Sharkmuffin-She-Gods of Champagne Valley EP (2013)

Without getting enmired in cheap nostalgia for the '90s or some sort of "authentic" urban experience that has never existed, I'm still suspicious of recent cultural products coming from Brooklyn. Up until recently I associated Btown with the fiercer end of NYC hip-hop: Black Moon, for example. NOT garage, noise, and such. 1990s-era Brooklyn was a violent, squalid place by all accounts, but urban renewal could have benefited the original inhabitants instead of displacing them. Instead, Giuliani's stormtroopers paved the way for Bloomberg-era gentrification and the result is a tinseltown, suburbanized borough that doesn't even seem worth visiting. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out Crown Heights or Red Hook or any other neighborhood mentioned by Biggie, Gang Starr, etc. etc.

That said, Sharkmuffin's second EP is good clean fun if you dissociate it from the gentrification it's inevitably a part of, if only in a tangential way. This is high-quality trash pop falling somewhere between Vivian Girls-style rave up and Piresian Beachesque scuzz. The retarded piss take of a guitar solo at the end of "Femebot" is glorious in and of itself. A minimal 4'4 beat, yowled vocals, and trashy guitars are the end all of Sharkmuffin's sound, and as I always say, simpler is better when it comes to rock 'n roll. This isn't music you think about, it's music you simply respond to. My favored reactions to it are: dancing, drinking, and fucking. All seem appropriate responses to SM's raunch garage, so get yr ass in gear and go have some fun.

You can listen to the EP, and should then buy it, here.