Mica Levi & Oliver Coates - Remain Calm (2016)

Unsubscribing from junk e-mails has imparted an unnerving quiet.

I believed this would be a step towards freedom, mornings now unburdened by the periodic vibration of incoming mail. But now... now I suspect I've metamorphosed from creature to zombie of habit. Last night, awoken by a familiar glow, I became terrified to find my thumb controlled by movements of a memory. Unlock phone; check email application; turn phone off; open and unlock; check email; turn off... over and over and over. My undead thumb bends only at the hip like a forgotten grandparent who shuffles to the mailbox every afternoon only to find the same vacant shadow. My thumb, now a feedback loop, like an alcoholic that searches the recycling again and again for one drop, a neglected swig of whiskey, only to confirm the emptiness it already knows exists.



A series of empty dawns have emerged. Gone are the days of those quivering little jolts insisting I pause my life to check and delete, check and delete. Newlsetters, updates, notifications, advertisements... all those small reminders of my past. Clothing stores relentlessly reminding me of each approaching season and a hoodie I bought for some autumn, lost several years ago. Gone. Zillow emails that satisfied the curiosities of an armchair voyeur, taking me into homes I'd never afford, around towns I'd never live. Gone. Charities and political organizations I helped once, before I understood my economic situation as anything but dire.

Gone. I've shoo-ed them all away. The tactile buzzes, the audible chirps. No more little red numbers to offer hope of a hello from a long lost friend. No potential for restless declarations from smoldering hearts of past lovers. Those little red numbers could've meant literally anything - a wedding invitation, the birth of a new family member, a class action settlement worth hundreds. But in the end, the numbers always meant the same thing: "this much junk".

I have won the war. And now? Now, I am unburdened. Now my time is uninhibited. Ready to live each day uninterrupted. A new dawn of awesome unpopular potential. Still -  the thumb checks. Just to fill an emptiness. Everything's always empty. Just maybe, tomorrow something. Always maybe tomorrow.

Mica Levi & Oliver Coates - Remain Calm

Amyl and the Sniffers - Big Attraction (2017)

Every morning I wake up disappointed that our president isn't gone yet. Being on the west coast of the US, I feel the east coast has a good 4 hours to greet the sun, roll up it's sleeves, and take out the trash already. I'm sorry, that's an insult to trash. At least trash was, at one point, something we wanted.. something that was useful ... something we chose to own. This president is more like a stepped in pile of shit from someone else's dog, after years of picking up your own dog's shit.

Thank god for this release from Melbourne punk band, Amyl and the Sniffers. It's not too serious, but sexy and dangerous... just what rock music should be. I want nothing more to be in a sweaty club in Melbourne with a bunch of drunk punk Aussies watching this band tear the stage a new asshole.

These songs have some serious chops, played by musicians who have done their homework and gotten the sound down pat. It probably helps having Calum Newton in their lineup, a fucking awesome guitarist from Spacerockmountain favorites Lunatics On Pogosticks. But Calum keeps his guitar chops bottled up here, delivering chunky punk riffage, and offering his keen production skills to showcase the real star of the band: the sneering, bratty bite of Amy Taylor, a truly wonderful performer to lead this bunch of dirty, drunk and mulleted rockers from dewn undah.


Name your price. Not a clunker in the lot.

Sample song:

Bandcamp:
Amyl and the Sniffers - Big Attraction