February 12th, 2010
From the laboratory disaster of Jesse Locke:
Not since the glory days of Thomas Dolby has the world been gifted with such catchy songs about science. Following their debut 7” released via the HoZac Records Hookup Klub, Leth/Death/Methbridge’s Myelin Sheaths are back with another Bunsen-burnt four-song platter, this time stamped with the imprint of Bachelor Records from Austria. AUSTRIA! Big ups, guys. A-side opener “Stackticon” is a scrappy, foaming-at-the-mouth cheerleader chant rocker, clocking in at 1:40 and blown the eff out just like Paul Lawton loves it. “SPF70” is a moody instrumental with tasteful guitar wrangling that almost sounds surf-y in places, which, now that I think about it, the suntan lotion song title is assuredly alluding to. On the flip, the head-bashing repetition of “Laboratory Disaster” and garagey girl groupisms of “Fun With Science” will be familiar to anyone who’s caught these cats live or copped their O.G. self-released CD. For all your fuzzy, skuzzy weirdo rock needs, the Mammoth Cave keeps on churning out the goods.
[Levin's Note: Austria! Wild!!]
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Myelin Sheaths – Stackticon
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Myelin Sheaths – Fun w/ Science
File under: bachelor records // garage // punk // science // weird punk
Categoria!! 7" :: New Canadiana :: alberta | 2 Comments »
January 26th, 2010
From the wish-I-had-a-tough-guy-leather-jacket stylings of Aaron Levin:
Monochromatic Youth, the vanguard of Grand Trine’s Bruised Tongue debut, captured their synthetic sans-wave pedigree at the cusp of their existence, posing the question: where now? Defying all expectations, Grand Trine returned with a barrage of brilliant psychedelic biker-punk transplanted from their phantasmagoric Montreal freak-clinic. Some wastoid time-warp seizure has them sounding like Marty McFly opening for the MC5; face-melting genre-collages, bursting celluloid solos, and decimating saxophone freak-outs; all of it wrapped in layers of frayed leather, busted zippers, and skitched sunglasses. Translation: Sunglasses is not for the faint of heart, mind, spirit, or stomach. All orifices will succumb to their unwholesome mutant hard-rock and I suggest you send all litigations directly to Divorce Records c/o Weird Canada legal services (but make sure to grip the 12″ vinyl (limited to 600 copies) as evidence of their crime). Now, if you don’t mind, I have a large mess near my stereo system to attend to.
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Grand Trine – I Am a Magnet
File under: biker punk // divorce records // punk // punk punk // synth punk // weird punk
Categoria!! 12" :: New Canadiana :: quebec | 1 Comment »
December 22nd, 2009
From the burnt-cadillac remains of Aaron Levin:
Gilded Flowers, The Pink Noise’s first on Montreal’s Campaign for Infinity, is their most realized cabaret of drum-machine bustitude (and probably why the cassette is already on its third printing). Subjecting yourself to every burnt guitar solo and car-wrecked bass-line will give you the succinct impression that The Pink Noise’s front-man slammed a lot of doors, hung out in arcades, and owned a leather jacket at the age of 10. Thus, Gilded Flowers becomes an 80s vision of the future: computer screens as gateways into incomprehensible lo-bit realities, nuclear punk the specter of pop music, alleyways brimming with undiscovered societies, and every kid smoking cigarettes and selling ATM-hacking chips; it’s the slow degeneration of our welfare state into psychedelic-fiction. Freejack punk for a new generation of post-modern wastoids. And it’s all yours for $6.99.
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The Pink Noise – Shy Guy Beach
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The Pink Noise – Toad
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The Pink Noise – Cop Cars
File under: campaign for infinity // lo-fi // weird punk
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: cassette :: quebec | 2 Comments »
December 11th, 2009
From the vaguely fluorescent Aaron Levin:
File-under: cassettes blaring from Master Blaster’s tape-deck while executing a ‘64 impala drive-by. So get your leather chaps, crawl on the hood of your mom’s minivan and run drive. Mess Folk has grown into a fierce teenager fighting against Canada’s industrial wasteland (read: Sydney) and unleashing their terrifying Salmagundi of adjective-garbage in the process. It’s scary, chaotic, brutal, and extremely poppy. Every song an anthem for derelict dogs, chimney sweepers, knitting factory women, P.O.Ws, Trotskyists, and any victim of industrial pillaging. This is Mess Folk is the ugly side of capitalism; the underbelly of mutant-punk; the smegmatic 9mm pocket-protecting vomit gun. It’s nine songs of unfuckwittable pain and anguish; an anthemic veneration for the depressed and lonely; the product of a forgotten city, time, and existence. On the East coast everything is missing. But we have this tape. Twelve songs. Every one of them a winner. I told my friend Jazzowita the other day: “the new Mess Folk cassette is good.” He agreed.
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Mess Folk- You’re Too Pretty (I Wanna Kill You)
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Mess Folk- I Shit Blood
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Mess Folk- Modern Man
File under: amazing // garage // lo-fi // loner // punk // weird punk
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: cassette :: nova scotia | 3 Comments »
November 27th, 2009
From the stressed-graduate-student existence of Joni Sadler:
Eschewing the cheeky sloppiness that often accompanies the ‘weird punk‘ aesthetic, Vancouver’s Nü Sensae lets loose with a visceral attack of noisy jams that are over much too quick for their own good. The eight songs crammed onto this one-sided 12″ are short bursts of frantic drumming, dirty fuzzed-out bass riffs, and Andrea Luki?’s snarled vocals, all packaged together into a wholly ear-blistering listen. When they turn up the rage and Luki? unleashes that scream of hers, she sounds like the single most badass frontwoman of any band, ever. This is punk rock that isn’t afraid to be abrasive; the duo takes pride in the rough edges and lo-fi grit of their songs, and rightfully so. If only more bands had as much guts as these kids do and the sense of recklessness that actually lets them pull it all off without sounding forced. This record leaves little doubt that Nü Sensae means business.
[Levin's Note: Every time I listen to this 12" I feel like I'm getting punched in the face. Very limited pressing. GRIP OR REGRET.]
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Nü Sensae – Raven Tussle
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Nü Sensae – Peter Tripp
File under: 90s // inw // no-wave // weird punk
Categoria!! 12" :: New Canadiana :: british columbia | 3 Comments »
November 9th, 2009
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ManyMental Mistakes
Clean The Bloody Tape!
(ManyMental Records)
Montreal, QC
::web/sounds::
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From the padded-walls of Jesse Locke:
Throughout this short but sick five-song EP, Montreal noise rock trio ManyMental Mistakes seem to find perverse pleasure in eardrum shredding feedback damage, claws on chalkboard No Wave guitar scrapes and other high-pitched squeals. Thankfully (or unthankfully, depending on your tastes) there are moments of respite such as the woozily carsick rave-up “Call Me!†or the standout and longest track “Lame.†The latter finds frontwoman Eva Stone switching between icy monotone mantras and bloodcurdling screams over drummer MJ’s ritualistic tom-tom workouts plus wordless chants and blown-out atmospherics from bassist Vaan, conjuring comparisons to Magik Markers, Confusion Is Sex-era Sonic Youth or a terrifying low-budget remake of The Craft. Impressively oppressive stuff, and the fact that it clocks in at just less than 15 minutes should leave masochistic listeners craving more punishment.
[Levin's Note: Hands down the best named band in Canada.]
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ManyMental Mistakes – Lame
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ManyMental Mistakes – Call Me!
File under: noise // punk // weird punk
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: compact disc :: quebec | No Comments »
October 19th, 2009
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Nü Sensae
Three Dreams
(Critiscum Internationale)
Vancouver, BC
::web/sounds::
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Andrea and Daniel, the two voodoo witchmasters branding themselves Nü Sensae, are one of the most exciting streams of punk-consciousness gestating in the west-coast. Which is why I chose Three Dreams as the soundtrack to the hobo fight in my parking lot. Andrea’s iconic flannel-screaming accentuates the mumblings of a displaced mass left behind by unnatural poverty while Daniel sets the dying-pace of their battle with the relentless destruction of his drum kit. The whole listening experience is soon tainted by a hobo army of undead Matoolians raised from their graves by twin jabs of fried bass and fractured drum patterns; it’s voodoo punk and it reanimated your annoying dead-and-beat uncle who’s back to hit on your sister and borrow some money. The now-undead hobos are done fighting. They’re looking for fresh meat. They hear my Nü Sensae. They are devouring my mind and tasting Nü Sensae’s mutant spell running laps in my subconsciousness. This is past-tense. MMMMOooOOooOoOoOOOoORorRRrRRrrerrreeeeeeeeeEEEee.
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Nü Sensae – Fantum
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Nü Sensae – Worm(s)
File under: punk // weird punk // zombie
Categoria!! 7" :: New Canadiana :: british columbia | 6 Comments »
October 7th, 2009
Weird Canada Headquarters is quickly turning into the set of Honey I Shrunk The Kids: massive piles of musical commodities providing an artifice for the true Levin hiding within this macro-musical world; a handsome (maybe?) boy dancing with a broomstick to anthems pouring out of his Sony Walkmanâ„¢. Which is why my mind is being blown by the driving intensity of Ultrathin’s two-track cassingle on Campaign For Infinity. It’s simplistic, pulverizing, heavy, marinated in every fuck-you-this-is-your-last-chance teenage outburst, oozing in TMNT-approved distortion, and complete with harrowing, effects-drenched vocals. If you’ve ever been grounded for beating up your sibling, had your car broken into, or seen some crusty skid kissing your special friend, Break-in is your midnight jam; Break-in is your yoga mat to nullity; Break-in is your methadone. And when the guitar solo hits you’re re-living the time you decked that happy-hardcore goth-freak that stole your lunch money three years ago. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you’re cool, I’m outta here (to recharge the capacitators).
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Ultrathin – Break-in
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Ultrathin – Hazy Palms
File under: campaign for infinity // lo-fi // psych // punk // weird punk
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: cassette :: quebec | 2 Comments »
October 1st, 2009
Rivaling Fixture Records as best-designed multi-format boutique label in Canada, Hobo Cult really delivered with a small package of incredibly wyld and strange music; Wasted Widow being the first of many reviews to come. Caught in the imaginative triangulation of punk, noise-psych, and experimentalism, Les Douches Romaines captures a unique moment in uncategorized music. No-gaze? Adjective-wave? Who cares? Classification will certainly fail when filing away Wasted Widow’s wailing distorted guitar, granular noise, vocals delayed beyond calculation, and incongruent notions of song structure. It’s droney and psychedelic and noisey and weird and awesome! I had to have a time-out in my apartment and re-calibrate my association with commonly held notions of “genre” and “taste.” Incredible (no hyperbole). And, yes, those drums are looped in Skyscrape My Shapes. Wasted, indeed!
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Wasted Widow – Skyscrape My Shapes
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Wasted Widow – Heroin Quest (w/ Clef Guitarson)
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Wasted Widow – Love Child (w/ Clef Guitarson)
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Wasted Widow – Hospital Memorium (exit)
File under: experimental // hobo cult // no-wave // noise // psych // punk // weird punk
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: compact disc :: quebec | 1 Comment »
September 16th, 2009
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PIG / !Kung San / Scribbler
S/Pl/It
(meager / radiator)
(all over), NS
::web/sounds::
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PIG continues to deliver their strange brew of time-lapse-weird-punk on this interesting document of Nova Scotia’s experimental-everything scene. Splitting the bill with PIG are !Kung San, a somewhere-between pastoral noodling and post-hardcore endeavor from Westville, and Scribbler, Halifax’s gravity-lens for experimental-anything in the Maritimes. Scribbler’s six contributions seem to be cut-ups from an insane live-set full of atonal screaming and guitar shreddery; relentless stuff. And, man, I just can’t get enough of PIG; the three tracks from them were not enough!
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PIG – Fight Boring
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!Kung San – 2:42
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Scribbler – Relish Stove
File under: experimental // noise // punk // weird punk
Categoria!! New Canadiana :: compact disc :: nova scotia | 3 Comments »
