TO EVERY SEASON, TURD TURD TURD

Having prepped a garbage bag full of kale at the restyrant while weaving in and out of passing electrical wires and carpenters hitting on my 61-year-old coworker (and, no, 61 is not a dyslexic typo), on a stomach empty save for a cup of Dancing Goat and a fistful of atomic fireballs, I came home starved and delirious. Through the ride and behind dead-bolts, these two thangs, for betta or wurs, was on my mind and in my ears.

Size - El Diablo en el Cuerpo, cassette reissue 2008
No idea what groupa folks decided this shouty, herky, late-70s/early-80s Mexican synthy-punk-wave anthology oughta rejoin the fold, but my hat's off my head and out the room to em. This band housed the amphetamine-fed circuitry of the Screamers and Units in a Southwest proto-punk wood-and-clay box. The keyboard lines in "Lucrative Methods" would've made Eric Burden blush. Boy, they had some prickly career changes, too; check the primpy, Neue Deutsche Welle squiggles on the title cut for evidence. Cumulatively, I don't know. If ya treat each moment as just that, its a bit more engaging. Hopefully, needles everywhere can strike a proper LP reissue of this someday, but for now, my Technics tape deck is spinnin purdy.
Sacred Bones'll getcha.

Gary War - The New Raytheonport LP, Shdwply Records 2008
Hoooo, I wanna carve Brooklyn off the map so bad sometimes. Then this kinda shit hits the deck and I remember that, most of the time, bein right's just about the most overrated feeling in human history. Granted, it borrows from R. Stevie Moore-fanboy Ariel Pink as often as it purrs and rubs against Mayo Thompson's leg. But, once again, the tried-and-true lenses of Oar, Barrett, and Twin Infinitives sees it all through. Cracked, but in-control--since we're probably talkin bout the trustfund district of New Weird America. If it came out on ESP-Disk around the time of Yodeling Astrologer, it'd probably be some kind of legend by now... In this way, The New Raytheonport says something about the tried-and-true real estate cliche, too: location, location, location. This is absolutely perfectly completely okay.
$10ppd in the US, courtesy Shdwply Records.

THE VIVIAN GIRLS

Is it wrong that I want them to be ugly?

THESE ARE DIFFERENT TIMES

Hank IV - Refuge In Genre LP, Siltbreeze 2008

I'd never write a review the same way twice. Back when it dropped, I popped a squat on the Nothing People LP--admittedly, while blushing with guilt. I dismissed it mainly cuz its wellies was stuck in old mud. And, sure, it's fun to think, "geez, this coulda come out back then" but only until you get to the "but wait...it came out now" part. There weren't enough "now" on that record for me to feel it was anything but a collector scum throwback, a wink and a nudge to knowing parties.
Now, hold back them horses. I ain't about to give NP the all's-forgiven cuz the new Hank IV is kinda the perfect embodiment of what Anonymous coulda been.
Back when I was in the neo-natal unit, Hank IV's Bob MacDonald was shredding his throat and rending his garments in unhinged Denver hardcore outfit Bum Kon. Anthony, Andy, Chris, and Scott, the other members of Hank IV, all got equally hefty resumes that include stints like Icky Boyfriends, Resineators (!) yadda yadda yadda. As much as I love the IBs, Hank IV is easily the best band any of these cats been in this decade--and this ain't about the ol days!
See, Hank IV don't wear the past like a badge or wave it like a flag. It's a spirit. Same spirit running through The Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Kick Out the Jams, Vincebus Eruptum, or even We Care So You Don't Have To. They don't gotta say what they're gonna do before they do it. The best bits from Refuge In Genre, like Third Person Shooter and the Dirty Poncho single, squeeze and rattle on a lower chakral level. They give you a normal rock pretense--girls, cars, arguments--then blaze away.
Those of you sweatin the Tim Green (Fucking Champs) and Bob Weston (Shellac) involvement need to remind yerselves of the separation between crotch and heart. If anything, Green taps the spiget of heaviness that was waiting in their sound the whole time. Check cuts like "Drive the Whip," "Symptomatic," or "Sorry Bout the Boat Race," if ya need proof.
Elsewhere, there's evil stompers ("Get It Straight"), TexMex you'd wanna eat ("My Anger"), and plenty of 'tude to spare. Shit, it won't even take a half hour to get you drastic! High destroyability is waiting in these grooves. I'm tellin you straight. I might even believe it tomorrow.
Ride the 'Breeze or load a few here.

OF PARASOLS AND BACKMASKING

Mark Tucker - In the Sack CD Reissue, De Stijl Records 2008

I ain't got time for folks what can cram themselves in pigeonholes. Rats can stretch their bodies down to the diameter of their skulls, too, ya know.
Thankfully, the people that never fit somehow find one another. Take De Stijl Records. Hard to say what is and ain't apropo for them to distribute in mass quantities. Lee Rockey, Hototogisu, Black Vial--somewhere up there's an umbrella they're all ahuddled under. But near as I can tell, if anything's holding it up, it's the Mark Tucker reissues. Consumate fringe persona? Check. Career-altering nervous breakdowns? Natch. Tugging at the folk idiom escape hatch like some beardo weirdo Tex Avery drawing? Half-cocked concept albums? Shit yes. 'S all in there somewhere, innit? No, literally. It ain't hard to pull anybody's ear to an number of moments on this one, Tucker's last ride from back in 82. There's some Davies and a touch of "Cypress Avenue," even, in "Everywhere With Sally (Ride)" (written backwards, recorded so's it goes frontwards). A hat is tipped to Ron Geesin on intermissions like "The Importance of Making Mole Hills Out of Specks." And, among other exciting shit, one can make out graphite sketches of Vivian Stanshall, Surf's Up-era Beach Boys, and the ugly mug of Tom Rapp peering over the precipice like Kilroy's emaciated ghost. Did I mention it might be about a post-apocalyptic future...and the postal service? Not that it matters by the third shift in direction.
See, records that hit so many notes often leave you with only a vivid image of the maker's turntable favs, but this one...somewhere in there is a voice; one trying to sing through every vessel in reach. So by the time you reach tracks like "Can't Make Love," a music-hall-via-Bobb-Trimble jig, and realize it was preceded by a phony radio station ad, your doubts and wonders get sucked out the back of your noggin. Who cares. Just let it happen. The edge is always where the good shit goes down. At least De Stijl's made sure Tucker's got some shade out there.
If any of this mess looked like a meal, ol' Clint from De Stijl can set the table.

NANCY SINGS--AGAIN! Scorces - I Turn Into You Dbl-LP, Not Not Fun Records 2008

If Texas weren't the reddest of the red states, overrun with belching oil tycoons and croakies-rockin off-roaders, would it still produce Roky Erickson and homicidal codeine-addicted MCs? Or is it that kind of environment that makes those cracked Texas greats so great? Ever since I heard Mayo Thompson, the Lone Star's had an asterisk affixed to it, with a footnote that reads, "There's something going on that's not quite right..." I's this dichotomy that's kept me innerested in all the eerie, dusted ooze what's been coming outta Austin and Houston, and there ain't no better example than Tom and Christina Carter of Charalambides. Christina and Heather Leigh Murray (whose LP on NNF last year grew on me like a fine patina) have been cookin along as Scorces since round the turn of the century, I reckon. Whether mixing vox with pedal steel, chord organ, or the ol 6-string, their wind-blown siren songs'll transfix you right outta your lawn chair.
And speaking of dichotomy! I Turn Into You reeks of dualism more than a pair of wound-up vipers. No hissing here, though; just a delicate longing, illuminated by thin strands of voice and strings, rising and falling like VLF sparklers. I dunno. I always get this epic art-house vibe from them. For instance, the side-long opener, "Coming To A Forgotten Part," evokes the slow, but inevitable erosion of identity between the central characters in Bergman's Persona. Shit, the whole record's wrapped in the well-worn flannel of the Bill Stafford tracks in My Own Private Idaho--another warped-mirror kinda flick. It looks like a fucked-up face, all right!
I'll admit, this ain't the sorta Texas fare that makes you wanna glug Shiner Bock and toss M-80s offa Nugent's porch, but c'est la vie. There's a whole lotta dirt and scrub out there and I'll be damned if Scorces don't make me wanna take fistfulls of mescal and whistle up a butte. Road trip!
Mail your currency to Not Not Fun, who are making up for the lop-sided Bored Fortress series RIGHT quick. Keep em comin, I say. I love being wrong.

NO, WAIT! IT WAS 2 IN A ROOM! U.S. Girls - S/T cassingle, Hardscrabble Amateurs 2008

I can't think of a more oddly maligned format than the cassingle. Maybe it's because the last time I saw one was on the floor of a friend's car, beneath an empty fast food sack and a crushed pack of Kools. I think it was Dee-lite. Even if it wern't, I'm sure y'all have an equally moldy example bobbing on your brainsurf.
If I was you, I'd replace it with this U.S. Girls cassingle. Helmswoman Megan Remy is tugging the thread that links forces as diverse as Jandek, The Dead C, and shortwave radio at 3am. In all these things we see the human face swimming up out of a dark and abject sea. If you dug the LP on Siltbreeze (apparently the very first material Remy recorded solo), this terse lil two-sider oughta whet you enough for one last Slip-n-Slide. Summer's over, so take your shirt off while you still can. And pick this up. It's $2ppd and I hot-footed it on the review here so's it wouldn't be a eulogy--meaning, I don't think they made a ton.
Pay thru a pal here, why don'tcha, then try n convince me that blue gouache eye peekin out from behind a feathered mask ain't haunting your bedtime. Just try it.

DON'T LET THE DEER DRAG YOU DOWN - Grouper - Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill CD/LP, Type Records, 2008

Even considerin' Liz Harris of Grouper's predilection for REM-state drones and those piano-and-vox moments on Tried, I can't say I saw this 4AD-weened babe a-comin'. I'll admit, I spun her last full-length, Wide, a few times and was optimistic that maybe there were a vision in there somewheres. Well, maybe I was jumpin' the proverbial. I was convinced there'd be a great Grouper record someday, but brother, this ain't it. When Harris' ideas bleed through, this approaches sumpthin special. Tracks like "Disengage" and the title cut wind the folk through the drone in long, soft braids. (And the recording's bloody gorgeous, as always.) Harris is takin' logical steps on those tracks, but that don't mean they been drained of surprises. The rest of Dragging A Dead Deer, however, is equal parts His Name Is Alive, Jessica Bailiff, and This Mortal Coil. Now, if that pedigree is really your cuppa, I can't think of a more suitable addition to yer shelf. Me? I had a Cranes record one time. That stuff works in David Lynch's movies and that's about it.
I might not be holdin' my breath for that great Grouper record no more, but I'm not really holdin' my nose at this neither, know whatta mean? The CD version can be got from Mimaroglu and Forced Exposure. Don't know 'bout the LP.