A lovely slice of swooning dream-pop/shoegaze from Somerville, MA’s bummed (we’ve retained the band’s e.e. cummings approach to punctuation – please refrain from rioting with pitchforks and copies of Strunk & White).
This new single sees the band moving away from the more lo-fi aspects of their 2014 self-titled release (which is also well worth checking out). A-side, “smoking jewels” features a jangly, finger-picked guitar melody over a muscular, start/stop rhythm; sheer, largely indecipherable vocals are dead center in the mix, swaddled in reverb. B-side, “no reward” adds peals of feedback and a more steady, driving beat.
The 7” – as well as a digital version – is available now via the band’s Bandcamp page; hopefully, it’s a teaser for a new long-player. Check them out there, and here.
Fat White Family, “Whitest Boy on the Beach” (Without Consent)
New single from one of our favorites, taken from forthcoming new album, Songs for Our Mothers.
“Whitest” thumps and bumps it’s way through the consummation of an unholy matrimony of groups like Throbbing Gristle (the band pic promoting the single bears more than a passing resemblance to this), Suicide, Plastic Bertrand – triumphal, synthesized horns invoking Sparksian levels of quirky art pop, thundering o’er a ‘Heart of Glass’ shattering bassline. As ever, there’s more than a hint of menace lurking beneath the glitter ball, singer Lias Saoudi rolling around on the trash and glitter strewn floor of a deserted disco, cooing lines like “who’s the weakest link in the chain?”.
Songs For Our Mothers is set for release January 22 on the band’s own Without Consent label – purchasing a copy is the easiest resolution you’ll ever make. Tickets are on sale now for their UK tour – you can find all dates on their Facebook page.
Joyously rough-edged rock from new (to us, at least) LA-based band, Feels. “Bitched” is a compact, three minute burr of surf rock, ‘70s punk, garage and ‘90s groups like Sleater-Kinney or even Elastica. The buzzy guitar and sweet ‘la la la’ and ‘whoa, oh h’ backing vocals stick in your brain and won’t let go – kinda like those weird worm thingys in that Star Trek movie (google it, kids), but in a good way.
“Bitched” is taken from a live lp, recorded last summer at LA studio, Gauchos Electronics, out now on the ever-fantastic Lolipop label – it’s been out since January, but only recently burbled to the surface of our Soundcloud stream (we’ll hit “refresh” faster next time; promise).
The band’s debut long-player will be released in spring, 2016 on the equally loveable Castle Face, with production by neu-garage (is that a thing?) hero, Ty Segall. Go forth and like them on the Facebook.
A new Savages track appeared today, together with a release date for the band’s new album – huzzah!
Savages’ debut, Silence Yourself, played with tension and barely contained fury through a dark, post-punk glaze; cathartic spikes poking through in patches. The songs caromed between slow burning intensity and raucous indignation.
With ‘The Answer’, the raucous is turned up to ten (eleven?). Vocalist Jhenny Beth howls like Siouxsie at the center of a druggy, hypnotic maelstrom with hornet’s nest guitars and a driving rhythm that brings to mind psych/space rock, punk, metal, even early industrial. This dizzy intensity matches the lyrics, wherein the ‘answer’ (in case you were curious) is love – a possessive, desperate love that leaves you panicky, insecure (“If you don’t love me, don’t love anybody/And you’re glad it’s you/…Love is the answer/I’ll go insane”). Healthy? Perhaps not, but many of us have had moments where the thought of getting to be with, or hanging on to, someone we desire is the only thing; alternatives too dire. There lies madness…
“The Answer” will appear on Savages’ forthcoming album, Adore Life, due January, 2016, on Matador – and on this evidence, not a moment too soon. It’s available for preorder now, through the band’s website.
It’s hot; really, effing hot. Sweat runs in rivulets down your back, sides, forehead; the back of your thighs. The dank, still air of late summer envelopes you; a shroud, creating the sweat-stained outline of your human form in the soft pleather chair.
Outside, the urban thrum of car horns, jack hammers, sirens. Closer in, a soft whisper comes from a box fan sat in the window on the opposite side of the room, it’s scant breeze causing barely a ripple in the heavy air. Yet, this sound holds promise: the promise of moving air, however stale, however ripe with heat and the tang of perspiration and garbage, however leaden with asphalt and exhaust.
You inch closer. Visions of trade winds; relief. The fan’s soft purr becomes a drone, then a whirr; a building crescendo. The once faint breeze now feels like a wind tunnel, buffeting your face as you lean in, closer…the sound now sending vibrations through your skull. You smile, eyes closed, at the first patter of sweat beads on spinning blades. The cacophonous wind – you let it wash over you, let it draw you ever closer, like a cartoon character floating on waves of aroma from a freshly cooked chicken.
The song is “Paul”. The band is thegrindinghalt.com fave and pride of Ireland (ok, we think they should be proud), Girl Band. Taken from forthcoming, debut full length “Holding Hands With Jamie”, out September 25 on Rough Trade (available for pre-order here in the US and on Rough Trade’s UK webshop). The video is above, and is fantastic. If you haven’t (and why not?), check out Girl Band on Facebook or their website.
Debut long player from SROS Lords, a “reborn” (as of 2013, Alleluia!) garage/wave/punk trio from Motown. We here at thegrindinghalt.com HQ received our copy directly from drummer, Jamie Cherry. Thanks, man!
The band (named, according to this 2014 interview, in honor of the studio in Detroit, from whence they record) play loud, fast, twitchy music drawing as much to older punk, new wave and hardcore bands like Electric Eeels, The Ramones, The Misfits, Die Kreuzen and Devo, as well garage vets like The Gories, as it is to the more recent work of Jay Reatard (RIP), and thegrindinghalt.com faves Nots and Ausmuteants.
Churning, buzzsaw guitars trade shots with whipcrack drumbeats, accompanied by droney synth and the fuzzed out vocals of singer Morgan, the album whizzing by at break neck speed (“epic” tune “Erica”, the longest, boasts a 2:24 run time). The energy on display across the album’s 13 tracks is both palpable and infectious; like going to an amusement park with a kid with ADD who wants to go on all the rides, simultaneously.
The group’s description of itself as “slimernetik” punk makes no sense and perfect sense – it feels like a kind of “back to the future” evocation of a time when punk kids and early punk/new wavers saw themselves as “alien” and made music designed for people who felt the same way, eff everyone else. There’s a whiff of late nights in basements, gaming and gorging on B-movie horror, scifi and reruns – (“Dragonflex” sounds like a bizarro reworking of the theme from “Gilligan’s Island”).
“Music to make soylent green to” could work, too. Equally, a great soundtrack to an afternoon doing lines of Cheetos dust and spazzing out on peach Faygo. It’s your life, man; we don’t judge.
Rule is out, like, NOW on Earyummy and is available on iTunes. Check out SROS Lords on Facebook, tumblr and enjoy the seizure-inducing graphics on their website.
Flesh World, The Wild Animals In My Life (Iron Lung, 6/2/15)
Debut long player from San Francisco-based Flesh World, a fave of thegrindinghalt.com (check out our review of their mini-lp here).
In the proud tradition of bands like TSOL, Lords of the New Church, 45 Grave, The Damned, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Flatmates, Savages – bands grafting elements of other music onto a musculature of punk – on The Wild Animals…, Flesh World continue to push and prod at the edges of their sound: goth, rough C86-styled indie pop and shoegaze shiver and shake together over rumbling punk and hardcore undercurrents.
The title track adds a glaze of shoegaze swirl atop Scott Moore’s jangly guitar line. “Just To Tear Me Down” starts like a ramshackle take on “Under the Milky Way”, then morphs into a buzz saw goth/punk rocker, vocalist Jess Scott channeling Morrissey as she sings to someone who wants to “tear me up just to tear me down”. “Strawberry Bomber” sounds like Dance With Me-era TSOL fronted by Mikyi from Lush. Personal fave “Poolside Boys” recalls the JAMC covering “Everyday Is Like Sunday”.
Comparisons only go so far though – these songs live and breathe as a result of the band’s great sense of melody, pacing and energy. Earworms abound here for the digging. Dig in.
Gloomy and glorious. Check the stream above and support the band here. Also, be sure to go seek out the band at one of their upcoming shows (sadly, the halt exists in lands outside the current itinerary – *sniff*).
7/30 New York Baby’s All Right
7/31 Philadelphia Philamoca
8/1 New York Williamsburg Music Hall
8/2 Baltimore Windup Space
8/3 Richmond Strange Matter
8/4 Washington, D.C. Black Cat
Highlights include: “Poolside Boys”, “Strawberry Bomber”, “Shaved Head”, “Your Love Is Like a House”.
I’ve been onto this band since last summer. No excuse why it’s taken me so long to get ‘round to writing something about them, but my recent good fortune seeing them absolutely destroy the stage opening for Viet Cong had me at least attempt to get some thoughts on (virtual) paper. These guys are a breath of wonderfully sweet, stale, fetid air drifting forth from a newly opened basement, and should be experienced.
Girl Band are a four-piece hailing from Dublin (Ireland, not Ohio) who make an insanely appealing racket. The music is tightly wound, claustrophobic, often without a cathartic chorus or change of key to relax the mood – you sit there, fidgety yet transfixed, until it stops. Noise built around chaotic rhythms tripping over words that start out mostly stream of consciousness and then dissolve into yelps, howls and shrieks; guttoral discharges often signifying much about the emotional impact of the songs themselves.
The Wonderful and Frightning World of…-era The Fall, Ideal Copy-era Wire, the Throbbing Gristle of “Discipline (Manchester)”, elements of techno, drone, no wave; newer bands like Prinzhorn Dance School or Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster (RIP) – a swirling eddy melting through a cacophonous gloryhole of sound into your waiting brain.
Their earlier, self-released singles have been collected and released (cheekily, given the band was “founded” in 2011) as The Early Years on the fabled Rough Trade, which will also release their debut full length later this year (September, possibly). Highlights include the churning, chugging “De Bom Bom”, “Lawman”, and their cover of Blawan’s techno slice “Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage”. If you can still find a download of the singles, the b-sides (particularly “Heckle the Frames”, from “Lawman”) are also splendiferous, as are earlier songs like “Busy At Maths” from France 98. Gotta catch ’em all!
Challenging, rewarding. Not often you can say something is overly “unique” these days – this is one of those times. If they’re playing out anywhere near you, do yourself a favor and go see them – footage (courtesy of Youtube) of them playing in-studio for KEXP below for your aural and visual pleasure.
Long ago, there existed a world in which people shared “mix tapes” (look it up on the interwebs, children). A collection of songs, some grouped by a theme, some not. Many would trade these tapes – demos, random mixes, live bootlegs – as a way to both discover and pass on new sounds to others. The production was often somewhat murky – what’s euphemistically called “lo-fi” in current parlance – but there were gems to be mined if one took the time to listen.
Comme Ça, from Domenique Dumont, has the feel of something buried deep on one of these tapes – maybe towards the end of the first side, or the middle of the second, probably uncredited on the cover – that bears repeated rewinding and listening. Furthering this sense, the artist appears a bit of a mystery even to Antinote, the Paris-based label that released these six tracks (though this could certainly be part of the plan), who admit they “don’t know much” about the artist. The sole ‘tweet’ says merely “hi”; the soundcloud page provides little in the way of background, though seems to indicate Latvian origins by reference to a “Riga-Paris express” . It’s fun to have something with a little intrigue, n’est pas?
Whatever the case, the songs themselves are fantastic; wistful, precocious, charming bedroom pop. Spun-sugar light, yet containing so many parts that it begs repeated listens to extract the nectar.
Afro-caribbean influences take center stage, employed in ways similar to everyone from Serge Gainsbourg in his work with Sly and Robbie, on to Damon Albarn both with Blur, Gorillaz, & etc.: the cuíca drum sound in “La Basse et Les Shakers”, the calliope dub rock of “La Bataille de Neige”, the samba rhythm of the title track. Often, these rhythmic impulses are aligned with a nod and wink to 60s lounge vibe, particularly on the title track and dream lounge cut “Le Chateau Corail”, which carries a Dmitri from Paris vibe. Adding to this cheekiness, many of the beats and synthesized sounds appear to be played on a Casio keyboard from the 80s.
Woman? Man? One of each? Yeti? Decide for yourself by checking Soundcloud and Twitter; or, visit the “official story” (tinfoil hat not included) on the Antinote website or Facebook page.
Highlights: “Comme Ça”, “L’Esprit de L’Escalier”, “Le Chateau Corail”.
White Manna, PAN (Cardinal Fuzz (UK); Captcha (US))
A dose of riff-heavy psych candy from White Manna, a five-piece band hailing from Arcata, California.
Arcata is a city in Humboldt County, an area of Northern California known for (based on my own, incomplete understanding – and Wikipedia): dense, lush forests; long, beautiful stretches of coastline; earthquakes; and, um, weed. These natural elements and wide-open vistas (and, um, weed) are all in evidence throughout PAN, the band’s new offering.
PAN’s six tracks soundtrack a space truckin’ joyride through time, veering off the road and over the “Land of the Lost” waterfall into a primordial world filled with the roar of ten-story riffs, looming above a dense fog, while underneath tectonic rumblings roll and buckle. Tracks such as “Evil” and the relentless “Dunes I” churn with the stomp and kick of bands like The Stooges, Hawkwind and Machine Head-era Deep Purple, with a bit of a garage and punk slant and a Sabbath-worthy buzz. Swirling cascades of reverb bump and grind with organ lines that sing praises to the (Jon) Lord; out front, the Danzigian croon of singer David “J” Johnson. Several songs linger past the seven-minute mark, but maintain the same, tensely coiled punch of shorter, faster tracks.
PAN is out now on Cardinal Fuzz (UK) and Captcha Records (US). The digital version on iTunes includes two bonus tracks, a live reworking of Hawkwind’s “Master of the Universe” and “Slow Dust”.
Go, like the band on Facebook and, if you’re fortunate to live close by, check them out June 19 at The Peg House in Leggett, CA or June 20 at the Brick and Mortar Music Hall in San Francsico.
