry of The Chapel we caught thee mighty Oh Sees, alive and in their natural element, with our shutters aflutter and our tapes on a roll. After a short incubation period, the beast has reached full maturity and it is hideous. Over three nights they pummeled, and we’ve culled some great photographs, a wicked recording, and even a little live video action. Castle Face is happy to announce the first double LP in the Live in San Francisco series, presented on two discs, in a handsome double gatefold jacket. Finally you depraved Oh Sees freaks have something to take home with you when you lose your shoes and your girlfriend at the show. Put it on at home and pretend to wait in line for the bathroom and it’s like you’re really there. The thrash, the throb, the mob is all present and pushed to the front. Dual drummers synced in each ear, Tim Hellman rounding out the bottom and Castle Face’s own John Dwyer up front on guitar, lasering young brains off and fomenting the crowd to a froth—it’s a great band, in a great room, with a great crowd and it’s cooked to perfection… Take a little bit of it with you this time.

ORB

Birth

Castle Face

***BACK IN PRINT ON VINYL!!! The skies have opened and dropped a trio of kids from Geelong, Australia, packing some seriously futuristic sludge: ORB. A heaping helping of proto-metal chops meets paranoid sci-fi fantastical ravings, replete with some tasty synthesizer werk that breaks it up just so. Close-mic’d to perfection by Total Control’s own Mikey Young, these epics swing with demonic swagger and crackle with the static of a menacing future, twisting and churning through loose-limbed riffery, all punctuated by a wail that sounds as if it’s coming from every hidden camera outside the Ministry of Love.  A proggy but in-the-pocket head-trip hard rock record for the table, and hopefully these Aussies will be bringing their dystopian groove your way soon.

Male Gaze

King Leer

Castle Face

“Weirdo-punk supergroup Male Gaze is back with nine new chunks of octave-pedal abuse and sultry croons with King Leer, their first proper long-player. This time around, the trio of Matt Jones (ex-Blasted Canyons), Mark Kaiser (ex-Mayyors), and Adam Cimino (ex-The Mall) have added former Blasted Canyons and Tiaras member Adam Finken on second guitar and resident Castle Face engineer Chris Woodhouse behind the boards to ramp up the skuzz-pop of last year’s Gale Maze into brutal wall-of-sound territory. On King Leer, the boys toy with their poppier side, dosing the songs with syrupy melodies and some newfound heartfelt introspection, but they’re by no means going soft on us—these tracks, buried beneath mountains of fuzz and pounded out with Adderall-fueled fury, pack enough sonic punch to rattle your brain loose.” —Luca Cimarusti, Chicago Reader

Useless Eaters

Relaxing Death

Castle Face

Castle Face Records has got fresh new jitters from Useless Eaters: a new batch called Relaxing Death.  Relaxing it is not—sleepless synths and serrated drum machine loops populate their sharp-edged, futuristic sound. Nightmare punks on a hallucinatory run through empty streets; angry and intense, tightly wound and razor sync’d. Up to no good. It knocks like it’s cut with something nasty, and it’s out June 3rd.

Mountains And Rainbows

Particles

Castle Face

Last summer, John Dwyer came back from an Oh Sees tour talking about a fantastic band he’d played with in Detroit called Mountains and Rainbows. What followed him home was a double-LP’s worth of shopworn weirdness and a delightfully loose attitude that must have something to do with the ecstasy of a Midwestern summer. These backyard freaks jam into the twilight, led by a vocal quaver belted to the cheap seats, a groove and a grin and a heaping spoonful of “damn, aren’t you glad we came out tonight?” Vibrant and confusing like the insane-o cover artwork that appears to be constructed of many layers of fluorescent duct tape.  Careening from the mellow chugger vibe on “How You Spend Your Time” to the tightly wound twitch of “Dying To Meet You,” Mountains and Rainbows stretch their legs deep into the strange, with a dark oddness lurking in the corners of tunes like weirdo highlight “With Beefheart.” Particles is a great addition to a little journey of one’s own, perhaps, and just in time for the sunlit afternoons to come.

Zig Zags

Running Out Of Red

Castle Face

Los Angeles-based bonehead savants Zig Zags are no-nonsense ’80s style thrash with a magpie eye for deep-fried pop culture detritus. These guys give so few fucks while they are out ripping faces that it’s tough to say much about them that hasn’t been said before—they shred so that we may raise beers in non-ironic salute to their Voivod worship, to a world in which young heshers subscribe to Heavy Metal and practice early Slayer solos while watching daytime TV, to waking and baking as you watch the world burn.  Running Out of Red is the soundtrack to getting high and driving around in your shitty car in your small town, occasionally getting laid…occasionally getting laid out at the local liquor store by an older dude. Gang vocals: check. 1-2 pit beat: on lock. Shredder solid state guitar heroics: ripping, and so should you, the bong is packed and I think there’s still pizza in the fridge. I can smell your pants from here, dude.

Synthetic ID

Impulses

Castle Face

“Hermetically sealed punk broadcast from a bunker. This guitar is untying a knot of wires; vocals like watching a fight where two men exchange tit-for-tat face blows. Surgical drums; bass grown under glass. The occasional synthesizer like you didn’t know you were thirsty till water crossed your lips. Wound tight, lock-jawed; no rust on these gears. Chilly production crystallizes these post-apocalyptic poems from San Francisco.” —John Dwyer

Bronze

Live In San Francisco

Castle Face

“For nine years they have been slowly simmering in a pot. For nine years I have been seeing them usurp every bill they have been on. I’ve never seen a bad Bronze show…they range from smiling and hypnotized dancing crowds to a man getting violated and urinated on at a yuppie bar (everyone still smiling). “Always the entertainers, always drunk with mad skills; with dashes of John Carpenter, Silver Apples, Liquid Liquid, Birthday Party, Harold Grosskopf, Klaus Schultze, Cluster, and Brian Ferry with a field recorder taped to his tux jacket. Ultra bottom heavy dance beats à la Brian Hock (shirt off / shirt on, it’s all good to me), super hand-wringing oscillations home brewed by Miles Friction and the ever-great Robert Spector delivering homilies from beyond the dimensional wall.  “They bought a limousine to tour in (which may be the raddest fucking thing I’ve ever heard of), but it’s been parked in the bat cave under a car cocoon like San Francisco’s best kept secret. These guys should be on tour, eaten alive every night by ravenous fanatics—but alas, they are like a rare treat these days. So, we’ve waited outside the bivouac for the flap to lift, and after many nights and cold rations they appeared and performed the great and fabled Bronze happening for us to trap to tape. A mix of absolute old faves and new gears grinding; a great night indeed, recorded and mixed by the Castle Face crew, adorned with photos of the...

Sunwatchers

S/t

Castle Face

***BACK IN STOCK!!! “Hard to pin down, harder to hold onto; bent circuit board snake charmers unfurl across hexagonal grids. A seemingly familiar sound, but then you realize you have your ear pressed against a reflection.  “Sunwatchers are a distorted prism to so many past greats: reminiscent of Ethiopiques, John Handy Band, Terry Riley, Art Ensemble meets Laddio Bolocko. Forever-swirling saxophone blended belly-to-belly with elastic guitar and tinfoil-thin phin (a Thai instrument not unlike an electrified tenor guitar or sitar); a whirlpool of repetitious interpretations; militaristic marches ascend into meditations. These songs map out great pyramids and deep, buried labyrinths; they are massive, they are leviathans. “The band is comprised of NYC improv heavy hitters—Jim McHugh (guitar, electric phin), Peter Kerlin (bass), Jeff Tobias (alto sax), Cory Bracken (vibes, percussion), Jason Robira (drums)—and sitting in are Dave Harrington (guitar, synth), Ben Greenberg (guitar), Dave Kadden (keyboard), Jonah Rapino (fiddle). Notable previous projects include Dark Meat, Arthur Doyle’s New Quiet Screamers, NYMPH and Chris Forsyth’s Solar Motel Band. Amazing cover painting of Handsome Jimmy Valiant by artist Scott Lenhardt—a strange but somehow sensible match made in heaven. “Dream machinery, just plain far out. Look for traces of this one in your brain jelly afterwards.” —John Dwyer

Naked Lights

On Nature

Castle Face

Surrender yourself into Naked Lights’ dark and intense orbit!  From the first few seconds through to the end, On Nature is intensely addictive and welcomely unpredictable. Shades of post-punk, dub, even anarcho-punk are thrillingly blended into wholly futuristic shapes that defy easy categorization. The cross-talking guitars speak their own thorny language, the atmosphere is wide-focus and carries a subtle tang of danger, and it’s topped off with unique vocals that are as in-your-face as they are intriguing and foreign.  An altogether refreshingly vital listen, Naked Lights’ On Nature comes courtesy of Castle Face Records.

Feels

S/t

Castle Face

Get a load of Castle Face’s first local release from their new home in East LA: native Angeleno four-piece Feels and their debut self-titled LP.  Scuzzy, slanted guitar interplay, a little grrrlish swagger, flashes of raw emotion and a cement chip of punk attitude propel these songs directly to your dome and down the brain stem. Kinetic, omnivorous, and easy to get stuck in the noggin, Feels has charm and grit to spare and is pushed deeper into the red, weird wilds by Ty Segall’s home-cooked production.