***Avant-garage clang and clatter from a UK/Italian duo operating at the margins of the DIY guitar underground. Heavy tape manipulation and random noises rub up against primitive song structures and repetitive melodies. Features members of Black Time (In The Red) and Virvon Varvon (Girlsville Records). Pressed in an edition of 300 copies, housed in a reverse board sleeve with two inserts: 12 page digest-sized zine and 8x10 hand-numbered print. "Dark mod thump, fuzz wallop and heavy kraut rumble, with the makeup of the surrounding material recalling other UK brainiacs like THE REBEL and the most industrial aspects of THE FALL. Highly recommended."—Mitch Cardwell, Maximum Rock & Roll
LP $23.75
02/09/2024
***“This solo album by the former Bananafish editor S. Glass is a recording of naturally jarring qualities and intent. The rippling, continuous pace doesn’t allow a whole lot of time for sinking the talons in. Incongruous sound sources are bent, warped, wrung and wrenched between the ears, as if one’s brain is an object to be flossed by Glass’s quietly punishing dentist’s hand. Clattering machines and burnt-out organs fizz as though amplified via baby monitor. Brief, ad-hoc choirs of rendered vocals are drenched in clicky synthesis and, yeah, some train noises are even detectable in the mix. But don’t for a minute ascribe his motivations to churlish desire to throw crap at a kitchen sink, then a wall, with no sense of what should stick. I’ve spoken before about the supreme deftness with which Glass sculpts his sounds and it’s all in shining evidence here. If you’ve paid attention to our man’s offerings for decades via Glands of External Secretion, Bren’t Lewiis Ensemble, This Is Yvonne Lovejoy, and the many various collabs, you’ll recognize a ton of now-trademark things on Cesspool of the Angels, too. We could talk about how painstaking it is to collect speech samples of American Assholes tricking themselves into believing something incorrect, or the nerdily inclined might be keen to know serial and model numbers responsible for the massive palette of often rich, pristine electronics and processes, but the skill of Glass’s editing is more interesting, especially his ear for... production, lacking a better word for...
LP $21.95
08/04/2023
***Minimum Table Stacks is proud to present Excess Death Cult Time, the vinyl debut of Phoenix, AZ quintet The Sheaves. Previously released as a limited cassette by Moone Records, the album was recorded over the course of a year by the band at The Baby Room, their own home studio. Excess Death Cult Time is the result of Eric Mudd (along with drummer Joe Vittetoe, guitarist Lucas Aguirre, bassist Matt Hamel and Daniel Schurgin contributing drums, synth and organ work) meticulously assembling bits and pieces of various ideas and mixing the sounds to the point that the actual tapes began deteriorating, much to his delight. The result is a scuzzy post-punk blur of Jad Fair-style guitar pop as channeled through the ’80s “UK DIY” sonic disassembling of whatever “punk” was supposed to be. Think: Josef K, the Swell Maps, The Fall, the Homosexuals. Half-Japanese playing Chrome’s “Chromosome Damage.” The Sheaves are not moving the way you are supposed to.
LP $21.95
06/09/2023
***On only their second full-length album, Son of Dribble make the case for IMMEDIATE induction into the Columbus, OH Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Not any easy feat when you’re following acts like Cheater Slicks, Great Plains, New Bomb Turks, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, Times New Viking, etc. etc. Like their Columbus forefathers, SoD effortlessly take the guts of classic American garage rock and rearrange ‘em inside the body of the darker side of UK post-punk. No one would call The Birthday Party a “blues band”, but it’s there. Beat Happening wasn’t a ‘60s girl group, but that’s there too. It’s all there in SoD. The skeleton holding everything together is SoD’s ability to take all of those moods and create sounds completely unique and their own. The same knack for pure rock’n’roll melody the Strokes were figuring out in 2001 is the same sorta thing you’ll hear from SoD, but with more of a penchant for warped pop weirdness. Recorded mid-pandemic in 2021 by the band and engineer Zac Szymusiak at “Heartbroke Rij” (an abandoned house with no electricity or running water that the band converted into a practice space/studio), “Son of Drib Against the Wind” sees the trio of vocalist Andy Clager, guitarist Darren Latanick and drummer Vicky Mahnke art-garage-rocking through 12 tracks in just under 44 minutes. After welcoming second guitarist Mike Nosan into the band permanently, Son of Dribble begins 2023 with a string of live shows and plans to record new material as a...
LP $23.50
02/17/2023
***"Zyklon B Zombies 'Skull' has been floating around the sub underground for years. Originally released as a cassette on the Japanese tape label, Vanilla in 1993, ZBZ was the musical brainchild of sadly deceased noise legend Hirohito Taneguchi (Seed Mouth) & the equally legendary Junko Hiroshige (Hijokaidan, Genbakukaidan) & if you don't know it, fear not. It's now been formated & remastered to vinyl, courtesy of the Minimum Table Stacks label. Much like Michio Kadotani's Rotting Telepathies recordings, 'Skull' possesses great tremors of blurred clamber that comes directly at you, sometimes sideways. It's hard to know how much is premeditated or just what's driven by organic impulse, which is what makes it such a great attestation of its era. In an instant, 'Skull' can move from a psychotic whoosh not unlike 'Twin Infinitives', to an eerie gait similar to that of Dadamah. Plus, there's everything in between. A true blue-blood of disparate vision, 'Skull' ranks right up there in the masterpiece department with un's S/T lp, New Zealand's Ziggy Stardust Band & those two solo albums from Eric Hysteric. It's not for everyone, but for those who embrace the underground's one percent like a long lost tree, it's the only way to fly."—Tom Lax, Siltbreeze Records. Edition of 300 copies.
LP $25.25
02/17/2023
***Minimum Table Stacks is proud to present the first ever reissue of the ultra-rare sole 7” by the Wales, UK post-punk four-piece Violin Sect, expanded to 12” 45RPM vinyl with two additional previously unreleased bonus tracks from the same recording sessions, all remastered from the original 1⁄4” studio tapes. Self-released by the band themselves in 1981, the 7” was of the type only whispered about among hardcore collectors of obscure British “DIY” punk and post-punk, even slipping past the compilers of the mighty “45 Revolutions” book. After years of mystery, band member Steve Walker dug up the original 40-year-old tapes and had them remastered by a friend, digitizing for the first time two additional songs from the same sessions not heard since 1981. Violin Sect’s dub-inflected post-punk/spaced out guitar funk places them firmly in the presence of contemporaries like the Raincoats, Public Image Limited, the Pop Group, Scritti Politti and many of the other early Rough Trade bands. Included with this release are liner notes by bassist Steve Walker along with photos and ephemera from his personal archive, including a full reprint of a Violin Sect interview that appeared in a small UK zine in 1980. One of the best discoveries of forgotten UK DIY/post-punk since the “Messthetics” compilation series!
12" $23.50
02/17/2023
***New Zealand legend BRENT HAYWARD aka FATS WHITE is probably best known as the vocalist and guitarist in Wellington and Aukland post-punk bands like SHOES THIS HIGH and KIWI ANIMAL, but when he wasn't collaborating with others he recorded solo as SMELLY FEET. As Smelly Feet, Hayward performed on both street corners and stages supporting such bands as The Clean and even The Fall on their legendary 1982 tour on New Zealand. Hayward released three Smelly Feet 7" singles and a handful of cassettes, all around the year 1981. Most were simply given away to friends and fans, while the rest were only available at a few local record stores. The music of Smelly Feet is sardonic, chaotic DIY folk on the surface, but much deeper than that is a legit artistic genius baring his soul using just his voice and acoustic guitar. Tuning is often an afterthought. It's the message that counts: prophetic, apocalyptic, cynical, passionate. Brent is one of the few artists who really, actually, TRULY plays like his life depends on it. Smelly Neu Pollution compiles all three self-released 7" singles from 1981, as well as various tracks hand-selected from the last small archive of Brent's cassette recordings from the same time period and recording sessions. Features liner notes by BRUCE RUSSELL (The Dead C). One-time pressing of 300 copies.
LP $25.25
10/28/2022