Music: Ttotals "Silver on Black" 10" EP

Ttotals' guitarist, vocalist, and de facto leader, Brian Miles, takes a heavy Jim Morrison tip on the first side ("Special A") of this 45 RPM 10" record. It's the first time I've noticed the similarity between BM's and the Lizard Queen's voices, but it makes a lot of sense.

Both Ttotals and The Doors deal/dealt in pop songs, abstracted beyond their logical purposefulness, to the point that they become almost-ambient, mind-wrapping art pieces, in which the listener's subconscious becomes a character in an exploratory world of reverb-drenched, stoner-rock dream-environs.

I mean, it's seriously easy to imagine Martin Sheen's head slowly rising from the steaming Cambodian river to these tunes.

Ttotals, at their best, get at the Punk-dream. They are, after all, two dudes with a guitar and a few drums, (OK, and a lot of FX pedals.) The raw primacy of punk is imbedded in their being. They're all id, man.

Side 2 gets into mushroom-punk territory with "Flowers Follow", and "Over the Years". It's still the classic Ttotals tones. They're secure and it's damn alright with me.

Really nice packaging: sparkly silver silk screen on semi-recycled black sleeve, (Art by Tim Norton, ex-of Holy Spirit Suckers.) Self-released by the band. Jam it.

Music: R. Stevie Moore "Advertising Agency of Fucking" lathe cut

I have the sneaking suspension that this piece of transparent polyurethane is eating up my phono needle. Is that a thing? Even if it's not, I'll be the thousandth person to say it: (most) lathe cuts sound like shit. I may not review mp3s, but I'll definitely enjoy listening to them over cheap-cut vinyl alternatives like this all day.

OK, enough bitching...

The songs represented on this abomination of a medium-sample are pure RSM Classics, as in, are absolutely brilliant pop (/punk, to be addressed below,) tunes that don't require the listener to submerge her/his self in R. Stevie's singular world of absurd puns, Beatles-worship, self-congratulation, and, uh, general quasi-genius, to appreciate.

"Advertising Agency of Fucking" on the A side finds RSM working his lyrical forte: sexual politics. It's melodically engaging in the way that British canonical acts like The Kinks and XTC are. Major key jumping all over the place, but focused, convinced of its own arrangement and full of forward momentum.

The B side is a brilliant post-punk-aping tune with a slinking, dissonant bass line and a deceptively important piano part: hammered chords, Reggae-syncopated during the chorus, but used only as punctuation during the verses. And lyrically it's R.'s second-best consistent theme: meta-style questioning the relevance of his own art.

So, don't buy this piece. (Ed. note: you can't buy it. Limited to preorders amounting to 76 physical copies; the one in my possession is #24.)

Do download RSM's "Poached Punk" comp. on bandcamp. The two sides of this record are tracks one and two, and there's a bunch of other great shit. And your payment goes directly to the artist. And it'll sound way, way better.

If you're the collector type, and a RSM fan, I recommend PIAPTK's "Javascript" lathe cut (onto a glass mirror.) Same label, maybe slightly better sound quality than this one, but it's a mirror, and it looks pretty cool spinning on yr deck.

Music: DJ MDMHey tape

If you're looking for DJ MDMHey's usual take on contemporary pop via fractured, noisy remixes, head over to soundcloud. This tape is another beast all together.

I can't say it's much like any releases I've heard by Rob Bekham's main outfit, Terror'ish either, although that project's most consistent feature is its inconsistency: ranging from harsh, clipped pink noise onslaughts to tape loop abstraction, to fuzzed out drum machines and everything in between.

This is atmospheric synth music, think a more Industrial-leaning take on Vangelis' Blade Runner soundtrack, minus the bluesey Film Noir affect, plus throbbing digital drums. The warbling, detuned oscillators and studied-over ADSR envelopes are there, as is the attention to atmosphere, though it's a distinctly tape saturation environment we're talking about here. (Praise is due to the mix, which manages to find an ideal level of natural tape-distortion/compression, without becoming murky or ugly.)

Side 2 begins with a more aggressive rhythm than anything on Side 1, calling to mind the recent "Tech-noise" style of MTVE-favs Container and Unicorn Hard-On, albeit with much more attention payed to harmonic progression, and with out the obvious genre tropes. This is loosely Synth Pop, but its minimal aesthetic and dark tonalities make it a unique effort. The sounds may be rooted in Depeche Mode and Cabaret Voltaire, but these are the weird outtakes that could never be. Dig it.

Label is Ranky Tanky "Champs" (or R.T. "Champs"?, I don't fucking know.) (It's Noah Anthony of Night Burger/Form a Log's label.) Edition of (more than one.) Decent art.

Music: Bad Friend "Let it Go" LP

"Throw away your first keepsake" is how this record begins, I mean, that is the first lyric, after some (eh, I hate to but yeah)-90s, semi-angular guitar riffage.

This is a record of solid to very solid "Big I" Indie rock. If these dudes knew the right people in 1998, they might be a big fuckin' deal. As it is, we're left with a record of tunes recorded too many years ago for the media cycle to take an interest.

It's some pretty great song-writing, at least at times. It's rooted in Matador tropes circa 2001, sure. But I haven't listened to that kinda shit in long enough that it's effective.

I used to have a serious emotional connection with "The Fruit That Ate Itself". If you did too, check out this record. Eight tracks of longing living room rock music. Recorded by Scott Martin. First full length LP on blossoming Nashville label, Hag Bloom too.

Music: Leslie Keffer & Valerie Martino "Prissywillow" single

Pretty killer 2008 release from Nashville's two ex-leading ladies of out-music. Unfortunately Keffer's fallen into unprecedented obscurity after the release of her sex-pop crossover 12" from late Spring, (play a show!) And Martino's left Music City for Rhode Island, like as in Nashville ain't sophisticated enough.

Anyways, A-side, "Letch Luff", bares LK's bruised and battered visage on the label and begins with a-rhythmic drum machine battery as creepy-but-consonant Industrial-style synths enter. There's a brief pause for electric bongos and gym coach whistle, then a harsher low-note pattern re-introduces the scattered tripping-over-yourself vibe with some unadjusted accoutrements, and repeat.

B-side shows an equally beat-up VM on the label and this one's all stuttering drum-pattern while horn-like drones and crystal-synth lead evaporate over top. You get some random-LFO action and other analog-style noodling whilst the drum machine fills out, all distorted like.

Pretty stoned-jammy vibe on both sides, but the sounds are killer.

Pick it up at Fusetron. Cool silk screen and spray paint art by Gina Denton. Collab-release by Tusco Embassy, I Just Live Here, Tangled Hares and Action Claw.

Music: Minimalogic "Irritant" tape (mp3)

Alright I'm breaking my self-imposed exile from reviewing digital albums in order to write up this (impossible to find) gem.

Minimalogic was, best I can tell, Nashville's very first Noise/"experimental" band. Citing influences such as Throbbing Gristle and The Residents, D.A.C. Crowell, Greg Killmaster (surely not his real name?) and Charlie Newman produced a gnarly sound-world out of pulsing oscillators, heavily effected guitars, tape-loops of found audio and strangled vocals that would sound absolutely at home at a Keffer-organized Betty's show some 16 years later. Noise ages well? "Irritant" is their sole album, released on cassette in 1984.

The creeping A side includes ring modulated monk chants, distorted drum machines, detuned vocals and otherworldly sound effects that are all the more disorienting for their uncompressed presence. Metal pings strike at your temples over a churning guitar/synth loop that gradually falls apart, leaving these incredibly anxious out-of-sync puzzle-pieces.

Later there's heavy storm-ambience over which a weird-whistle synth makes bird calls into the ether. Dramatic Darth Vader string-synth patterns undercut the atmosphere and a gurgling low frequency rolls in, evolving into a cutting pink noise buzz, filter-waffles, and cuts out.

Side 2 opens with a slowly-rolling low synth with Arto-styled detuned guitar chimes and random LFO chirps. A dissembodied semi-falsetto sings about Minimal Love: "Minimal love/ is cuming in silence," while clicking anti-rhythms feel like footsteps of a stalker in a dark alley. It's roughly as creepy as Throbbing Gristle's best work, and really it's hard to imagine this band was working in the weird-vacuum of Nashville Intelligence Report days, alongside so so much rehashed punk (Jason and the Scorchers, Cloverbottom, et al.)

About a quarter thru Side 2, the track ends and we're presented with a nastily melting, bright square wave arpeggio. It's academic Minimalism thrown to the dogs of punk: entirely unsettling and strangely beautiful. And its warped beauty lasts a long time, gradually reforming as a metallic bulb-worm, then ripped outside itself, computer-guts hanging out of its android skin. Almost thirty years before the Nashville Symphony commissioned an original work by Terry Riley, this is maybe the first Minimal piece to originate in Music City.

It's certainly the first piece of "harsh noise" to come out of a town where feedback loops and heavily distorted electronics would eventually flourish.

Good luck finding the cassette. (And if you have one for sale, please let me know.) I'll be happy to share mp3 files (with C. Newman's blessing,) to interested parties if you email me. Highly Recomended!

Music: Sparkling Wide Pressure "Previous Openings" tape

2011 release from Sprakling Wide Pressure's Frank Baugh, prospering in the cassette underground, seemingly.

Jeez this thing starts out beautifully with a sequenced sine wave and fretless bass lead. Add rusting guitar drone to fill out the chord progression, man is that something a lot of this so-called drone music lacks? Chord progressions? Is that antithetical to the whole idea of drone? Is it pop-drone? Heady resonance sweeps into the synth program, delay-cluster ending... acts as track's end, but liners tell me Side A is all one: "Crestland I".

A bass-arping synth, no it jumped an octave, then back down, it's alternating under machine-grade guitar reverberation, plus some light-picked single-note solo, trippy styled, oh god there's a wah pedal! Man, if you put a wah pedal onto so much of this fucking drone I'd dig it a lot more!

Crusted over machine, factory floor, industrial revolution: prettier than Eraserhead, less horrible, for one thing because it ends, and you know it's going to end. Soon enough we go back into some light-wah guitar-chordery, very nostalgic and bleh, if you're me. Like, dude is really feelin' it ya know? Like, head back, wind-blown silk scarf... Jimi-feelin' it, ya know?

Machinery comes back in for a moment, (really just a mic-on-the-ground, phaser and delay pedals.)

Side B starts with just a little of this interstice before a heart-felt folky strum + meandering electronics vibe-field takes over. This is "Crestland II" and I give it just a little credit.

Some background caterwalling and about three minutes later we find ourselves at "Battleground", the slowly loping percussion loop-and-bass guided track that sounds like an Eno ambient thing rendered with recognizable instruments. There's a guitar and some synth stuff too, plus eventual scraping electronics which provide the only tension. Slow-build, very nice background stuff, better than a fucking fridge, at least.

C-32 on Diatom Bath Tapes out of Ashville, NC. Another nice Ab-Ex cover and I'd generally recommend this for your Facebook-philosophy-discussing dinner parties over cous cous and red wine, or any time you wanna get so stoned and stare at your bookshelf. Recomended!

Music: Cypress Rosewood "Isle of Wyrms" CD

This CD represents a live concert event performed for the opening ceremonies of the Summer Festival 2007 at Cathedral, a part of the Isle of Wyrms continent in Second Life.

So here we have an earnest, not-tongue-in-cheek document of hyper-reality in action. This is the parody-fodder James Ferraro drools over, if you could call what JF does parody... But this thing is of a completely separate mindset than the "Vaporwave" phenomenon, I think... Ultimately with out the ironic distance of the cassette-bound Neo-New Age set. Unencumbered by "Everything Time's" self awareness-worm hole. It is unafraid to not make a joke, and that is laudable.

The liners go on to state that the music is performed by Tony Gerber (profiled extensively here,) and features the "Native American flute".

An ancient instrument, thoroughly decontextualized by the virtual platform of hyper-modern role-play. In Second Life, authenticity absolutely just doesn't exist. It's a hang-up we can live with out.

The flute is swathed in reverb and not dissimilar to the flutes you hear while wandering around Gatlinburg-esque mountain-tourism centers, played by real mostly-Natives hawking cheaply produced CDs, paintings of eagles, leather vests and the like.

The flute is surrounded by arpegiating synths and effect pedal-coddled, often Ebow-ed guitars. The effect is ambient electronic/New Age music not unlike that of Nashville out scene-mainstays 84001.

This is sleepy, meditational and/or background music for the online presence. Office-working suburbanite avant garde. It's heart-felt experimentalism within the rigid constructs of a non-present other-world.

Low-res artwork on cardstock, factory printed disc. I can't quite recommend the music, but it's an interesting concept.

Music: Mass at Dawn "Trimutation" 3" CD-R

Ignoring the fact that the three-inch CD-R is easily the most insufferable medium on which modern "underground" music is released, and that this, like most Mass at Dawn releases, seems slightly guilty of placing vintage-gear-credibility ahead of actual musicality, this thing is really pretty good.

Soft distorted drum machine opens "Cycle of Movement", track 1, over which octave-arping, gently losing focus synths play, all unruly like. It's all head-nodding, out-of-phase club music for doctoral students in ethno-linguistics or post-Lacanian psychology. It's cold and unnerving, but human in its imperfection. The beat is sort of front-loaded, too heavy on the 1, which only becomes apparent by the end of the track. It's a creeping imperfection that's nice once you notice, eye-opening, even.

Track 2, "Demons of Fire" starts with a gnarly drone, passed down from that cycling analog octave-jump on track 1, but more muddled. Then beautifully distorted drums and Dylan Simon's psychotically distorted monotonal narrative enter and from here it's just a wrecklessly thought-out mess of of dirty 60s nightmare. Synth patterns are dominated by the slow-charging drums and it's head-back-Manson Family ICK.

Maybe it could be a little more dynamic, but analog purity gets the best of MaD. If well-mastered, this could be 7" of the year.

Nice packaging from Kimberly Dawn, but again, it's a tiny little baby CD, so have the foresight to rip it into iTunes before it gets lost under your couch.

Music: Quietly "Unfortunate Sound" tape

One thing: this tape sounds fuckin' huge. Guitars, bass and vocals all smear together in this cavernous sound-mass. Lo-fi to an extent, but not messy, as every instrument is played with precision, rooted by relentless, massive-sounding drumming.

Seemingly drawing inspiration from European post-punk and 90's American alternative rock in equal measure, the chord progressions are all tension-and-release, very dense and swathed in room-reverb and distortion while vocalist, Kara Stafford's darkly melodic singing cuts then dissipates.

It's easy to mistake Stafford's voice for that of a man's, as she sings primarily in a rich tenor that's almost other-worldly, unnatural at times and very affecting. She's like a spectre, man. Real urgent haunting.

Hints of Bauhaus emerge in the music but there's a certain sadness to highlights like "In the Mouth of the Wolf" and "Borrow Tomorrow" that Bauhaus and those other Goth-originators could never achieve from behind their makeup and fake cobwebs. This is evident in the lyrics as well, collected inside the j-card, though barely legible. Waiting, for something cryptic but probably very heavy, is a recurring theme. (And wait you should: there's a "hidden" track at the end of Side 2.)

Totally unlike any other punk in Nashville, and it's a steal at $2 from local retailers. Color ink-jet printed insert. Self-released. Recomended!

Music: Bonus Beast / Terror'ish "Incantations" split tape

Two one-man awful-noise projects, (and both were members of Big Nurse at one point,) divided by like a few thousand miles and the estimated 3-8 seconds it takes to flip over the tape.

Bonus Beast, based in San Fransisco, is Ryan King's projected muck-lust via cassette loops, pedals and all-together nastiness. His side is full-throttle blown-out tape saturation: you know the kind of noise music that's so distorted it doesn't sound like distortion. It's just a big fat slug of sound, wriggling around and occasionally slithering over some obstacle. Real bass-heavy sludge that probably sounds great on mushrooms, and kind of makes your stomache feel all weird, (just like mushrooms?)

The Terror'ish side is a little less intense, starting with whacky resonance-filtered noise and a pulsing low-end. It pretty quickly gets wrapped up in some serious-warp-delay, but then you get a track 2!

Real instruments: heavy, descending distorto-bass-line and strangled sax (similar to that on "Marvelous Cosmic Space Association".) There's also a whispy synth on top. This is followed by some formless delay-pedal noise, making this particular side of tape by far the weakest/least interesting outing I've heard from Terror'ish. (Full disclosure: Rob has always compelled me to "take a shit" on his music but I so far haven't because I pretty much love everything he does.)

High Density Headache, catalog number 52, which makes this circa early-2009 or 2008, by my estimation. Pick it up at Grimey's (haha, not really.)

Music: Lebaha Men "Garifuna Feild Recordings" tape

The Lebaha Men are from Belize, which is not close to Nashville except in full pan-global scope.

Which is maybe what makes Field Recording right? Escapism maybe, or a pseudo-adventurous state induced by industrialized-culture. Right?

The Grammys may be somewhere along the entrails of the luxury class/American appreciator-of-music, but they're a distant yet bright star to some, presumably, right?

One mustn't abstract too much from the socio-political implications of this tape though, lest we detract from the music, which is basically really cool. The drumming is mostly very complex, full of 32nd+ note rolls and thick with flamming and quick changes of emphasis. But it never loses the primal pulse, in spite of the heady roll-exchanges, (there are only three drummers, and their ability to play off one another is laudable/extraordinary.) The vocals are basically "ethnic" chant/call-and-response, but often quite a bit more melodic than you might expect.

Recording quality is decent, well-suited to tape, (recorded direct to cassette by Stephen Molyneaux.)

Watermelon artwork from No Kings.

Music: Ayebawl CD-R

A few times, in my general day-to-day internet reading, I've come across the phrase "Active Rock". It's pretty context-less to me, having abandoned commercial (and mostly all) radio for quite a few years. I imagine it though: the vocals are all shouted or screamed, the sharp distortion on the guitars is alternately piercing and crunchy (as described by the ads for FX pedals I've never used or heard,) the drumming may or may not involve a double kick drum pedal.

Realistically, the "Active Rock" I've read about contains up to one of these characteristics, with none of the 'tude implied. I mean, realistically the "Active Rock" I've read about is about as corporation-contrived as, say, Backstreet Boys. "Active Rock" is an ugly phrase. But let's say for a minute that it isn't, OK? That it fucking means what it says it means.

Ayebawl is fucking active rock.

Like, Tom George and Lukin Nunn, trading off on vocals, Lukin's screach is especially nuts, but exacting still and double tracked (this whole thing has a real nice, clean studio-quality,) and the guitars, man. Matt Bach's just a killer lead player. Everything's so composed, controlled, but it rips hard. And as drumming goes, there's a lot of pounding, but the number of hits and the speed never betray precision.

It's an intelligent hard core album sort of. All the thrash with none of the bonehead bullshit. Its violence is more visceral than bludgeoning, (and it is pretty fucking violent.) If you think Motorhead are pretty good, but kind of old fashioned, check it out.

Nine crazy tracks. Crazy Ed Gein artwork. Crazy, man!

Music: Hobbledeions "Asyndeton" tape

Heavy J. Bonham-meets-hypnogogic-flavored-murk at first; of course Habbledeions' Scott Martin isn't one to hang out too long on a real floored beat.

This third tape for No Kings is not a paradigm shift by any means, and really only barely an expansion of the sound Martin's been establishing since "Capisce" (perhaps with less emphasis on Dilla-esque lo-fi hip hop.)

It is, however, the best. An extremely focused effort that nevertheless trades styles, timbres and moods like an Indian. And so that heavy lump that begins Side 1 is quickly replaced by skittering fusion, then filtered noise, a tropical-pop waltz, and then this chopped and unscrewed Motown (or something) sample, over which Martin's trap set becomes some sort of lyrical rabbit, bursting down the hole. It's pretty much the best thing I've heard from Hobbledeions, and I've heard nothing but great shit.

So that's about halfway through the A side, because this is a hefty tape at 45 minutes, which is nice because a lot of what's great about the cassette, as a format, is its accomodation of lengthier albums, etc.

Vocal drone and these chopped up "eh-eh" vocal samples round out Side 1 all punk as hell.

And Side 2 starts out pretty nasty too. A Brit yelling, sampled from "The Wall" or maybe "Brazil", I've seen neither film, and the beat! Complicated but direct, it buoys pinging synth and noise and I'm at a loss for pinning its antecidents other than Can.

Most of Side 2 is pretty song-oriented, though those songs are in pieces assigned to the pads on Martin's MPC. Usually the sounds are filtered and processed, re-sampled so that exact instrumentation becomes an unnecessary means of signification. The drums too, are well-blended and I guess here's another panygeric on the cassette-medium, exemplified by this tape: natural compression, I mean Dolby filtering... It just sounds GOOD.

Later there's a real bouncy quarter note-bass/delay guitar jam that reminds: your vibes are maxing out. And fade into calming vamp. And fade.

Groovy pink-on-white, non-recycled stiff J-card, edition of 60. Highly Recomended!

Music: Dave Cloud and the Gospel of Power "Practice in the Milky Way" CD

A real problem with Dave Cloud recordings is that they always sound like Karaoke. His voice is just too bizarre/unfitting for any accompinament, however technically absorbing and/or "rockin'" the accompinament may be.

Or is it just poorly mixed? Maybe Dave has a complex where he has to hear hisself way upfront.

At any rate, this is some solid shit where Matt Bach's lead guitar and arrangements just slay trope-based/Tradition-based rock and get into real Steely Dan-territory, as far as really brainy-perfectionist composition style.

But all the "learned" instrumentation doesn't undersell the "Outsider" apeal, whether "knowing"/"unknowing". That's the weird thing about the record: these dichotomies are presented: irony/sincerity, deranged/non-deranged, but then it's mostly up to you, ya know?

They play a Sexton Ming song: "Rockin' After Midnight". It's the only cover. The originals are just as lyrically "outsidery" there's: "On your knees, in supplication," sez Mrs. Crumb in "Mrs. Crumb", the track-7 psych-out masochist-jam that serves to reinforce Cloud's preoccupation with high-literary sexual perversion.

"Before I Give You Up" is a groovy, lightly trotting Rhodes-jam. Imagine the Partridge Family let their drunken, leering uncle sit in on vocals on evening. And really this thing is all over the map style-wise
Like, the deeper into the album you get, the slightly-less freaky it gets, maybe you're just more used to the mix, or more catching the slipping referential-wave.

Solid disc of outer space-feelings from Nashville's favorite barroom conspiracy theorist. Fire Records.

Music: Clearing "No Titles" tape

For a tape called "No Titles", the insert included in this baby is chock full of titular information, but OK that's helpful sometimes, what is written.

As for audible "titles", I'd proffer "droopy-eyed synth pad-ery". Some of the sounds on the first side are booming and others are all wet with effects or detuned in interesting ways. Yes often they're interesting sounds, and always they're very static.

If that's your thing, you'll hear a lot more maybe. As background noise, I'd rate this definitely above say air conditioner or refridgerator.

Pretty good Blue v. Pink art from No Kings.

Music: Mass at Dawn "Pyramid Nipple" tape

Vintage synth fetishism from ex-wearer of large-brimmed hats, Dylan Simon.

Needless to say there are some really cool sounds here, lightly warbling and buzzing and bubbling along, sometimes with mumbled, unintelligible vocals and the recording/dubbing job being shit as it is makes this a murky mess of a record, which is really pretty pleasant.

Most of this tape is the score to every film scene where someone sits cross-legged on the floor, closes his eyes and places a tab of LSD on his tongue.

It's meditation-stuff and I'm about as non-spiritual as they come so I'll leave the mystical themes alone, but the plodding gongs and slow-attack synths should make a pretty good mantra for you Tarot and insense and couscous enthusiasts.

I actually like couscous a lot, and I understand it's quite healthy. I like it with cabbage and, uh there you go, that's my review.

Music: Monsters on Television "Life is So Bizarre" LP

Well-travelled ground/bar chord garage rock/definitely has like that '95/'85/'75 feel, which is maybe to say this is that kind of "timeless" Rock, capital R, all that shit.

It's pretty charming, I guess. Front-man, Brad Sunflower's voice reminds me at times of David Thomas, but less weird, more slacker-stoned.

As far as good songs, there's "Comin' Down", "You Lookin' at Me Weird" and the title track, all of which you've pretty much heard before, which makes them stick in your brain even a little more.

The sound of a minimum-wage job, Mexican Strat and mid-grade marijuana. Really nice screen-printed art. Cleft Music label.

Music: Forrest Bride "Cats with Wings" LP

The centerpieces of this album are the instrumental tracks that open both sides. but there are vocal numbers too:

"Blue Tiger" is the most "pretty" track, vague pentatonic melody that Amy Marcantel's vocal harmonies fill out well, plus lifted moving-bass. Probably the best of the sung tracks. Next "Massacre at Ludlow" is pretty good Radiohead-pastiche but Ben Marcantel's singing is unfortunately muffled by gear affects that squash out the overtones of his voice. "String and Glue", lyrically, is as "twee" as the title implies, but the instruments are "gussied up" the way Adrian Belew "gussied up" Tom Tom Club's "Loreleai", all stuttering atonality and sound-effects, with a little more Folk-feel.

But the meticulously crafted instrumental tracks are where the Marcantels' strengths really lie. "Circa 1973", the sound collage that opens the album is wonderful, gradually building from skuttling noise loops into a two-piano Cosmic-assault with out ever feeling like it's "building" at all. This morphs, briefly, into a feminine kind of Fantasy-Simple xylophone interlude, before Scott Martin's drums first introduce themselves under cut-and-paste organ and slow-attack synth, interupted by these violin upper-cuts just before the denouement, real "feminine "narrative" kind of stuff that lacks an obviously climax but substitutes lots of little peaks in circular fashion.

Marcantel's production is great: it never sounds showy, (except maybe once on Side B where I noticed a tom-tom annoyingly drifting across the stero-spectrum,) but it's meticulous.

Side B's "Death Kit" is the first time the album ever really sounds at all like the "electric era Miles" suggested on the little paper insert that comes with the record. It's more like metal-fusion though; Scott Martin's drumming is especially unhinged with an insistent single-note bass line that charges everything into some super-charged future-war, saxophones wounded-wail, dissonant synthesizers buzz along and melt, and all the sudden there's this lifted lilting piano chord like "walk towards the light" type thing, but still, a glimpse of  the past as evil saxes dance back in, filtered and fading.

Closer, "Living Coral" has a dinstinctly M.O.R.-jazz deep-cut vibe like something on Side 4 of a mid-70's Chicago album, which is pretty fantastic if you ask me. It's interupted occasionally by buzzy angular asides on the organ, but for the most part it's lush and tacitly sensual.

Pretty well constructed album. Cover art is an owl, which I guess is what they mean by "Cat with Wings", probably because of the seing in the dark. Sebastian Speaks label. Approx. $12 at local retailers. Recomended!

Music: Gnarlwhal "Duane" CD-R

Purveyors of Progged-out Hardcore, the Little Hamilton-stapled Gnarwhal come at this 14-track (three of them interludes,) CD-album with hardened fucking Pro-chops and a "shit, whatever" attitude that jams pretty damn hard.

The angular guitars never stop, and underneath pointillistic bass and of course, Tyler Coburn's frantic-sounding but dead-accurate drumming push, pull and drive, endlessly forward.

This is some real front lobe music; it rewards close, attentive listening, and in this way it's "difficult", even though it's mostly-tonal and full of trope-based guitar techniques:

What's interesting is the disperation of the tropes: "jock-off" metal finger-tapping collides with "angst-and-fury" hardcore riffing collides with "Anglo-serious" prog collides with weirdo deconstructed pop. In this way, it's like a Zorn/Bungle assemblage, but really more cohesive than a lot of those guys' music due to the steady instrumentation/unified aesthetic.

There are lots of quick stops, changes in key, rhythmic feel, tempo, just about everything. This whole album is full of extremely complex music that hangs together well. Again, the drumming is pretty amazing throughout.

Call this Chin-Scratching Hardcore or Pop-Metal, I'm not sure. Self released, bear-themed art with jewel-case. Recomended!

Music: Ttotals "Live at Grady's" tape

This is maybe the best document of Ttotals you could ask for. The self-titled studio-record is perhaps too clear for their brand of blown-out punk-psych, which I think fairs better on this equally-blown out tape recording. It's not uncomfortably blown out; it's actually quite well-recorded, live, (I guess, though there's not a single audible audience member,) during a recent jaunt up the West Coast.

Stack it next to "The Quine Tapes" and "'77 Live" for later. No Kings Record Cadre.

Music: Square People "I'm Not Lazy" single [Guest Review]

The more a band intently focuses on being interesting, or "something else," the more they lose the plot and sound boring. Square People don't have this problem. Their approach comes off as calculated, but it doesn't belie the basics: good songs.

Standing tall as the town's only sax-clad house-rockers, they deliver the goods for their first two wax tracks. There have been a few tapes before this 45, that consecutively build up to the feat accomplished here with these two songs: "I'm Not Lazy" and "I'm Not Nervous." Honest statements on their ethics, SP are certainly not lazy, they're one of the most productive bands in town.

"I'm Not Lazy," is their most fully realized composition yet. If all of their previously recorded output were a tough nut, this song cracks it. Encapsulating everything about this band, it strikes the delicate, oh-so-satisfying balance between laid back certainty and haywire anxiety, a la XTC's "Drums and Wires."

There are fascinating dynamics, syncopations, and neatly interactive sax and flute passages, and absolutely NO showboating. There is not one superfluous note played here. There are hooks, however dressed up the arrangements are, and if you strip away the execution you have honest-to-goodness pop songs

Music: Nudity "Heavy Petting" tape

Loosely a lower-fidelity amalgam of say, The Ting Tings and maybe Arcade Fire-style melodrama. I like it OK when they stay closer to Ting Tings-pussy pop. The more dramatic songs, like on Side A, the one where the dude sings, I don't like.

I guess I could throw out trite comparisons to Sleigh Bells too, but that wouldn't be doing the band justice.

Side B starts off with "Cassingle" kinda iffy, all slow but when the woman's voice loops, all chopped up and it doesn't really work but it's weird, catches my attention, then they loop it again, this time at the right pitch, and I think it's a pretty OK track, bombastic hoover bass and all. It really needs to be better organized though.

The atmospheric parts are all okay... "slowed down 800%" style. As for the pop tracks though, this thing definitely seems to have Lightning 100 FM aspirations, so that's alright, that's a thing, OK.

The tape ends with chopped up clacking percussion on "SAURuS RMX" which drops the back beat, that's pretty cool, but more could've been done to whack out the lady's voice which mostly just loops per phrase.

Nicely packaged pro-dubbed cassette, comes with download code and "Magic Eye" J-card interior.

Music: Big Nurse "Who Wants to Kill the President?" single

"Who Wants to Kill the President?" is pretty cool. Whippet-fueled falsetto multi-voice, fingers on the time cotrol. Definitely has a "schizophrenic" feel, subdued disorientation. Also very "psychedelic" with out bothering to use any "psychedelic" tropes, although a little wah-wah really wouldn't have hurt.

B-side is a cover of VOM's quasi-classic "Electrocute Your Cock" and sounds like it was played by 14 year-olds who figured out how to amplify the sound of fingernails scratching a chalkboard.

It's meant to be played at 33 RPM, but give the A-side a spin on 45 too. Recomended!

Music: The Biv "Creatures of the Deep" CD

The freedom from genre-restrictions on this little piece of Nashville house-party faire from 2009 is refreshing. It wouldn't be long before like a garage-rock-only rule went into effect, but if you saw The Biv, like I did, in a sweaty basement or Germantown warehouse loft, you fucking appreciated it.

I mean there are traces of Krautrock grooviness, post-rock drama, and more than a little Deerhoof angularity, but strictly speaking this is Pop-only, instrumental dance music that defies lazy genre categorization.

Nothing here isn't at least basically catchy. Drummer Dan Burns and keyboardist Mitch Jones went on to form/greatly expand two of Nashville's best pure-pop bands, Action! and Fly Golden Eagle respectively.

From what I remember the big hit is "Adventurebot", but that's a little too sticky-sweet for my taste. "Man Overboard (Where'd That Guy Go?)" is a weirdo stuttering minimal-arp piece that should be more than just an interlude. "Reefy the Clownfish" (yes, they mostly have aquatic-themed titles...) is all goofball-early FLips, only well-played. "Different Kinds of Tentacles" has a loping puppet-funk vibe, interupted by Futurama-chimes and a fake horn section. This stuff is simultaneously cartoonish and classical-esque, which basically equals charismatic.

There's a bass player too, but it's mostly MJ's synth leads, organ and piano that supply the broad sound-pallette with DB's skipping, complex drum patterns propping it all up.

Groovy cut out art by Mitch; too bad it's a CD I've ripped into my computer and shelved, perhaps never to look at again, but that's CDs for ya.

Music: John Westberry "Tyrjedza" CD-R

Unquestionably one of Nashville's finest drummers working in the underground, or mostly not working in... Westberry is fairly emersed in the Mainstream Jazz house-show establishment known as Jazz 948, and you might even find him onstage at Green Hills Old-Money watering hole, F. Scott's.

And OK, I understand the attraction to playing that kind of music... It's technically demanding/satisfying and you can make a buck.

But JW at least has one ear pointed toward the "avant" on this release, a collection of mostly-slow burning "pretty" free jazz that occasionally hints at ambient music.

Every track is a duet with either trumpeter Edwin Santiago, or electric pianist Tyson Rodgers, and while Westberry's playing is uniformly subtle and in the pocket, the two other musician's contributions are variously effective and... not.

Rodgers' frantic playing on "Unfinished Look" and opener "Sprint" compliment JW's swift hands perfectly. This is about as good as free improv gets in Nashville. On other songs ("Build", "Abstract") he lets his Rhodes melt into ring-modulator and delay effects while Westberry deftly adds color, playing on the toms and accentuating different tones, pings and hisses from his cymbals, pretty badass. But on other tracks like "Light", the piano playing is so simple, white-keys-only kinda stuff, that you can hardly believe dude has a degree in performance from a major university, which I can only assume he does.

The ambient-piano isn't always bad. Take for example, "Stuttering" which features light-modal playing at first that eventually catches on itself and loops like a CD skipping at a particularly pleasant moment. It's like glitch-jazz, and that's pretty cool.

Similarly, Santiago's dark-toned, unpretentious trumpet-playing sounds beautiful and rich sometimes ("Conversation Piece B", "The Unwritten Rule"), but he sometimes flounders into obvious arpeggios that harken to well-worn standards, and these feel too much like accidents, like he doesn't know quite where to go next and is treading water. On moodier material like "Conversation Piece C", he seems to attempt Coltrane-Minor-seriousness from his horn while Westberry conjours similarly at the kit, all rolls and crashing cymbals like Love Supreme's "Resolution".

Westberry may have the technical chops, but he's not quite convincing in this mode of "heavy" Jazz. He's too polite. But then album-closer "Abrupt" may be the most "challenging" track and one of my favorites and it cuts off mid-riff. I wish it lasted longer!

Classy looking, totally-recycled sleeve and insert. Self-released.

Music: Submission Skills "I Bought Lance Armstrong's Colostomy Bag" tape

I wanted to not like this tape, OK? Hell, I was told not to like it, but damn it all if I don't kind of love it.

It's stupid. I get that, and it's a joke sort of tape, obviously, with that title. The fragments of lyrics and song titles (drummer, Rob Bekham shouts the titles before counting off each song,) are all nasty jokes about anal rape and finger fucking. Sophomoric, to say the least, it's a bit like an Adam Sandler movie for the noise set. But if Diarrhea Planet once set the bar for sophomoric humor in Nashville punk music, well that's just been obliterated absolutely. (And, by the way, they didn't. There used to be a band called Asschapel for Christsakes.)

The music is ridiculous speed-punk. The guitar is so distorted it becomes just a big cloud of noise. The drums are all bashed, two hands at a time, never changing. Singer, Kevin Cunningham's vocals are off-key raving and never as audible as Bekham's unamplified voice, screaming the song names. And everything's about as unlistenable as this description makes it sound. But it's a lot of fun.

Shit-quality recording and dubbing, (in between songs, bits of random, mostly awful-sounding pop can be heard, presumably having been recorded over for the release.) And yes that's a woman drinking from what appears to be a colostomy bag on the cover, but I'll have to see some kind of documentation of proof before I believe it's actually Lance Armstrong's.

Definitely pick this up if you come across it.

Music: Deluxin' "Smelly Kelly" single

Here you have it: the back-to-blood-basics punk-as-hell Deluxin'. Gone are the arty asides, near-falsetto singing voice and intricate arrangements of "Chocolate Jam", which to be fair, also had its bruisers. This is just fucking bruising along man.

"Smelly Kelly" is the kind of crushing, no-frills punk that's real blatant but not like that stupid fucking plebian-Hans Condor shit. It eviscorates yr shit like a whip. The hook is massive and filled out nicely by the new double-guitar lineup; it's pretty heavy but skips along to Glenn Coburn's swift-handed drumming. Rad break down before the single-note ascending guitar solo thing.

"Sick Lick" on the B-side is another head-wiper, just maybe not as catchy. Still when Nathan's simple high-note guitar lead (really similar to the A side,) kicks in the thrash hits home hard. After a stuttering refrain, the song dumps into a slower tempo grind. It doesn't last long and when the regular Lick returns it's pretty much all over as far as keeping your shit together goes and there"s this other part with a really frantic vocal, and then it does most everything again. This song is pretty long.

Props to Kevin Dietz for the awesome artwork: some kind of Man-Eagle scalping a traveller in the desert(?) on photocopied letter stock, in keeping with the Hag Bloom aesthetic. Pretty sick record all around. Recomended!

Music: Sparkling Wide Pressue "No Need for a Meaning" tape

We can probably mostly agree that Neil Young's soundtrack for the film "Dead Man" is pretty effective, even if it sounds like Neil layed it down in an afternoon, just noodling around and abusing his whammy bar. And that's kind of the feeling I get from most of this tape. It's kind of lazy-style guitar-picking, but with heavy atmospheric elements, distant drones and birds chirping and the like. Rendered casually but pretty impactful in context, and with layers far to rich to have been really layed down in a day.

Gradually electric bass presents itself and the casual acoustic strums give way to some consonant electric scratching. But the music takes its time and never tries to do too much. Gutteral feedback and cassette recorder breaking down a bit and everythings played like with out too much purpose. Sunny-afternoon-stoned vibe. It's "jammy", no doubt about that, but whatever catharsis frat boys get from listening to Phish, the underground set can get from listening to this.

Atmosphere is happening big time. When the drones and verb settle down toward the end of side 1 and we're presented with a somber finger-picked guitar, it's the light crackling of dust on the tape head and snippets of reversed e-guitar that give it some weight. But even at its hissiest and droniest, this thing is pretty approachable. Familiar fragments of various guitar-based stoner genres (If anyone tells me that Frank Baugh doesn't smoke pot every day I'll be shocked,) keep this thing well under most of your thumbs.

Pretty groovy January 2012 release on Fadeaway Tapes. Nice little Ab.Ex.-style J-card, non-recycled.

Music: Terror'ish "Weak Stance" tape

The latest from Murfreesboro noise o.g. Terror'ish is all about digital drum machines and just creaming them into waistoid grey residue. It sounds like a pair of jeans so encrusted with dirt and grease and cum that they stand up on their own, which is pretty alright.

Once the trotting distoted rhythm that begins Side 1 subsides, "Over Your Skin" is some ugly waves of white noise on top of a nauseating, churning machine grind, and I mean I'm literally feeling nauseous listening to this, but I've been taking pills all day and I think the wine and pizza combination has just hit the bottom of my gut, so ya know...

Side 2's "Last Slice" starts off with this absolutely killer deep synth-kick that has this sort of pink noise lead in and gradually hihats and snares clap-on, clap-off and there's the sound of like a fucking power drill that comes in. It's all metal on metal and gives me that really anxious feeling I got listening to the car horn-techno music they play while you wait in line for the Test Track ride at Epcot. Anxious is exactly what this music is. It's seriously unsettling.

After that there's this Gothed out synth pad with tape-skitters all over it and 'verby crack-head drums clattering. It's all very ugly and deep and, uh kind of awesome. Just don't let your mom hear you playing it or it's straight to the psychiatrist.

Nice combo of pro-printing plus hand-writing/spraypaint on the art. Ratskin Records. Recomended!

Music: Pineapple Explode "Cooke City" tape

Kind of dreamy, kind of lazy ambience. The parts where it's like a feild recording inside a house and you can hear walking around and setting down objects and picking them up are sort of obnoxious.

Side 2 is mostly dreamscape-style. Some underwater sound effect rhythms and quiet drones. It's probably pretty good to sleep to music and I suppose I could say you won't miss much if you do fall asleep.

PE are pretty good at the folk pop game, making music that takes a little effort to make. I dunno, this one's pretty aimless.

Self released. 85% recycled J-card.

Music: God Willing "Traditional Sand" tape

The sounds of choking, quietly and shuffling around...

This tape is like landing on another planet, gradually getting accustomed to the atmosphere, the new smells and sights.

And the sounds: all alien banality amplified like a disjointed dream. The resident beings go about their day, unaware of how foreign the ins and outs of their regularly scheduled lives are to you, distant traveller. Little bursts of methane from the ground, industrial-grade lazers, giant chrome machines grunting and hammering out arhythmically, matter-of-factly. No weapons, no one here cares about just what you're doing in their world.

Gradually you enter their city on tired legs from the greater gravity, tired lungs from the denser air. You hear the hum of busy commuters' hovercars, one nearly clips you. The driver never even saw you.

Ren Schofield takes his time on Side 1, letting a feild of unfamiliar, post-tonal sounds envelope the listener gradually. By the time it climaxes in a dense mess of noise, you've just barely gotten used to it.

Side 2 is just like drones and backwards sludge, a little less entrancing, but still cool.

Another classy, clean release from I Just Live Here.

Music: Leslie Keffer "Finally, Caves" 12" single

So this is very much a dance single meant for deejays, more than for your average basement-dwelling, holyier-than-thou, cassette-fetishist noise-head, but ironically, it's probably the noise-heads that funded this record.

I, like hopefully most of you, feel extremely ambivalently toward Kickstarter. For every Leslie Keffer, there's a whole bunch of Natalie Prasses begging you to hire a studio, hire musicians, pay for the bullshit that doesn't matter when fact is, high-quality recordings can be made for nothing, plus the cost of a laptop, audio-interface and a couple microphones... all items your average Natalie Prass probably already owns.

So why did MTVE-Nashville support Leslie's campaign? (Aside from the fact that we think her music is not bullshit...)

Simply, this music was made for wax, a tangible, spinnable disc that deejays use. It makes, breaks, mends and bends the party. This is social music. Sure, both sides have been floating around Soundcloud for a while, but the internet-music experience is far different from its physical counterpart. This music is for sweating to, dancing and making out and fucking, and it goes without saying that fucking in 192 kbps is just not as good. We need the needle raw in the groove.

Furthermore, this Kickstarter campaign pretty purely embodies the D.I.Y. spirit of Noise music, (which this very much is not, but in a past life would have been.) "Donations" paid for the pressing and materials. Once those things were secured it was LK, herself recording at home (with Hobbledeions' Scott Martin,) pasting on art-work and addressing packages. This is not only a limited-quantity object, but an object that has real human hands all over it.

But nevermind the logistics... how is the music?

Relatively simple and very pretty. A secure synth chord, overwhich the low radio-strains bend consonatly a la "Loveless" guitars. Then the beat drops, a simple boom-chick elecro that nestles against the high synth in a very natural-sounding ecstasy. Pieces drop out to make way for a little modem-bleep-hook, come back in, repeat, etc. All very tantalizing, like neck-hairs pricking up tantalizing. Supple and basically very sexy.

Side 2, "Luna Loblolly" opens with monk-chant vocal samples that quickly fall in line behind a "Liquid Sky" drum machine. From there it's pure minimal bliss as the samples repeat and new textures emerge. Drop all for a whirling synth drone, modulating and recombining until a new beat enters and the party pulses on. Flinging sweat and fingers unto dawn.

Beginning with "Give it Up", the 12" single format is a really good look on LK. This one's definitely worthy of repeated spins from any deejay not puking out endless Garage Rock around Nashville, (though we suspect a lot of Europeans might catch on more quickly.) Recomended!

Music: Trophy Wife "Stella My Star" single

"Stella, My Star" features such a dead-on Kim Gordon impersonation from lead singer/arguable TW-mastermind, Sarah Cozort that I find it hard to take seriously. Kind of boring, dissonant guitar/bass/drums, yadayada...

The B side, "Frankie's Song" fairs much better. It feels rushed, unnatural, especially given the synth tone which sounds destined for sequencer-automation a la Human League, but instead is played with classic TW earnest-sloppiness. Meanwhile SC delivers the stuff of adolescent wet-nightmares. Melodically charged faux-naivety; she plays the victim, but her sexually-predatory nature shines over churning bass and tom-toms. It's all "Virgin Suicides" and that's pretty affecting, though the end break-down loses momentum and sounds slightly forced.

Another worthy and weird single from an already broken-up band, (see also: Buffalo Bangers,) on Private Leisure.

Prediction for the label: 2-3 more releases of increasing commercial appeal (rather than that fucking Taiwan Deth LP they've been sitting on,) then caput.

Prove me wrong, Private Leisure.

Music: Taiwan Deth / Unicorn Hard-On split single

33 RPM group-grope from a couple of Nashville's more productive, and yes, important anti-scenesters.

Taiwan Deth's side (and fuck, we need more sides from Taiwan Deth; this is their only vinyl object!) is face-to-the-sky Eastern-worship. Bells turn into cymbal, then tom-rolls while single-string free-guitars, sometimes with slide or wah-wah lurch and celebrate the master-nothingness.

It's a little bit European free-jazz, a little bit Boredoms and a lot of blazed meaning. It grinds, even as it fades out. A real lost Nugget from before Nashville dropped its last leg back into the Country-grave (I mean Garage Rock.)

Unicorn Hard-On's side opens with some bit-toy action before introducing a nasty clipped drum sound that fuels the rest of the side. The toy slides and squirms in free-harmonic joy, slips itself, and then we get that nasty Electribe-electro we know and love from UHO. All while the main synth becomes a bunch of different unsettling sounds, flips on itself and all around like a big mess.

The track feels improvised: sometimes a sound we like should stick around a little longer, but the constant movement is also enjoyable, plus respectable. It's not the fully-bloomed UHO we've lately been more-or-less obsessed with at MTVE-headquarters, but it's an interesting article in the wardrobe of an artist whose wardrobe is a little bigger than the average music-fan can probably carry.

I Just Live Here / Black Lakes split release.

Music: Coupler "America in the Coming Age of Electronics" LP

The title of this record sounds like an Epcot exhibit and that's pretty appropriate given the sound. All USA Futurism circa 1970 World's Fair: sloped white plastic walls, egg-shaped chairs, discreet control panels and it's, for the most part, strikingly gorgeous, patient music from Ryan Norris, who also plays a prominent role in Hands Off Cuba.

"The Valley of the Elders" opens Side 1 with a subtle drone before a warbling Melotron voice enters, lulling and plaintive and absolutely arresting. It's all, to some extent, "Ambient" music, but as the lead-off's title suggests, "Ambient" in the vein of Jon Hassell, Side 2 of "Low" or some of Joe Zawinul's more tasteful electronic outings, i.e. no New Age bullshit. Needless to say, Brian Eno is a major reference point, really a jumping-off point, because none of this is lazy emulation or overly derivative of his many experiments and collaborations from the 1970s.

Second track, "Ton" is especially affecting in its slow, one-finger/12-tone synth rumination but is curious for its lack of detail regarding instrumentation in the liner notes. While Moog synth, Acetone organ and Space Echo all get name checked on other tracks, some of the notes merely refer to "programming" or anonymous "synth bass", etc. Whether this is a symptom of Norris's dismissive/ashamed(?) attitude toward non-vintage/digital(?) instruments or a means-to-mystery is arguable. But this is the Age of Electronics Already Come, and the detuned oscillators on "Ton" and filtered buzz on "Swarm", be they from a VST plugin or 50-year-old wooden box, are among the most complex and invigorating here.

The side closes with the buzzing arpegiation of the afore mentioned "Swarm", the album's first beat-oriented track and in between is every manner of electronic "treatment" (the liners' term) of haunting vocal samples courtesy Forrest Bride's Amy Marcantel, sparkling acoustic guitar, horn and synthesizer.
Side 2 which opens once again with Melotron Voice and, Jesus Christ, that sound is just so good. Fucking Melotron, man. The world would be more beautiful if every Goodwill and Southern Thrift had one or two of these instead of cheap church organs, but I suppose their scarcity adds to the allure. Norris and compatriots blend the aching tape-keyboard with lush drones and sinewy organ sounds perfectly. Nothing sounds out of place.

The rest of the record feels a little less deliberate, a little more "Ambient for Ambient's sake" perhaps, with trem-panned Rhodes piano, Moog Opus and heavilly tremoloed guitar all getting features, though album-closer "Sehnsucht" develops with a rather nice chord progression and old-worldy organ that reminisces slightly of Norris's contributions to noir folkers, Lambchop.

Ultimately a really beautful vinyl debut from one of Nashville's best side-experimentalists. Made in Canada label. Classy art work. Highly Recomended!

Music: Lady Cop EP

Forgotten turn-of-the-mellenium Nashville hardcore. Total bash shit; these guys make the other local punk band with "Cop" in their name sound like Jimmy Buffett. Or, I mean made...

10 songs spread over two sides of the 33 RPM 7" means hit it and quit it, but every song develops and changes, living up to the old Gregg Ginn adage about punk music being "just as long any other songs", just played much faster.

Side 1 rips in with "Declaration of Offense", immediately setting the tone of blitzkrieg speed and in-the-red sonics and OK, these songs aren't too different from most quality hardcore, but lead vocalist, Lukin Nunn's piercing tenor really delivers. You can practically hear blood in his throat as he tears through the flesh of every track with just a hint of Jello Biafra vibrato.

Side 2 opener "Narcotic Painkiller" is hands-down the best song, featuring a descending bass lead and frequent stops like your banging head smashing into the sweaty-backed-dude in front of you. The cheesy light-strummed intro to "Punks in Love" provides a brief respite from the torrent of speed-rock, but the pummeling "Uh Huh Baby No" closes the EP with an abortion tale (I think? It's really hard to discern any of the lyrics...) that's true to form for any real "punks in love".

Nashville's own Twitch Records (home to Asschapel... OK where do I find an Asschapel record?)

Music: Leather Nightmare EP

Ugly sentiments, but this thing starts off kind of up-beat, actually! "Dead Little Whore" is four-chord chant-punk and pretty raging in that numb, face-down kind of way, droney diminished chords and shit.

"Drink at the Water" is a little rustier but holds up the rest of side 1 fairly well, following a similar formula of deadpan vocal delivery and scorched-buzz instrumentation.

The recording is pretty crude, necessarily, and continues in Hag Bloom Tapes' (boutique/vanity label run by LN bassist, Nathan Vasquez,) tradition of cassette-recorded purity/mess.

Side 2 starts with a screech of feedback before chugging into an amorphous gallop with the beat and hihat-off-beats alternatingly emphasized. It all settles in during the first verse as vocalist, Reid Barber reiterates his fascination with perversity: "Leather Daddy's Cock".

B/W photocopied sleeve, a hooded Gimp says, "Come at me, bro." Right on.

Music: Stephen Molyneux "Cambodian Feild Recordings" tape

I'm not certain what I'm supposed to hear here but it's absolutely mesmerizing.

The scenes that unfold over the course of this too-short cassette are all entirely ambiguous. One presumes that street scenes, social dances and sacred music all collide, but these are merely presumptions. The musics' origin is mysterious, and this in-itself is overwhelming.

Add to the foreign instrumentation and forms, the use of lo-fidelity recording techniques that at times suggest additional delay-effects and looping, (or is it natural reverberation? The ambiguity enhances the overall effect,) and you get a consciousness-enveloping throb of music that defies expectation.

"World Music" is not really the correct moniker, as the sounds of rolling wheels, rumbling engines, wind, conversations and random microphone noise interfere with the throaty singing, flutes and unrecognizable percussion and stringed instruments that make up the "musical" parts of the tape. And musically, it's mostly consonant (albeit Eastern-pentatonic) music, but combined with the field-recording elements, this thing is more bewlidering than a lot of "Noise" music I've heard.

Totally unique and well-combined collage from Molyneux (also of Horsehair Everywhere, Poet Named Revolver) on No Kings. Definitely Recomended!

Music: T.V. John "The Dream Man" tape

Sort of a "Songs in the Key of Z"-styled outsider artist, "T.V." John Langworthy's lyrics supposedly come to him in his dreams.

Here, he bellows them over poppy garage rock instrumentation that's well-performed but delves into the kind of "Exile on Main Street" derivation that we Nashvillians are inundated with to the point of... Eh, who cares?

The guy's (questionably) Weirdo persona is obfiscated by the ultra-conventional Rock ensemble, assembled by Black Tooth Records (members of local popsters Fly Golden Eagle, Majestico.) Wesley Willis this is not.

Weird as T.V. John may be, his super-banal lyrics are maybe good for a quick chuckle, but nothing close to shocking, revalatory or pure. On camera he comes off a little more like a luny, but the record is all rock-chops without depth.

Pro-recorded, poorly-dubbed cassette that is for some reason shrinkwrapped...

Music: Unicorn Hard-On / Container split 12"

This one cropped up on quite a few people's best of 2011 lists, (along with Container's also-great deput LP on Spectrum Spools,) for good reason. This is three tracks of precisely controled machine-music. The power of organization is, to some degree, allowed to the humans. But the sounds are all Terminator fucking metal and plastic.

Unicorn Hard-On's side starts hardest. Stomping digital kick and hi-hat sounds open as digitally destroyed vocal-wailing smears all across the top. We assume it's Valerie Martino's voice, but it's so removed from anything human, wordless and desperate. Maybe it's the hungry "Persian Cat" of the song's title. When the sequenced bass and Hoover-esque lead synths creep in, they are welcome, orienting devices, familiar tropes. But as they repeat, nasty lazer blasts and pink noise bury them, creating a crazed din of mechanized sound.

"Wildfire Girls" is a little less punishing as far as overall noise levels go, but it features similarly disorienting vocals, (really, Martino's trademark and forte,) and squiggly synth dollops that sound far-removed from pre-Skynet Earth-music.

On his side, Container (Ren Schofield) plays with the classic Techno "Boom-Chick" sound, but bubbling echo-synth and syn-tom syncopation prevent you from entering that hypnotized state associated with Minimal Tech. The sounds are penetrating from the begining, and at the track's climax, they're downright pulverizing. Like a robot using your head as a speed-bag, the effect is disorienting and brutal up to the track's denouement.

The robot's voice has been repeating for a while now: "Cauter-i-i-ize," smearing downward. Its granular, inhuman provocation is insulting or encouraging, one. "Do it. Hold the red-hot metal to your open wound." It knows you can't go through with it. You are a human, weak, un-evolved. This music is the Singularity on wax. It is a fucking breakthrough man.

The sleeve art is mesmerizing and acts as a perfect foil for the abbrasiveness found on the wax. This woman is just taunting you through some psychedelic Women's Magazine haze. Valerie and Ren are taunting you. They are at the finish line. The singularity. The machines have accepted them and allowed them to release this harbinger of the future. The machines are in charge from this point forward. Get used to it. Highly Recomended!

Music: Frothy Shakes "Killed by Death #11" LP

First the history: ostensibly a collection of South-Eastern US punk singles recorded between 1977 and 1982, from such never-knowns as Sexy Fits, Orgy Poppers, Curly Fries, Horny Toads, you get the idea... from Redrum Records, Norwegian curator of the original "KBD" compilations. Essay on the back describes the bands via session recording anecdotes from the (supposed) Producer of every track, one Bill "Smackroot" Jackson.

Real talk: this LP is the work of (and sole vinyl artifact of) 90s-Nashville, non-touring out-punkers, Frothy Shakes. Three of the twelve tracks on the LP are credited to them, but, like the other, fake bands, their description in the liners is the kind of inflated drug-babble you get from a Harmony Korine art opening.

Here's the thing: this record has been maligned by some of the three-chord, Chuck Berry-worshipping purveyors of "KBD", who also have gotten the facts wrong, but this only gives new credence to the trashily bizarre fucking music these guys were making circa 1996.

Side 1 is three songs: first one is tape-warp rambling, last one is simple Noise "Rawk", but in the middle is "Stay in Shape with the Orgy Poppers" (by the Orgy Poppers, duh,) a high, Fausty, pretty lengthy track of subdued maniacal spirit. It's all rambling drudge-chorded while singer David Russell convinces you completely of things he really isn't even saying. All nonsense insanity, your nodding in bewildered agreement turns into head-bobbing groove-getting-along-with. It's twisted waste-rock.

Side 2 starts with those "official" Frothy Shakes tunes. First (like with Side 1) an a capella loop titled "Sad Clown". "Pickup Truck" gets into the fiery 90s skuzz you probably love too, but "Benzene" is where we really hear the Shakes command of their potty-punk forte. Subdued four-beat and palm-muted power chords interfere with your brain waves while the bass adds dissonant commentary. Russell's vocals are conversationally (albeit party-conversation/ drunker than you,) sing speaking until the song's only hook: "Eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh" falsetto God-gibberish. It's unspeakably beautiful.

The rest of the record continues in the same vein. Only "Ladies Home Urinal" (by Betty Binns, ostensibly) grips to some post-dated rock trope. Everything else is pretty much beauty-scuzz/true punk/non-rock.

The actual details about this release are fuzzy, but you can definitely still buy these directly from the Shakes here... Edition of 500(?) Highly Recomended!

Music: Horsehair Everywhere "Volume 1" tape

Perceived self-seriousness (needs jokes) freely-improvised non-jazz-folk.

Sporadically interesting tape that's mostly forgivable where it wanders too far. They stay well enough away from Pop-Tribalism for most of the running time.

And there are some highlights: mostly when you get down to only two or three abstracted instruments. For instance, around halfway through side 2 we dip out into just a couple shouters, muted trumpet and arhythmic drumming that stays sparse while distorted shakers and Z.H. Rollo-slide guitar edge through the crowd.

At other times the sheer density of eleven people playing disorganizedly and all at once makes such an overwhelming cacophony that critical faculties are rendered ineffective, and with music like that, you just kind of lean back and enjoy how unpleasant everything is.

Divergences into folky guitar and harmony vocals are the weakest parts of the album, but luckily this is cut together from a whole lot of "jams" so it's easy enough to wait out the boring bits.

It's decent background music if you dig NNCK et al, but a lot of the members have been involved in more interesting projects. No Kings label.

Music: Various Artists "The Neighbors are Dead" double LP

God couldn't strike Murfreesboro lower than it already is, but from the depths comes this compilation of alternating beauty and pure obnoxiousness thru lo-fi live recordings.

All in all a pretty good summary of the music you could find most weekends on the Murfreesboro house show circuit pre-2009, (or whenever Animal Collective caused a bunch of would be out-musicians to turn Pop and ultimately sound just like Animal Collective.)

The recording quality is pretty uniform, (shit,) and suits most of this music fairly well. It's all in-your-face nastiness, (save a couple diversions into folk and delicate found sounds on side 1,) and hits you with the all-nite party vibe that went hand-in-hand with these shows.

Listening to the whole thing can get a bit tedious but there are some really amazing highlights, especially Who is Jackie Sheets' busted drum machine racket, Brown Swarm's ridiculous mess of wheezing electronics and drums, and the heady fuzz-wash of Lazer Slut's "White Sands."

There are solid cuts from Terror'ish, Deluxin' (circa "No Shit" left-feild hardcore), Most Amazing Century of Science (serious Naked City-worship), German Castro, High on Life and Meth Dad too.

The photo-collage outer sleeve depicts such images as Lazerslut's side-scrotum, Terror'ish smoking a cigarette and Meth Dad demonstrating questionable fashion sense via hat, (or more specifically, upturned bill.)

A really good listen/well-done archival release from Private Leisure Industries, a label dedicated to preserving the sounds and sentiments and loose architecture of Murfreesboro's glory years. Recomended!

Music: R. Stevie Moore "Advance" LP

This 14-song-wax item, a little too studied over, is just a drop in the bucket...

Of songs since then and around then, we're lead to believe. Fair enough.

There are in fact some gems here: for some of them you have to hold your nose and dig in cause they can be pretty sugary, see "Runny Nose, Money Woes", "Pop Music". But these are sort of your "Classic RSM" jams that I guess are what the money pays for. Unfortunately, we get no examples of the dude's preoccupations with performance art and impromptu poetry, that've been on display at recent live gigs around town. I'd also suggest there's a little too much respect paid to the influences, i.e. it's sometimes kind of derivative-feeling.

The first side feels lonelier and more interesting on the two left feild collaborations/covers. The lead off track is a tune by fusion/late-jazz guitarist, Ralph Towner called "Icarus", done alone, with computerized everything: MIDI keys and my-first-drum-machine, it's odd and fogey-ish in a good way.

There's also a Lennon-esque co-writership called "Theorum" with Lane Steinberg and Roger Ferguson, whoever they are.

Side 2 begins with some bubblegum/doowop pastiche but really hits its stride with the one-two-punch of album highlights "Kix Tarter Sauce" and "Me, Too". "Kix" is a subdued instrumental that really showcases Moore's talent for precise, efficient songwriting. It kicks around for like four minutes on just a few restrained guitar riffs and eventually, suddenly turns into "Me, Too", one of the most fantastically maniacal RSM pop numbers since "Schoolgirl". It's a lust-fueled Rhodes-rocker with quick drum-work that occasionally misses the changes, fully punk. (It's also one of only two tracks here recorded alone at home in classic RSM fashion.)

The production is a little off-putting. Gone are the multiple reel-to-reel recorders, in their place, clean, uncompressed digital recording that comes off a little un-nuanced. Still a pretty decent entry into the catalogue. Those unfamiliar with Moore have their work cut out. Don't start here.

Crowd funded, non-recycled material.

Music: Leslie Keffer "Whorny 4 U" tape

Heavy distortion-bubbles from tape or table, very graceful, gently ambiguous whirring synths fold in and out of the fuzz, all blissful and alive and horny.

Side 1 gets denser toward the end, few notes on out-of-phase cassette loops loom in and side 2's right off with it, chugging and wheezing along.

All in... Dense... Eventually LK's voice emerges, swathed in phasers and filters, like steam rising from the jungle. It's pure-seeming and guady, like teenage love. It's very becoming.

Pretty affective white-wall-of-sound/stoner-lectronics from LK on Tusco/Embassy, 2008. Still available(?!) from Fusetron.

Music: Big Nurse "Temporarily Unavailable" LP

Bludgeoned non-music/stoned "Noise" jams. Side 1 is pretty bliss/fluxed out computer sound, though all instrumentation is straight out of Rolling Stones circa 1973, +Bobby Keys.

Saxophone, a nasty little bitch-snake on Side 2, is spare and buried on Side 1, eliciting the Jazz-pathos, liberal-punk, and it works in the studied disdain-dissonant-drudge, add serpent a little at the end...

There are becoming, quieter moments on Side 1... By the way, I'm calling one side of the unmarked vinyl "Side 1" only because it appears (superficially) to be comprised of two tracks, versus only one track on "Side 2," the traditional one-track-side.

High Density Headache, nice brown paper inserts with screenprinted art.

Music: The Cherry Blossums LP

Not everyone in Nashville is a sucker for that rustic, historic-gaze folk sound. I'm not. But Cherry Blossums only border that naivety-blessed semi-vacant genre/zone. Their zone is a non-archy, but settled, comfortable and understanding.

While dreadnaught guitar and harmonicas ramble away, underground tom-toms gallop and plod with an Almost-Eastern feel, rippling under the folks' songs above. And so the Folk convention is lulled into a deeply hipnotic, throbbing trestle.  Odd percussion and things like whistles and suddenly-remembered mandolins appear, and seem pleased, and take their leave. They run across the tracks. The band is constantly churning and buzzing beneath the unfettered minstrelism.

You're told to "Sell your love for rocks and stones... and money." All irony of course, then they warn about getting weighed down, and killed man. It's a lattice of Pure Goodnature. Rolling along, repeating.

"History shows agian and again, how Nature points out the folly of Man." I'm not sure if this is a theme in the film, Godzilla. It may well be. Whether it is or isn't, Cherry Blossums bend and mend their eco-psychic lyricism with a cover of Blue Oyster Cult's "Godzilla", a song loosely based on the film probably. They also cover-sort-of the Old Dirty Bastard at the begining of "Glow, Jesus, Glow", a song that pops rhythmically at first, then sort of dissolves in hippy-vamp whacked-outness and liquidity. Then the end of the song becomes a sort of revival: John Allingham's grunts like Tongues and Peggy Snow's flirty wailing becomes the wild-afro'd preacher. Glow!

Collaboratively released, thoroughly replayable Old Weird Nashville. Recomended!

Music: Bad Cop "Stevie Nix" tape

Bad Cop's songs are simple-ish but they're pretty ugly, at least sometimes and that lends to phased interest/disinterest louch.

Side 2 starts off especially twisted with brass Wire-y instrumentation and Snotty vocals recorded through some kind of melting effect I think. I can hear everything melting.

I'm OK with the way this whole thing sounds (Garageband,) more or less. Recorded carelessly, (presumably,) everything's bleeding into every mic a bit and it all sounds pretty creeped out/live.
"Wet Lips" is all Cramps. You get a lot of that, basic references.

By the way, this is a six song EP (short songs... Two on side-B cut off before they even end.) dubbed onto 60-minute Maxell Type II cassette/probably other, spare tapes. So, in addition to the EP you get some 45+ minutes of Frank Sinatra's Greatest Hits.

More Pogo reheshing later on.

Self released on the Jeffrey Drag label. Named after a lady songwriter, more importantly, a beautiful person, Stevie Nicks.

Music: "Terror'ish presents the Marvelous Cosmic Space Association" tape

OK so maybe there was some intention toward Sun Ra style Space-with-like-barely-musicians when this was recorded, and there's a bit of marching band camp sound. Terror'ish mastermind Rob Bekham is known to be dismissive of the recording session (Garageband.)

What you have (instead of whatever they tried for?) is this Curtis Mayfield-style dope-funk (Like those scenes in Superfly) churned out by Noise-scene familiars, (so instead of coke it's... mushrooms-and-coke?) drug-munch stomp. Like this makes a better soundtrack to Cronenberg's "Naked Lunch" than Ornette's old ass ever could.

Murky, murkily recorded by, OK essentially a funk ensemble (drums, perc., bass, guit., and leads sax and synth.) Sounds like some ugly basement party, or like that scene in "Jacob's Ladder" when they're dancing and she gets the tail-hallucination. (Spoiler Alert)

This is butone very cool object in the large and diverse Terror'ish/DJ MDMHey discography. White tape. Psychy art by Mr. Bekham on some grooved, recycled(?) paper. High-Density Headache label. Highly Recomended!