Toddi Wellman-Yeah! Lp (Cocktail Pueblo, 21013)

Back in business for the first time in a long time and broadcasting live from Crescent City, N'aleans...i.e. New Orleans, you idiots.

Anyway, figured I should kick off regular reviews with Toddi Weilman's latest, a weird, spaced out collection of space-and-or-kraut-rock-jams that goes by "Yeah!" This is a collection of sedate, totally weirded out wastoid rock. I've listened to this LP wasted on whiskey and weed for two days straight and still can't give it the "Stoner jams" approval rating, but that's probably a good thing-my room mate is a bona fide hippy, and all she listens to is techno garbage-so whatever.

Toddi Weilman, in any case, dishes out twelve tracks of heavily repetition-oriented garage slop on this LP. each song focuses in obsessively on a single riff, chord arrangement, rhythmic pattern, whatever...and then just stays in said pattern, til the cows come home. I listened to this before wandering around on Bourbon Street and when I got back, and it was a lot more interesting than said Bourbon Street. You'll dig it. Trust me. Whatever.

Hang out with Todi Weilman HERE!

Tachycardie-Be Nice to Music EP (2012)

I don't think I've explained how much I hate southern California on Drug Punk, yet. That's kinda a different spiel than I wanna hold forth on here, but it's relevant insofar as listening to Tachycardie makes me wanna throw very sharp rocks into all the private pools that dot the (non-)neighborhood around my apartment. All those filthy rich bastards soakin' up the sun while the rest of us grind...
...anyways, Tachycardie blasts through seven tracks of twisted, constipated noise in the Big Black tradition on this EP. The wrecking-ball drums are mixed to the front, the guitars are a squalling mess in the background, and the singer's words get lost beneath the sonic muck as you empathize totally and completely with the noxious misery that would lead people to produce such contorted, misanthropic muck.

Really, they're a lot friendlier, sonically speaking, than Drug Punk favorites such as Billy Bao, Bloody Minded, and Brain Bombs, but they perfectly suit the misanthropic mire I'm in right now, so whatever, go shoot yr boss and then throw this record on. So there.
On Cocktail Pueblo Rex. If you read French.

The Dictaphone-Let's Not LP (2012)

People often equate depression with self-destructive and/or suicidal behavior. This is erroneous. The truly gut-wrenching thing about depression is that, becalmed in a sea of melancholy, one loses the energy to do anything, even/especially self-destructive death revelry. One just...is.

Enter Tours, France's The Dictaphone. Whereas the Brainbombs play depressed noise that musters up the energy to go on a killing spree, the Dictaphone is mired in an apathetic nightmare whose main feature is a grinding, softly shrieking monotony. Like a rainy day of the mind that never goes away, it just chugs on, in circles.

Most of the songs, especially the opener, "Modern S," and my personal favorite, "Fake dancing," are built around massively, numbingly, intentionally repetitive bass and drum spiralling. It's like someone tried to put together a dance beat with a drum machine and metronome, and went out for a drink, leaving the equipment on and the tape running. Then some drunk wandered in and started burbling something pseudo-lingual over the resulting repetition. Oh, "Safe substitute" is the bee's knees, as well. Imagine that opening drum beat of "All Tomorrow's Parties", but it never really goes anywhere-it just keeps plodding along, sort of like the voices in yr head.

This is fantastic music for staring at grey walls, laying in bed thinking of reasons not to start the day, and for sitting on the sidewalk curb, bombed out of your mind on Klonopin. It's real fuckin' good.

Listen to "Let's Not" here. This is brought to you courtesy of Cocktail Pueblo Records. The Dictaphone shares at least one member with the Jagwar Pirates, by the way.

Jagwar Pirates-Full Total Complete Bronzeage LP (2012)

This is the second band I've heard recently that combines surf rock grooves with noise/mathrock savagery (the other being Sarongs), and while I'm uncertain how this mutation came about, I heartily approve of it.

The weird thing about traditional surf rock is that, although it requires a high level of technicality to play (sayeth my musician friends), it sounds dirt simple. Not so with Tours, France's Jagwar Pirates. These spawn of St. Martin wear their chops on their sleeves, and "Full Total Complete Bronzeage" (jeez, what's with all the superlatives, guys?) is a heartily enjoyable slice of tech-surf.

"Rocket Surf" perfectly showcases the speed-fuelled licks the Pirates spit out: sped-up Ventures riffs combine with spazzy, laser-precise drumwork for an extended instrumental workout. "Agony of the shadow in the dark and crus[h?]ed forest of Chinon' [what the fuck kinda name is this?] is more contorted: snap time changes intersperse tension-building drum fills. "Surf in Indre et Loire" is an interesting use of guitars tuned for a metal song in surf structures. The whole album careens towards the sprawling, seven-minute climax of "Death Valley 37," which rivals Hella in intricacy and bizarrely compelling instrumental psychosis: ricochet drumfills and trebly, insistent guitar soloing smash it up nice 'n' proper.

....anyways, if you're looking for some fucked up, spazztastic surf fuckery to brighten your March afternoon, check out Jagwar Pirates. Out on Cocktail Pueblo Records.