the hecks - trust and order 7 inch

Falling between genres can lead to the early death of a band, especially these days with the internet
hype machine's need for shorthand and brevity.  Though connected to the "garage" and "noise" scenes in Chicago, THE HECKS are out to prove that those / any "labels" are meaningless, even if they have to do it one 7 inch at a time.  Their debut single, TRUST AND ORDER released on MONIKER RECORDS earlier this year, is just the feedback-laced experimental guitar/drums dual attack all those stuck in the blog race to the bottom need to listen to right now.

Elements of Sonic Youth's art rock experiments in feedback and guitar tuning, Wire's discordant post punk minimalism from "Chairs Missing,"  and the Fall's irreverent pop structures all shine through on "Trust And Order."  Though to allude to those touchstones is besides the point; the Hecks are blazing a trail through the history of post punk all on their own, not just trying to cop a few guitar tricks from YouTube videos.  (They might even deny any of the musical references made here, but it's a review so some have to be included, right?)

On the title track, a casual minimalist drum beat starts the groove off before a simple repetitive guitar lick kicks in, and before long we're somewhere in the realm of "EVOL" or even Slint's "Spiderland" but mixed with plenty of Urinals' urgency and angular art weirdness of MX-80 Sound or DNA.  Short, precise and too the point, "Trust And Order" lingers like a daydream long after the tone arm returns to its place; those shimmering guitar riffs are earworms for sure.

Flip it over and "The Time I Played With My Puppy" begins like a shattered pop song from Guided By Voices and ends with a short experiment in droning noise.  It's almost two distinct songs trainwrecked into one catchy mess, the kind you might imagine Suicide playing if they were a drums / guitar duo.

So are the Hecks more of a shoegazing noise rock band, or a no wave obsessed garage outfit?  They have a knack for sculpting sheets of noise, yet both songs on the single have fragmented moments of pop beauty too.  One thing is for sure, they've collected some of the most interesting turns of post punk from the last thirty years and compiled them into one killer 7 inch.

Listen to TRUST AND ORDER below -
   and grab yer own copy from MONIKER RECORDS here !!!!!!!

WATCH THE HECKS LIVE here -

kraus - sumpreme commander

the back story of a band doesn't matter.  never really has.  even though the blogs / zines / the hype generating media saturated world we live in would suggest otherwise.......IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC........i could care less where an album came from or who made it.....it could drop from the sky......and onto my turntable and if it catches my attention and sucks me into it's little grooves, THAT'S WHAT MATTERS..........

who is KRAUS?  i've heard he was part of new zealand's finest space punks THE FUTURIANS, but that might just be a rumor.  he is a mysterious fringe musician for sure, and i'd rather let the question of back story remain vague.  i'm sure he's from the same musical corner of the universe as SUN RA, MOONDOG and BRUCE HAACK.....but that is as far into researching as i want to go with KRAUS......anymore context would just detract from this wonderfully obscuro rock record that just appeared one day on my turntable.......

MONIKER RECORDS might just wanna keep the secret to themselves anyway......after all KRAUS' new album SUMPREME COMMANDER is a BY FAR ONE OF THE MOST WAY OUT THERE PSYCH RECORDS OF 2012......and you wouldn't want some other indie label just stealing him away if you were MONIKER, right.....?

SUPREME COMMANDER starts off somewhere in the realm of KING BLOOD and PURLING HISS with it's crunchy blown out psych riffage, wondering to and fro, melting away anything that comes close to pop structure....... what KRAUS aims for is more of an experimental / electronic / analog sound collage that's part sci-fi b-movie soundtrack and part post krautrock mind expanding......and a whole lotta OUT THERE SOUNDS....... think TANGERINE DREAM covering FLOWER TRAVELIN BAND.....or CAN and KRAFTWERK playing NINTENDO together (or making a soundtrack for their epic video game battle)..........but probably more to the point, GOBLIN and THROBBING GRISTLE getting high and collaborating on SPACE ROCK album together...........   

yes KRAUS has made a wholly unique and interesting AVANT ROCK LP THAT BEGS YOU TO LISTEN OVER AND OVER AGAIN.   experimental music is not just for the knob twiddlers and feedback sculptors......KRAUS proves that with a guitar, a keyboard, some effects pedals and a drum machine (and occasional drums) that you can record something exceptional....with no pro-tools foolery......just the kind of analog tricks and tape manipulating that made all those ENO and RESIDENTS lps SO GROUNDBREAKING.........(both of which are also influences on KRAUS)

do yerself a favor and check out SUPREME COMMANDER below... 
        because it's another highly recommended platter from MONIKER......


and watch KRAUS' video for SUPREME COMMANDER here......

Kraus "Supreme Commander" LP from Kraus on Vimeo.

ono - albino

MONIKER RECORDS has released what just may be THE STRANGEST DARKEST AND MOST MESMERIZING LP OF THE YEAR: ALBINO by ONO......

a experimental swirl of shadowy influences from punk to gothic blues, as well as no wave, gospel, noise, dub and proto industrial......ALBINO is a truly AVANT POP MASTERPIECE...... musical reference points for ONO are ALL WAY OUT:  Captain Beefheart, Can, Tools You Can Trust, Birthday Party, Throbbing Gristle, Faust, Public Image Ltd, the Residents. Controlled Bleeding, Teenage Jesus & The Jerks and Suicide.....  just listing all those bands makes my head swell, but believe me ONO swallows all those diverse strains of musical exploration and makes one crazed hell of an album........

ONO's music is a post apocalyptic nightmare dream sequence filmed by david lynch, sure to shred your perception of reality......filled with no wave clanging guitars, cacophonous industrial beats, gospel moaning and a fierce off kilter coat of feeback looping and droning, this lp is as PUNK, EXPERIMENTAL and  OUTSIDER as you can get.......  imagine going to see ONO back in the early 80s when the whole chicago punk scene were bands like naked raygun and mentally ill......  THIS SHIT WOULD'VE PROVOKED FIGHTS, IT SOUNDED SO STRANGE, OUTTA THIS WORLD AND AHEAD OF ITS TIME.......

the mysterious ONO has been lurking around chicago for thirty years now, in the shadows and so far off the grid as to not even warrant a proper allmusic entry, but hopefully with ALBINO this will all change.....ONO's back story is quite hazy as are the album details, but fortunately MONIKER RECORDS has done their research before releasing this album, so read on -

 To non-locals, ONO's stunning Albino might have fallen from the sky, but to an enlightened and ever-growing bunch of Chicago heads the band is already full-on legend, and the release of their first recorded music since 1986 is a majorly epic landmark that needs no introduction. For the rest of y'all: ONO is a unit of transcendent noise-making now in its fourth decade. Both notorious and neglected in their early years, ONO's unholy bitches' brew of noisy snarl, avant-garde R&B, gospel-heavy blackness, queer sensibility and extravagant, performance-art theatrics (they once played a concert at Navy Pier in which singer travis was dragged through the audience in a steel cage, naked but for a jockstrap) was in a whole 'nuther galaxy from the macho Chicago punk scene that spawned them.

Reemerging in the late 00s with astonishing vehemence and an expansive, multi-generational lineup, they've been embraced by a more fertile and experimental Chicago scene, and are about to explode skulls internationally. travis has always referred to fellow-founder P. Michael ONO as the 'leader of the band,' but anchor might be more appropriate—P. Michael's groundswelling bass and nasty, insectoid beats are unquestionably the glue that binds the sprawling noise. But then there's travis, whose fierce brilliance carries echoes of punk prophets like Patti Smith, Iggy Pop and Gil Scott-Heron but is always pure, raging ONO. As for the rest of the band, check the sick, Beefheartian groove of Veil, or their revelatory cover of the Velvet Underground's All Tomorrow's Parties, which manages to excise much of the song's innate sentimentality while upping its sonic generosity, the wall-of-sound sprouting weeds and flowers in its cracks.

ONO's original mission statement (1980) runs through this music more truly and deeply than ever, so to quote it in full and let it speak for itself: ONO1980// Experimental Performance, NOISE, and Industrial Poetry Performance Band; Exploring Gospel's Darkest Conflicts, Tragedies and Premises. Some deep-listening shit--beyond recommended! 

this is one album that just can't be explained--words are not descriptive enough to encapsulate the haunting power of this record, one that i wasn't sure i would even like but now can't stop spinning.  you gotta just listen for yourself, and be saved by the redemptive dark magic of ONO.....ALBINO is truly unique music, that rips down the illegitimate walls we put up between sub genres of rock n roll.......  after a couple of spins you might just find yourself putting ONO on your best of the year list........ 

SO LISTEN TO ALBINO BELOW....
    and grab it from MONIKER RECORDS now......limited to 300 copies.

watch ONO's video for MODEL BRIDE filmed in 1983.....



and for further listening track down ONO's first two seminal recordings, MACHINES THAT KILL PEOPLE (soon to be reissued) and ENNUI.......both VERY RECOMMENDED...........
hit up youtube for a listen, there are avid ONO fans that have done us a favor and uploaded these two lost and classic album from THERMIDOR RECORDS.............

lazy - party city 7 inch

Kansas City's LAZY bring early DIY punk back from the dead with their new 7 inch Party City, out now on Moniker Records.   This is boisterous mid 70s lofi punk rock when punk was at its most vital.  Think Testors, Zero Boys and FU2 all rolled out into one hurricane of spastic rock n roll fury.

The single starts of with "Party City", an rambunctious ode to those late nights we all love that could've been on those early Killed By Death or Messthetics comps.  The analog warmth, high octane pop melody and stripped down power trio approach of the song combine to make Lazy a lo-fi force to be reckoned with.   On top of that already infectious formula is the boy/girl back and forth vocal tandem that makes the A-side even more of a classic jam.   File Party City next to the Features' "Floozie of the Neighborhood" or Crime's "Hotwire My Heart"; perhaps one of the best mutant pop nuggets ever.  With the polaroid picture on the sleeve, if you weren't paying attention you might just think this was a thirty year old single that Sing Sing or Last Laugh Records just unearthed.   "Party City" is for sure a track that should be in your jukebox (or at least your ipod).

Flip to the B-Side and you get two more fuzzed up rockers from Lazy's Obsession Sessions, which yielded a sold out cassette from earlier this year.  Both "Silence In Crisis" and "Boys in the Girlsroom" are short bouncy numbers that race through your speakers so quick you'll immediately need another spin.  Lazy takes the same chainsaw aim at punk as GG King, Foster Care, Terry Malts and the Mind Spiders, boiling everything down to a snotty pop core, but with one single and one tape, Lazy proves themselves to be one of the best bands in the scene.

Moniker Records is going to release a full length from Lazy in early 2013, so Party City is a little taster to whet our insatiable appetite for rock n roll goodness.  This single absolutely does what it's supposed to, cause I'll end up spinning it hundreds of time in anticipation of Lazy's new album, one that I'm sure will rank amongst the best of next year.

Get your taste of Lazy's new single below 
and grab go to Party City via Moniker Records.

A SIDE

B SIDE




and watch LAZY play PARTY CITY live below......

hot & cold - border area

Records that don’t fit easily into one genre tend to grab my attention, especially if those records also heavily draw upon way out there psych, punk and avant noise all at the same time. Needless to say, the newest release by Moniker Records, Hot & Cold’s Border Area is right up my alley.

The band is comprised of two brothers from Canada by way of Beijing whose instrumentation belies their psych rock attitude: nothing but drums, bass, keyboards, samplers and a drum machine—nope no guitar. This is punk rock as Suicide played it, early 80s psych style. Their sound is comprised of a melodic blown out keyboard and catchy repetitive bass lines grooving over a warped percussive backdrop, and yes some vocals that seem to be recorded via damaged microphone. Droning at times and throbbing at others, the motorik rhythm of Border Area keeps you bobbing your head through both sides of the record.

The extendo sonic explorations put Hot & Cold in the same psychedelic camp as Cave, Oneida and Moon Duo, yet unlike those other groups, the absolute bare bones minimalism of their new record is what makes it so hauntingly good. On a song like “Sweet Fatigue”, the keyboard intertwines with the bass and nothing else. Then even the keyboard drops out, so there’s space for the vocals. “Model Farm” and many of the other tracks on the album continue on with the simple drive yet add the feedback dissonance of Chrome, the punk synth thrash of the Screamers and the angular post punk rhythms of Wire.

The hypnotic melancholy of “Sister Told Me” is perhaps one of the most anthemic songs on the LP, sprinkled with 60s organ rave ups and wry chanting vocals that spit with the best of the early punks on the relentless drum loop. “No Dreams Tonight” could be the perfect buzzing dark wave mash up of Can and A Certain Ratio. But most of Border Area and especially “Out of the Grey” reminds me of the prog/avant grind Amun Duul, Neu! and Klaus Schulze (minus the self indulgence) distilled into a more sweaty basement party vibe. Yes, when the kids get their hands on those weirdo records from the seventies and eighties, strange music is made, and Hot & Cold leave you with nothing short of a new twist on synth damaged nuevo krautrocked post punk.

You may not have heard of these guys, but now’s the time to introduce yourself to Hot & Cold. 

Listen to the entirety of BORDER AREA below and pick up a copy from MONIKER now before its super limited pressing is gone for good........