This Heart Electric on Die Stasi Records

This Heart Electric's "Polar", off the A-Side has an amazing balance of tone that is equally scarily accurate and completely sincere. It's referencing every previous era, and Ricardo pays homage (?) recreating the whole expansive mess with nothing but a tape deck.
It's so off it could be a long lost relative to Ariel Pink. It's too early to call it based on just this one track but the range of vocals here are pretty impressive. From The impassioned 80's OMD echo vocal floating above everything to close mic'd deep verse vocal, falsetto, you name it. It's the multiple personalities disorder that comes from incorporating all the influences.
There's even a ghostly appearance of Tonetta that deep menacing vocal in between the synth and demo beat with punched in raw electric guitar, overboard vibrato glam…. these things shouldn't go together. It's seriously a masterpiece example of one man symphony. All of it somehow balanced. The epic emotionalism, buried under a pastiche of bizarre beats.

It's a pretty perfect name as well (and font), it's the title track from a band with a couple of hits a while back in those dramatic teen movies. They're trying to break out and get serious. Enough with the fringes, and their images, let's go big this time.

I just noticed that this was recorded in Miami. Someone commented on the Tooth Ache post about my being shocked they were based in VT, and that not every band comes from Brooklyn.
Even this coming out of Miami is shocking to me and I don't think I'm insulting an area because I think it's unusual such a specific sound came out of an area way off my radar.
Just logistically it's got to be more difficult to find other musicians, play shows, remain inspired. So, yes it's fucking surprising this came out of FL. Great musicians can obviously come out of a tiny hole of a town in Montana …and thanks to the internet, good or bad they definitely can get their stuff out there easier and connect with anyone… so really geography doesn't matter anyway. No matter what my bias and stereotype of that city is. Maybe it's a reach to think Wham city could only have evolved in Baltimore…I think there's something to that.
Or, maybe all these bands in Brooklyn are at a disadvantage because it's a given that another Gary War, Sacred Bones, Captured Tracks sound is going to come from whatever new band.
But the big difference between Brooklyn and that town in VT, or Miami...and it's the most important one:
No one is from Brooklyn.
They all moved here from somewhere else to be around other creative people and burrow into their weirdo niche and try to scratch out a living.
I actually meant it as a compliment, but every god damn city has a fucking complex when it comes to NY I guess. I love the fucking trees...I'll never have that here. I can't grill a hot dog outside or sit on a porch.
Let's just agree that if the next nobel physicist was born in south dakota that would be pretty weird too, and that doesn't mean wherever I'm from is the best.
I want to be wrong in assuming certain things about an area of the country but they vote republican and are fine with sending their kids to war and watching fox news. You can't tell me it doesn't piss off some awesome band out there who's on the verge of throwing in the towel because they can't get off from work at the shit service industry jobs they have to play their only show at the VW hall.

The other assumption I make, coming from a place like Miami and making music like this is that it might not be by choice. Sure, there is a scene everywhere, the fact that Ricardo Guerrero of This Heart Electric and Tooth Ache are in the places musically that they is even that much more impressive.

I'm ignorant of a scene in Miami but I'm not a Brooklyn elitist.
I think the whole point of the 7" medium is it's accessibility and exposure for a band from anywhere. I'm still going to be surprised that this came out of Miami for a bunch of reasons, mostly because it has nothing to do with what I've seen of Miami on this season of the Jersey Shore.

The B-Side, "Nowhere to Run" confirmed that I can safely say he's well into the weirdo pop world of Ariel. No-fi equipment used in baffling ways. The most useless drum rhythms and layers and layers of instrumentation that belong in another dimension. It's got the sparkle glam feel of a suburban basement before the chaperoned party. The video of the party has dissolve wipes, laser grids. It's mostly inspired by taking neon seriously as a graphic element. It also sounds a little bit like Casey from the Uncle Muscles show.

Its going to take a lot more listens to fully absorb this before I move on to just listening to it because it's awesome.

What the hell is this guy going to do next. The world needs another single immediately.

Get it from Die Stasi Records, email them at diestasi AT gmail DOT com.

Pink Reason - Electric Bunnies on Die Stasi records

This single, number 8, I think for Die Stasi is a split from Electric Bunnies and Pink Reason, I'm not sure I have a clear view of the Bunnies yet or Pink Reason for that matter, and that's exactly why they were both warranted another single and picking this up.

The Electric Bunnies are sounding different here then I remember them (big surprise) from a single a little while back on Columbus Discount...that seemed a lot more jokey, saying 'sweet robot' with robot vocal effects and glitchy keyboards, it's not rocking out garage, low-fi...I think I saw the academy annex call it 'sci-fi pop', and I like that as good as anything. They aren't painting themselves in corner anyway. On 'Colorful Teardrops' they have the same kind of elements as their other singles...keyboard melody and drone, completely off key layered electric guitar notes, backwards drum machine...then the echo vocals come in...all heavy on the repetition. It's like they played this little melody accidentally and looped it.
Although that melody is enough to drive you a little insane.

The second track on this EP, gets away from the slow niceness and brings a little noise...this is live room sounding track, yelling right after the drums kick in. Guitar echo feedback screeching in between verses. They are just weird, and I appreciate that, playing with a lot of styles...whatever works for them, they might have it down, but I'm still trying to find their sound.

The Pink Reason Side. Hey Girl has this Blank Dogs but fast energy, weird keyboard and warbly effect vocals, but it's really rocking out the whole time, half talking low vocals, strummed acoustic, hard to place, and that's what makes this whole single so great...it's snapshots of the past...a couple of polaroids, CVS 4x6's and digital C-prints, all in one tiny mysterious package

The second track 'Watching You Fall' is the best....it's taking me back to old Sebadoh, or Eric's Trip....super muddy, sounds kind of live and overdubbed later. Real deep groove...off in the distance. Dark vocals...layers and layers of retakes, punching instruments in, boosting levels with no compression. There's a huge layer of mystery thrown on top. It's a different era Ariel Pink, nailing something you don't know why you like but you do. This sound just feels like it's from another world, it's going to be hard to figure out....good luck. I feel like I'm in the same place I started, no closer to developing any kind of theory about where either of these bands have been or where they're going.
Oh well, I'll have to get another one when it comes out.

From Die Stasi records

Both bands take a stab at some pop with the Bunnies making a mosaic named "Colorful Teardrops" and Pink Reason teaching a lesson in pachydermy called "Hey Girl." Enough ivory on that one to return a couple tusks! "Rest your head on a cloud while flower petals sprinkle from the heavens" is a down-under style Thumper and the Electric Bunnies second offering on this one. Make sure your stereo is fit. And then we got some vintage Pink Reason drag: "Watching You Fall" Some say its Kevins best track--it sticks to the ribs, boy.

PINK REASON/ELECTRIC BUNNIES split 7" is HERE!

DOMESTIC PRICES--
1 7"=$6.50 ppd
2 7"s=$12 ppd
3 7"s=$16.50 ppd
4 7"s=$20.50 ppd

Foreign/wholesale orders or combined shipping questions email: diestasi AT gmail DOT com

leper print on Die Stasi

I am convinced I've talked about this before... I remember going to the myspace and even listening to this stuff...but if I did I don't care, it's good. Give it a listen again. Nice low-fi kind of jay reatard punky.
I don't even know what I mean when I say that. I think it's just like home recorded punk, instead of sappy sad bastard...I'm home and feeling sad about a girl...it's like I'm angry, but I want to make something exciting sounding and fun, but dark still. It's the same feeling, but different approach. Kill it, instead of kiss it.
It's heavily electronic and full of echo...It sounds like Kyle Raquipiso has a ton of effects and spends hours pouring over circuit boards just breaking them in half and plugging them back into each other. there's still guitars involved, and real drums, so when it takes off, it's fucking flying...but just barely.
Good shit, that sounds like it's been around as long or may predate, blank dogs and the like, plus he won the subpop scholarship?
That's fucking crazy.
He's going places.

This is from Fusetron:
Artist: LEPER PRINT Title: s/t Format: 7" Label: Die Stasi Country: USA Price: $5.50 "One-man army Leper Print brings three shots of gnashing-teeth DIY to the lunch counter. Get a seesaw and you slap this monster on one end and Home Blitzs "Live Outside" on the other and the thing is dead level. Light and dark, good and evil, balance! Leper Prints third and most luscious banger weaves like a drunken monkey in a ski mask." - Die Stasi

Or from Die Stasi itself:
ssh-05 LEPER PRINT 7" e.p. is HERE! Paypal $6 to diestasi@gmail.com for US only. Foreigners email me.

zola jesus - Poor Sons EP

Zola Jesus is minimal, and not afraid of the distortion or delay. The track 'Poor Sons' is an acoustic piano loop under these quiet female vocals...I keep putting it on to hear them...it really keeps it grounded, far away from unlistenable experimentation, which can be written off pretty quickly, unless it's uber-compelling, like in this case vocally. There's a haunting track of really high warbly vocals way off in the distance adding to this....not exactly depressing....but more forebidding...like a real haunted house....not exactly Diamanda Galas, there's a lot more melody and songwriting here....but maybe at times I can hear it....it might be more mood though.

'Dog' is another track on the release from Die Stasi and after watching their youtube videos it looks like Zola is led by the keyboard/vocalist, who has this great melodic voice, and isn't afraid to fuck it up for excellent tones that bleed into the distorted synth and clip into no-fi. The best kind of home recordings, where you are left wondering what influenced this half synth-soul industrial goodness.
Another track I'm into on their myspace 'Odessa' is classic Suicide, that fast heartbeat electronic high hat rhythm with repetitive drowned keyboard and beyond distorted vocals.

Where did this come from and where is it going?

From SS records

Found on Volcanic Tongue...here's their review:

Amazing 7" from this solo femme from Madison, Wisconsin who cuts eerie keyboard driven hymnals with spooked, F/X damaged vocals in a way that seems to channel the ghosts of Suicide, Diamanda Galas, Meredith Monk and Kate Bush. The sound is extremely fuggy, just dripping with psychedelic atmosphere and the haunting vocal melodies skirt classic post-Velvets song-forms and ecstatic throat reveries like nothing else. Highly recommended and one to watch for sure.

$6 Paypal to diestasi AT gmail.com (email for availability first)

tv ghost - atomic rain

TV Ghosts seems to exist in the place between Times New Viking and Deadbolt, the recording itself has that otherworldly fuzzy, distant, no-fi sound. Is this becoming like a preset on boards or for protools? I mean it's easy to not worry about capturing every instrument individually in an isolated room, microphone angles, and amp emulators, but it's just as specific of a choice these days to sound like this, almost as much work...so to say, 'oh they just stuck a tape player in the corner of their practice space' might not be true. I just wonder how much that's really happening and how much is a highly crafted niche.
I want to believe, and I do, that TV Ghosts is recording with whatever's on hand, making the hiss and muffled treble another sound to be manipulated, a happy accident. It's working for them, and I want to hear these projects sweating away in basements and on the fringes of everything. They sound like they're influenced by the hot rod surf sound, heavy on the reverb and instead of zombie's it's ghosts, and from Indiana, so there's no pigeonholing them. I guess I'm questioning if it's me finding this and writing about it, or it's just popping up everywhere. This has to be some kind of movement at this point.
I can't wait to see Jay Retard tonight and hopefully no one fucks with his shit.


"How many records just feel mysterious these days? The debut Pink Reason 7" had it, the Los Llamarada LP has it in spades, certainly the Blank Dogs can pull it off whenever "they" choose, but most records will sit before your jaded eyes and ears and perform exactly the dance they appear to advertise: powerpop, electro-beep, folkie stems n seeds, etc. This here TV Ghost 7" is more in line with the aforementioned bands as a new X Factor on the micro-popular music scene, a band whose sound is difficult to categorize and resists easy comparison. No, they dont sound like the Blank Dogs, they are working a vein that drives a path back thru indie rock all the way to early No Wave and threads forward to us thru the LAFMS archives with a pitstop in Port Chalmers for a spot of homebake. It helps that the songs on this record feel like excerpts from a larger whole, and that the vinyl tends to make your needle act like its haunted by St. Vitus in the middle of one side. Musico Mysterioso. Please kids, no limited-to-50 cassette follow-up to this, get this shit out to the "masses"… "-RW, Z-Gun.

From fusetron

or direct from Die Stasi