Torky Tork - Black (2007)

Confession time: I've been getting super burnt out listening to garage/psychedlia/lo-fi music all day. How many mornings have I woken up, head throbbing with memories of relentless tom-toms. reverb coating the windows in frost. What day is it? Floor scattered LPs imprinted with names like "Burger" and "In The Red"... this vinyl flooring... did I pass out in the kitchen?

I believe it an integral aspect of human health to switch things up. Variety isn't just the spice of life, it's the essence of life. We all must keep moving; keep experiencing. Once we stop moving, we die.

To all of you avid reader(s) and podcast listener(s), you've heard of my love for the hip hop, the trip hop, and yes... even the bibidy bop. But were you aware how much I love DJ music? That sample-based genre that makes art out of the lost and found? I mean, at this point that's all music is, right? DJs are different in that they aren't delusional about what they "borrow" from others. They know they're taking samples from records. And often times, what they create ends up MORE unique than another Velvet Underground rip-off.

Torly Tork is a great example of the talent that's out there... a lot of which you can find on bandcamp for free. I love this self-description he has on his bandcamp page, "Skipping through endlessly boring 70s flics from Eastern Germany and digging in the crates for 1€ records crammed with scheisse Volsmusik is something TORK does all the time...don't ask yourself why. Listen!"


"Scheisse Volksmusik" translates to "shitty folk music" or something close. It seems our Berliner friend, Torky Tork, can turn shit into gold. Good thing for us. What we've here are strange German records and films sampled and spliced over some tasty hip-hop beats. That's about it. There's quite a bit of German spoken word over top, too, I'm guessing from one of those East German flicks he mentions. I didn't pay close enough attention in high school German class to understand much here... it might be a bunch of communist propaganda for all I know. If it is, it's the phatest (kids still say that, right?) communist propaganda record in existence.
23 tracks.

Torky Tork - Black

Werewolf Police - The Moderation Blues (2013)

I lived in Connecticut for some time back in 2005. I worked around New Britain, which is just a stone’s throw from the town of Berlin. A beautiful place with lots of lovely buildings, and a dreadfully humid summer buttressed by an icy winter. It’s the state that has houses between larger, more important communities to the north and the south, and has had to live with that reputation for as long as it has existed. 

Thankfully, some good acts do come out of the state. I heard plenty at house shows 8 years ago, and I get a slow (but constant) stream of submissions from Connecticut. The newest of which is one featured at SpaceRock previously: a band called Werewolf Police. Sharp hooks and reverb soaked vocals combined with a healthy love from the 90s lo-fi culture have resulted in their superb The Moderation Blues.  The record has the same aesthetic of their previous releases, but this set pushes their songwriting techniques and recording strategies to new levels. Undesired Raincloud captures my personal feelings about my time in Connecticut precisely, while Difficult Liquids so perfectly mimics the sound of the region that it could be taught at Wesleyan University. 

This is great stuff, and since it is free to download, there should be no reason you don’t check it out.

Get it here:

Werewolf Police - The Moderation Blues (2013)