Formats LP

Free Pizza - Boston, MA (LP)

Free Pizza “Boston, MA” LP with Download Code Edition of 300 Co-Release with BUFU Records Net Babes Free Pizza are a young-ish New England trio, so my references will be only for comparative purposes. The chances of the bands I mention being an actual influence on the guys are small. Still, who knows? There is a certain dynamic that exists in trios that requires a mental prescence not always necessary in bigger bands. There’s very little opportunity for slacking. You really need to keep on yr toes. And I’m not sure if there’re any hints lurking in the back cover photo (where Jesus Vio is wearing cowboy boots), but there’s a real Southwest ’80s quality to many of the moves on… Read more »

Chris Weisman - Maya Properties (Volume Three) (LP)

LP Edition of 220 Printed Art by Ruth Garbus Original Hand Painted Art by Alec C. McPherson Vinylization of the digital release by OSR Tapes! Available on YOUTUBE! Third volume of Chris Weisman’s epic pop core-dump of 2012 (88 songs, no waiting) is the first in which he pretty much shrugs off the shackles of Liverpudlian form-constraint. Instead, Chris asks rhetorical questions about what Sunflower/Friends-era Beach Boys might’ve sounded like, had the Wilson family shoved Mike Love out of a handy airplane door and hooked up with Van Dyke Parks instead. When there are anglo-pop inflections, they are as-heard-through the filter of late-Nazz/early-Runt Rundgren (still one of the largely under-appreciated formal giants of pop-tongue-invention of the late ’60s/early ’70s). Which is a dandy… Read more »

Curse Purse - Curse Purse (12" / Cassette)

Curse Purse “Curse Purse” 12″ (Single Sided) Edition of 100 OUT OF PRINT! Curse Purse “Curse Purse” CS Edition of 50 OUT OF PRINT! MESSAGE CP IMPOSE TINY MIX TAPES Ostensibly a record for their recent European/Imapean/Wereallapean Tour, this three song document remains the first tangible evidence of the miracle trio that is Curse Purse (or, as locals call them, “Cuss Puss”). Olivia and Ted from Egg Eggs are joined by Matt (formerly of Speedy Ortiz), and the rumpus they conjure up is estimable. There are semblance of song-form at times, but this is not the bland cut-and-paste-merch-aktion of most combos. CP take the basic outline of a musical event and run with it. The feel of this can be… Read more »

Jane La Onda, Size Queen - The Spectacle / Buy Buy Buy (LP)

Included a download code / insert Edition of 250 Okay, let’s get our big secret out of the way immediately. Kassie Carlson — she-devil of helium-attack vocals with Guerilla Toss — is both Size Queen and Jane La Onda. Thus, this split LP is nothing more (or less) than a display of two of Kassie’s many known musical personalities. And it is a listening experience as haunting as it is haunted, as coolly weird as it is weirdly cool. Size Queen presents a suite of synth-pocked bedroom pop that sounds to me like the dream-state of a young girl whose favorite robot dog has run away. Maybe for good. Gently blabby munchkins try to convince her that everything is gonna… Read more »

Buck Gooter - The Spider’s Eyes (LP)

LP Edition of 400 with Download. Co-Released with Sophomore Lounge OUT OF PRINT TINY MIX TAPES BANDCAMP! NO ONE OWN’S THE SKY INTERVIEW WITH BILLY Written by Henry Rollins On The Spider’s Eyes, Buck Gooter have strapped sheets of urban post modernist metal to their bodies and weaponized themselves. The music that comes forth is a smarter and more capable predator than what the band has previously produced. It makes their last effort, Witch Molecules, seem almost friendly by comparison. The beats on The Spider’s Eyes are machine stamped, relentless. The songs themselves are reverberant sheet steel cacophonous odes to devastation. The vocals are comin’ to ya straight from an abandoned factory in some lost industrial ghetto. Is Buck Gooter mad or merely telling you… Read more »

Ralph White - Waltz Don’t Run (LP)

Ralph White “Waltz Don’t Run” LP with Download Code Edition of 300 BANDCAMP! This album represents a particularly whacked-out session for the peripatetic Austinite, who is renowned for many things. Not the least of which is the fact that he’s one of the few men who Michael Hurley will join on tour. It’s no small thing? Most of White’s fantastic solo output makes use of his multi-instrumentalism, often with a focus on his violin or banjo playing. Here, however, Mr. White focuses exclusively on button accordion and a variety of songs that can be done in waltz-time, regardless of whether they were first planned as waltzes or not. He says that the concept first came to him when he was… Read more »

Bugs and Rats - Adidas (LP)

Bugs and Rats “Adidas” LP Edition of 250 Screen Printed Gatefold Jackets by Kellzo Vinylization of a 2010 CDR by this Quincy MA trio who have been around since 2003. Their longevity makes it damn odd that this is their first LP. But it is. The fact becomes even odder when you hear how goddamn great the album sounds.Perhaps it’s only with the coming of bands like Guerilla Toss and NE Patriots that Bugs & Rats are getting their vinyl due. But it should have happened long ago. The real antecedents of their sound seem to lie in the early ’90s Scab Rock scene, of which Boston had proponents such as Kilslug, Hullaballoo, Nightstick and whatnot. Theirs was a sonic… Read more »

Peter's Window - Last Summer On Earth / Grapey Day (LP)

Peter’s Window “Last Summer On Earth / Grapey Day” LP with Download Code / Insert Edition of 250 $16 Pete Nichols is one of Brattleboro VT’s many talented polymaths. He runs the Spooky Town Tapes label, records bands at Peter’s World Studio, and is a member of Great Valley. This album — his first solo LP — collects the previously issued Grapey Day cassette, and adds a matching suite of songs for your listening pleasure. Nichols’ muse is a bizarre pop/outsider hybrid, recalling everyone from Tracey Trance to Big Star at various moments. The songs are sweet nuggets of form, transmuted by itchy fingers into something both more and less than pop-tongue-aktion. The arrangements can be nearly straight (as on the sweet… Read more »

Palberta - My Pal Berta (LP)

Palberta “My Pal Berta” LP with Download Code Edition of 400 When I Come Music Video Great debut LP (following a tour-split with NE Patriots, FTR166) by this upstate NY trio. It’s actually the vinylization of their OSR cassette, but now it’s a record and that’s all the better for you. Their sound immediately strikes one’s ear as brimming with the anarcho-squeak-aggression of Switzerland’s Kleenex, but that’s just the initial impression. Palberta’s actual brunt is thoroughly warped in an all-American style, smelling of tent parties in the piney woods and much as sweat-stained house shows in the valleys of the Northeast Kingdom. They take pains to stretch their compositions in a lot of strange simultaneous directions, which both reference and… Read more »

Guerilla Toss - 367 Equalizer (12")

12″ (Single Sided) Edition of 300 OUT OF PRINT! 367 Equalizer Vinylization of a recent Infinity Cat cassette, 367 Equalizer is a one-sided slab of belligerent art damage. The feel of this session is more tempered than that of their wigglesome debut LP, Jeffrey Johnson (as well as their second LP, which shall go nameless). The discordian elements of post-no-wave edge and Brooklyn basement glue party remain, but some of the looser jags have been hauled in and buffed like a fine pair of loafers. This is still definitely the sound of young people, but not in a way that grates on my old man’s sensibilities. One of my favorite prog albums was recorded by Pete Brown’s band, Piblotko, and… Read more »

Format: lp