Gang Wizard on Deathbombarc

In getting caught up with some old emails and I saw this super limited square lathe cut (?) with Gang Wizard, they haven't been active for a few years and are back at their challenging noise (I'm assuming), this time with Mike's sons in tow...super limited to 20 copies and download that full length while your at it. From Deathbombarc

If the X-Men have done anything truly striking to transform the ancient legend of the phoenix, it is to insure that we must always be surprised by its return. Despite the predictability of its definition. Gang Wizard is no different. Their return in 2012, after nearly a 4 year disappearance, was something most never saw coming. But here they are, truly reborn. Still masterminded by their founder, Mike Landucci, the band is now populated by his own teen sons. But while the internet has completely changed the face of DIY from complete brutality to total chill zones, Gang Wizard’s approach still proudly stands on its rickety and splintered legs. So this release is in honor of a band that has never compromised, presented in glorious, free digital to help pass the tradition on to a new generation. The album, called ‘So Excited’ even includes a video performance recorded direct to ipad. Thats modern, right?

Check it out here

But that is only half the Gang Wizard news today! The band has also self-released a new 7”!! Limited to just 20 copies, and made on square-shaped vinyl, this 4 song ep called “hood rip” is collectors item that will go fast. So if you dig the free album and want more, don’t hesitate!



It is available exclusively in our webstore

(on Blackbean & Placenta Tape Club)

The 2nd limited edition release from the new garde, 2012 reborn version of Gang Wizard. 4 brand new rippers on square shaped 7"s, handcut in Olympia, WA.

1. hood rip
2. torched universe placebo
3. long beach punx
4. long beach summer
Only 20 available, so you know the deal.

Bromp Treb on breaking world records

George from breaking world records sent in this release from Bromp Treb. Bromp Treb is a guy named Neil Young from all over MA and looking up his various projects he's been manipulating sounds with all kinds of experimental rock/noise makers in the New England Area.
This is kind of a mini-concept 7" and a goldmine of alternative percussion sounds/noise.
This is most definitely and exercise in stereo and if your speakers are sufficiently separated, there's practically two tracks of sounds happening here. I'm tempted to play it a few times with the balance all the way left or right for two completely different tracks.

The artwork is great also. It looks like George does a lot of the design/prints for the releases on his label, everything from the ducktails single to this Bromp Treb release. The illustration has this kind of vintage, faded carnival sideshow flyer look...and the center labels on the single itself look like old heavy woodcuts from illustrated manuscripts...really a nice touch for everything on the label whose motto is 'awkward music, obsolete formats'.

Side A, entitled 'Twins' consists of thousands of individual parts...squeaking gates, bubbling, popping noises, all super clean...ultra-realistic....I want to say organic. Definitely recorded source material, not sampled or electronically generated.
Things like nails in a coffee can, a tiny length of chain rattling... It's playing with my environment..I can't tell if someone is opening the gate to my building outside or it's the single.
It's just getting plain eerie at times.
Like the metal door is opening to the mad scientists lab, the beakers are bubbling. Glass is scraped against itself and every other sound in my apartment is adding to the tracks, like the rotating turntable.
I keep checking the end gutter of the vinyl to see when it's over... if that's an endless loop at the end or just everything else around me making this quiet noise.
It's like in the typical horror movie opening.... that quiet unsettling moment right before everything goes completely wrong. The tumbleweeds are blowing, the sun is going down, the rusty gate is swinging in the wind. Something bad is about to happen.
It's all these sounds recorded and then manipulated on tape. Stick a finger on the rollers and slow it down to really distance yourself from the source. It's an exercise in everything hit, bashed, and banged....recorded to tape and bent to the breaking point.
Someone is slowly opening a dry glass jar with a metal lid...inside your head...like fingernails on a chalkboard.
It's impossible to distinguish parts of this from the low hum of heating ducts, or the stove, or the refrigerator.

The B-Side 'Birdie Flies' takes a more traditional approach to the struck. It's pure drum/cymbal sounds sounds also manipulated after the fact, playing with the source material. All disjointed, slowing them down turning into slow metal hits. There's that really warbly sounding hits from thin metal strips hit from all lengths, up and down the bar. Bending with a twang. It ends with some toms.
This is pure sound collage based on a live/unprocessed element. It might have been done from something around the time of the 'Bricktown Shuffle' cassette release which you can get a sense of the tracks here.

The amount of material and conceptual ideas here is staggering, it's going to take a while to make my way through it all, but this is a great place to start....I'm beginning to think I need to find an old Walkman cassette player while I'm at it. That's just what I need...to have to find more space for music.

For all those digitally inclined there's a bunch of older Bromp Treb releases are here to download in all kbps qualities as well.

I also came across this split Bromp Treb/ Warber single on Deathbombarc.

Good luck, by the time you catch up with his prolific body of work...he will have been working on new projects and you'll have to start all over.
It's a vicious cycle.

Foot Village on Too Pure (deathbombarc--shhhhh)

This is great it's being made available stateside...get on it thanks to deathbombarc.

But the B-side is a remix? I have to admit I'm a little skeptical I mean what's next? A 12" club dub of racoo-oo-oon? A vocal only B-side?
Knowing these guys it will be great. I didn't make it past the first side last night, it's a nightmare. I kind of sat there in awe...it's total balls, really compelling, like a car crash, or amphitheater surgery.

I think a conceptual project like this where you say 'Alright, we're going to use nothing but drums.' at the band meeting, could be a gimmick....and it is...that's got to be the first thing on anyone's mind. But this combination of kits sounds so different then drumming as you know it. And it's not that they use a bunch of eclectic pieces, handmade or found stuff...it's straight up standard drums from whatever bands they are playing with that night.
Vocally it ranges from a lot of yelling sounds to chorus chanting to near hip hop rhyme. It's definitely frantic, and kind of keeps me nervous, drumming and vocal yip sounds are just weird to string together into a verse/chorus 'song'. It's unnatural and hard to listen to. Literally it's like people yelling at you with percussion rhythms. It's not easy.

This track changed up a million different time signatures, while being really tight, it's an experiment in composition. Just when you think you have a handle on the beat they're messing with, it goes 'Holla back girl' on you. This band has to be a wet dream for DJ's and samplers...it's one insane hook after another, and anti hook, but all super clean. ...there's nothing like it.

Plus, I love these lyrics for 'Clubtraxx I-III'

The burning of the money is the currency itself.
Guns.
Opera and Obama sitting in a tree, F U C K K K K K
(gibberish)
When you see us in the club be like ugn, be like ugn
When you see us at the mall be like ugn, be like ugn
When you see us on the street be like ugn, be like ugn
But when you see us at the bank just shut up
Shut up.
Shut up.
Shut up.
Break your arm.
Break your own.
Break it all.
Break the bank.
And then shut up, shut up, shut up.
Yeah, shut up guys and listen
Right now you are closer than ever to achieving your dreams.
And if you listen to this song again, you're even closer.

This from Deathbombarc yesterday-ish:
I said it wouldn't be possible, but you'll be happy I'm wrong. The new Foot Village 7" on Too Pure, "Clubtraxxx" is now available at our distro in very very very limited quantity.

It's great, and $6.

The foot village last copies on Death Bomb arc + podcast EP 17

Foot Village features one of the members of Friends Forever, from that documentary on Plexifilm, which I have to take another look at.... as well members of Gang Wizard.... Anyway this is a percussion only band, using nearly 3 drum kits and lots of chanting, but almost in a Les Savy Fav frantic energy way. They ask for people to bring their own drums to contribute to the kit because they can only travel with one.
It's happily not as experimental as I was expecting. I think being a part of this cassette underground I was ready for weirdo soundscape or heavily effected sounds of terror feedback.
Being limited to just percussion is working for these guys. There's no effects or electronic issues to deal with, placement of microphones. Just set up and rock the shit out of 3 drum kits.
It's pretty straightforward energetic layered drumming building on one rhythm, there's starts and stops, but vocally is where it gets really interesting...in this single 'Bones' the whole band starts out collectively yelling, graduallly the vocals separate and it turns into just sound. Then back to chanting 'We build a home...' it's like the best part of the Liars, the early stuff when it was all scary energy, they sound completely possessed.
Something like a drum lightning bolt.
Live this has to be an insane meltdown.
Hopefully they come back to Death By Audio soon.

The Foot Village 7" "Bones" has been restocked at our webstore. Only a handfull of copies, then gone forever, so don't hesitate. Burned through 100 copies in a month when it came out, so... http://deathbombarc.bigcartel.com/

Another podcast, episode 17 with Matt from BigRed....me and matt play Bruce Russell walkie talkie + an old Dianogah 7".
We debate conceptual records, talk about chicago, june of 44, actionboy records, and a drunk ebay morrissey single which I can't defend.

Thrash Sabbatical (12"+2x7") Thurston Vs. Everyone!

It would be really incredible to see a catalog of all the sonic youth side projects and splits, the sheer output of this band since 1981 will take decades still to unearth and sort through, recategorizing and rating. Not to throw another release on the pile, but here it looks like he's teaming up for split 7's and a 12" with an all star team of psyche-noise, everyone from gang wizard to robedoor is on the reverse.
It's still amazing that he is so involved in the scene and continues to support great bands and even release some of these projects on SYR, but this is more than just a few vinyl discs, this will be a piece of artwork if not not fun has anything to do with it. It's going to be christmas morning. Partially because I really have no concept of what this is going to sound to sound like. Right before I run over and put it on the record player will be a memorial, because things won't ever sound the same again.

Deathbombarc has it, and I thank them....$25.

An elaborate box-set of vinyl, pairing Thurston Moore 3 times with a selection of amazing Los Angeles acts. Box set will include equaly amazing art designed/curated by Britt & Amanda of Not Not Fun.
Thurston Moore (you know the dude, he is in Sonic Youth) contributes music that ranges from beautiful acoustic guitar work to fierce noise and charging thud rhythms.
Men Who Can't Love is the gang of young LA noise dudes that do the tag team thing like it is the ultimate party. They share the 12" w/ Moore, and hit you over and over with the tagteam efforts of Solitary Hunter, Impregnable, Moth Drakula, Haircut Mountain Transit, Toxic Loincloth, & Privy Seals.
Barrabarracuda are the much more friendly sort, but welcome at the same party. Featuring Grace of Foot Village and Amanda of Pochahaunted on fireworks... erm drums and vocals, plus Britt of Robedoor on guitar and Nichole of Child Pornography on keyboard. Their split 7" w/ Moore is definitly the most melodic of the bunch.
Kevin Shields (here as Eva Aguila of Gang Wizard & Amy V of Yuma Nora) fuses searing walls of aluminum with angelic harmonies for a tension that evokes pure joy. Their split 7" with Moore is matched with equal amounts joy and angelicism, but in soothing rather than tense manner.