Heathen Disco Music Reviews #0031 (October 8, 2024)

Hey gang. I can’t hold it back anymore. Once this paywall goes up, I think some of the salt left in my shaker will be piling up behind it for subscribers.

Turning you onto great music is my privilege, but there have to be some lines drawn, and I think you’re gonna see more of them coming up — this is the 31st edition of this, and twice a week I’ve been saying mostly good things about eight or nine recent records a week. Is there that much out there?

I’m happy that so many people have provided new releases, but this is a marathon, and the wrecking ball is straining. I love writing about music. I just can’t be beholden to love all of it, and last I checked, that’s why some of you were looking for me in the first place. One or two of these records are worldbeaters, the others are really good, one is … well, it’s something. I invite you to read on and understand the difference.

Please do keep sending it along and passing this email to your friends, labels, bands, etc.

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TERRY STAMP Blue Redondo LP (Just Add Water)

British songwriter Terry Stamp said goodbye to the traditional path of a working musician with label representation way back in 1975, but seems to have been constantly at it ever since, privately releasing tapes and CDs of his demos and archives supported by work in other industries. He should be better known. Maybe Blue Redondo is his time. Terry was the singer and guitarist for brutal bluesy UK hard rock outfit Third World War back in the early ‘70s, and made a solo album Fatsticks in the mid-‘70s with sidemen like Patto’s Ollie Halsall and Bowie’s drummer Tony Newman. Records fade from view, but Stamp, having relocated to California after that last one was having its smoldering ashes stirred up, aimed to keep going. In between shifts washing plates from airplane dinner services he saved up enough to record a set of solo demos passed to (and passed on) by A&M, which are just now surfacing here as Blue Redondo, originally self-released in some form to a cassette in 1978 that you probably don’t have. The cover art places him as the sort of heller you would remember from his earlier endeavor, but there’s not much to these tracks except some expertly-played rhythm and slide guitar, hand percussion against the acoustic’s body, and his voice, but that’s all you need – the stillness and confident passion, the working-class lyrics (“Rota Roota Man,” “Roadcrew Blues”), the brick-built blues, and the bared soul and utter isolation of what these truths deliver (like, who are you gonna be after you hear “Sunday Morning at the Mine”) are esteemed company for some of the darkest nights of the soul – think J.J. Cale’s “Cherry” as the frame. This is like when you go to the shelter and one of the animals chooses you, the companion you didn’t know you needed. Those familiar with Third World War might already know the Just Add Water label that reissued this, along with Stamp’s Fatsticks and a collection of ‘80s demos – they specialize in ‘60s and ‘70s rockers lost to time, like Lobby Loyde, Jimmy Campbell, Jesse Hector and the like, and this might be the most settled and comfortable release in their stable, well worth a look.

USURABI Chita LP (An’Archives)

Third studio album by this Japanese trio, maybe some of the most straightforward music on this exceptional label apart from the Shizuka archives, the Mura record and the Los Doroncos LP, and among the most accessible of all of those. Fronted by guitarist/vocalist Terashima Akiko, previously of the band Doodles, in some sense it’s enki bent sideways, with the force of a seasoned rhythm section (of bassist Kawaguchi Masami and drummer Morohashi Shigeki, whose collective past includes Broom Dusters and Overhang Party, as well as collabs with Haino Keiji and Kawaguchi’s titular New Rock Syndicate) that pushes these into a more modern understanding – it translates to jangly indie pop/rock through Terashima’s deliberate, beautifully burned-in guitar playing, which lifts this past the beauteous somnambular qualities of Maher Shalal Hash Baz or Galaxie 500 into something a bit heavier when needed (see that new Velocity Girl reissue). As with their two previous albums, it’s a good balance between fast and slow, though they’re not playing by the same rules as the Slumberland roster. Not to get too Pitchfork on ‘em, but after three albums there doesn’t seem to be any impetus for Usurabi’s music to change or grow from this concept – perfect for those just arriving, maybe, but as always, that may not be their point: traditions and innovation are two entirely separate buckets, and Chita doesn’t need a Jon Dale essay to frame it for Western audiences for a clear understanding of their sad, honest beauty to take hold.

LOUSE Passions Like Tar LP (Feel It)

Feel It’s relocation and Cincinnati-centric roster changes are overdue for a town that hasn’t had label or scene representation at scale for as long as I can remember; it’s like all of this had just been going on within the city limits (maybe over the river too) and now a larger audience is privy to it. Most towns don’t get such a benefit, and it’s pretty nice to see what Sam has pulled up from those grounds. The state of this world and creative outlets in our major cities against global pressures, cost of living, generation gaps and the concept of wanting to be in a band in the first place has backgrounded the kind of genre expression championed by Cincy quintet Louse. You can have a Goth night and stock it with all kinds of old and familiar records, but newer qualifying bands usually fall out of view – it seems like there’s less impetus for people to make this sort of music in a veritable void. Maybe it’s going to take smaller markets and institutional memory to make us whole in this rebuild era, but as always it’s who you know more than what you know (and after 10 years of sitting in relative silence/anonymity in Chicago, this is all too familiar).

Anyway … Louse is firmly on the Serfs/Crime of Passing side of the local fence (though with none of the members of those projects), and pretty far away from the posts and slats of that divider, with a highly refined, goth-as-you-remember-it stance akin to ‘90s Cure, Chameleons, certain Sad Lovers and Giants material, Human Drama, and several others in this velvety vein. The songs are worthwhile, the mood appropriate, the recording crisp and distant from much in the vein of punk/HC (the right thing, as a band with a predetermined sound should be represented in accordance, etc.). This is a really good record, does exactly what you would expect, and doesn’t cop out at the end, remaining as strong as it starts. We need these guys in every city, with all the toil and mercy their sound manifests; moreover, we need reminders of the permanence of our passions, where they start and what is shared, because without reminders of these foundations, we’re just gonna be playing remember when with our futures.

ALAN LICHT Havens 2xLP (Vin du Select Qualitite)

Six big ones from our man Alan, all but half of one of these tracks offering filled with dexterous, longform strumming, the sound of a guy who really just loves playing that guitar, does it well, and knows how to tell a tale with it, just bangin’ away at these things in a triumph most instrumental guitar records don’t really give you. Subtletly is present throughout, mainly in how these songs shift through their compositions, but counterpoint ain’t the game this time, and glad to hear it: this is drag you outta bed, get your shit together, enjoy life style music, big and open, systemic yet joyous even in moments of tenuous drone and quietude. Get someplace you wanna be at peace and slap this one on, let it play through and experience maximum uplift. Even that abstracted cover of the Stooges’ “1970” works to this strength.

CHIME SCHOOL The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel LP (Slumberland)

People love this, people need this, this tradition, this really pro sounding pop album. Why not me? The first Chime School LP worked because it had the trappings of a genre (skiffle? non-traditional production choices?), but this second outing is just … not. Too polished, sounds like a Gin Blossoms record but safer, like a record a band would make in the ‘90s after they get signed and their music is given to outside producers and committee, only here it seems to have been done as a choice. It’s certainly a huge guitar record, big hooks, good singin’. It’s also a lot of the things people react to and rebel against. I’m a dad but I’m certainly not MY dad, and that’s been largely by design and constant reminders. This reminds me of that sentiment, of someone clinging steadfast to an unshared memory because it’s there, and it’s the kind of thing Slumberland pushed back on for quite a time.

Mostly good though, right? – Doug Mosurock