HAPPY TWO-THIRDS-OF-THE-WAY-THRU-APRIL DAY

El Jesus de Magico

Just Desserts LP

Columbus Discount CDR066 2012

I’m generally pretty foggy. On a Hoboken fire escape in my memory, poised on the edge & tipping over, is a copy of Unclean Ghost by El Jesus de Magico and my big wormy thumbs-up. Feels like ages since it clotted up the room with weed trophies and the kind of teenage post-punk refry I’ve lately come to expect only from Monterey, Mexico. But I put it on, all official-like, like I know what I’m doin here, just to clear the smeg, and it held way up. Did I check in with the fistfulla forgettables between the two releases? Can’t say that I did. Sorry, folks. We don’t cut checks here at Fuck You Counselor; just credit cards into tiny pieces.

So it brings a flush to my cheeks to announce Just Desserts pops mad bottles & licks shots, for sure, and sometimes in new and mad drastic ways. But you surely don’t get the laser-fan effect you get with a good (and early) single. The two formats is different beasts, after all.

Gems are abounding herein, ripe with ticks from Chrome and Kennelmus both. Yeah, it’s a stinky, dirty stock pot kinda voyage. Heck, on the last cut, the extended, roiling title track, the leads burp from “Sunday Morning,” to a smothered “Friday’s Child.,”—ya know, “Friday’s child/Born a little ugly.”¹ I swear it gets positively classical at times. “We God Thyme,” shimmers in the afterburn of the first side like a good S2S1 oughta. Speaking of the afterburn, I’m callin “Good UFO/Bad UFO Experience,” the single despite it’s nigh-10min clock-in, just cuz that kinda snake rock don’t drop in much. Check the synth mash in there for bonus flavor points. And who can look the quick and simple joy of an opener like, “Live Dead” in the mouth?

Seems a might bit sloppy of me to just now be talkin’ on something from the Columbus Discount bunker, but at least we’ve broken the window. I meant no harm, y’all; I’m just generally pretty foggy.

In an absurdly puny edition of 100.

¹Ok, maybe not that funky, but at least that lit. I just refused to relinquish the pun.

ANOTHER AUTO-CORRECT SUNRISE

Tronics

Love Backed by Force LP

What’s Your Rupture? 2012 Reissue

Well, holla at me! This is an easier grip than the Figures of Light comp I just talked up! If ya don’t know the Tronics yet, a cursory sweep of the Hyped to Death Messthetics comps what seemed to occupy bedrooms around the nation will take you to the starting line. Shockingly, nobody wanted to admit they spun the first 3 volumes like some kinda iTunes race. Shocking. I spose what most folks call the re-insurgence of crud-fi is just kids round the same age coppin moves from old farts; everything from Eat Skull to Sic Alps and back through Pheromoans. (They call it a revolution; I’m finna call it puppy love.) Anyhoots, round about the time you get to Vol. 3, the Tronics cut “Shark Fucks” enters your life, riding Buddy Holly and Tyrannosaurus Rex with the same fervor with which Steve Treatment rhythmically nudged Paul McCartney’s pockmarked honeypot. Love Backed by Force, first dropped in 81, might seem to add nary a wrinkle to the Tronics charm. But, I swears, by the 6^th day of the title cut churning on “rinse” in your head with no complaints, such demands will seem positively rude. Just go with it. You know the analogy: more, good thing, bad, not. The rest follow the aforementioned template to wondrously burnt and frayed edges. It don’t get wild like brats do today, it just is wild, even if it’s just sittin there.

To be found where good things are overlooked.

Cursillistas

Observe Ember Weeks LP

L’Animaux Tryst 2012

Cursillistas’ last holler as a crew is the first I’ve heard. Oughtn’t be a surprise to many who know ‘em, as they happen to traffic in a sound-sense with which I seldom touch bumpers. We’re talking pretty, soft-focus, post-Kranky Records ensemble work that may just be a set of outtakes from the Hired Hand soundtrack garbled by the Space Needle. “Howling Wind II,” which contains neither howling nor wind nor II, sat just fine beside me, with its hazy memory of a hazy retelling of a record on Flying Fish—though it still baffles me hearin’ kids crib moves from New Hampshire six-string alcoholics. It’s also a fine showcase for the muffled, impromptu production. Elsewhere, the Silver Mt. Zion moves get more naked (see “Frontier Gothic;” though “Bona Dea,” is straight JOMF white boy stakeout) and the singing and the jamming and the plodding and oi I’m getting sleepy. How did I wind up with this record?! Sounds better loud, but I have tinnitus, so that goes double for just about everything.

Ok, I’ll admit it: a lazy review for a last departure. Maybe their barista careers are finally panning out? A hand-numbered edition of 214.7, packaged in a sleeve made out of dead skin lace work from the nursing home where all their grandmas live.

SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE SLIME: More Glistening Old Crust, No Q-Tips

Anonymous

Snake Attack/Corporate Food 7”

Flat 1980

I heard tell this got vacuumed up by the Killed by Death comps at some point, but I ain’t lookin to lose an afternoon trackin it down. This sits and spins just swell by its lonesome! And anyhoot, if its finna get stuffed someplace, better on Ein Bunter Abend than beside the Mentally Ills. “Corporate Food,” rollicks and shouts like a new wave Ruins, but the heinous ring modulation and dickslap guitar solo are worth the entrance fee. Likewise the A side has a NDW heart but pumps the blood of Ralph Records. Love the lyrics on that one, too, and, for that, it’s my pick of the pair. (And ya gotta give it up for a WTF cover like that. --Ed.)

A Band

Lowly Worm/No Love 7”

Nancy 1979

Coming on like mid-70s Lou gripping a Mayo Thompson outtake, the A side of this Branca/Theoretical Girls-associated single is barely there in all the right ways. Fans of Michael Hurley’s weed-crumb lyrical ethos will definitely dig the dumpy slink treatment it gets here. “No Love,” on the other hand rides the rhythm that says ‘66, ‘71 and ’79 all at once with a vocal turn straight outta Mould’s jockeys. Maybe this don’t scream L.E.S. like some folk want it to, but I say, Do you really need a whole shelf fulla Arto?

Fusetron’s got this one for a short stack. I say go, since this sumbitch is slipperier than a Gucci catfish.

MORE ICKIES FOR THE TIN EARS

Vacuum

Walking Slow 7”

Siltbreeze SB155

Another in the tornado of Bill Direen-related rereleases sucking sheep off pastures around the globe. What is it with this guy? I maintain that ½ of the sweat over Kiwi punk/post-punk comes from the subatomic crud woven into its fidelity and production—but I never meant it as a diss! It can be a righteous boon! This little frisbee positively glows with post-Stones (the NZ one) rock-kipple, the kinda music that remains after everybody else has squeezed all the obvious tricks outta the VU. All things being equal, that’s the last time you’ll read those initials here—but at least it’s a complement. (For full disclosure, this was a consolation prize for a long and confusing shipping mishap with Siltbreeze and, lemme say, ALL IS FORGIVEN.)

A Full Cosmic Sound

s/t cassette

Fabrica 2011

VENOMOUS CRITIC ALERT:

Ooookay, kids: there’s “static” like Luc Mariani (good), then there’s “static” like a drone (also good), then there’s “static” like the far end of the shortwave dial (has its moments), then there’s “static” like dull late-80s English heroin music (yeah). Plink and plod as you will, even bust out a 101 bassline and some scrap instruments, but it can’t all be spacey crud. C’mon. All your neighbors have bands that sound like this. At some point, somebody’s gotta do something. What do I look like, the DNT Records distro page?

Pretty sure Tedium House has this.

PULLIN OUT THE SLATS: The continuing archival spew

Kawaguchi Masami’s New Rock Syndicate

Cat VS Frog LP

Palindrome 2007

Masami’s continuing riff-saga here receives the live treatment. For he of Broom Dusters and LSD-March, Side A/Cat surprisingly keeps the lid on—though this is overall a nice, bright recording. Side B/Frog is where things start to properly unchain, with some sections sounding like a private press psych wallet-$layer fed through the last gasps of an ’88 Buick. But alas, and despite Masami's heartfelt vocals, the wind-up hardly ever ends in pitch. Can’t quite place it, but there’s a real lurgy feel ‘bout this affair that makes me pine for a hot water bottle and a copy of Bless the Weather. Yeesh! Still, I’m sure there are toads scattered about just waiting to carry this home in their craws. Lay on, I say! Just don’t expect your brains to slosh about like a fortnight’s chawanmushi by last runout. Nothing doing.

Figures of Light

Smash Hits LP

Norton 2008

Cripes, I feel like a skel just trying to write about this, let alone having just gripped it. If every time you dial up the latest proto-punk reissue, it comes with a free eye-roll, this is perhaps the missing piece you’re actually missing. But, really, this is almost proto-everything. You get flakes of Devo and the Urinals, but with that wide-open early-70s sense that this approach (read: beer, pot and volume with occasional police interludes) really coulda gone anywhere. It will also remind you how many more hearty suicide endorsement songs we need (“Why Not Knock Yourself Off?”)—and that’s from the 2007 session! “It’s Lame,” and “I Jes Wanna Go to Bed,” are all-time high school dropout bangers, full of chewed fingers and stomped bedrooms. This is also a wonderful chance to remember that Norton really does an A#1 job in the reissue department, despite their predilection for archival hot rod singles.

Note to self: File in Stooges sleeves, hand out at parties.

CANNERY IN A COAL MINE

Robert Turman

Flux

Spectrum Spools reissue SP010

1981/2012

Well, ain’t the world fulla surprises? Having heard this reissue was out just before I cracked the piece on Dilloway’s new double-twelve, I figured anybody collaborating with him oughta be a sore for sighted ears. Ain’t no way! Once again, a lack of Internet research permits shock and amazement—though I do still get the feeling this is this the big ol’ thumb on his handful of releases. Who woulda suspected a kind of muted, Sunday afternoon gamelan stone-out? Flux straight-up trickles out the stereo and collects in resonant pools on the kitchen floor, sneaking out the back door and into the grass—meaning, there is something at once artificial about it, yet it modulates in an almost defective, loping way. There is evidence of tape fiddling and plenty of cue marks (which’ll surely drive Scott Foust up an elm  –Ed.) which dunks the whole affair in the deep end of homemade “ambience,” and all for the better. I never heard so many shades of gray at once!

I’ll leave the moment-by-moment Eno and Basinski comparisons to some other schmuck; ain’t no cut-n-paste half-steppin here. You know what, I’ll spare you the contemporary analogs, too. Just swear you’ll give this a peek. Deal?

MARCH IS FOR HATERS: Recent wins/losses

Harry "Suni" McGrath
Cornflower Suite
Adelphi 1969

Barely falling under the FYC flag, here, but that ain't stoppin me. McGrath is a lost Takoma-type weird folk picker, falling somewhere behind Sandy Bull and before Dave Evans in the obscuRolodex. This is the sole Suni I've heard, and it's a fine one. His style leans closer to an earlier bloke like Derroll Adams when he grabs the 12-string, but on the whole this is his thang--and boy do it run the snake-handlin' down. Why ain't this sweated like Basho?! You get a taste of the whole range of raga- and mid-eastern- spinoff players without a hint of wispy singing or ambiguously new-agey titles. Though, I'll throw in that McGrath seems just as nutty as the rest of them but in a less drunk way. And for that reason I restate the question: Why ain't this sweated like Basho?!

Grab this if you see it.

Patrick Lysaght
For the Birds
Frank Records 01

I'd wish ya good hunting on this but, the spoils ain't really worth the burrs ya'd probably pick up cutting through the underbrush. Lysaght is now a Googleable sculptor and, heck, probably was at the time, too, til he got up the notion to record flute improvs in the tropical bird house of a zoo. I will say, in a sympathetic attempt to tag this as a singularity in a good way, this record is a great example of how outlandish collector scum descriptions can often yield dull results. On top of being mixed by somebody who clearly didn't like Patty much, For the Birds is basically a beautiful field recording with a heckler on the sidelines. Thus, it also illustrates how dudes hunger for nature, then have no idea how to behave in the thick of it. Do with such math as you will.
Poor birds.

Lauri Paisley
Fire of Dreams
Methylunna Music 1987

Aw, man. Another rabbit hole. In the sparkly, fluffy, carpeted hallway between new age slush and vernacular creepster lurks Lauri Paisley and her band of Jersey snuffers (in loose-fitting silk shirts, no doubt). Like Matthew Young's Traveler's Advisory, Fire of Dreams veers so wildly from truly cranked & gone to the ravine of breezy queasy it becomes literally harrowing. I can never tell if the next movement or perverse keyboard effect is finna roast my lobes or make me flee the county--and I'm on my fifth listen. On top of it, Side A is practically an apology for Side B, which toys even more vigorously with soap opera interludes, largely leaving the NES menu screen errors behind. In fairness, it may just be a ride that gases early and is inherently unsustainable. But when it's on, it truly mystifies.
I seen-tell of a self-released tape from earlier in the Reagan-era, but ain't no tellin what horseyhockey lay-eth within. Here Be Dragon-shaped Crystals.