Tag: 2022

TRACK | Mižerija – Izolacija

5/5 golden merles

Mižerija’s “Izolacija” is solid Croatian post-punk that responds with a sort of melodic revelry to the grand terror and trepidation of existence. Particularly, it is concerned with isolation, the literal/physical and myriad metaphorical forms. And the track acts as its own antidote, a celebration around form and a type of commiseration that brings the outsiders together.

The swords, ploughshares, and spears have all been hammered into hooks here. Another strong counter melody even reinforces perpetually from underneath amongst a great peripheral detailing of yelps and backing screams. This is filed under the Tom Waits quote about liking “beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.”

Speaking only from the rough google translated lyric and the perceived style and emotion, it reminds me of an excellent line from the newly elected vice president of Colombia, Francia Márquez, “We are going to move forward from resistance to power until dignity becomes something our country is accustomed to.”

The cost is arbitrary, pay what you want, as determined by your gut biome and an abiding sense of shame. Or, immortalized in wax physical form, there’s black and blue vinyl out on Doomtown Records.

TRACK | Mo Troper – I Fall Into Her Arms

5/5 golden merles

Mo Troper is returned with another fully fledged set of lo-fi power pop aches. The warp is strong and the warble can be counted on with lead single “I Fall Into Her Arms.” It plumbs the murky depths of the duality of love, wherein the dichotomy of finding true acceptance is considered: now i’m not afraid to die / now i wanna stay alive.

Flame and fuzz provide the context. Timelessly, the plasticine vocal core glides above the static and soft room ambiance, imparting to me, subjectively, as a different human, a feeling of ambivalence despite the explicit text affixed above. The track delivers on capturing that particular sort of hopefulness and queasiness, the kind that comes from ever really considering anything at length, weighing the opportunity costs of the leap, and committing to the bit of existence. But also ultimately coming down on the side of the earnest and heartfelt as the only proper guide amidst the chaos and malaise.

The full document drops into our laps on the 2nd day of September and Violet/Violet swirl versions of the vinyl exist with some fun perks on the Lame-O Records storefront.

TRACK | fizzface – blinking shivering

5/5 golden merles

Intricate Licorice is eminent experimental noise and folk rock from New Zealand. It is also a guide on how to properly synthesize influence through the prism of a personal vision that can still be accessed and appreciated by outside observers. Maybe that’s just a definition of art. But look: some finely wrought phrases planted in murk-laden hooks, and the ambiance and field to capture the greater multidimensional representation of the arbitrarily defined moment.

That amounts to some superb storytelling. There is invention and quality when the artifice of noise cuts prior to the lyric and the line completes in its isolation: my breath is frail / my hands are shaking / a response to what the wind has taken.

Most of magic is misdirection, how to position the observer and pacing. There is great value in knowing what to cut and leaving the next track to begin with a sigh at the outset of the take. Good work and unique voices are exciting and allow for reassessing the fundamentals which are regularly lost sight of for one reason or another. If you are estranged by the strangeness, it’s all there, the heart and pathos, half a meter underneath and more. 5 golden merles in praise of burnt potions, their efficacy, and addendums applied to horizons.

TRACK | FIVE BUCKS – dunno

5/5 golden merles

Egg punk / devocore excellence in its nascent form from Italy, “dunno” leads off a ravenous set of bedroom demos. They are refined well beyond the point of standard demo production, perfectly patina’d in the phaser and verb. Fangs lifted from the nightstand and affixed, it’s come early this year: a very happy underwater Halloween to all who celebrate.

A top tier example of this beaming, radiant golden era of home recordings, producing much in the way of admirable reinterpretations of what constitutes wonder through the prism of shared influence. Things are getting weirder and better, as far as I know. And all while honing the human heart and core of the thing.

A great set and it has received the seal of approval from two global champs in the cause of promoting the intricate and warped: tapes from Painters Tapes (Detroit/US) and Syf Records (Poland) for the EU buyers.

TRACK | EEL MEN – Intro / Ode To Mr Hudson

5/5 golden merles

Garage rock goods from London, EEL MEN’s “Intro / Ode To Mr Hudson” is the very best track about a stolen credit card you’ll hear this week. The guitars radiate stunning, excess tones and the drums sculpt the structure. Everything metered and scaling, solidly worked into a nice, smiting tune.

The narrative scope and melodic shifts are perfected for the genre, it seems clearly made by folks living and breathing the medium. Thriving in the carport habitat, it’s clear across the altogether effective set and the record a joy to sift through. £3 for the digital files or £5 tapes out through London’s Just Step Sideways Records.

TRACK | THEE KHAI AEHM – Tribok Travelling

5/5 golden merles

“Tribok Travelling” is full of cold conviction warmed over with fuzz and camp fire. If you’d like a little more structural abstraction and bit more consistency of theme from your sludgy garage punk, with equal parts murky and mighty, this is a hell of a good shout.

The full album arrives August 13th and it is undoubtedly a fine soundtrack for a dungeon crawler or D&D session. But it should not be limited through exile strictly to these domains as it is also a rich metaphor for the exhaustive oppressions and daunting quests of your own life. Good news.

Tapes are up for €5, I don’t know about the shipping from Karlsruhe, or who you are or where you live, so click the button to find out for yourself.

TRACK | Mesh – Ur Dead

5/5 golden merles

Art punk and garage rock from Philadelphia, pretty great and the amorphous sound of coddling a curse as it’s brought to fruition. Or a few of them. “Ur Dead” is in good company, a super strong set of clank and strum; vocals are traded, guitar tones are produced to an insultingly good state, a film of collateral detailing enveloping the fundamentals.

The track is about the days burnt up within the relative niche of ones life, leaning into the decline, time whiling toward an untimely and self-contained exit. But it’s all for the best, more or less, to the extent that any of it matters. Lots of good humor and shake, reminding a bit and fondly of The Rangoons and Scott and Charlene’s Wedding, if you’ve found comfort in their ilk.

For the price of $5 USD (or more) for digital or tapes from Chicago’s Born Yesterday Records.

TRACK | BRAK – Smashed Tape

5/5 golden merles

More lo-fi noise punk from Berlin which seems to clearly be making an era of it, “Smashed Tape” is another corroborating witness to that moment. With feedback as the fuse, frenzied and full of an apportioned insolence, it is the refreshing kind of well-tempered visceral filth that comes arranged in sequences and accompanied by drums.

The track offers a guilty plea as a celebration, the confessed breaking as deliverance. It is a modern post-punk, no-wave, noise rock assemblage, and has the texture of few ounces of name-brand bottled miasma. It falls under the category of those few precious things that as we become inured we also become enamored. We’ll be looking forward to hearing the rest of the EP when it surfaces. There’s a bonus track on the 7 euro tape, out from adagio830 August 13th.

TRACK | Wombo – Below The House

5/5 golden merles

Wombo’s Fairy Rust is one of my most anticipated records for awhile and the “Below the House” single is the well chosen/ideal entry. The staccato conversational admissions form the crux of the thing with the bass riff bubbling beneath, absorbing all the terrestrial elements; a nonabrasive and brightly melted solo closes the sequence, outsized, life-like.

From the start you feel a cache is built up with reserves of the flitting but determined melodic phrases, the simple accumulating into gentle grandiosity through the appropriate sequential consequences. Lots of unknowable but familiar components, plainly cryptic, recognizably indecipherable and the like.

Wombo are on tour and the vinyl’s out on Brooklyn’s Fire Talk Records, black or red for a buck more. It’s good sound to hear.

TRACK | GLAAS – Concrete Coffin

5/5 golden merles

Berlin punk rockers GLAAS have released their album Qualm, and this is the formidable lead single “Concrete Coffin.” Kinetic and harshly configured hardcore elements emerge derived in collaboration with members from Clock Of Time, Exit Group, Cage Kicker, Idiota Civlizzatto, Lacquer, among others.

It’s has that fraying and bashing you’d want if you could tolerate a little chaos to reshuffle the deck. The vocal implores from inside the metered mire, considered and class. There are a few brutalist synths fountains populating the general state of ruin. It is this kind of realized honing of dread that we recognize our collective discontent, see it embodied.

That’s a good and worthwhile endeavor. The vinyl is out from London’s Static Shock Records, clear or black, however you paint your windows. Fun, bleak rock.