Multiple Man-s/t CS (Major Crimes Records, 2013)

Yeah, I'm as surprised as you are that I crawled out of an alcoholic slumber to start posting rad new shit but there ya go....

....and the "there," as is often the case these days, is Brisbane, Australia. Multiple Man is twins Sean & Chris Campion and they deliver the goods with five tracks of weirdo, minimal synth fuckery. "Built Wrong" is a slow-burning bit of persistent, almost-menacing goof-goth with percussion that sounds like someone kicking a piece of aluminum siding with steel-toed Docs. Things get nastier with "Photo Arrays," which shortens the beat to autistic levels while ramping up the distortion. It sounds like how you feel after a night of drinking 15 light beers and wrecking your bike while out on the town. That good.
"Typecast" is the best track here, and could easily have crawled out of some Viennese synth-geek's lair circa 1984. Clean, crisp, automated ambiance washes over a hysterical rhythm and mindless, monotone vocal tracks. It creates the illusion that the Iron Curtain is still just across the Danube and it's always raining so fuck it gimme another beer and turn up that bootleg of live Joy Div you just smuggled in from France. 

The next two tracks are just as good but I don't wanna ruin the fun for you fuckers (clue: settle in with downers and whiskey for "Whipping Boy"). Those of you who enjoy the benefits of the European welfare state are just getting back from summer holidays. This is the perfect piece of cold, fuzz-fucked minimalism to usher in fall and yet "another year with nuthin' to do," as Iggy Stooge said so majestically in 1969.

Listen to Multiple Man HERE or HERE. Major Crimes is sold out of the cassettes, but email Matt over at Eternal Soundcheck Distro and he might still have copies kicking around.

Busó-Five Songs 'Til the Spring Wakes Our Hearts Up EP (2013)

 Opening with a sparkle of gusting synth, Buso's

second EP starts off on just the note expected for an EP released in February. The ambient hush of "My Summer Camp" segues into "Sweet Clouds Will Blind Me," which is another inert, almost static, piece of warmth slowly forcing itself through glacial gloom to take a place somewhere close to your heart, or what's left of it.

This EP confirms the promise of Buso's debut EP, "3E."His work reminds me of early-Oughts ambient heroes such as Mum, Sigur Ros, et. al., minus the histrionic, slightly saccharine self-consciousness of above-said acts. Those bands had a sort of aloof, ethereal distance to them, whereas this guy's music is up close and personal-no doubt due to the lo-fi recording.  The heavily processed guitar  is fantastic, conjuring up the icy remoteness of Latvia; followed by "Lie Down," it kinda makes me wanna smile through the ice.
Anyway, the hollow, tunneled out synthwave vibe that made Buso's debut EP a success is at work here. But dude's gone back to the drawing board, studied up on his computer programs, maybe scooped out a bit more of the iron ore of anomie at the center of his heart, and produced a bit of music I'll be listening to for quite a while. I recommend you do the same.
Get into it!

Nite Fields-Vacation 7" (2012)

I've never been to Brisbane, Australia, but the welter of hot new bands from there makes me wanna start selling coke so I could afford a trip: Kitchen's Floor, Meat Thump, Cured Pink, and, in a different register, Nite Fields.

Whereas most Brisbane bands I've heard lately specialize in charmingly ramshackle "Downer Pop" (Matt Kennedy's words), Nite Fields is another trip altogether. Following on their split with Happy New Year,  this two-song EP finds Nite Fields refining and deepening the atmospheric glum rock found therein.

"Vacations" opens with a snare lick that tips its hat to the opening of "Decades," before laying down an insistent guitar note that slowly builds into a swirling, hypnotic post-punk revel. The synth and drums layer each other to create dense cloud of gloom, with the singer maintaining the one-foot-in-the-grave monotone on "Come Down." This would be a great opener or closer to a darkwave night at yr local bar.

"Hell/Happy" is more downed out and somber. Ethereal might be the right adjective here: synth and cymbals swirl in and out of focus while the guitar and bass pluck away in an inobtrusive way. The whole thing makes you feel like you just ate a few Xanax and wandered into a fogbank.

I'll add Nite Fields to my list of reasons why the Brisbane/Melbourne/Sydney arc is where it's at these days, musically. Listen to the EP here. If you're Down Under, catch 'em at the Lost Race festival November 17; you can get tickets from the Lost Race site.

Broken Cups-Slaves of the Grave LP (2012)

One of the best books I read as a teenager was Don DeGrazia's American Skin. Set on Chicago's North Side during the mid-80s, it's about a bourgeois suburban boy who runs away to the city, becomes a skinhead, and spends his formative years fighting it out in the vicious turf wars of the era between Nazi and anti-nazi skinhead gangs. When they're not bashing fascist heads in the gutter, Alex & his friends are working door at the infamous Chicago club Medusa's, home of proto-industrial Wax Trax acts, synthpunk, etc.

Broken Cups woulda fit in quite well on that scene. The band consists of a drummer who sounds like a drum machine, a guitarist specializing in minimal, Gang of Four-style riffing, and manic vocalist who either yowls like the singer for Scratch Acid or croons it like Dracula.  "Slaves" is 80s worship down cold: dehumanized beat, pulsing guitar notes on the riff, with the singer howling on the riff about bein' a slave. Spooky.

Most of the songs on the album are a variant on this, moving from from mid-tempo tunes you could dance to ("The Burnout", "She Thinks of Death") to speeded up robot punk ("Bank of Souls"). Although they hail from Budapest, they'd fit in quite well on a bill with American gloomrockers like Chicago's Population or Oakland's Branes.

Download and buy the LP here. Check out a video for "Flesh" here.

Preludes-The Swan EP

Drifting by light as a feather and drowsy as a Klonopin bar, Brookyln's Preludes sounds like a dream ya don't wanna wake up from on this, their second release.

I've always been of the opinion that dreampop always hovers between masturbatory, self-indulgent pap and holding the listener in a sustained, blissful moment in a way that 4'4 time rock can't. Upon my third listen, I'll say, tentatively, that Preludes manages to fall on the latter side. The songs on "The Swan" are all of a piece, and that piece is something like walking around Seattle, stoned out of yr mind, on a sunny day; people glide by, there's gently moving water everywhere, and the world is melting into a pleasantly nebulous mass of good feelings.

"The Swan" sets the mood with barely-murmured vocals and muted, hushed percussion that's barely audible on first listen. "Sleepy Eye'd" wakes up from the dream a bit, with a sustained synth figure framing the singer, who sounds a lot like Beach House's Victoria LeGrand or Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval on this one. The heart of the EP, however, is "In Central Park," the most dynamic of the tracks. Lilting along in slumberland, buoyed by what sounds like violin samples and handclaps, the vocalist narrates, uh, walking in Central Park. This one's going on the mixtape for the next girl I fall in like with.

Listen to the EP here. Also check out the "Dresden" single, which came out in March. Dream on, dreamerz!

Opus Null-Vas Nepe EP (2011)

I should start this review by apologizing to Opus Null for taking so goddam long to post this....life has a way of kicking you in the ass when you think you're gettin' ahead, y'dig?

This is the second Opus Null release to grace Drug Punk's pages, and it's a marked improvement. Their demo felt like an energetic but sloppy gesture at first-wave LA punk (that's my main reference point for synth-driven punk-aficionados of the history of Hungarian punk, contact me). This is a lot more polished, in a good way. The album opens with a spaced out synth bit ("Prologus") that throws you off balance for the second tune, a mixture of desperate, churning hardcore and shambolic good-times rock.
The rest of the songs showcase a similar mixture of influences, making good use of synthesizers to offset the 1-2, 1-2-3-4 thrash parts.

This still feels like a demo, but there's a great debut 7" lurking in Opus Null's sound, and they deserve international attention.
Really, this is a shitty review that doesn't do justice to the band, so I'm gonna wrap this up by saying that this is a good collection of tunes, so check it out!

For shows, release info, et. al., go here.

TV Girl-S/T EP (2010)

 I'm too hungover and tired to bother review something new today, y'dig?

These are songs about boring hedonism and not givin' a fuck. Best throwaway line: "I smoke a pack of Reds and drink a six pack every day/I wanna stay sane and there ain't no better way...."

When I was younger I used to listen to big important bands like Aus-Rotten and think I identified with their songs. These days, my horizons are a bit narrower...you will love this EP if you've ever woken up dazed and confused on a Sunday morning, with someone you don't recognize next to you in bed....the sex was shit, but it's better'n'nothing, right?

Hahaha. Check out TV Girl's other rad shit at Band camp. Due to possible legal troubles, this one may not be around long, so grab it1

Soft Drinks-Pop Stars in Their Pyjamas EP (1981)

Lots of people think that "anarchopunk" always and everywhere has consisted of a bunch of black-clad idiots twisting stupid noise out of their instruments, while just barely avoiding alcohol poisoning.
       A lot of people forget, however, the weirdo end of the early '80s anarchopunk scene. Rudimentary Peni spearheaded the "we're into reading Bakunin but also getting destroyed on acid and vodka" end of the Crass scene, and this 2-song 7" is a product of RP's drummer and a few other freaks who happened to know Nick Blinko.
The only thing I can really compare this to is Sleeping Dogs: retarded, synthesizer-based music somewhere between ranting synthwave and electronic punk. Dig it or not, it's certainly an oddball gem.

So erotic..... Check EBay for this, but I'm guessing there's like 200 copies worldwide. If you wanna know more about Rudimentary Peni, check this out.

"In the flat field I do get bored:" a(nother) mixtape

Yes dear readers, I present you with another installment in my semi-occasional  mixtape series. By "semi-occasional," I mean, "whenever I'm too tired, busy, or lazy to post something new." Smarties that you are, you'll see the threads connecting these tunes right quick.

Enjoy!...or not.

1. Maria Minerva-A Little Lonely
2. Blank Dogs-Northern Islands
3. Brigade Internationale-Remember my Death
4. Gil Scott-Heron-Me and the Devil (Robert Johnson original)
5. Led Er Est-Drosophilia Melanogaster
6. Martial Canterel-Nightfall in Camp
7. Chromagain-Satisfied
8. Xeno and Oaklander-Cold Forever
9. Carol-Breakdown
10. Pretty Poison-No Tears
11. The Cure-The Love Cats
12. The Middle Class-A Skeleton at the Feast
13. Waskerley Way-Pombo Pombo Pombo
14. HTRK-She's Seventeen
15. Keep Shelly in Athens-Fokionos Negri Street
16. Clive Tanaka y Su Orquestra-Lonely for the High Scrapers
17. Koralleven-Shine On

Carol-Breakdown 7" (1981)

Due to a series of unfortunate circumstances arising from a real humdinger of a Monday night, your humble narrator is feeling about as garrulous as a bog toad on bad acid.
 To accompany my null-node nebbishness, I present you with a 2-song synth EP, with vocals from some Belgian girl Carol.
 There's a scene in that awful movie, Fellowship of the Ring, where Galadriel becomes a she-Sauron before Frodo's hobbity eyes-this 7" might be the perfect accompaniment to a she-Sauron's snow castle. Crystalline, sparkling, Belgian-what's not to love, right?

...had a heart of glass....

Sorry kiddies, no clue where you could buy this thing. But Minimal Wave Records has a whole buncha sweet, like-minded gems to whet your whistle while you're suckin' down your poison.