Cacaw-Get a Brain 12" EP (2010?)

Tips on being a successful mid-20-something in the U.S.A.:

7 a.m.: Wake up, preferably hung over, preferably unable to recall how you wound up in your own bed (or in someone else's bed, even better). Clutch your head in a paroxysm of pain, hoping that this is all a bad dream. Repeat.

7:30 a.m.: Finally crawl out of bed because that stupid alarm clock won't shut up, and because coffee will not-despite your best efforts-make itself. If you woke up in another person's bed, add the fact that s/he is starting to wake up, and ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT want you next to them when they do sober up and wake up.

7:45-9:00 a.m.: Sip coffee and munch on day-old bread, preferably alone, preferably in your underwear, alone. As you do so, ponder the deeper mysteries of how it is that, despite your best efforts, it is in fact Friday and you have in fact been this hungover every Friday for the last month (at least).

9:15 a.m.: Muster up enough courage to check your cell phone and/or social media device. Figure out how many friendships you destroyed. Make initial efforts to heal the wounds, or throw them all away. It depends on how much you drank, and how much horseshit your friends are willing to tolerate.

10:00 a.m.: Disturbed by knocking on your bedroom door. The rent's due again. Pay it, or, alternatively, think of some horseshit excuse that doesn't trick your room mates-let alone landlord-into giving you a one-day extension.

10:30 a.m.: Feel so elated about accomplishing the major feat of paying or ducking the rent that you manage to take a shower.

11:00 a.m.-noon: Make your way to your place of business. Wisecrack with your friends about last night's peccadillos, hiding the fact that you may have picked up an STD, and certainly should not be mixing with civilized humans at such an early hour.

1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m.: Avoid a mountain of work. That mountain has been here since early May, but God knows that you adamantly refuse to start tunneling beneath it like a good gopher. Stare at it. Hate it. Feel reassured because it ain't going anywhere. Repeat.

~5:00 p.m.: Duck out of work as early as possible. Make your way to the local bar and/or cafeteria. Your friends-who have girlfriends (boyfriends), careers, and in general have a clear sense of real priorities, will meet you there soon.

~5:30 p.m.: Scream and shout about Marxism, the dialectic, and the newest, most awesomest punk records with above-said friends.

 ~8:00 p.m.: stumble home, reeking of beer and/or whiskey. Continue drinking while playing Cacaw or Black Flag (don't make no difference) at top volume.

~midnight: pass out in a pool of drool, sweat, and vomit. You should be too disgusted by yourself to be capable of forming coherent thoughts, by this point. In the unlucky and unlikely event that you are, however, they should be centered on the fixed idea of how dumb you are and how boring your dirtbag, degenerate life is.

CACAW IS PREEMO-PRIMO NOISE ROCK SWEETNESS, SHITBIRD.

*EDIT, 7.15.14: Just re-up'd the file, get it HERE*

No Balls-Problems That Will Solve Themselves EP (2004[?)

"Yeah, well, life's strange."-Slim Charles, The Wire, season 4

Swedish noise is always a good choice when you wake up with a head full of booze, an empty wallet, and a pile of work you don't have the energy to do. Because really, what's more cathartic than pressing your ears up to the stereo and letting these Scandi slugs blast your sensory perceptions to smithereens with a few slices of carefully (sloppily) conceived torment?

Nothing. Nothing at all. No Balls is an on-again-off-again side project of the legendary, also on-again-off-again Brainbombs. Same personnel, mostly the same sound, so really the two projects complement each other. The sound is slightly different: there's a bit more rhythmic propulsion on this EP than your typical 'Bombs slab 'o' vinyl. But this amped up energy doesn't lead anywhere, of course, except further down into the black pit that is your tormented psyche. "Black Nerve" goes in an undulating circle, a circle not as harsh as a 'Bombs circle, but still pretty abrasive. "Countdown to Kill" features a guitar riff worthy of Kurt Cobain's golden days, but there's no catharsis, just monotonous repetition. Fuck teen spirit when you've got black tar heroin and Mad Dog, right?

I AM THE SLAYER.

P.S.-I'll get back to regular posting, and posting new stuffs, once I finish teaching this godawful summer class. Yeah, who'da thunk it? This Drug Punk has been charged with educating the youth. Joke's on them, eh?

The Bezzoommies-Garmata EP (2012)

I shoulda spun this EP in 2012 'cause it woulda been in my Top Ten for last year. I'm four beers into the evening and it's just what I need: mid-tempo, sludgy garage rock with a singer who vaguely resembles the dood from DER TPK: atonal, Eastern European howl-singing.
"Madonna's Dead" is a squalling mess shaped by anarchopunk-style guitar fuzz and humblebumble rhythmic movements that don't really constitute rhythm.
The middle tracks are a mixture of ambitious psych noodlings and clangorous punk brattiness. The standout is the closer, "St. Magdalene Girls." The psych-punk stumblings gel into a beautiful mess: 7 minutes of cavernous, squalling spite worthy of the Electric Eels. Halfway through it enters even weirder ground, a sort of could-be-Velvet Underground territory where most of the instruments fall out so that you hafta focus on the shuffling guitar magikry. The Bezzoommies make ya work'n' wait for it but fuck is this song great.

Hang out with The Bezzoommies HERE. Make sure to check out their TOHIC+ EP, which they released just last week. Very cool new noise from Ukraine.

Anadelta-Vita Brevis LP (2013)

Anadelta is an example of a weird offshoot of the  '90s fixation sweeping the nation(s). Instead of simply ripping off MBV or Godspeed You! Black Emperor wholesale, the group explores the connections (yeah, there are some) between ambient electronica, shoegaze, and the spacier end of post-rock. Yeah, I know, you're probably saying to yourself "geez, how many discordant genres can one person throw together? And why the fuck would I want to listen to a mixture of those three? Fuck you."

Well I sorta had the same impression when the album crossed my desk, but after a month of listening, this LP has grown on me considerable. This is not music you can dance to, nor does it strike a visceral emotion such as anger, excitement, or passion. It's not hippy-dippy jamband dogshit, either. Rather, the LP moves between aggression, brooding, and exuberant bursts of catharsis.

Having alienated almost all of you with those first two paragraphs, I can now exhort those of you still reading to buy this thing. "Where are you/Where am I," begins very, very slowly with sedate synthesizers and minor notes washing in and around themselves. Things get a bit heavier on "Oceans:" the flighty guitar line is mixed with clang-bang electronic beats that finally plateau in a squall before fading out. Anadelta's debt to electronica is more evident on side two: "A Garden with No Colors" sounds like Russian Circles being lulled into submission by Boards of Canada.

If you can put your inner savage in check long enough, this is a great soundtrack to a stoned Sunday at the beach. Hell, I'm amazed something this chilled out came from Greece, the cockpit of the current capitalist crisis. Throw it on, pop a Mythos, and watch Syntagma Square burn.

You can preview the album, then BUY IT, here. The first 200 copies come in a fancy-schmancy photobooklet thing. Lowtronik mixed and mastered it. Dig it.