Heathen Disco Music Reviews #0020

Hey folks — starting to move over here. Making some masthead and design decisions so you don’t have to keep looking at this unadorned page. Finally hitting a heavy new release cycle and all the attendant attention is trickling down to this outlet, so things should be a bit more planned out for the year-end. No signs of slowing down (can’t; don’t want to) so tell me what’s working for you and I’ll keep that in mind.

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NEW (AND UPCOMING) DISCOS

THINE RETAIL SIMPS Strike Gold, Strike Back, Strike Out LP (Total Punk)

(too early for the preview, boys?)

You’re probably wrestling with what to do with another garage band and someone pushing them as the end all, be all. I’ve already done that with the first two Simps LPs, and I’ll do it again with their third (out October 4^th ). Why exactly is important. Joe Chamandy, Chris Burns, O.B. and Dr. Slax have proven that this music can stay in the zone and keep moving forward at the same time, not an illusion but plain fact. This record puts a premium on instrument switching, shared songwriting and singing goals, and they’ve redoubled the effort to keep revealing new sides in a concise and effective way that distills this group’s essence into shotglasses that hold far more than they appear. Every time they turn the page, something else happens that confirms this belief, whether they wanna play The Basement Tapes with Great Plains (“O.B. on the Move”), flip a back-to-work dirge into a true personality crisis by the chorus (“Reality Rights,” “Prismic Dangle”), push some S.M./Stairs 12-tracque magique against the Bob (Youth) Crewe balladry of “I Was Watering a Plant” and “On Us,” oblige the courtesy Can-Con nod (a rampage through Neil Young’s “Barstool Blues” that knocks him onto the floor), or spread on the practical scummery of Watery Love on “A Hanger/A Coatrack.” And all the other cuts I didn’t mention. Despite the dirt and crackle, nothing’s lost here, every instrument up in the mix, clear and cutting, stinging even. All of their records are their best records, and there hasn’t been such a guarantee in guitar music of this cut since The Mummies (or The Drags). Here they come, turning this year’s NATO summit into a beer bust and making all the attempts at legitimized troubadours up there look real sorry. Joke’s on you, Kofi Annan! North America’s flagship force is These Retail Simps.

DUMMY Free Energy LP (Trouble in Mind)

Los Angeles bb band Dummy made a name for itself following the release of their first album Mandatory Enjoyment, and it may not be the name they wanted. Free Energy (out Sept 6^th ) is the correct reverse-the-curse stance to take. Not sure about free, but the energy is here for sure, illustrating the flipside of the coin around the groop sounds worship dragged in the last newsletter. There’s more than enough of perfection through idolatry in this world. You can manage that alone without subjecting other people to the boredom you mistook as a responsible quality. Where will it get you in the end? When you get out of that fallout shelter you prepped for, what exactly are you going to do? Repopulate the Earth? For what? Do not feed us your soft, twee, insulated Stereolab worship. Irradiate it! If you like this music, show us why. Blow its back out! Play it as intensely as you can. Play it like it's the end times, because they may never come. Surprise us! Add a bunch of Madchester refs while you’re at it! Show off what you got. Play it fast if that’s what turns heads. Play it loud. Play it even faster and louder at the show. Plus 8 styles. Disrespect it! Even the slow songs deserve half-time/double-time rhythms. Dummy already got in trouble once for overexplaining it. That’s not happening here; with the lion’s share of this dozen tracks rushing it at a manic pace, just patient enough to leave in all the synth and beat and ancillary details in, but not a second slower. Every song sounds like a peak, or an exhilarating comedown before the next one. To paraphrase Dave Martin, they’re certainly rockin’ like humans with a cause. Not enough bands realize this as a viable strategy, and it’s tough to figure out why Dummy landed on this and no one else in that realm has, but it’s high time it happened, and effective it’s their race to lose.

NEUTRALS New Town Dream LP (Slumberland)

Second album smiles by this Bay Area trio fronted by Scottish ex-pat Allan McNaughton (Giant Haystacks, Airfix Kits). With five years between full-lengths, they’ve been mostly confined to singles, which is where they shined (Bus Stop Nights, on Static Shock, is an all-timer), and the last track on their last EP resurfaces in dub on this one. That’s kind of an indicator of what feels like a less immediate affair; they are in a C86 lane akin to Reception--era Wedding Present trading in the bionic speedstrum for civic activism (“Stop the Bypass”). Yet this one wears ya down by the end to where it’s hard not to smile and want more by the end. They do this thing late in the game on golf metaphor “The Iron That Never Swung” where they nick a few noticeable licks off the TVP’s “Look Back in Anger” to where I can’t tell if they are telling us they love that song, or they are subbing the riff in for actually looking back in anger. With an album full of great riffs it’s a wonder why they couldn’t find one more of their own, but it’s not an argument worth diving into – this is a solid and reliable band bringing it back through the toughest slog some of us ever had to face, and New Town Dream is full of relatable content for anyone who’s ever been out carousing, cared about their city, or was from Scotland.

SØREN SKOV ORBIT Adrift LP (Frederiksberg)

Cool Danish post-bop/spiritual jazz quintet outing with a bunch of different approaches (the title Adrift is more appropriate than you know). The recording benefits from a somewhat off-kilter approach that pushes Rune Lohse’s drums high up in the mix, sounding more like what you’d expect on a rock record, and accentuates them with percussion from Ghanian conga player Ayi Solomon, who bolsters these proceedings with some necessary heft. Skov seems a bit unmoored from any one style or composition here, so the bigger parts are offset with some strange piano effects and playing that can be somewhat stiff and martial. Yet there’s some notions really worth exploring here, particularly around the rhythm section, and with a fleshed-out lineup (more horns, please!) and a decision to go towards their strengths, there could be a real promise in their future.

ARCHIVAL DISCOS

WREN KITZ Early Worm LP (2020, d. Feeding Tube/Sophomore Lounge)

Writing about all sorts of records in this space is the plan, but there’s two eras I feel deserve some greater focus, one being “end of the line” days (1996-2003), when a lot of music that was released has been rendered forgotten by changing tastes, fomenting of new ones and a general lack of digital presence, and the pandemic era (2020-2022), which has its own issues – no touring, maybe too much digital/social presence, competition with everything everyone was doing at home, emotional duress, lack of resources in pressing/manufacturing of music, market squeeze, and so many others it’s pointless to rehash here. You may have been baking some yummy sourdough Miches or hosting Zoom D&D and “Watch Together” parties through Netflix, but not so many were trying to discover new music.

This wasn’t so much the paradigm shift of Y2K so much as a short-circuiting of our society, something people around the world were dealing with in unison. With so much collective grief, it was easy to miss things that could have otherwise left a bigger mark. And now is a perfect time to get caught up, before it falls further in the rear view.

Starting here – Wren Kitz. His vinyl in between tapes (we’ll get to the new one The Thinker in a future edition) landed at the end of 2020, just in time to get missed by a bunch of year-end lists. Early Worm shares a name with the pre-COUM/TG outfit but little else, and if it’s a record meant to evoke the woods where Mascis once skied, it hit when these were more a sanctuary than a home for this howling moody guitar search. Backed by a strong rock outfit presence (drums, bass, cello for extra caterwaul), Kitz stirs up a beauteous, nervous wander that’s as much riffs as it is vibes, floating in and out of dreamy interstitials that some might just pass as their entire band and be done with it. There’s a stretch on side two that feels particularly without aim, something not always condoned but done with such confidence for the predestined outcome that it wins on grounds alone. Starts and ends super strong, all the sounds you’d want, Kitz’s reedy voice possibly going through some sort of Leslie setup or plug-in to give it this warble that blends into the instrumentation. If you were onboard early for Kurt Vile and wished that post-Constant Hitmaker / early Violators material went a bit more inward, you’ve found your spot here.

Music is a constant search and the rewards are all in where you look. Both Feeding Tube and Sophomore Lounge are excellent stops for consistent surprises.

Enjoy your weekend,

Doug Mosurock