Heathen Disco Music Reviews #0015

Hey gang. Up to 187 followers here, and hello to all of you. I feel great! Which is a great time to listen to dark music, so that it doesn’t absorb you.

Not a lot of darkness in the newest Heathen Disco set; rather a nice viber to put your mid-August tensions into perspective. Listen here via Mixcloud and expect the following:

• Joe Simon and the Mainstreeters — Theme from Cleopatra Jones/Instrumental

• Ann Peebles — Come to Mama

• Keith Hudson — Trust & Believe/In I Dub

• Bob Darin — Light Blue

• Peace de Résistance — I Am

• Johnny Jenkins — I Walk on Guilded Splinters

• Long Hind Legs — Alphabets of Unreason

• The Fallen Angels — Something New You Can Hide In

• Phil Upchurch — The Way I Feel

• Jeru the Damaja — You Can’t Stop the Prophet (Pete Rock Instrumental)

• Teenage Fanclub — I Don’t Know

• Sonic’s Rendezvous Band — Sweet Nothing

• Jeff Simmons — Raye

• Brief Candles — Tiramisu

• Belong — Jealousy

• Iceman Ja — Mega Jon’s Bass

• Kraftwerk — Numbers

• Ready for the World — Digital Display (extended remix)

• Metro Area — The Art of Hot

• Chi Chi Liah — Proud Mary (bonus beats)

• Profil — Berühren

• Boy Harsher — Tears (Minimal Violence mix)

• Venetian Snares — Fuck Off / Make Ronnie Rocket

• Zuli — 10000 (Papercuts Pt 1) (feat. MICHAELBRAILEY)

• Neil Young — Words (Between the Lines of Ages)

• Bitter Wish — side B

• Matthew “Doc” Dunn — All Is and Will Ever Be / The Earth House (for C.D.)

Validate me! Provide me with more fodder! PO Box 25717 Chicago IL 60625 USA // [email protected]. Send this around to those who you think would enjoy it, before the curtain drops somewhat.

Look at my life through this artifice! https://www.instagram.com/heathendisco/

Here’s this week’s first batch of reviews.

PEACE DE RÉSISTANCE Lullaby for the Bruised LP (La Vida Es Un Mus)

Asking yourself questions about why one record works and another doesn’t is kinda silly – the answers are usually so obvious it’s not worth repeating. The question does get more difficult when it’s the same artist. The bones of Institute fronter Moses Brown’s two albums as Peace de Résistance are definitely the same, but one is a little scuzzy and first-thought, and another shows what a coat of paint and a sympathetic technician can do. Lullaby for the Bruised sticks two important landings: one, a common narrative – money, in this case; I haven’t heard someone who “doesn’t even like money” this hard since the guy from Dystopia – and a low-down vibe, like late ‘70s Iggy, Flash and the Pan, Mink Deville (if I wanna be charitable to Mink Deville) and Rancid X. Production and realization between this one and Bits and Pieces couldn’t be more distant, and for the better. Maybe it’s the lack of expectation in that area, but this is doing a lot of work in the less than obvious “rock is back” narrative no one needs speak about, and fuckin’ nails so many directions many contemporaries wouldn’t even consider. Brown’s deep twangy voice finally makes sense in a new context. Maybe the class war doesn’t need to emanate from a squat or in some online trap, but out in the open, breezy and cool, transformative in spaces that are otherwise rotting and lonely, as this record so ably indicates. Haven’t heard much like this in longer than I care to remember, maybe not since Savoy Motel.

KELLEY STOLTZ La Fleur LP (Dandy Boy)

For a songwriter with a staggering 18 solo albums in all manner of setting and configurations, it’s reassuring to know that Kelley Stoltz isn’t repeating himself all that much. La Fleur finds the Bay Area stalwart back at it, in an increasingly darker mode that’s been building over his last few (and given the state of things, how could it not?), still tuneful and creating the appropriate right and left turns, surrounded by a bass-heavy pit of reverb, brooding, synth whooshes, and on two tracks another utility pop outfielder, Jason Falkner (ex-Jellyfish, The Grays and so many others). The New Zealand influence he sometimes canes feels mostly muted here, with some stray nods to Straitjacket Fits, but some really lovely songs peek out amidst the clouds, like single “Reni’s Car,” misanthropic JAMC nod “Human Events” and a few others. If you haven’t checked in with him in a while, and if you’re keen, this one will do it for ya – it definitely doesn’t ring the same bells as his Sub Pop era, probably for the best.

REGOLITH Parhelia (Live at Vicious Circle 7 June 2024) CD (Spectral Archives)

Southwestern PA duo Regolith (vocalist Vanessa Rae Beggs and string/processor/noisemaker Luke Ferdinand) steps out into an extremely personal setting on this field-recorded set, replete with audience conversation and pop tops opening. Getting a strong Charalambides outre/loosened folk psych feeling here, with Beggs delivering some really impassioned delivery – big lungs, bigger blues, maybe heading into territory staked out by the late Patty Waters. Only three pieces here if you don’t count the interstitials but it’s enough to make me curious for more, and makes me wish I was there, for a good time was had.

VALUE ADDED Tell Us Like We Are CD (Harriet)

Big slam riff rock / lost abyss PNW riff fest here, with none other than Some Velvet Sidewalk’s Al Larsen laying it down to a brothers Vanek rhythm section. Lots of guitar strut against stream of conscious lyrics from the other side of a stark, late life you’re probably not living, with some sequencer/sampler jams breaking up the Crazy Horse “Fuckin’ Up” jam vibe with similarly tough, loner drive about it. This isn’t the avenue I expected from any of these participants but it’s a very thick, heavy atmosphere, letting off steam in the sometimes failed, pained expectations of understanding someone else. Zimbo Chimps running into the second s/t Royal Trux album perhaps? It’s a very suitable nighttime bluesy nervous album that bears discovery by as large an audience as will allow. Check in on your friends.

MICHAEL MORLEY Pushed Streets LP (Thin Wrist)

Digital release from 2020, our most isolated year, getting the vinyl treatment in 2024, this solo album by The Dead C’s Michael Morley gets at what I’ve missed from the Dead C for quite a while: the haunt of it all. Performed entirely on acoustic guitars with double-tracked/lightly effects-coated vocals, this one’s like Morley about two feet away from you, definitely within one another’s personal space, and plays like the hushed, incurable dirge that influences a large part of their catalog, but in a precise space, out of howling amps’ way. Think about that song “Mighty,” before it gets to burnin’ … do you want more of that, more of the chords without the careen? That’s the veritable breath and skin of Pushed Streets; resolute, at times folky (“Alms” almost gets bright in moments), a cloak of troubled tidings you can’t seem to take off. It’s a zoner for days of insomnia and shortened blue daylight, pissing rain and clouds of breath that won’t lift for months. And it’s a place I’m familiar enough with to welcome this into my life.

More to follow,

Doug Mosurock