LAB COAST "Editioned Houses" C26 (Night People)RYAN GARBES "1965" C16 (Night People)

You know, Night-People has turned into quite an interesting pop label over the last few years.  The best music they've released of late has focused on artists who are either breaking new ground in songwriting/production (Blanche Blanche Blanche, Son of Salami and The Happy Jawbone Family Band - whose tape is forthcoming) or are simply just making really catchy music for our day and age.  This new tape by Lab Coast might fit more into the second category, but I had a hell of a good time listening to it.  They're a band from Canada that makes really catchy, only slightly weird, pop. Definitely check them out if you're into "feeling good."  The B side is a complete departure and goes of into rambling psych jamming. That part feels more like and afterthought, but will probably appeal to some folks more than others.

We also have a nice little EP from Wet Hair member Ryan Garbes, whose current music is going in a decidedly more pop direction, a la Tracey Trance. Lots of warm echo and guitar glissandos over autumnal campfire strumming. Super short tape, so if you want more, than please check out his LP on Hello Sunshine, which is in a similar vein.  Ryan did the artwork himself and it's printed really nicely.  Order the cassette direct from the label here.

TRASH DOG “Garbage Eater” (Virus)

Hideous new Iowa City “mongrol core” project from Jeff Witscher, Daren Ho, and Ryan Garbage that sounds like the logical next step in Jeff’s vision/masterplan of playing in an actual hardcore band that gets babes after their shows rather than just scum crew alley loitering. Of course, it’s not a total departure or anything, the songs are still piles of deafening filth but in TD everybody actually bothers playing their instrument (instead of just kicking it against the concrete in a frenzy of hate, Deep Jew-style). “Garbage Eater” has a whole lot of recognizable riffs with legitimate chords, real drum beats, vocals with lyrics (rather than just Alex’s vile primal screaming). Being a Witscher production, it’s still recorded like complete shit with feedback bleeding out of every sweaty pore, but where DJ were so violently punk they broke through the wall into harsh noise, Trash Dog is more of a middle ground rager’s aesthetic. Basically it’s a gross punk band playing gross punk songs with titles like “Punks and Cops” and “Pig Leash.” It’s only a C12 so it’s over pretty quick, but the J-card has plenty of hilarious Witscher slogans like “dreaming of far away/swamps with pizza and/candy” and “dedicated to deviant scrum.” Totally worth grabbing, and there’ll be more from this posse soon I’m sure.

RYAN GARBES - "Endless Bummer" (Night People)

Wow. Really beautiful debut curveball from Raccoo-oo-oon’s drummer. The A side sounds exactly like a Mindflayer cover, which I mean as a compliment. Garbled noise chaos puked all over fierce free percussion attacks, recorded really raw so the speakers buckle under the audio assault. Then a baffling acoustic slide guitar overdub bleeds in and fingerpicks around while the drum kit gets hyperactively brutalized in the background. The B track continues with the rambling acoustic guitar weirdness, but the percussion here is sparser, and harsher. Slowly everything frays into a brambly briar patch of spiky noise and muffled metal. I don’t quite get what Garbes is hoping this sounds like, but whatever fucked psych-improv-hybrid this is, I think it rules. Another radical question mark from the Night People camp.