John Thill on Limited Appeal Records

Limited Appeal Records have been challenging listeners for the past twelve years with releases from Anal Cunt and full Blown Aids, so I was expecting a speaker shattering punk or noise act from this single by John Thill. Instead Limited Appeal lived up to putting out whatever they want with this home recorded sounding single from a one man folk pop project currently based in California. With releases on Folktale and Unread Records he's finding a home on other labels with a similar philosophy placed alongside Samuel Locke Ward or Michael Hurley. He's got an inherent sadness like John Darnielle but more abstract, less spelling things out, which I might like even better. When a picture is just painted enough I can fill the rest in I'll make it even sadder and more introspective. Don't get me wrong there's a lot of humor to the tracks, they just happen to be funny because they're sad and true.

A-Side's "Las Lonely Girls" I figured he means 'LA's', but then he's also inventing the spanish conjugation of lonely girls which I like more anyway. A countdown into layers of John harmonizing with himself and an acoustic guitar, all of it immediately coming from that sincere and raw place that's impossible to manufacture. He manages to create a track that's aware of pop construction but still naive and sad with fantastic vocal harmony. Hayden and Ben Lee are coming to mind. "Lone Star" features more great vocal that wouldn't be considered traditionally great, he just puts everything into it like Jonathan Richman in this move from LA to Texas. A girl who's come to the giant state only to find the same boring things. In Strozek, the saddest thing was once they get to America everything is downhill. Moved out to make a new start and you don't get much. Drinking and just trying to get by. None of these tracks ever take the easy road. I'm really blown away by the ease of this, the lyric is dropped on this melody right from the start.

On B-Side's "In the City All Alone" this time he's got a cranky electric creaking and completely messing up whatever tune was there, man I love this kind of K Recs Beat Happening stuff. I'm finally finishing this book about Tracy Thorn and just realized how amazing The Marine Girls are, pretty similar with an American slant, there's a sort of sad blues, country sound to this, but with some jokey experimentation, like John Davis maybe? Pounded on acoustic, the hammered solo fades out and he's just got a great vocal with the harmonies working against each other. The swinging experimental sound of the rhythm makes this teetering see saw of instrumentation. No idea how he pulls this off. "A Girl Rides Her Bike" catches strings in the middle of a strum then switching to picking with that off kilter internal sense of rhythm on this one. A looped acoustic pattern that he places this vocal effortlessly over top. The strums get bounced to an echo for the last few measures and it's little touches like that that kill me before I even start paying attention to the lyrics.

Impressive black and white printed zine of drawings from John, 111 on black vinyl from Limited Appeal Records.

Sloth "Falafel" on Limited Appeal Records

Seven inch records are a constant education. I learned at two interesting things this morning:

* #1 Limited Appeal's catalog runs DEEP, starting with release #1 back in '07 by none other than Full Blown Aids. That's one way to kick off a label with the a sludge metal project from Seth Putnam the lead in my other favorite band name, Anal Cunt.
• #2 This single from Sloth is a mere sliver of the Sloth puzzle. They've been putting out material since '94 on cassette, CDR, and singles....easily over 100 releases, continuing to present day...which is just plain impressive. "Falafel" is from 2010 and just as I was getting ready for the METAL onslaught, this really surprised me going in a dark, minimal synth place.

A-Side "Falafel" breaks in with a nice intro lady talking about the mastering and even mentioning Limited Appeal Records. Including the liner notes as spoken word like those old vinyl records I used to have for star trek episodes or those shellac recordings with a narrator instructing the listener audio about the process itself. It's a crazy idea to introduce a track like that, like staring right into the camera. The track itself is a weird off kilter rhythm, a heavy phasered guitar, someone is just beating on this thing while it phases in and out in a mechanical style, you'd think this was an old drum machine but it's even more low tech. Super minimal until the waves of distortion start rolling in while the lead vocal sings "Falafel!!!!" as loud and high as possible. It's all together... this isn't some crazy freakout, it's measured and cool except for the falafel wail. The layered vocals in a rigid line reminds me of Blanche Blanche Blanche. The tape whirs to a stop and a new guitar sound incomes throbbing in, this time with a keyboard behind it, its changed gears, darker like some kind of Cure demo. Those same scratchy chords are totally new because they decided to stray so heavily from what anyone else was doing. The falafel bit was just to throw me off, it's really about this darker new wave sound that's tacked on as an instrumental, I like the hell out of this. Its all about this rhythm thats slowly turned into a slow crawl, a much darker place. Great keyboard changes with a damaged wah guitar sound. It all ends when someone hits stop on the cassette.
The B-Side is untitled, or just 1. and takes those later damaged sounds from the previous side and really expands on them into a gary war, blank dogs place. The reverb and echo are evil and the distorted chords pace back and forth under a tom beat tribal and that echo seems to be the only instrument really rising to the surface of this late seance sound. Someone is making some kind of vocal noise that bounces around, indecipherable. Its nothing but noise here in this endless loop of a broken down Halloween house. They stop the tape again and a heavier tom beat stomps in with the craziest high hat hiss. A massive guitar is next almost jumping the needle and that sludge metal might see the light yet. These are monotonous nightmares, plodding and experimental in abandoning all the right ways into a thoughtful embrace of noise. Minimal repetitive noise. I have to wonder what that "Falfel" track was all about. Did they think I couldn't handle the darkness of this? The doom of the real Sloth? WE CAN GUYS.
Housefly fly stamped inner sleeve and hand numbered weirdness from Limited Appeal Records. Losing money and pressing only vinyl since 2007.

Sadly this is sold out from the source, so you'll have to try ebay. Sloth also chooses not to have an internet presence.

Far Corners on Limited Appeal Records

Been diving into the Limited Appeal Catalog lately and came up with this fuzzed out single from former Turpentine Brothers members (who I remembered from a split they did with Cococoma of Trouble in Mind for those keeping score) and their latest project, Far Corners based out of New Mexico. There's a great interview over at Delayed Graffitification that talks about the million and a half previous projects and a full length coming out soon on good ol Volar Records...(who also just put out this 5x7" box set with Far Corners and Eat Skull, who I haven't heard from in along damn time).

"Ruling the Roost" right off reminded me of that ultra fuzz of Psychedelic Horseshit with the brut melody of Blank Dogs, it doesn't have any of Mike's delicacy about it though, you get the feeling those electrocnics would immediately be broken to shit if they actually figured out how to plug them in. There's a mechanical drum pattern that sounds like it was output to cassette and blasted through a PA... the fuzz is just another instrument to be warped and manipulated. Energetic, distorted vocals... well what isn't really. Repeat the electric melody and it ends up in a fast burst of cacaphony and delay, the bassline is the only thing keeping this glued together. Pop 1280, Gang of Four and Times New Viking, but ominous, these ain't no pop songs... these are out for blood, dirty rotten blood.

B-Side's "Gold Choice", starts with some sort of surf, garage beat, overdriven with sirens of feedback, guitar?...some instrument trying desperstely to come up with a melody, it's under such fuzz that it's barely coming up above the surface of this murk. Higher range electric squealing, peaking so bad it becomes another rhythm, this one is sounding like the Reatards, fantastic bludgeoned punk, hairy layers of junk, blowing the hell out of everything. The crashes of cymbals hardly making a dent over this static and like those giant dishes built into the ground scanning for alien transmissions, culminates into damn catchy power punk. Really impressive to pull this out, makes you start over because you could have been making it up this whole time. Did I invent that phrase, separating everything out of the mess? Nope it's there, and this B-side is great, but maybe the A-side had to recalibrate the ear canals or something.

Awesome spraypainted center labels on limited lilac vinyl, limited is right... to 166, there can't be many more of these left on Limited Appeal who says:

Edition of 165, with 135ish on Lilac colored vinyl, and 30ish on Beige colored vinyl. Record centers are hand stamped and stenciled. Jackets are hand numbered and assembled. The Far Corners contain members of the Turpentine Brothers, actually they are essentially the Turpentine Brothers under a new name.

Check out the A-Side:

Oneida - Human Factor on Limited Appeal Records

Limited Appeal Records was kind enough to send a stack of records from their warehouse that I've been slowly getting to, including this long player from Oneida...a one sided, etched B-Side long player mind you, with a recording of the only time this track "Human Factor" was ever performed live. From their controversial triple album I haven't been exposed to much Oneida over the years and it' maybe due to the overwhelming catalog and hardcore fans…and in complete danger of sounding like an idiot, this side came off like something in the Locrian or John Zorn camp. Do they use similar instrumentation as either of those references? Not at all, but if I walk away from anything when it comes to Oneida it's that I never have any idea what to expect, and they aren't trying to manipulate or cater to any kind of audience. They felt like they had enough material for a triple album….then they put it out, simple as that. It isn't some conceptual statement. Comparing Rated O to other bands triple albums throughout history is missing the point. The very act of getting that mammoth beast out into the world is anti everything those pretentious, self indulgences represent. I know Oneida isn't fucking with us, it isn't some elaborate joke to say "Ha, you liked us?" This is the purest form of self expression because on the surface it should appeal to no one. It's challenging, it isn't nice, or pleasant, you have to really fucking TRY to appreciate it….and beyond it being about what the band feels like exploring, I root for things like this that are mind blowing in the way they exist outside of everything you know. How much skill and theory can they throw away? How much are they willing to work against the status quo? Not that they're railing against society or something. It's YOU that has the problem essentially. They're just going where they want to go, get on the train or get off….it's your choice.

This track, "Human Factor" has some serious demented screaming. Kid Millions sounds completely tormented, while something (?) strikes a single, high pitch note with restrained percussion, but this is just getting started. Already though, it's creepy and unsettling, a catharsis for the character here and the title, "Human Factor" just makes me keep thinking about all of the ways that your own consciousness interprets this as scary...what is it inherently about these elements that makes you want to run the other way...
A creeping hum of what's about to happen...the delay of a infinite loop. Slow baleful walls of distortion far off in the distance...this is the scary tension of Oneida. Kid isn't so much yelling as making an unintelligible vocal noise that's completely frightening in not being able to decipher whatever this entity is after, you don't even want to get close enough to find out.
It always amazes me how movies come up with the worst scary bands for a dumb club scene when there are real bands infinitely more frightening. But then again, the guys in Oneida probably couldn't be bothered to deal with the terrible movie that has nothing to do with music anyway.
Snarling distortion... tinny, boxed up distortion and it's agonized squeaks. These vocals are either the victim or the terribly deformed misfit behind the scenes. Oneida seems to be exploring this kind of sheer fucked up mess, the things we're willing to do to ourselves and each other. Those instincts still buried deep down that might actually be an asset when facing an impossible enemy or outside force, as much we want to think everything is civilized. Oneida is reminding me, like any good apocalypse movie, that we're not even 72 hours away from complete chaos. Hopefully it doesn't sound like these grinding I-beams from a skyscraper. Eventually this mad man takes a break for this distanced bass line that's actually working with melody and droning off in the crawl space where a chunky guitar quietly starts building in.
Wouldn't you know it this vocal is back to continue writhing over the screeching guitar. Metallic insect drones on, getting closer, like a broken transformer, spitting and flopping around, filling up with electrons, ready to burst. Blades spinning… off in the distance rising and fading. Oneida knows you're going to make it worse, whatever it is out there...waiting.

Check out a track from Rated O, where Human Factor originally appeared: