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

Scenes of a City, Vol. 7: Bern, Switzerland

Someone might be connecting the dots as to which cities I tend to choose, not necessarily remote or obscure cities, those might be too hard to pull off still even with sharing on the internet as it is. However, I tend to like the second city of a nation, not the capitals nor largest by population (my method has nothing to do with Larry's amazing picks). And again my choice today is the second most populated of Switzerland, Bern. Constitutionally Bern is the "federal city" rather than the capital, as the ever-neutral Swiss even avoided proclaiming a capital city. Bern like many places in the Western world has an abundance of hip-hop and dubstep to choose from, but fuck that noise. I don't know shit about that shit at all and furthermore I am hunting for the lo-fi, the eccentric and the folksy at all times. So here's what I genuinely enjoyed digging around for albums from Bern and they reflect the Swiss position as a modern, globalized state and haven't much at all to do with being Swiss in particular as much as European or more broadly Western.

To be had here:

Silver Firs - EP#2 (2014)

This is the band that provoked me to do a post on music from Bern. Silver Firs began with some singles but now have released two EPs, of which this is the latter obviously. Both this and the first EP are fucking wonderfully upbeat, largely instrumental songs that pull from various folk sounds from around the world to create a psychedelic, dream pop soundscape. The music is astounding in its ability to wake me up and get me going. I have really been enjoying listening to them with a beer or two as I try to plow through whatever piece of fiction I have decided to read.

Molotow Brass Orkestar - Asoguet (2013)

A band that plays gypsy and klezmer inspired music that emphasizes the brass instrumentation something that is unique to Bern by any means. Eastern European music has a definite allure to the West that's not to be underestimated. Just of the top of my head groups like A Hawk and a Hacksaw, the Instruments and Black Ox Orkestar pop to mind. Nevertheless it is something that I can't tire of. Molotow Brass Orkestar does a job that is on par with all of the previously mentioned acts, and that isn't anything to scoff at as they're all amazing.

The Tides - The Tides (2011)

The Tides have a most righteous lo-fi rock vibe going on.  The tags on this album are nonsense like "alternative" and "noise" as the former means nothing and the latter is inaccurate for this band. I am not sure what to tag it, but the playing reminds me of these post-grunge bands I've been hearing more of. Sung in a deep, accented English employing light echoes and a few psychedelic techniques it has a foreignness to it this is very subtle yet incredibly charming. If not for exploring what Bern had to offer I'd have surely missed out on this band, and it was have been a tragedy for they're most righteous.

Magnetfisch - Lieder Maximo (2014)

Could I leave out some crazy snyth-driven instrumental music? Not likely, they do speak German in Bern after all, so you gotta suspect they have some snyth-lovers. Truthfully, the band is a trio with a bass, guitar and synthesizers from a veteran band, they state this as their eleventh release. All the experience must be paying off, for they've got the four songs of this EP tightened down into a very cohesive new wave electro-pop display. While I thought all the tracks were good, I really felt my ears perk up when "Lennitz" came out of the loudspeakers. Very stylish, and almost spooky at moments, like a crazy 80s movie.

Viaticum - KOSMIKROCK (2014)

Viaticum have blended a sonic menagerie of genres together for KOSMIKROCK, both the name of the album they've released and a self-suited descriptor of their style. The band freely and unabashedly incorporate from psychedelic, stoner, post-rock and space rock while not being very clearly any of these. This, I believe, being exactly what they were aiming for. However, I do believe that the listener's biased preference may lead the to affiliate the album with whatever they like most, or possibly have the opposite effect for more hardline listeners then myself. Personally, I found myself recalling guitar-heavy post-rock bands like Kinski and Lebanon for much the instrumental sections, which occupy a significant percentage of the playtime. In the less common periods with vocals, they are sung like a 70s psychedelic odyssey. Like he's telling us a tale with emotional turmoil and perhaps even some epic fantasy. And with tracks that are long, several going over eleven minutes, there's pleanty of time to marinate in the 'kosmic' sounds. The curiously named "shittle-12 hates people" stood out as a fine example of their creative and multi-genre fusing, a good place to start off for the nonlinear listener. Certainly, there's nowhere that's very far from awesome guitar, psychedelic interludes and an absolute full sound of many instruments playing simultaneously.

Based in Winterthur, Switzerland a city in the north of the country and only some 19 miles from Zürich, Viaticum was a very well timed submission. For Switzerland is where the municipality for the next Scenes of a City post is located. So look forward to even more Swiss music which they prove as capable of producing as cheese, chocolate, secretive banking and elite boarding schools.

To be had here:
Viaticum - KOSMIKROCK

Peter Kernel - White Death & Black Heart (2012)

Hailing from Lugano, Switzerland comes the huge sound that is Peter Kernel. This record, released on CD, vinyl, and digital, sounds big. Real big. Try as I might, I cannot get a sound like this out of a 4-track player, and I doubt anyone could. This is loud post-punk for anyone who likes the Dischord sound, with a healthy dose of danceable rhythms underpinning the disorderly guitar riffs. The vocals are political in nature and sing-along centered, with more than a few choruses stuck in my head from just a few listens, as the male and female vocalists mix melodies together seamlessly. I really enjoyed "I'll Die Rich at Your Funeral," which I think walks the line between aggressive post-punk and radio-able rock.


Get it here:
Peter Kernel - White Death & Black Heart (2012)

On se tape l'incruste aux Rockomotives #2 : PETER KERNEL from What comes around... Goes around on Vimeo.