Cousins / Camp Radio split flexi on Saved by Vinyl Records

Got this flexi in thanks to Matt over at Pigeon Row, haven't seen a flexi in years, and it immediately brought me back to coming across Reflex magazine at the supermarket of all places in the middle of nowhere upstate NY and finding a thin black flexi stapled in the middle. My music exposure being limited to the local college radio station the records that came every month were a freaking goldmine of Killing Joke, Mudhoney and I even think there was a Smashing Pumpkins flexi? It was the perfect combination of reading about the band featured...I remember the writing being pretty decent at least, and across the spectrum of 'alternative' stuff. Did I lose them? Definitely, but it was the early push towards finding out about new music thanks to the tiny sort of vinyl. The fact they even played music of any kind was actually kind of magic, and still is thanks to this Saved by Vinyl square flexi from Cousins and Camp Radio. On white flex no less, pressed at 33 so it's a single you don't even have to flip over.

I covered a cousins single from the Noyes Records singles series a while back and this duo is back with their jittery constructed punk. "Defense" starts out with a few lonely low piano chords in an empty room, and a punchy stuttered raw guitar strum plays against this booming kick alternating between equally catchy rhythms, hacked up and sewn back together, in a patchwork of timings. You know how you tell someone not to forget about you, and then the next verse they do? I love their sense of awkward timing and ramshackle delivery. Loose and effortless, they attack this stream of narrative and it's split personality lyric. The whole thing stops and comes back under a decidedly more muted bluesy riffy section and then loses the fight with the dynamics and blows out completely in chords and super tinny reverb ALL THE WAY DOWN!

"The Girl Who Stole my Motorbike" from Camp Radio is that kind of punky '90s indie pop with direct upfront enthusiastic vocals over the catchy super pop. Big and catchy, something like Teenage Bandwagon or Apples in Stereo. Cleanly produced and driving towards the chorus, feel good optimistic comicy pop teetering between the restrained verses lamenting the wasted years. Reeling it in to actually be kind of a bummer but celebrating that anyway.

This one might still be available direct from either of these bands or asking nice over at the Saved by store, hopefully shipping from Canada for a flexi is reasonable? Now do we have to worry about the post office killing the vinyl record? Great.

Defense is the fourth track here:


Camp Radio track:

Cousins on The Noyes Records singles series

The Noyes Record subscription series is still going strong and their latest from Cousins came in just before the holidays. In the same ways Yuck or Broken Water...or fellow subscription series-mates, Dog Day, this duo from Halifax is mining the attitude and guitar tones of the nineties. "Secret Weapon" on the A-Side carries the ramshakle good times of Pavement with a loose, gritty electric blaring out of a broken practice amp from the right side of the stereo. The percussion jerky, odd timings and slightly distorted at times, high falsetto vocal from Aaron Mangle gives this a less than deadly serious delivery which makes them immediately likable. When you can coax out a near perfect rhythm like this, the combination of gutsy muted strumming with double time ceramic (?) cowbell  it doesn't need any extra dressing up, the simple capturing of this rimshot stomper is plenty. It's not getting into anything near lo-fi, but the exact right amount room sound and immediacy, and more importantly precise, catchy songwriting. That's what reminds me of Dog Day, The Hussy or another 'related' band, Blood on the Wall...there's pure classic innovation pouring out of these guys.
B-Side's "Speech", brings out a bit more of this raw practice room, garage side. There's some kind of down the hall sound from a record being played...or someone singing and a bluesy blown out garage number blasts in. This combination of Aaron's high vocal under heavy reverb, this elegant almost frail vocal alongside this scuzzy guitar is a great crazy direction, not to say he can't completely belt this out when the drums, with all fills take this solidly into the red. A raw sound expanding on the loose groove....I think that might be Leigh Dotey on drums, if the video below is the current line up.

Fantastic single, playful and stripped down, elements of garage and loose indie-rock, but classically all in service of the songwriting.

Damn this came out a while ago and should have been in contention for the year end thingys, but that isn't what this is about, they deserve to be picked up from Noyes Records...another solid edition to the singles club...you need more reasons?

Get this one direct from Noyes Records.


COUSINS - Speech from Mitch Fillion (southernsouls.ca) on Vimeo.