D.U.D.S - 'IMMEDIATE'

Formats

• RW035 - LP

Details

The latest release from D.U.D.S. is a deepening of the sinister sonic territory they have been exploring, in various forms, since they formed. Bass lines and percussion lope through the undergrowth while jagged guitars pierce the ears. Then there’s the brass section, which works less as a means of driving home a song’s point, than as a warning that whatever comes next is unlikely to be anything you expect. Lyrics are still somewhat hard to make out, emerging from the rhythmic chaos at intervals, as though you were listening to the recording of an Old Testament prophet, preaching from the ruins of the twenty first century. I don’t know what kind of band D.U.D.S. are supposed to be. There are labels you could apply to them, terms like ‘wave’ and ‘punk’ with various prefixes designed to qualify the fact that they don’t really sound like anyone else. Immediate makes that fact all the more obvious and all the more compelling. ___________________________________ Sometimes you catch something unexpected which resets a switch, excites and engages. I caught D.U.D.S. a couple of years ago on a whim, they were visiting Newcastle supporting their debut album. I had never heard them or of them but the moment their perfectly disjointed music hit the room, I was all smiles. Warping brass shapes through the room entwined with guitars played as percussively as they are melodically, the whole sound coalesces into a rolling ball of spiked energy. Their take on punk rock welds the caustic atonality of The Fall to the coiled funk of Liquid Liquid. Both drenched in negative information and loaded with dance floor impact. Lyrically themes explore the human condition a lurching dread and this dichotomy of no-wave funk and the lyrical creep is the hook the grabs me/you/us and forces a regular return. - Bish (Opal Tapes)

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IAN SWEET - 'CRUSH CRUSHER'

Formats

• HAR110 - LP

  098787311013

• HARCD110 - CD

  098787311020

• HARCS110 - MC

  094878731104

Details

In writing Crush Crusher, Medford committed herself to exploring her own issues with self-image, self-respect/worth, and the responsibility she has felt to others. Album opener “Hiding” was one of the first songs she wrote for the record while living in a frigid Brooklyn apartment during a winter break amidst her gruelling tour schedule. In the song, Medford reflects on an interpersonal relationship that fell apart because of an inability to feel supreme comfort in sharing all the pieces of herself with someone. Nevertheless, a hopeful demeanour shines through on “Hiding” and in her writing across the album, with lyrics that embrace life’s hurdles and make them feel a little less scary. Much of Crush Crusher’s songs deal with Medford’s internalized pressure to become a caretaker in many of her close friends’ lives. As a defence mechanism for her own insecurities, Medford projects a sense of invincibility and benevolence to feel more deserving of the love received from others; we hear this on “Holographic Jesus” when she repeats the phrase “the sun built me to shade everybody,” characterizing the sacrifice and responsibility she feels in ways that could easily go unnoticed. “Holographic Jesus” ultimately represents a façade of strength that Medford has clung onto and, in true Taurus fashion, is stubborn to let go of. Musically, Crush Crusher is full of dissonant open chords and abnormal progressions, finding beauty in a level of conflict not seen on Shapeshifter. To help achieve this expansive-but-focused sound, Medford enlisted the help of someone who was just as ambitiously experimental in their approach, producer and engineer Gabe Wax (Deerhunter, The War on Drugs, Soccer Mommy). Medford and Wax set up shop at Rare Book Room studios in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and completed the basic tracking with musicians Simon Hanes on bass and Max Almario on drums. “Coming into a space where some of my biggest inspirations like Bjork, Dirty Projectors, and Deerhunter had all once also recorded, I felt determined to push myself and test every boundary that I may have subconsciously created along the way. Gabe made me feel comfortable with attempting anything,” Medford says. By the end of the recording process, IAN SWEET wound up with an unconventional assortment of songs featuring disparate elements of psych-rock, trip-hop, and shoegaze that together forged a sound uniquely her own.

Tracks

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SIMON FINN - 'PASS THE DISTANCE'

Formats

• ASH103 - LP

  857661008025

Details

New label to FMD!!! Few albums define a genre as succinctly as Simon Finn’s Pass The Distance does for psychedelic folk. Not even landmark recordings by Pearls Before Swine or Skip Spence can stand up to the sheer madness of Finn’s sole LP, originally released in 1970. After moving to London in 1967, Finn busked around town for a couple years before entering Camden’s Chalk Farm Studios, best known for producing a string of reggae hits. Pass The Distance, however, would become more than a solo-acoustic project. Backed by free-improvisation innovators David Toop and Paul Burwell, Finn’s dark, personal songs unravel lysergically over 40 minutes. Toop’s sinewy electric guitar and Burwell’s broad percussive palette lift up Finn’s ardent strumming and snarling vocals, making this one wild ride in catharsis, introspection and raw merriment. As Finn tells journalist Dave Segal in an interview for this vinyl reissue, “The songs were about alienation and loneliness. ‘Jerusalem’ came to me in one shot. I wrote it on mescaline and was playing it over and over and one of my flatmates wrote it down.” Pass The Distance remains a “cult record” in the best sense of the term, possessing a hypnotic beauty all its own.

Tracks

1. Very Close Friend 2. The Courtyard 3. What A Day 4. Fades (Pass The Distance) 5. Jerusalem 6. Where?s Your Master Gone 7. Laughing ?Til Tomorrow 8. Hiawatha 9. Patrice 10. Big White Car

Press

Originally released in 1970 on Mushroom ? Only album from this outsider folk artist ? Featuring David Toop and Paul Burwell ? Original copies go for high collector prices ? File next to Pearls Before Swine?s Balaklava and Skip Spence?s Oar

Audio & Video

MARC BARRECA - 'SHADOW AESTHETICS'

Formats

• PoL032018 - CD

  700261469072

Details

With Shadow Aesthetics, Marc Barreca accomplishes something rare in electronic and ambient musics. The fluid, dynamic changes and movement within pieces; the complexities in time and pitch variation and evolution—typically absent from the mostly homogenous constructs of drone and ambient—all bring previously unavailable depth, shading and emotional charges to a form usually admired for its neutrality. Shadow Aesthetics results from a virtual arsenal of digital and analog sources operating in a complex system of origination, structuring, processing and editing. The result is a moving, articulate and complex work: music that is a profoundly emotive, original, and experimental electronic work that is in many ways the culmination of decades of listening, performing and composing in a form known best for continuous change.The album includes an eight-page booklet and a digital download code for the complete album plus two bonus tracks. Marc Barreca has been creating and performing electronic music since the mid-1970s. His 1980 album, Twilight, reissued on vinyl last year, was one of the earliest releases on PoL. Shadow Aesthetics is his eighth solo album for the label. Recent releases include Aberrant Lens (2017) and three collaborations with K. Leimer. Reissues include work on the acclaimed VOD box set American Cassette Culture, an upcoming Cherry Red compilation of seminal U.S. electronic music and the 1983 cassette, Music Works for Industry, now on vinyl. His work is also included in the collection of The British Library.

Tracks

1. Blank Stare
2. Freedom Of Confusion
3. Clavilux
4. Jazz Age Color Organ
5. Heretic Of Science
6. Bruegel?s View
Bonus Digital Tracks:
7. Waiving My Manifesto
8. An Empty Head

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Audio & Video

BAD SPORTS - 'CONSTANT STIMULATION'

Formats

• ZZZ156 - LP

  881970015610

• ZZZ156CD - CD

  881970015627

Details

Texas trio Bad Sports release their fourth full-length to Dirtnap and with it, push their sound into a more modern sphere of punk. Orville Neeley (guitars / vocals), Daniel Fried (bass / vocals) and Gregory Rutherford (drums) have spent over ten years together and this progression is justified. This time, the production quality is more lean and tense, giving an air that is decidedly frustrated, and more world-weary, but is still the great stripped-down classic-leaning punk band with deep powerpop vs. proto-punk undercurrents. They are not a “retro” band, however—Constant Stimulation is simply a timeless-yetmodern masterpiece. The band’s history with their Texas peers (OBN IIIs, Radioactivity, Wax Museums, VIDEO, etc) has served them well—they’ve honed themselves into being a complicated and calculating rock machine with finesse and more care taken to let Neeley’s words and voice ring out—it’s as close to “singsinging” the band has ever come. The record broils and stews over a response to the modern world and its eroding and addling effects, kicking its lyrics out to be heard clearly. No track exemplifies this better than the title track on which Neeley sings, “I need constant stimulation in my ears and in my eyes or I don’t sleep at night…deprivation chambers only worsen my dreams.” Maybe this more spaciously spare sound is their response to that veritable constant stimulation. Welcome to the modern age. 

Tracks

1. Giving In 2. Don?t Deserve Love 3. All Revved Up To Kill 4. Comes Close 5. Gains And Losses 6. Ode To Power 7. Constant Stimulation 8. Easy Truth 9. Everything We Wanted 10. Cardboard Suits 11. Distant Life CD-only bonus tracks (Living With Secrets 12-inch) 12. Don?t Get You Hopes Up 13. Living With Secrets 14. Done To Death 15. Anymore 16. Pacify My Love 17. Where Are You? 18. Why Should I Care?

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CARBONAS - 'YOUR MORAL SUPERIORS: SINGLES & RARITIES'

Formats

• 154GONE - 2xLPs

  647603402611

• 154GONECD - CD

  647603402628

Details

Fast, tight, and irresistibly tuneful, Atlanta’s Carbonas took America by storm in the mid-2000s with a slew of catchy singles and hit-laden albums. The group dragged into its orbit some of the best and brightest of Atlanta’s burgeoning punk scene, launching careers and developing a rabid fan following (and inspiring at least five tattoos). At the height of their popularity, they disbanded, leaving the masses clamoring for more material. As songwriters, the band were incredibly prolific, gradually developing from a lo-fi treble blast (à la Rip-Off Records) into a finely tuned Euro-punk steamroller, and drummer / producer Dave Rahn was there to record all of it. For the past decade, however, many of these tracks languished on four-track cassettes, hard drives, and outof-print singles and compilations. Finally, as they enter their twilight years and reflect on their legacy in the face of impending death, the Carbonas have decided to give these tracks to the world. Ryan Bell (Scavenger Of Death Records) was tasked with raiding the archives and tracking down tapes and files, as well as sequencing and mixing audio, wrangling posters, flyers and liner notes and cover layout. Goner Records is proud to present this collection of all the hits and misses from Atlanta’s finest. 

Tracks

1. Blackout (Waiting To Happen) 2. (Your Love Is) Inside Out 3. Nostalgia Buff 4. Satisfy Me 5. Stoned To Death 6. Frothing At The Mouth 7. Sick Satisfaction 8. Walking Out On Love 9. Don?t Hide Your Hate 10. I?m A Stray 11. Don?t Let On 12. Push Me 13. Butcher 14. Ripped Red Dress 15. Love And Kisses 16. Move 17. Iron Dream 18. Day Turns Into Night 19. On The Verge 20. Witching Hour 21. She?s A Heater 22. Panzram 23. Uneasy Alliance 24. One Last Time 25. Detector 26. Look Around (I Was So Upset) 27. Automatic 28. Who Needs You 29. Forget Me Baby 30. She?s A Headache 31. Jaguar Ride 32. I?m Empty 33. Find You Out 34. Clear My Head 35. Sad And Crazy For A Long Time 36. Lost Cause 37. Nineteen

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Collection of mid-2000s Atlanta garage punk legends. hits and rarities

Audio & Video

ALASTOR - 'SLAVE TO THE GRAVE'

Formats

• EZRDR097CD - CD

  603111731629

• EZRDR097 - 2xLPs

  603111731612

Details

*First pressing COLORED VINYL* Alastor hearken to the days when heavy rock was the music of the rebel, the occult adherent and lurker in the shadows, not hipster bros. Theirs is the doom sound for those who discovered it on the edge of town, in the cold rain, perhaps, as an escape from the squares who’ll never understand. Alastor is heavy doom rock for the wicked and depraved. Drenched in heavy, distorted darkness and steeped in occult horror that will make your skin crawl and ears cry sweet tears of blood, Slave To The Grave pulls no punches in the Swedish band’s unabashedly bleak themes. "It’s an album that circles around the concept of death,” explains lead guitarist Lucy Ferian. “It’s about death in both its spiritual and personal meaning — how death is a part of our everyday life. How it affects our thoughts and actions. How some of us spend our entire life in fear of death, while some seek it. But no matter how you live your life and no matter what you achieve here on this earth. You are still just a slave to the grave." Alastor formed under a bad moon in 2016, consisting of Dharma Gheddon (vocals, bass, acoustic guitar and organ), Lucy Ferian on lead & acoustic guitar and organ, Terry Fying on guitar and Levi Athan on drums. Yes, those are their given birth names, why do you ask? The quartet released its epic 3-song debut album Black Magic in early 2017 via Twin Earth Records, followed by the 2-track “Blood On Satan’s Claw” EP on Halloween the same year. Joining forces with RidingEasy Records in 2018, Alastor hunkered down to summon the 7-track hateful gospel Slave To The Grave with engineer Magnus Sörensen. The album opens with the dramatic spoken intro “I döden är vi alla lika” (In death we are all equal) backed by rolling thunder and a clanging church bell to set the stage for the rumbling dirge “Your Lives Are Worthless.” Forlorn vocals and drop-tuned guitars seep like murky syrup as the song slowly morphs through varying riffs across the nearly 10-minute song as it builds to an epic crescendo of squealing guitar notes and pummeling half-tempo drums. “Drawn To The Abyss” is a swinging anthem punctuated by haunting backing vocals and scraping wah-wah guitar sounds leading into a powerful double-time outro. “N.W. 588” is the hook-laden melodic centerpiece sounding like an apparent nod to Technical Ecstasy leading into the flamenco-themed acoustic ballad “Gone.” The anthemic album title track rings out with pliant lead guitar notes countering the dark lyrics and behemoth, propulsive rhythms that can only foreshadow the heft of 17-minute album closer “Spider of My Love” which brings the album to a fittingly massive and funereal close. Perfect. Slave To The Grave will be available on LP, CD and download on Halloween, October 31st, 2018 via RidingEasy Records. Alastor hearken to the days when heavy rock was the music of the rebel, the occult adherent and lurker in the shadows, not hipster bros. Theirs is the doom sound for those who discovered it on the edge of town, in the cold rain, perhaps, as an escape from the squares who’ll never understand.

Tracks

1. I d?den ?r vi alla lika
2 Your Lives Are Worthless
3. Drawn To The Abyss
4. N.W 588
5. Gone
6. Slave To The Grave
7. The Spider of My Love

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Audio & Video

VARIOUS - 'BROWN ACID: THE SEVENTH TRIP'

Formats

• EZRDR096 - LP

  603111730110

• EZRDR096CD - CD

  603111730127

Details

Everybody’s favorite source for the hard stuff is back in business, with ten more lethal doses of rare hard rock, heavy psych and proto-metal! Hard to believe we’re eight Trips in and we haven’t lost any steam since the get-go. As usual, we’re laying the heaviness on you in the most legit way possible. These obscure tracks have all been licensed, the bands have been paid, and the sources are all analog. The quality of tracks seems increase along with the number of Trips and this cohesive collection comes outta the gate with both guns blazing! Pegasus recorded one single in Baltimore in 1972 and they made it count. “The Sorcerer” is a throbbing ripper that prior to this was basically unknown. However, it doesn’t seem too far fetched to speculate that Black Flag lifted the riff for “No Values” from this track eight years later. Unlikely, but possible, especially considering how big a Black Sabbath fan Greg Ginn is. Pegasus was lauded back in the day for “how much they delivered that Black Sabbath feel.” You may read the track title for the Nobody’s Children 45 and start thinking, OH NO, the guys behind Brown Acid have given up on bad trips. Fret not, “Good Times” was originally written as a joke, but when Ron Chapman of the Sump’N Else TV show heard it he passed it along to the folks behind GPC records and they quickly pressed 100 copies. Unfortunately, the evening it was slated to be played on the local Dallas radio station KLIF, Robert Kennedy was murdered and premier was pre-empted by a Classical music tribute to him. The song has since been bootlegged numerous times and even covered by the Butthole Surfers, but this is the first time it’s been fully licensed. Youngstown, Ohio is the most commonly referred to city of the entire Brown Acid series. This town of just under 150,000 people may’ve had the highest (literally and figuratively) per capita output of heavy 45s. Blue Amber recorded this in 1971 at Gary Rhamy’s analog Mecca, Peppermint Recording Studios. This two-riff boneheaded banger sounds like a caveman protest song with an extraordinary amount of delay on the vocals. No wonder this 45 fetches three-figures on the rare occasion it comes up for sale. Batting clean-up, we have Negative Space, the only LP sourced track on this album. This crunchy jam comes off the band’s 1970 record entitled Hard, Heavy, Mean, & Evil. At over six and a half minutes, “The Calm After the Storm” is the longest track included on this volume, but it never gets dull. Fun fact: before changing the name to Negative Space, Rob Russen called his band Snow and released the “Sunflower” 45 in 1969 — you might recall that groover from the First Trip. We generally stick with American artists for this series, but every now and again something foreign grabs us and shakes us to the core. One example is this Swedish 45 by Zane. These crazy Swedes did one incredibly damaged (hence the title) record on the MM label in 1976. These proto-punkers relied heavily on synth for this tune and mixed the drums so obnoxiously loud, you might think the kit is in the room with you. This is a weird one that somehow sounds like Zolar X covering Wicked Lady. Brown Acid material all the way! B must be short for Bangers, ‘cuz this Side is full of ‘em! The flip of this Trip begins with a virtually unknown Oklahoma record from 1973. Blizzard was Rod McClure’s high school band, but you couldn’t possibly guess that teenagers recorded this heavy slab on the Token (should’ve been Toking) label. It’s one of the best we’ve comped and it sounds like a hypothetical MC5/Hendrix collaboration.The “Under the Ice” level drum fills will knock your socks off if the heavy shred doesn’t first. OOOOk-lahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain and apparently where the fuzz goes seepin’ in your brain! Third World is the second Okie inclusion on this Trip and we couldn’t be more stOOOOOked to be sharing this very obscure single with y’all. If the heavily distorted two-note riff doesn’t grab ya, the apocalyptic Grand Funk vibes will. Once they get their mitts on ya, Third World will take you back to 1971 and leave ya there. Can we hitch a ride too? Ever heard of Virginia, Minnesota? We hadn't either until we got in touch with Calvin Haluptzok and got the back story on his band Sweet Wine. This bitchin' one-off 45 must've melted the snow off the roofs of the households brave enough to play it when it came out in 1970 and it's still red hot nearly 50 years later. This vino may be sugary, but it packs an incendiary punch! Sadly, Calvin passed before we could get his music re-released, but it was nice to have reached him before it was too late. The Sweet Wine legacy lives on thanks to the Brown Acid archivists. C.T. Pilferhogg wins the award for most puzzling band name in our series. What’s not puzzling is how righteous both sides of their self-released 1973 single are! Featured here is the A-side “You Haul” which is one of the best examples of a poor man’s Deep Heep (Deep Purple meets Uriah Heep) we’ve ever heard and the demonic Echoplex-laden laughs mixed into this track are out of control. The band was touted as “Southwest Virginia’s Finest Boogie Band”, but don’t let that fool ya. They could bang heads with the best of ‘em. The closer on the Seventh Trip is one we hold very near and dear. Not only is this record the one that’s taken us the longest to secure the rights to, it’s also one of the very best examples of heavy psych you’ll ever hear. The track rings your bell (literally) straight out of the gate and the dank psychedelic vibes kick in immediately. “The Darkness” was recorded in a basement studio in Kansas City in 1969 when the lead guitarist was only 16. The band was from a rural Missouri town, played only one impromptu gig in Clinton, and pressed only 125 copies of this, their only single. It should come as no surprise that it sells for hundreds of dollars when it’s offered. That’s a small price to pay for such greatness

Tracks

1. Pegasus - The Sorcerer
Baltimore, Maryland
Self-released
1972

2. Nobody's Children - Good Times
Dallas, Texas
GPC Records
1967

3. Blue Amber - We Got Love
Flush Records
Youngstown, Ohio
1971

4. Negative Space - The Calm After the Storm
Castle Records
Camden, New Jersey
1970

5. Zane - Damage
MM Records
Malm?, Sweden
1976

6. Blizzard - Peace of Mind
Token Music
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
1973

7. Third World - End of Time
McAlester, Oklahoma
Rocktron Records
1971

8. Sweet Wine - Things You Told Me
Arcaide Records
Virginia, Minnesota
1970

9. C.T. Pilferhogg - You Haul
Norton, Virginia
Self-released
1973

10. Summit - The Darkness
Clinton, Missouri
North Room Records
1969

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Audio & Video

TY SEGALL - 'FUDGE SANDWICH'

Formats

• ITR326CD - CD

  759718532623

• ITR326 - LP

  759718532616

Details

Take a tour through Ty Segall’s musical psyche with his new solo album, Fudge Sandwich, a collection of Segall’s take on eleven songs that were originally done by other people. These aren’t just cover versions. Cover versions happen at weddings and high school band battles. The songs here are what happens when someone loves a song so much, they need to get inside it and let it propagate and transform into what it would have been if they had actually written it. Equal parts reverence and reimagination, this album shows Segall inhabiting the world of a song’s intent, filtering it through the muse that drove this year’s exceptional Freedom’s Goblin. Cluttered, passionate and inspired, the songs are barely recognizable, irresistible and by album’s end, present a cohesive collection that stands proudly alongside the best of Segall’s considerable output.

Tracks

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Covers album includes songs by War, The Spencer Davis Group, John Lennon, Funkadelic, The Dils, Neil Young, Gong, Amon Duul, Rudimentary Peni, The Grateful Dead, and Sparks

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