MENEGUAR “Tone Banks 1: Some Downs” (Fuck It Tapes)

Most message-boarders know Meneguar for their tireless touring and tightly honed indie anthems on TMU. But until now there was little to zero publicly available recorded expression of their looser moods. Which is where “Tone Banks” comes in. “Some Downs” is the first volume in what’s supposed to be an ongoing documentation of Meneguar’s practice space explorations and pre-song musical map-making. And it’s pretty fucking good. The A side starts off like a “Strangers In Our House” hit before unraveling into a propulsive instrumental engine room of cyclical guitars and driving drums. The second song, “Fields of Gaffney,” is a sparkling wasteland of chimes and psychic strings that could easily pass for a sweet Shepherds outtake. The whole B side of “Some Downs” is composed of an epicly bizarre jazzy reverb chamber come-down called “House That Home/Over and Over” that sounds nothing like Meneguar or anything else on FIT/Woodsist, and is all the better for it. Comes in a J-card with a typically sick Jeremy Earl collage cover. Probably sold out already, but maybe not.