Disco Doom - Mt. Surreal (2022)

Disco Doom is a Zurich-based band who have been active since 2002 when they released their first EP on their own record label, Defer Records. 20 years later, the band released Mt. Surreal - their 5th full length album - also released through their own Swiss record label but released in the US through Exploding In Sound Records out of Jersey City. 

I found out about this band as I've been recently obsessed the band Helvetia. Upon purchasing a Helvetia record on bandcamp, I see Disco Doom being personally recommended by Jason Albertini from Helvetia - who I would learn also played drums on Disco Doom's third full length, Trux Reverb, which was released in the US through The Static Cult Label, a label co-started by Duster's Clay Parton Albertini also played in Duster). 

So I give this album a listen and it's fucking great, as are the other releases by Disco Doom, who seem to only have gotten better with time. Weirdly enough, people don't really talk about this band. I can't find their album stocked in, supposedly wonderful, NJ record stores either despite being peddled by a local label. 

 

The band has an experimental indie rock vibe that's simultaneously minimal and psychedelic. They have moments where they are Built to Spill-esque if all the lushness was stripped away in favor of sparsity. They have toured with Built to Spill so this comparison might be too easy... I'm actually having a hard time finding a comparison. The music's very approachable but also slightly off-kilter and tense. Like Helvetia, they have a solid and steady rhythm section providing the canvas, but everything else ... the guitars, vocals and sonic ornamentation... is dripped and splattered across like paint from a saturated brush. It's not as chaotic as a Jackson Pollock, Disco Doom is more Pat Steir or Cy Twombly. 

Criminally underrated. 

8 songs.

Disco Doom - Mt. Surreal

Slackers - не буду этого помнить (2016)

I am gonna make a stab at posting again. Had the worst insomnia as of late, for over a month really. Making my mind feel like swiss cheese and all I have been able to keep up on is work, and not without feeling like a forgetful dope even then. Almost seems like a different era that I sat down so often to hear knew music. Something I'd like to do again.

So here is a treat, a Russian garage rock band. Assuming from the tags on the bandcamp page these are some young dudes in Moscow making lo-fi songs, perhaps partially out of necessity but also I'd wager they are fans of many awesome garage rockers we all enjoy. In fact this is made explicit when they cover Mr. Airplane Man's "Don't Know Why," something they share with the Brazilian band Hierofante Púrpura (it is very neat to hear the two versions back-to-back, and the Slackers translated it to Russian to boot). The songs are not too heavy, being a bit more garage pop or even college rock sort of fuzzy, weird tunes. Yet most fundamentally they are really great to hear, well composed and the Russian lyrics are smoother and more pleasant that I can say for most any other albums I've posted in that language or collect for myself. Perhaps I imagined this, but the second half of songs seemed more psychedelic as well.

не буду этого помнить, meaning "won't remember it" has been released by Dopefish Family. This is not the first album by the Slackers and is only of dozens the label as put out. I urge you to look more into them each.

To be had here:
Slackers - не буду этого помнить