SLOW WRITHE

Southern Comfort
Silver and Gold b/w Don't Cry No Tears 7"
Black Petal #43

Nice loud, downer strum from Angie and Harriet of Circle Pit and Ratsak respectively. Recording really sells the A side, setting the mics and amps quavering from heat stroke. The harmonies ain't quite jagged enough for me to feel this is much past prettiness, but I'll take a Neil Young cover from this pair, no questions asked. As someone I respect once said about gloating over other folk's miseries, "It doesn't always work, but it never completely fails," to please me. The old croaker's work needs, if not a swift kick in the keister, at least a firm goose now and again.
 
But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that, however loverly the above rhetoric might sound, this 45 is positively frightful on 33. Heard a few stray shots outside my window the other night and decided the healthiest response would be to double up on my cold meds and drop the speed on this single. If glaciers shit drugs, this (at the wrong speed) would be their expulsive moan. The echo, the lead-handed downstrokes, and suggestive throb melt in a magically unnerving way--and that ain't just the decongestant talkin'!

Limited to two hundred fifty-something copies, available in the US thru Easter Bilby.

EXHAUST-DJINN: A PAIR FROM ANTI-FADE

Useless Eaters

New Program b/w Expensive Taste & Smoke Alarm 45rpm

Anti-Fade ANTI-011

Bout the closest I ever get to garage is when I need help diggin' a spike outta my left front tire. Always thought there was somethin'...underachiever about it; for those about to maybe rock, ya know? But I reckon that's what folks find so galldern American about it: desperate, entrepreneurial shots at convincin' some local, maybe regional, and perhaps national, tail to shimmy. Just a little. It's that very attitude that makes it so suspect to me; I say, go XXXL or go sit a spell. Anyhoot & holler, perusin' the Anti-Fade back catalog gave me the spins, so I called up ol' Bertrand Russell for advice. Bein' a  loud skeptic of garage rock himself, I figgered he'd know the score. "In studying [a garage rock label], the right attitude is neither reverence nor contempt, but first a kind of hypothetical sympathy, until it is possible to know what it feels like to believe in [its releases], and only then a revival of the critical attitude, which should resemble, as far as possible, the state of mind of a person abandoning opinions which he hitherto held. Contempt," ol Betrand warned, "interferes with the first part of the process, and reverence with the second." Whatever you say, chief; I'll give it the ol' college. Maybe there's some new tricks a-turnin'?

Useless Eaters is helmed by one Seth Sutton outta Nashville, Tenn. A Nashville one-man garage band on a Victoria, AU label? Why not. Hell, he's already put out about 5 other records this year alone, and 9 others since turn of the decade; ain't many spots on this circuit he ain't shot through. A-side cut is either an indictment or winking endorsement of corporate drudgery in the guise of an android march. Another "why not" herein is Sutton's application of positively classic Athens GA moves. I detect the liver-spotted claw of Peter Buck on "Smoke Alarm," though it be fed through some homegrown Johnny Marr effects. In fact, this is near the Blank Dogs cult philosophy of tryin' to apply cheapie-creepie goth tactics to mopey drug punk. It's still a fair bit better--but just about anythin' is an improvement to that late model! But keepin' ol' Bertrand on the dome, I didn't mind the half dozen flips I gave it one bit. And I ain't about to jeer the folks that find the fun in this one second more.

Five hunnid hand-numbered.

The Bonniwells

Yesterdaisy 7" EP 33rpm

Anti-Fade ANT-008

What a pwecious wittle wecord. From the knitty-witty packaging to the Victorian cats & mice in eternal pursuit on the labels (wabels?), I was expecting either a So Cow offshoot or something light, feathery, with a sturdy inheritance. Which is to say, I was prepared to gag. But actually, this trio bears more marks from early K Records, the Vaselines and the Marine Girls than what I'd call garage rock. Maybe the rug on this whole genre done got yanked from under me, but these sunlit melodies, mid-tempos, and titles like "Pigeon Pizza" gimme those twee goosepimples. Some kids somewhere in Melbourne are dancin' their couch cushions to pieces and the sophomore in me kinda wants to join in. If it wasn't for my trick knee and all...

300 pressed on colored vinyl. Mine looks like rain-soaked pavement with a chewed gum smear. What you got?

Once again, Easter Bilby is yer Huckleberry fer these. He's up on social medias, too, if'n you wanna go there.

ANTI-CLEANSE

Degreaser

Sweaty Hands LP

Negative Guest List NGL-040

A band named after my favorite cleaning product puts out a another solid record on my favorite Australian scum label; tis a hard day at the office! This, Degreaser's follow-up to 2011's quaking Bottom Feeder, continues main duder Tim Evans's well-illustrated commitment to the hungover-and-cranky corners of punk weirdness (see also his take on Pop Group dynamics in Bird Blobs and the mope-grind of Sea Scouts). Scoff if ya must at the Birthday Party apeage howlin' around these parts (i.e. Brooklyn) of late, but these folks don't fanny about like some. Though guitars rasp, throats moan and bellow, and the rhythm section clamps like a 1000-year-old die-cutter, as they have elsewhere and many a time before, it ain't always what ya do but how ya do. Feel me? Right from the jump on "Lizard," these lead-sinkers reach stoner-metal depths of heave-n-wheeze with nary a second to call out the fathoms. The focus remains a desperate thud on the deck of a listing boat, even through what I take to be a cover of "Eyes Without A Face" (?) on the flip. (No titles on this one; just guessin' from the Discogs entry.) Never do they leave the confines of their grem-clotted alley, but the hypnotism this lot casts was enough to keep me glued down. Nice!

Head next door to Easter Bilby for your domestic hook-up.

DON'T LET THE SUN SET ON MARBLEHEAD

Mad Music, Inc.

Mad Music, Inc. LP Reissue (originally released in 1977)

Drag City/Yoga Records

Was a time when I'd sooner peel the phrase "healing music" off the back of a sleeve than take it home, but I ain't fixin' to let age gimme bad knees and nothing else. These days, I give in; direct as many needs to the "check out" stack as possible. And when I'm fortunate, I get a few sorted simultaneous. Such is the case with Mad Music Inc.

Back in the foggy decade, when errybody it seemed was trying to cram 12 steps into one weekend, or forfeiting all their earthlies to be-whiskered rug-squatters somewhere upstate, an unidentified junta of Boston players (barneys, perhaps?) assembled Mad Music sans credits, track titles, or any other signifiers save a designation of "music for meditation" and released it like a coddled sparrow into the wild--to, as ya mighta grok'd, a lotta silence. Of course, the packaging, what included clippings, illustrations of a man with a beta-max player in his right temple and the like, probly didn't help close the ensuing mystery.

What actually lyeth within ain't quite so puzzlin'. Basically, a cache of 4:30-or-less bites of spiritual jazz (especially reminiscent to these ears of Alice Coltrane's Eternity), "love theme" strings straight outta after school specials, and eerie winds. Not a whole lot else to get yer hands around. I fo' sho' found myself sneakin' a Z here and there, but that's all right by me. The whole notion of sittin' still, brain-pan ajar, for something other than Calhoun County 49th Level Vampire Ex-Lesbian Task Force on VH1 seems like a lost art in this country.

But as much as I like a little polemic in my puddin', I'll spare ya any further diatribes. On the whole, the desired effect of the actual music has perhaps diminished in the ensuing decades, but the mysterious coterie at the heart of the project has some serious endurance. And bein' that we live in the vinyl-as-conversation-piece epoch, this'll surely moves some serious units for Drag City. Me? I think I'll be fine, if I can just figure out how to synthesize tryptophan in my bathtub...

Pony up hurr, if ya wanna.

NEXT UP: A boatload of transmissions from Easter Bilby's Aussie stash!

DOODLEPLEX

Woo

It’s Cosy Inside LP Reissue

Drag City/Yoga Records October 2012

I try to get errythin I can outta my listenin times, not just the grumpy rumbles and obtuse toilings strewn about the FYC hood. And while many of us folks writin on these assorted auteurs and amateurs might see “skill” or “training” as somewhat suspect, ain’t no need to ghettoize. After all, it ain’t the tools, it’s the carpenter what makes the shed stand.

The Ives brothers behind this longstanding Woo outfit are plenty adept at their wide array of instrumental plunder. They’s chops is visible from their debut missive, Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong, through their early 1990s output; and in the humbles they did in the post-punk pen (see Five Or Six). Their ’89 effort, It’s Cosy Inside, is perhaps their best and here gets the nudge into Expedits everywhere it done truly earned. Thru 17 interwoven tracks, Woo chart hectares of previously unglimpsed zones, quietly and carefully, wearing big goofy grins.

Surely when I drop the term “new age,” many of y’all cue up a Steve Roach feetie-pajama sleepover breathing exercise and quickly open a new tab in your browser. Well, friends, it ain’t any more dirty a word than “ambient”. And when was the last time you dug out “experimental” and gained an inch? At least “new age” can sound either cultish and menacing or gauzy and nap-inducing depending how groggy you is. To put a point on this polemic, It’s Cosy Inside is about as close to prescience in these days of rebuilt analog drones and star wipes as you’re likely to find in late-80s English music. Exceptin’ a lot of the kittens batting the “spacey” and “blissed-out” yarn-wad nowadays think irony means everything’s for sale (or everything’s terrible), and Woo took it in the literal and classical sense. The same moodiness ZNR used to cast perverse shadows over Satie on their LP Barricade 3 here likewise plays with Kraftwerk, Harmonia and Cluster. Matta fact, if’n you dropped a caper like, “Woo was really an unearthed Anglo link betwixt the Kraut and NDW eras,” you’d give me buku pause. For now, it’s just a thought.

I know you ain’t yet ready to believe something so weirdly playful like this could pluck a string in this mule-piss-pumpin’ heart o’ mine, but you will. You’ll run into a copy of it at your local record hole, or maybe the Nite Jewel split 7”* released in conjunction with this impeccable re-ish, drop the loot and take ‘er home. About 10 minutes in, you’ll put down the pipe, and notice how truly weird beauty can be.

* featuring a track from a rare Woo cassette

KETCH AS KETCH CAN

East Link
S/T cassette
Little Big Chief/Creep Dreams 2012

Imma admit straight-up, something about this tape caught me with my ass out. After 3 plays (that's 6 flips!) through in a row, I still felt I didn't know my onions enough to say or think anythang illuminatin'. Got all tangled up in tags & the strings there attached: surf, noise, psych, and on and on.
Why expose the business of this mishigas? Only to demo how dumb I am. Here I was, down on all 4s, scrutinizing a crushed Bud Light in the middle of Burgess Shale--which is to say, "This thing ROCKS." I find myself spewin such verbiage so infrequently, what with my piles of buck bin chud to munch through, it takes me a minute to pick out such anvil-sized tasting notes. Sad, really, but no discredit to East Link. Composed of Aussie fringe elements from the likes of UV Race, Total Control, Lakes, Straightjacket Nation and a handfulla others, they here set sail* in their own creaking schooner to crush shrimps and dislodge coral errywhere. Speakin' on "reefs," (ha, I think? --Ed.) these hominids pound the pebbles with an abject twang (made possible by short delays and heavy face-to-face amp screeds) that just 'bout turned my speakers into sheet pasta. Track 2, "Ansett Australia" is at least as obnoxious as the Crucifucks (emphasis on "noxious" --Ed.), without sounding a bit like em, though it do contain a slew of notebook-carved rhyming couplets and that gloriously brutal economy. Side Bummer stretches out the thudding to great effect, in an era when that's usually a bad idea. It also features a manic whistling section which really oughta happen in this green world with greater frequency. Is that man or Memorex? Don't ya just love havin' to ask? 

There's rumors of a hefty surf vibe up in here, but I can detect little resembling The Innermost Limits of Pure Fun....oh, you meant that kinda surf! You wanna tag this as the gory followup to Earle and Holcombe's work in Horror of Party Beach, you go ahead. There is certainly sumpthin to be said for the efficiency of the whole thing; the compartmentalizing of total wilderness, which you definitely get with the concussed wing of surf music. But hey, I just wrote somewhat kindly things about an LP on a smooth jazz label. What the fuck do I know? When faced with a sodium cocktail such as this, ain't much for me to do but glug it down.

A small sum stands like a hard-gainer between ye and them. I say, go! Amurricans go here, others go here.

Sure did talk to you. Here's "Wild Dog," featuring that glorious whistling treatment:












*This is Creep Dreams maiden voyage, too, as well as LBC's first foray into the People's Format.

$10 HOLLER #5: STEPHEN WHYNOTT

Stephen Whynott
From Philly to Tablas LP
Music is Medicine MIM 9001 (1977)

Copies of this can pop serious squats on the wallet, but be not discouraged: I nabbed mine for a 5-er. I'd be foolin' if'n I told ya you was gonna get mad plays offa the whole thing. You might have to do some scanning, but herein lyeth some truly lonesome spaces. Whynott caters largely in spooked but ultimately breezy cafe folk strolls with stoned and/or psych-ed brushwork. There's some winsome whimsy to be swallowed as well ("Oh Boy I've Won the Contest At Last"), and I'm afraid the good stuff isn't at the bottom of the glass. Typically, things fizzle before they pop on those numbers. But here and there he skirts gamelan (the opening passage of "Nine Day Sunflower") and, on the particularly puzzling "Snows Edge," even blunders into Perhacs county! Never does it advance as far as, say, John Palmer's Shorelines or anything by Bobby Brown, but I weren't just imagining the fellow feeling. They's all on facin' pages in the same unfathomable book that be 1970s small press folk.
Music Is Medicine (stone lost child label of First American) eventually made good on the sucky promises that peek over the yacht club event horizon of this LP, releasing things that square firmly with the "smooth jazz" tag. But ah the early days...! I guess.

Case you need a further push toward the shores of white male monomania, here's a solid nudge. As if it don't already take an eon to load this blog! (Note it is the only Whynott track up on the Tubes of Your):