The Famines on Reluctant Records

I went to see The Ketamines a while back at Death by Audio to finally meet up with Paul from Mammoth Cave (and plays with The Ketamines) who I've been talking to on the internet tubes for years...sadly there was a lineup change and I MISSED THEM. Terrible, especially since he gave a shout out to 7inches and everything. I'm a jackass, but we did get a chance to hang out and he loaded me up with about a million of his records and stuff they've been distro-ing at the Cave including this Famines single (and the most badass glow in the dark Ketamines shirt ever).
I forgot how much I liked their other single and that this is a duo! The perfect setup for some of the most interesting music created...they didn't disappoint before and this single is another stellar example of their unique, minimal, complex punk.

A-Side's "Free love is a sales technique" features a gritty acoustic coming on fast and furious leaving you wondering if this isn't the wrong speed...but insane speed is The Famines. High twingey PLAANGS from the electric, it neever really slows down... all this manic treble electric goes away and you end up with a steady single drone beat under this hectic kit pounding. I love these vocals. Paul never steers me wrong and this is completely amazing. I was compelled to order that full length collection on Mammoth Cave immediately. That thin scream over the instrumentation here is easily overwhelming the melody, he's screaming in an empty room. Poor sucker. This ridiculous speed is incredibly precise and controlled, a frightening kind of off kilter precision. Even the brief bursts of distortion hardly have a chance to fade. The drop out to the bassline and empty room drums is that great kind of tension where it's decpetively quiet, biding it's time. The best kind of reprive. Switch to toms, then crash the way through to end of this one.

The inner label printing is all blurry, like an old doublestrike typewriter, and a crazy wallpaper collage of old condom ad's. There's your free love. Turns out Raymond designs all the bands stuff, including all kinds of other graphics for print stuff, lots of serious posters on his etsy page.

B-Side, "The First World War" has that scuzzy bass sound back, just bursts of hummmm and rimshot sticks in separate timings hitting the side of this snare, maybe a woodblock? These guys are fantastic songwriters, both equally contributing and important to the skeleton and bare lines, ready to explode post punk. The most dangerous kind. The electric runs patterns up and down the fretboard off on it's own melody. The obvious way is to build this up to loud after loud section which seems to never actually happen here. Barely on the edge of distortion every line, yeling on the edge of that needle in the red. God damn great anti-war track on top of everything else. I would put this up there with The Happiest Place on Earth.
Abstract lyrics about nerve gas, germans, not too many specifics, just the idea that these were all democracies undone with guns. It's smart powerful complex songwriting with modern weapons; the guitar and drums, they make this track sound like an aggressive attack itselves. Crunchy distortion right in the gut. March snare roll, never obvious, always switching the expectations up, completely great. I will be looking out for everything they do in the future.

Black on black business card with insert details from Reluctant Recordings.

Sold out at the source, but Raymonds own etsy page has some of these long sold out singles for sale. Mind blowing below:

Bloodstains Across Alberta on Mammoth Cave Records

Saved the best for last in Mammoth Caves massive singles onslaught. This one is by far their most ambitious with 10 tracks from various Canadian artists loosely based on their home province and compiled this massive EP.

The A-Side tracks even have the Myelin Sheaths, "Chinook Party", the most shocking part is that I just found out these guys are from Canada? Weren't they on Hozac? They bring the layered distortion, and a fist pumping chorus.
The Tension Slips, "Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump", is sort of a cheer, like "S.A.T.U.R.D.A.Y night", sort of that same bubblegum punk anthem, and I thought for a second they might be talking about a night in Buffalo, NY, where you could easily get your head smashed in if you were jumped, which is also very common in Buffalo. But then I remember Alberta is waaayy over there by Montana, so there must be some other equally awesome city or bar they are referring to.
The Moby Dicks even weigh in with a muddier than usual effort, "Frostbite". The levels are punished, and they stop halfway through...probably too drunk. They aren't really talking about anywhere in particular, more like everywhere in all of Canada, I imagine. When the snow finally comes around, it's there to stay. I hate upstate.

Some of the B-Siders, like The Famines: P.L.C.A, are always riding those input lines right over the red. They blast one out here almost creating a solid wave of sound, they can create maximum noise somewhere in Lightning Bolt dB range.
Fist City sounds like Fuck Montreal, (which I'm sure they appreciate on many levels), tons of raw, sloppy, energy with windows of perfect punk melody, they don't try to protect. It's not something precious. They find a crystal vase in the trash, and they smash it against the wall for the fuck of it.
The Radians have a huge vocal delay and masses of effects maxed out pushing it into punk psyche. "You know... You know, you got it".
Outdoor Miners, "Colly Shaw", have a post punk intelligencia lean, working through ultra long delayed vocals, coming off somewhere between Husker Du's gutsy chords and The Errors alchemy.

I don't have to know what chinook's are or that Death/Methbridge is about Lethbridge, Mammoth Cave has put together a great compilation with a shitload of scuzzy garage talent that happens to be from Alberta. Like other contemporary local scene capturing labels, Fort Lowell or Harding Street Assembly Lab they're providing access to an entire part of the world I know I would have only accidentally come across and never made the connection. That's the best kind of seven inch label, that doesn't just release the music by great artists but collaborates with them, bringing new music that really wouldn't have otherwise existed into the rest of the world. This is a perfect single...it doesn't happen everyday.

Hopefully there are some of these left since we're way late to the party, eh?. Hoser! Drink beer and piss on a fire. What the hell was the McKenzie Brothers movie about anyway?

The liner notes are insanely enlightening...I have to go listen to this thing again now.

Mammoth Cave Records.

MCR 010 – Bloodstains Across Alberta 7”
Featuring: Topless Mongos, Myelin Sheaths, Tension Slips, The Moby Dicks, Grown-Ups, Famines, Fist City, Radians, The Throwaways, Outdoor Miners

We asked 10 of our favourite Alberta bands to write a 1 minute song loosely about their home province and two months later we got this. I daresay it came out way better than we anticipated. Seriously, this record rules pretty hard, with every band turning in short blasts of amazing. In fact, even though we made this single for the Wyrd Alberta Travelling Festival, we have plans to do a BC edition (w/ Indian Wars, Dead Ghosts, Student Teacher, B-Lines… lots more) and then maybe more after that.

1st pressing 300 Black (Only 83 left after Wyrd Alberta travelling Fest).

The Famines on Mammoth Cave

This came in the stack of new singles from Paul at the Mammoth Cave, who is busily documenting a pretty amazing sounding scene from up North, including their latest single form The Famines.

I love this black and white aesthetic Mammoth Cave has going on these and this newspaper looking cover is great. It's actually an article from George Orwell about politics and the English language, mostly railing against the decline of grammar and how basically if you can't even use standard rules to communicate then basically whatever you're talking about starts out at a disadvantage...I think? it was pretty long, and printed really tiny after having been xeroxed so, I was filling in the dots.

The Famines, like any two piece, start out with very little to work with to make an impression of even a melody. But these self imposed restrictions often create rules to constantly fight against. Out of necessity they're making a hell of a noise, in 'Syllable' the guitar rhythm and drums are completely divorced from each other, then the vocal delivery is off on it's own clock...how Garrett is managing to keep these two separate melodies going is really his own, it isn't easy to follow.

The impressive thing about any massively blown out sound like this is the seemingly infinite amount of expression in recording imperfectly. Does is sound like Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees, Tyvek? In ways, but not really at the same time. Is it all overdriven in the red with a steady layer of fuzz coating the whole thing? Well.....yea.
I think what probably is offending everyone when the term 'lo-fi' is even mentioned is that it applies to such a wide reaching diverse cross section of bands...does it need to be broken down further into subcategories? That seems to always be the solution. The point is that doesn't describe what's happening musically...you might as well tell me about the microphones and drum kit...all of that can be useful, but it's a tiny part of the picture...how the fuck does it come together? What are they getting at?
'Got Lies', the B-Side is not blues so much as maybe it's rooted in the Kinks, that once removed reinterpreted sound. I'm tempted to think this of this one as a sort of punk velvet underground. It's got those droning chords, especially in the second refrain, it's almost a bowed sitar sound? But maybe that comes from again connecting those dots between peaks of sound waves. Sounds have a weird way of changing at these volumes. This track is insanely complex while still being a straight up catchy melodic song. The transition between a sort of punk rockabilly down to the acapella vocals and tom solo involves numerous free form steps that can only be played by a tight two piece like this.
That moment when it's just Garrett alone singing for a minute with the hum of an amp in the background is just one of those great moments they, (and I) appreciate for just a second. they have that restraint to work at melody and structure this way. It's surprising and stays grounded in previous eras sounds but turning into something else.
It's the reason for a B-Side on a single, they get outside the box for a second.
I like the idea that they are recording so loud because of the quiet moments like that. So when it picks up again of course it's peaking and blown out, it's doing it's job of being that foil to the quiet dark verse. It's all delivered with just the right amount of echo that bounces off itself so you can only vaguely infer there's some kind of fucked up situation with a girl going on.

Get it from Mammoth Cave, the Famines sound bad ass based on the other stuff on their website, these sound like a departure from some of the tracks I heard, but I can see why you'd put this on a sweet, sweet seven inch.
And god damn it if they don't include a download card....I guess I'm going to have to look into doing that for my single, because it's freaking convenient...christ, more technology B.S. to possibly go wrong.