SCOTDRAKULA “Burner + Break Up EP” (Fleeting Youth Records)

It seems like the #1 export from Australia to the US these days is garage rock. ScotDrakula are a three piece band from the land down under and represent the gentler side of that sound. They’ve picked up some steam late last year and now have a Facebook page that has over 2000 “likes” and a song review from Pitchfork to show for it. That being said, don’t write them off as a buzz band until after you’ve given them a chance. The tape includes their album “Burner” on the A side and their 2 song ep “Break Up” on side B. When it all comes down to it, internet bullshit aside, songs like “CrazyGoNuts” and “Dynopsykism” prove they deserve what attention they’ve gotten and they are due to get much more.

Stream + Buy: https://fleetingyouthrecords.bandcamp.com/album/burner-break-me-up-ep

-- Roy Blumenfeld

LACK “Perhorresces” (More Records)

The air is filtered; it is crisp. Welcome to the wine room. We can call it that, at least, when referring to its temperature, its climate control. In it is a Chihuly installation of a cassette, a sculpture of fine china, crystal and glass. Have you ever seen the grey spinning plate trick quiver, right before the earthquake, on the variety show, where every piece of hardware makes the same mating call, like amnesiac mockingbirds, on a grey stage?

The acts before this one did grey spinning plate tricks as well. However, this one moans. Curious and aroused, we put our ear to the wall, closer to the fuck. We put our eye to the keyhole, and see blurry figures behind the netting, behind icicles of fine china, crystal and glass. Another moan; the grotto's echo--a reflection of the tings. A hotbed, soft enough to cushion the fall, hot enough to smelt. A blue crystal fryer.

A lamb sings to the Moon. If we turn away from the keyhole, and look through the window, we will see the Moon, with slivers of eternity and black cut out around it. We will bounce around, off the fine china, crystal and glass, and fall back onto the blue bed, our own moan captured in the grotto, for the next Tom to seek.

http://morerecords.org

http://lmgrovllum.org/lack.html

-- Rick Weaver

NATE SCHEIBLE “Rhetoric” C24 (Self-Released)

I’m thoroughly convinced that this could be the birth of a new genre. “Timbre Collection” doesn’t have a good enough ring. Not “zippy” enough, I suppose. Let the label evolve naturally, I don’t care, but I want more of this! Brilliantly patchworked sound collages seamlessly grab your brain’s timid hand and lead it through electro-acoustic drones, somehownotharshfeedback, tapewarped non-western vocalists riffing, classical tones… all the while, layers above or below, cathedral choirs reverb, wind has its way with unshielded microphones, saccharine TV commercial-style jingles cut & paste themselves in & out of unexpected places…the list goes on and on, from dulcet waltzes being interrupted by the kool-aide man blasting KMFDM(ish) synth chords to soupy arena-rock anthems bombarded by tsunamis of static. The interplay is an enriching novelty few know of, and I feel damn lucky to have heard this. So truly brilliant. I want more… Facebook says my first serious girlfriend from 15 years back who still lives in Ohio knows this guy. I’m wondering what role I might have to conspire to in order to see more of these explorations made public…

https://natescheible.bandcamp.com/releases

- - Jacob An Kittenplan

BRAEYDEN JAE “Turnings” (Inner Islands)

Being overwhelmed by this guitar ambience right now, strums, hiss, and crackle of “ons” leading off this remarkable tape, knowing that “loved” kind of has a folk bent to it, even shoegaze, and the recording technique is so lovingly applied because that the layer of grit just lends a wonderful sense of nostalgia to it, and I guess I can’t write about each individual song (although I really want to because really, how do you get such consistently gorgeous tone?), so I’ll skip over a couple and hit “lifting again” because the guitar is so clean and delayed but still hissy (it’s a heartbreaker, kids!), and the tape closes with a song called freaking “distance,” and it actually sounds like distance, like reminiscing and longing and wistfulness and synonyms for that, and I’m absolutely lost in it, and oh, the tape’s over, ha, look at this I did a whole review as a run-on sentence (sorry everybody, see if you can follow it, but if you can’t, tough!), but the moral is: buy this tape – oh wait, it’s sold out; I guess you have to buy the mp3s, and when you do, thank me for turning you on to this heavenly stuff, because ohmygodbraeydenjae’ssogood (I couldn’t even type spaces in between letters, I’ve melted!).

http://innerislands.com/

http://innerislands.bandcamp.com/album/turnings

--Ryan Masteller

SOUTHWEST CIRCULAR “Southwest Circular” c44 (Sun Hypnotic)

Can meets Soft Machine? Try Steve meets Rick at Guitar Center after eating a bunch of peyote. Maybe it’ll make sense then. Maybe this psychedelic jam trio will sell me my next pack of Ernie Ball Power Slinky 2200 custom gauge nickel wound guitar strings. Maybe if I fed em a brick of weed instead of all that peyote they’d turn into the Wailers. Or maybe just the godforsaken Grateful Dead. Maybe I just don’t give a shit.

http://sunhypnotic.com/

http://southwestcircular.com/

--Ryan Masteller

JOHN THILL “Gospel of the Carwash” (Kerchow!)

I put this on after reviewing two electronic/ ambient/ dark wave kinda tapes, so hearing a human voice and wooden guitar was a real salve.  Turns out I actually like this dude’s songs, too. Moody, emotive, slow and direct, with a restraint and tasteful edginess that I can only imagine took a long time to dial in. 

And, indeed, Mr. Thill has made many, many releases and plays a ton in California. By the sound of this record and my cursory research on his persona, he is a seasoned scene guy who is part of the very fabric of his musical context and plays a ton of shows and has been in a bunch of bands. The music is pretty personal so you do get a sense of getting to know the person who made it through listening. 

At times difficult to hold my focus, the record scored few originality points, but remarkable in its skillful composure and purposefulness. Put me at ease, really tasteful and carefully crafted, and you know what? My opinion is worth little here. This guy probably has been, and will be, writing and recording and playing forever, no matter what anybody has to say about it. He’s churning it out, chasing the hits, and doing the damn thing. 

http://johnthill.tumblr.com/

https://kerchowrecords.bandcamp.com/album/gospel-of-the-carwash

-- Liv Carrow

OVERSCAN “Conscious” C37 (Constellation Tatsu)

I wish I were more finely attuned at deducing the quality and caliber of a musical project’s output via assessing their nom du guerre. Fun fact: there are simply far too many great recording artists out there with unassuming (read: terrible) names! Here, I just couldn’t get behind the name “OverScan” to further investigate the artist. It just took me waaaaay to much time to actually think about those compounded terms and their relationship with my own personal narrative. There was nothing catchy or quirky or witty to me about the name. If this brilliant artist weren’t part of Constellation Tatsu’s spring batch, paired with Sarah Holyfuckingshitsofuckingawesome Davachi, I’m fairly certain all my spring break naps and painting sessions would have been devoid of these sweet swells of dark/cosmic bliss forever,…and that’d be a crime far worse than savvy self-promotion.

This tape opens with “Old Haunts”, sounding like some wayward angels tuning up in a slimy cave somewhere, their trebly beams of smoky light shimmering outward absentmindedly to play about the glistening, groggy walls and ruffled backs of pissy rodents who have ceased to care less about all celestial jam sessions henceforth. After the midpoint evacuation, a slowed down, near doom-metal bassy black shadow plods along, threatening to lure attention from all them higher, shinier Hz of life…until the end, where it decides to shave a few layers off itsownself (the doom-metal bassy black shadow) and join them Hz in their higher ranks of unholy matrimony.

Track two, “the Next Morning”, could be a candid Stars-of-the-Lid-meets-new-age-tribute-band performing; not at a singular wake, but for an entire constellation of cemeteries, for a hundred years. Straight. The feeling is paceless; a deconstruction of repetition, as if saying the same thing over and over and over again would only mean the first sentiment; double plus sad synths wash upon the shores of sorrow or something…but the kicker is the young, devil-may-care field recordings patiently washing in and out, knowing no grievances with death, but simply kicking up sand and shiny surf within those waves; reminding us of new life summoned from such interplay.

“Terrorvision”, to keep this review more concise, sounds like a summary of what Atreyu might have felt like internally as Artex slowly drowned in quicksand, horse eyes stoically blinking in slow motion…Fuck it. I can’t say enough about how brilliantly composed this collection of sounds is, so, maybe, instead, you ought call my bluff and find out for yourself via the links below. Also, sorry, but the aforementioned SHFSSFAD tape sold out before I could even get a copy, so maybe just copy her songs for free onto a cassette tape yourself and then throw money into an envelope and send it to Canadia when you get a chance.

https://overscan.bandcamp.com/

and/or

http://ctatsu.com/

- - Jacob An Kittenplan