The Dictaphone-s/t (Totally Wired, 2013)

Quote-un-quote-noise-rock bands are a dime a dozen these days. Most of them drop forgettable records on forgettable labels, before sliding back into the scuzz pit of hipster trends and idiot fads that bequeathed us such luminaries of dogshit culture as The Killers.

Not so the Dictaphone, hailing from St. Martin's home town. First-gen No Wavers' avant garde pretensions aside, the fundamental intent of this sort of music is to annoy the listener, preferably in the most obvious and thus even more irritating way possible. The Dictaphone are past masters of this sort of nuanced-'cause-it's-not annoyance, and they don't let us down on their new(ish) LP. Everything I liked, and which you probably hated, about their previous essays in the obscene, is present here. Maybe the boys spent the past year huffing the ashes from St. Martin's reliquary, or they just found better recording equipment; either way, their sound is honed down into a precision-guided missile of pure, snide snark on this LP.

"About Blank" could be a lounge tune as written by Klaus Kinski: it offers the lilting repetition of lounge music, with a numbingly snide blandness I could only see the famous Hungarian dishing out. Nuthin' but a 4'4 time metronome, deadpan robot talk-singing, and the occasional blare of a synthesizer somewhere in the neon haze. There's a bit more life to "The Recording," but not much more. Really the best track here is number 3, "Verkehr." In my review of these guys' first LP, Let's Not, I described one song as ripping off the drumbeat from "All Tomorrow's Parties" while leaving the rest to the ages. Either these guys read the review and loved my comparison, or their speed habit coincides organically with a love of Lou Reed pop blueprints: "Verkehr" hijacks the bass vamp from "Rock & Roll" to weave it into a stand-alone piece of cosmic krautrock. Gradually this bass riff builds into a piece of coruscating majesty replete with animal-noise sound effects. "Hardness of Nuns" is the next highlight. Ditching the sophisto-70s references of "Verkehr," this is a bit of knuckle-dragging moron music almost as goofy as the Gorilla Biscuits LPs gathering mold in my record collection. This song sounds like if you spent all day reading 'ole Martin Heidegger then got punched in the face: you're still smart but in a really fucking stupid sorta way.*

Blahblahblah, if there's a point to this review it's that The Dictaphone is by far the best band making monotonous music these days.**

But don't trust my word for it, dear readers, FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF! Then you can buy the real deal from Vienna's Totally Wired, once you bow down and acknowledge the Dictaphone's brilliance. 

*Really, it's your fucking fault for reading that hippy dipshit's ontology mumbo-jumbo, anyway!
**Yes, that's a genre. If you don't believe me, ask my long-suffering friend who used to work at the record store with me. And no, I'm not telling you his name. Or why he would be an expert on monotonous music. He just is.

The Dictaphone-Muzak EP (2011)

The Dictaphone brings you another piece of tightly-controlled misery on this late-2011 EP. Whereas the material on this year's Let's Not settles into a miserably mopy series of loping basslines and burble-growled incoherent lyrical nonsense, this is a bouncy, noisy, energetically contorted series of no-wave squall and harsh guitar. "Sleep Maps" even has one of those annoying fade-outs where it sounds like the guitarist left his guitar leaning against the amp and walked outta the room.

"Died Horny" is a delightful mix of maniacally repeated synth notes and guitar fuzz thrown together and put on repeat. I've had a headache for the last five days such that it feels like I left my brain sitting in a chair whenever I stand up, and this whole album sort of sounds like that. Y'dig? If not I don't care cause my head hurts too much to think right now. Goodbye.

Get loose. You can buy it from Schmalzgrub Audiokassetten.

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.