COSMIQUE - Les Lundis de l'Espace (2014)

It wasn't very long ago I wrote about my rediscovery of the French independent label, Cocktail Pueblo, when I shared Les Princes du Rock. It wasn't the only thing that caught my attention however. Les Lundis de l'Espace came across immediately as a release worthy of some attention, if for nothing but the very neat retro design of the cover art. 

Not surprisingly there's not much online about COSMIQUE save what goggle can translate on on the label's website regarding this album. From which I've pieced together is that the band is a duo and that is Les Lundis de l'Espace (Mondays in Space) this is a concept album, masquerading as a soundtrack to an astronomical television show. How can you not be on board already?

The tracks themselves a quite short, some last only a few seconds, so even with 31 of them the whole playtime is merely 22 minutes. What's heard on these brief "songs" is enthralling. It might be hard to imagine them as a soundtrack to anything that wasn't about space. The absolutely otherworldliness is so powerfully present that should I ever catch a rocket to beyond the sky I would be disappoint not to hear these tonal, ethereal numbers chiming in my ears. It's weird, in the best ways.

To be had here:
COSMIQUE -  Les Lundis de l'Espace

Black Fruit/Factotum SPLIT (2015)

What we have here is a split album, something you might have pieced together from the title of the post. You might not have guessed that they're garage rock bands from Michigan and another from United Kingdom. Nonetheless this is very much the case.

Black Fruit are from Grand Rapids, Michigan, a city on the other side of the state from yours truly and one I fail to understand fully but has produced its fair share of excellent bands. Black Fruit is a particularly awesome example of this. Moreover, they put out the majority of the tracks for the split (7 of 12 songs) allowing for you to soak of all the lo-fi bliss their belting out. Fuzzy guitars, loud and steady drum beats and almost totally incomprehensible singing. The songs are infused with a healthy degree of both surf rock and mild nihilism. It's funny how those blend so well.

Factotum is a British outfit, who while certainly being garage rock are of a different sort. The sound is more grungy and filled out with a psychedelic style. Additionally the singing is more abrasive and akin to post-hardcore garage punk. The songs are intense and rumbling, so while the songs are the minority of the split they haven't any trouble holding up their end of the bargain. Overall the split is indeed an interesting contrast in the varieties of garage rock that are existent, but I would be hesitant to say they show any UK-US rift in the style (this is how the email pitched it to me). Especially because I remember Whirlwind Heat, a Grand Rapids based garage rock band from a bit over ten years back that was more like Factotum than their fellow Grand Rapidians Black Fruit.

Finally, the album is due out physically as a colored vinyl, I believe in March, by Stolen Body Records. So if you liked what you heard and want it on wax, look out for that.

To be had here:
Black Fruit/Factotum SPLIT

Pulco - Innovation In The Trade (2015)

Pulco has touched many soft spots of mine. Firstly, he's from Wales, and like many folks I have a endearment to the underdog, even in a rivalry between nations and cultures, which makes Wales a romantic place in my mind. Secondly, the album art is a simple abstract piece that reminds me fondly of Wassily Kandinsky. And finally the music is bizarre, artsy and utilizes spoken word like a British twee pop band I've greatly admired for years, Death By Chocolate (they were circa 2001, for if you google that name you'll first find some newer outfit I'm unfamiliar with). Basically, this Welshman had a lot going for him right away and he was anything but a let down.

That Pulco's music is technically impressive while being lo-fi and so well-composed for experimental tunes makes sense considering the man behind the project, Ash Cooke, has been an accomplished musician for a bit now. He was a member of the group Derrero, who've got several albums out, have toured some some great bands including a favorite of mine, Super Furry Animals, and even got to sit down with John Peel. However, I am not acquainted with that band, not yet at least, but I can very much vouch for Pulco's Innovation In The Trade. As I referenced earlier the album bears a likeness to the spoken word-laden indie pop I recall from over a decade ago, this is particularly apparent in whimsically enjoyable tracks like "The Blazing Hat Pt.2," "Graham" and "Stan & The Bike" were the 'lyrics' are more of recited poetry or storytelling. On the other hand "A Ferry To Your Own Life," "Prank" and "A Man Shouts" show how incredible of a writer of pop songs Mr. Cooke is capable of being. Or there's ones where it just gets weird such as "Fan Heater" and "Pabell." It's a multifaceted effort that's very coherently woven together. If you want more of this, you're in luck as he's got quite the catalog on to browse through on bandcamp.

To be had here:
Pulco - Innovation In The Trade

Gazer - Fake Bulbs/Phone Commercial (2014)

Gazer are from Cincinnati, Ohio. A city that stands out in my mind for two reasons. Firstly, I went to see the Tallest Man on Earth in Newport, Kentucky in a venue that's built in house of the inventor of the Tommy Gun. Upon drunkenly crossing the pedestrian bridge over the Ohio River from Cincinnati to Newport to find out cigarettes were like $3 was rather epic. Secondly, when crossing the same river in a car as a kid I witness a crashed minivan all wrecked to fuck on the vehicular bridge going south to Nashville and on the way back a week later.  Different minivans, what are the odds? Now I get to add Gazer to these stark experiences.

When done well I can really get into post-hardcore. Gazer does it very well in my book. They're loud, lo-fi and brash sounding. As it should be, no? At least for this variety of intense punk rock, absolutely. The tracks are  mostly short, markedly fast and full of screeching, pounding and hollering vocals drenched in DIY recording fuzz. It is the kind of music to stomp around to, maybe getting a black eye or jammed thumb in the sweaty mosh pit. I'll be standing aside though, as I am already too old for that shit. Yet I'll smell that angst and intensity, enjoying it entirely. Fake Bulbs/Phone Commercial is a double release with each side of the 12" vinyl bearing one of these two EPs. They're on separate pages on bandcamp, but I trust you'll navigate that just fine. 

To be had here:
Fake Bulbs & Phone Commercial

EP Grab Bag vol. 89

As it so happens from time to time the submissions to the blog will fall into an rough category for a period. It's been garage rock, ambient and even noise before. While this time it was a vague theme, but one that I believe has a rather clear through line. Each of these EPs are experimental music, though as different varieties. All weird and all psychedelic in their own way.

To be had here:

▲҈҉   - ▲҈҉   (2015)

This weird wing-ding symbol is something Canadian Sean Travis Ramsay, has titled both this project and EP. He's been on the blog before, under the moniker of Slight Birching. It bears similarity to his album Cultural Envelope, insomuch that it's experimental folk with a decidedly lo-fi, bedroom ambiance. Strikes one as the sort of thing a man tinkers and plays with in lonesome evenings, and regardless of that being the actually case for Mr. Ramsay, he's done a wonderful job at painting a sonic picture of beautifully anxious confusion. Not to be missed, especially not by fans of Cultural Envelope.

Theme Witch - You Are Wrong EP (2014)

Jumping to Portland, Oregon for some more lo-fi experimentation, yet in a vastly different direction. Theme Witch is a hazy, washed out pop act that sounds most like a wildly distorted tape of 80s jangley post-punk reminiscent of the Smiths and Joy Division. Like someone took these bands are a core and layered on warped keys, beats and guitar parts while leaving the original singing somewhat faded and echoey beneath. It's trippy shit, and I found it incredibly catchy too.

Energy 2000 - Mercury​-​Atlas 6 (2014)

In keeping with the experimental trend of this Grab Bag we've got another EP that falls neatly into that catagory and of yet another sort. Richmond, VA's Energy 2000 could be called NASA-wave, as it is psychedelic space rock, bordering on chillwave, overdubbed with crackly dialogue between astronauts and ground control. The songs are more than just far out, pun completely intended, as they're very well crafted. The guitars are twangy, with notes bending around all over the place forming a mesmerizing tapestry. Does something wonderful after a couple of beer following a hard day's work.

Injection for me - Birth/Coma (2014)

Of course we can't have all this experimental music and not have any post-rock. Injection for me is a band I haven't any information on really, but if the links they sent me are to be trusted they may very well be from Russia. However, that doesn't make a difference in the world of spacey instrumental post-rock, for it is all about the music. These two tracks have ambient vocals, like Engery 2000, but a fashion that reveals their post-rock roots. It's very possible fro them to have been influenced by post-rock groups like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, This Will Destroy You and Caspian.

Unqualified Nurse - Let Snarl (2015)

Low fidelity is my mistress. I always come back to her no matter how much I enjoy hearing any other sort of music. Yet I'm aware that at low fidelity's extremes it is certainly an acquired taste, one that I have been testing and indulging since I was a young teenager. No wave, noise rock, garage punk and post-hardcore music isn't ever gonna be pleasing to the masses of music listeners out there. Thankfully it doesn't need to be, we just need some dudes in England with some microphones and guitars to feel like spending some of their precious hours on this Earth creating a bit of pleasurable chaos. Enter Unqualified Nurse, our British guide into this intensely lo-fi wilderness.

Let Snarl is the full-length I've been waiting for from Unqualified Nurse since they sent in the EP Medicine Music, and let's not forget The Weird. The lo-fi recording technique takes center stage is all of these releases, and it's just as unrelenting in here. The vocals sound like if you were listening to a garage band that had all the doors and windows of said garage closed up while singing into an old mic hanging from a rafter. Very awesome and quite deliberate. The chaos is up front, scaring off those that aren't accustomed to the washed out, fuzzed to the Nth degree style. However, given a good listen the influential nugget of popular garage rock or surf songs from decades ago can be heard nestled deep in there. It's all about the love of what guitar-driven rock and an fine appreciation of the natural degeneration of low-budget audio recording. Unqualified Nurse has done a better just than most in capturing this primordial element of lo-fi rock, like a distilled yet cloudy version of what a garage punk fan knows they love about the genre. You know, lo-fi's je ne sais quoi.

To be had here:
Unqualified Nurse - Let Snarl

Space Rock Mountain Podcast 36 - No Direction Home

The gang gets together to talk about Martin Scorsese Bob Dylan flick, No Direction Home. Watch the film here.

Mariscal De Campo - Recordatorio (2014)

When Larry started the Scenes of a City series I hadn't a clue it would become so popular. They've generated it more attention and responses than most anything else we've ever done and for that we're thankful and bashfully proud. Yet in the course of searching around for the music from a particular city sometimes there'll be various other threads that appear which are insufficiently related to the post we'll be writing to be included but are simply begging to be pulled. Mariscal De Campo is a band I found in this backwards route, via stumbling upon the Argentine label Fuego Amigo Discos.

So the whole website is in Spanish, but what can be sussed out despite the language barrier is that Fuego Amigo Discos is an independent label that at least sometimes gives albums away on their site. Recordatorio by Mariscal De Campo is just such an album. Only other thing I could figure out from the site is that this band is from the coastal town of Punta Alta. So everything hereafter is mere conjecture, or in other words business as usual. The simplest way to explain Mariscal De Campo is that they make snythpop. However, this fails to fully elucidate the interesting interplay between dreamy and dancey sounds they've brilliant incorporated. The songs "Dejame" and "Escapada" show off their more new wave-tinged dance rock capabilities excellently, with "Otra Canción" and "Eso Que Ni Pensamos" show more dreamy snyth playing. All wonderful, and there are tunes like "La Comodidad" where all bets are off and it certainly a new wave hit. A live set by this band could be amazing. Surely gonna have to see what else Fuego Amigo Discos has to offer after this.

To be had here:
Mariscal De Campo - Recordatorio

No Crowd Surfing - Pretending I'm Not Here (2014)

I am finding myself listening to submissions late at night. Not sleeping well these days, mostly because I'm fretting over everything and in particular my shitty car. I have been shifting it by jamming my index finger into where the shifter once was and rotating the steering column with my other hand. Basically, things have been far from ideal. But the music keeps coming and so long as I can pay the phone bill I have some little access to the internet to hear it. Tonight a band that sounds incredibly familiar for it being from thousands of miles south of Hamtramck's unplowed streets.

No Crowd Surfing are from Cianorte, Brazil. This isn't where most anyone I know would have guessed first, even excepting the fact that they've never heard of this medium-sized city in the south of Brazil. Furthermore, it isn't just because they sing in English. What and how they're playing was so geographically disconnecting for me and I imagine for most North American listeners. Pretending I'm Not Here is an album that could very easily be passed off as emanating from Grand Rapids, Minneapolis, Hartford or countless other American cities. You'd be wrong though, and I only bring this up as it shows the influence of these Brazilian musicians lies heavily in the genres popular in my own adolescence here in Michigan. These are lyrically driven songs with full to bordering on cacophonous instrumentation that are the result of low fidelity recording techniques, an option made out of necessity as much as anything else. As for those lyrics, they're angsty and charged, you know, like emotional rock so thoroughly was back in the late 90s and right after the turn of the decade. No Crowd Surfing hasn't reinvented the wheel, yet they've proven themselves capable musicians and most admirably holding to an aesthetic they clearly relate to. I'd like to explain that when I was a teenager this music drove me crazy, but as I get older and see it from a more elongated view I can see the charm in it I missed as a confused, sixteen year old fan of Lou Reed and Freddie Mercury.

To be had here:
No Crowd Surfing - Pretending I'm Not Here

Full Crumb - Maelstrom Protocol (2014)

Full Crumb are from the United Kingdom, not sure where exactly, as I wasn't told. Yet through an unknown series of events is being issued on cassette and digitally by the Athens, GA-based label Fall Break Records. However, after listening to Full Crumb's output, I can understand why they'd be eager to release it.

Maelstrom Protocol is a particularly tricky albums to describe. It really is the sort of thing that is best experienced without too much preface and pondered about by the listener for days afterwards during the likely sessions of re-listening. Truly a whole range of genres are applicable to the Maelstrom Protocol, being in near equal measure krautrock, British new wave, psychedelic, experimental pop and shitgaze. Perhaps the only caught-all term that works is art rock, but as we all know that doesn't tell you much about the songs really sounds. Let's put it this way, there's something of Orange Juice or the Fire Engines sort of Scottish late-80s thing, strange audio clips serving as intros, dreamy pop numbers, and an overall feeling perverted reverence throughout. Go on, have a listen.

To be had here:
Full Crumb - Maelstrom Protocol