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.

LINCOLNSHIRE POACHERS - 3 Confounding Multinational Transmissions

INQUIET - Inq Beyong, Brother Sister Recordings 2008
"World music" affectations trampled by any sorta collective of animals just don't spell "attention glue" round here. But being that we are speaking of artist-run, micro-labels out of Melbourne, Australia, I remain drunkenly optimistic, as I can think of no similar circumstances with a totally poor outcome. I'm particularly amped for the Hirasakana Oyogu disc recorded on a mountain. I mean, why not?
Check & wreck as you will.

WOLD - Stratification CD, Profound Lore 2008
If Whitehouse fall in the woods and no one hears them, will there still be a limited to 50 box set? No, hang on; that's not how that one goes. Is it, "...will they ever find their way back to irrelevance?" No, that's not it either. Look, here's what I'm drivin at: this disc by solemn Saskatchewanans Wold (or is it WOLD?) is sort of a noise record made by sort of noise dudes who'd rather think of themselves as black metal dudes because a noise record with raspy growling by any other name would automatically sell more...oh, there I go again. Wold's first album, LOTMP, sounded like Ulver (circa Nattens Madrigal) and [a particularly pissy] Michio Kadotani reenacting the "last transmission" scene from Event Horizon. This one and Screech Owl? Eh. Go ahead and dig out tags like "endurance" if you must; if all I'm actually enduring is 9-minutes of dopey power electronics, you can tag me "unkvlt" while you're at it. I can live with that.
Frosty groves await you here.

U.S. GIRLS - Introducting... LP, Siltbreeze 2008
The sixth (by my count) missive from the Siltbreeze camp in the 08 is a doozy. Yeah sure, that Sic Alps LP is the new shit. But as a critic, it's like running into somebody I already know and like on a particularly good night. I like it. I feel no need to toss one laurel further; scores of dudes will do that for me. This, on the other hand? This is a new friend. Somebody y'all should meet.
Megan Remy, the solitary lass behind Chicago's U.S. Girls, conjures nothing less than the Shangri-Las, marooned on an off-shore oil rig, transmitting forlorn songs of love and loss through a demolished loudspeaker. Her siren broadcasts carry like the din of fireworks in distant, pulsating clouds. Those looking to latch onto familiar land can head right to the Bruce Springsteen and Kinks covers ("Prove It All Night" and "Days" respectively) to see Ms Remy leak voodoo like a haunted Exxon Valdez. Grab the buckets.
Send a flare or hunt for an SOS. Either way, you'll be glad you did.

SOOTHING SEEPAGE! As eloquent as I get, and I'm talking about the Anals

Sometimes when you walk into a house, restaurant or bar, an atmospheric consort quickly settles on you like a comforting snowfall. Maybe it's the lighting, the smells from the kitchen, or the looks on a few new faces. Whatever it is, you feel immediately a part of whatever's happening and you want to keep it that way. Records, in my experience, are no different. The right sequence of elements, whether expected or not, can change the listening experience into something beyond sensory.
So I feel it necessary to mention that less than 15 seconds into the debut and solitary-outing of French duo the Anals, I was instantly at home. It happened with those bands creeping out of Monterrey, Mexico, too, and in much the same way. A few simple notes on the keyboard and the trust of hands and feet and I was sold. I've already played it three times this afternoon and I won't be sleepy for hours. Granted, after giving the Anals a listen you may decide that my "home sweet home" is a damp and unpleasantly eerie parking lot regularly frequented by undesirables. Hey, everyone needs somewhere to lay their head. There's something gleefully disaffected about the Anals' rhythmic synth punk, like they're lovingly relishing the aftermath of their destructive early-twenties. I'm still there, so I've been treating this as a biting satire of 20/20 hindsight; a way of looking back that I can look...forward...to. And if you're making punk records in the 21st century, isn't that what it oughta be about?
Send jer drool & confetti to Sweet Rot.

DID I REALLY SAY "A TERSE KLUSTER?" Things I Said About Things I Heard

I'm forgoing the review of Psychedelic Horseshit/Fabulous Diamonds/Suitcases et al from the other night because there was, for reasons I may never know, a strange air of hostility and apathy in the room. Don't get it, didn't dig it. All I'll add is that I went home and shaved off my mustache in one blunt, unceremonious gesture. (It felt different having it on the island. If I couldn't be the Gorton's fisherman, I might as well be a grizzled deckhand, right? Well, the high seas are far behind me now, if you get what I mean. I'm not sure I do...)
Now, moving swiftly along: Records. I got them. I heard them. I thought about them, drank with them, and generally gave them far more attention than some worthy humans I know. Hey, when the sit-in to protest my phone number gets crankin', I'll put the headphones down. In the meantime, I'm trying to decompress. Culture shock. Y'all have things like stoplights and fast food here. I just returned from the 1940s. I had forgotten about billboards and the stale unction of chicken tenders.

FABULOUS DIAMONDS - Self-Titled LP, Siltbreeze, 2008
Sorry, but when a mint band from Australia shows up in your town, on a tour where they're unlikely to break even, buy one of their records. Hell, buy two. Gas and plane tickets is spensive. Even if they're dicks (they were actually lovely!), you gotta have sympathy for people who are probably traveling with dudes whose code of ethics includes "infrequent bathing." Give an Aussie a break! Plus, the records are good! This keys/sax-and-drums duo screw with recorded time like nothing else runnin, all the while reminding me of a terse Kluster, Teja with live drums, the underbelly of early Primitive Calculators, and the earnest disarray of the Delta 5. They can call out the tunes or call in the demons; either way the songs float by like an echo in the night. Less frustrating, more...appetizing. And when they stretch out (you know, 3 minutes), boy does it pay. Praise be to short elpees.
The seven-inch on Nervous Jerk is still around and worth all of the 8 or so minutes it'll cost you. Help them sell out the press. Plus, it's an amuse bouche to this amuse bouche to this...

NOTHING PEOPLE - Anonymous LP, S-S Records, 2008
I tried. I really did. Backwards, forwards, sideways, perpendicular, four abreast, in the car, on the porch, with and without headphones, with and without beer, before and after cigarettes, before and after science, with the TV on mute, with the cat on vibrate, shoes or no shoes, and I can't for the life of me care about this. Rock in most of its incarnations, to me of late, is grandpa stuff. This ain't the summer I asked for.

KRAUT IS THE NEW BLACK - 6 Bands and Twenty-One Hot Inches In Me

Having rolled back into the South, sore (in many ways) from the trip and the pre-trip ordeal, I've set up some semblance of a stereo in a dusty alcove...somewhere. I don't know. At this point, the moment I leave the city but am still close to a state road, everywhere looks like everywhere else. If I play my cards right, this is a layover, not a chapter.
While resisting the urge to unpack and phone up locals who might still wanna know me I've listened to some things. These are they.

STRIBORG/SCURSHAHOR split 7", Southern Lord, 2008
My love of the sole Tasmanian black metal act Striborg is earnest and deep. For those who consider black metal suspect, I assure you the Striborg approach is more Peter Grudzien than Profanatica. His opener, the aptly monikered "Psychedelic Nightmare" is a thumpy and hissy lil capsule bearing familial resemblance to the dark humidity of Pierre Henry's Le Voyage at one moment and an unhinged Silver Apples at the next. Other than that, this got no kin what's recognizable to my ears. "Syncopated Pandemonium" is heavy but not at all tired or even metal, really, in the tradition of Circle of Ouroboros or Sapthuran. I believe in Sin Nanna.
Scurshahor is probably an Oren Ambarchi one-off, given the credentials, the label, and, well, the way it fucking sounds. "Malicious Resplendence" gets you Sissy Spacek drum crumbling on top of chipped Remko Scha axes. There might be vocals, or there maybe there's a bee in my suit. I get why queues of drone dudes dig the black metal and all. Unfortunately, their love is meddled with fear, so their forays into black metal-inspired hum-and-thud come off as pastiche, not participation. I'm sure as shit cats like Ambarchi dig old punk, too, but history's taught them that digital deconstructions of that stuff is a bad and unmarketable idea. At least this probably moved some units. Unfortunately for whomever Scurshahor is (...), I gotta hate the player and the game.
(Also: the plastic inner sleeve? Seriously? Didja get a grant from the Glad family? Just wrap the thing in pig-iron why don't you. I'm lucky this survived the trip between the box and the player so many times.)

SHEPHERDS/IGNATZ - Bored Fortress split 7", Not Not Fun, 2008
We're winding into the end of the BF singles club for this year. If you read my last installment, I ain't so keen on what NNF's been shipping me lately. This chapter, however, is a crispy change of pace. This ain't the Shepherds I was expecting. (I mean, technically, it is.) This bears none of the loft-jazz touchstones nor is it infested with the Borbetomaggots I read about elsewhere. In fact, this is some distillation of the dark and perverse elements of post-punk. Repetitive percussion supports a particularly Aussie/Kiwi clang, capturing that rapturous and sweaty state everyone loves to achieve in the recording space. If this is the energy they always cast about, I'll buy all that balloon juice 'bout the "physical noise" they usually blow. I need a discography...
Ignatz seem to have aligned with the same sonic longitude as Shepherds for this slab, only their branches seed from the Great Unwashed rather than Wreck Small Speakers or One Stop Shopping. Their lone track rises and falls like a string of mountains. We start at the foothills and end in the clouds. It might grow a little long in the tooth, but that's how mountains work I suppose. The surprises keep me listening, like they do. The Ignatz side is what pushed this into my vote for the best of the Bored Fortress 08 class. Doubtful? Read on.

INCA ORE/SECRET ABUSE - Bored Fortress split 7", Not Not Fun, 2008
I can't say I love or even like either of these acts after sitting with this single for a fistful of sessions--and I ain't talkin those kinda sessions. Inca Ore are like the worst portrayal of the Blues Control aesthetic dining on the worst portrayal of Scorces. They've got a pedigree way more interesting than their actual output. Like Pocahaunted and that aforementioned Scurshahor mishap, there's something real disingenuous about good-looking youngsters aping sounds made by lumpy nutjobs from ages past. Hey, I love those records, too, but that don't mean I wanna be them!
Secret Abuse are soundtracky and dull. Touchstones might include the third White Noise lp, if ya must know. It kinda feels like storming out of your parents house in a teenage rage, then going to all the suit-n-tie restaurants they haunt and pretending to be them: nobody's buyin it.
In the end, I suppose I oughta let the kids have their say and maybe somebody'll buy one of those Kluster reissues as a result of all this horse-hockey. (That live Eruption lp is the kitty's p-jays!)

NEXT ON THE BOX: Maybe a live review of Psychedelic Horseshit/Fabulous Diamonds/Suitcases @ Eyedrum? Wayne Rogers? That Nothing People LP somebody tossed at me? For now, a smoke and a steaming lake are calling.