Blanch Blanche Blanche on Feedling Tube Records

Oh man, the video for this track is perfect, as weird as the music it's describing, a mess of static and overdubbing for the minimal glitchy keyboard, with half a melody....you know I remember getting all excited about Crystal Castles when that demo thing leaked, and just sounded as raw and fucked up as some of the sounds here. Too bad. I think I get excited about that Units sound, using this set of instruments in the spirit of how they were made, not to imitate a sound, but as an entirely new set of tools. The Units got as close as anyone to delivering on that promise of punk without the guitars, and I think the latest resurgence of Zola Jesus, Blank Dogs...even Soft Moon, are working in that ideology. The beginnings of a band like this are always the most exciting. The rules aren't defined yet, everything is being tested as they work it out. At least that's what I like to think.
The video is exactly how I wanted this sound to be, it's no tech, dirty...I wonder if I like this because it brings the human part back into the electronics when the cables aren't grounded, the knob is broken and nothing works right....that makes sense to me. I can relate to the terrible plague that is technology.
Damn you blog!

And these guys are from Brattleboro? Damn I love that town. L:ike Charlie Sheen says about partying, 'What's not to love?' They have at least 3 vinyl record stores for a population of 12,000, my kind of place, Blanche Blanche Blanche should just set up in the middle of that gazebo in the center of town and rock these jams.

If you can't go check them out at one of the numerous awesome Feeding Tube Records live instore performances (holy crap... sore eros!, Wet Hair! Sediment Club!) then at least pick up this single.

Feeding Tube says:

BLANCHE BLANCHE BLANCHE "Talk Out Loud b/w Water To Wine"
45pm Single in an Edition of 500

We are beyond excited to finally have the first single by Blanche Blanche Blanche in our grubby little mitts, and you will be too! Two warped pop hits by the most perfectly matched couple in Brattleboro VT: Sarah Smith and Zach Phillips. This warrants repeated back to back flipping on your turntable. As a keyboard and vocal duo they create a complete sound-picture, but they've also got a great live band called Easy Street. Hey, their heads fly around and stuff!!!! They've got a tape and an LP coming out on Night People later this year (yeah!) and their video for this single was featured on Pitchfork (ick!). Scroll down and read the interview with Sarah, the singer, in French Vogue (?) $5 plus shipping

Dashpi on Feeding Tube Records

This latest from Feeding Tube Records, purveyors of the fine Cave Bears single is at it again with this piece of amazing weirdness. The packaging is incredible, fold out 3 color screenprinting for the sleeve with a huge black and white ink drawing poster jammed into the depths of this bursting mylar sleeve. It doesn't help things the vinyl is one of those heavy 60 gram frisbee's. The cover is a Japanese inspired print of boats sinking, children on a beach, coconut trees and mountains, all in a slight caligraphy sort of style.
Right away when something is packaged this amazingly I have to take notice, I'm going to pay a little more attention to the sound inside, in a different way, I mean there's something to be said for crappy xerox to add another equal layer of hands on. But the work that went into the printing here is truly impressive, someone cared a hell of a lot and I have no idea what to expect.

The A-Side first song 'Don't give up da ship' has a simple casio reggae beat...it's absurdly minimal, just one note ever comes in between canned fills with pitch shifted vocals mostly repeating 'don't give up da ship'. There's the obligatory marijuana reference and obscure themes of the sea. It's mostly a test of endurance, this phrase repeated over and over is maddening until they sort of lose all meaning and you have to give into the repetition.

Dashpi is deliberately taking on these genres that are ridiculous. Reggae?....what's compelling about a band hell bent on destruction like this? It's seeing if they can possibly do something new. I don't know if they succeed. That depends on if you enjoy Ween's irony or Ariel Pink's devotion to lost sounds. I, for one, do.
But I could use a little mythology, who are these guys? How was it recorded? Did they attempt this live? The elaborate packaging is silent except for offering a crazy iconography and doodle sketches the size of a door.
The fact that they're named Dashpi, I have to think that's 'Da Ship' rearranged after coming up with the title track.
They get a little hardcore on the B-Side, heavy beats, high pitch background vocals and deep pitch shifted main lyric. This is from 2001? What the hell was even going on then? Arcade Fire? Clap your hands? Obviously these guys were having none of it.
Casio demo chord changes makes up 'Shot doesn't wanna', pure 4-track bedroom weirdness with harsh electronics in the vein of a Ween concept rap album.
It's truly bizarre.
Travis and I will definitely be talking about this one on a future podcast.

Get it from Feeding Tube Records.

"Yah, yah, yah, yah. Don't give up the ship". These are some
seriously weird bedroom reggae jams, made on a dare nearly
a decade ago. Pitch-shifted vocals, primitive music and surreal
lyrics regarding "the aqua hole" and "the flaming room". The artist,
who prefers to remain anonymous, has made a number of amazing
archival recordings since this one was laid to tape in the early part
of the century, but none of them are as focused as this one here.
Beautiful silk screened art on thick paper, folded in four, full color
labels and one of the thickest 7"s you've ever held await you.

A 2nd Opinion with Travis Kostell

Recently my friend Travis from high school and I found each other online. He inspired me with the most amazing mix tapes and films in the tiny upstate town I grew up in. He moved sometime around freshman year and just had a whole world of music I had never heard of. In the days without the internet, it's hard to believe I know, but we had to make mixes for each other and borrow cassettes of anything that wasn't on the radio. I don't think I even knew who Frank Zappa was until I met Travis, from there it went into the Church of the Subgenius and a cult scare fiasco banning 'Bob' in the hallways to watching Eraserhead at his house. On top of it, he was an amazing musician who pretty much inspired me to get a 4-track and start a new band every weekend.
Everyone has a friend like Travis, so I sent him some singles I've been thinking about recently and we talked on the phone about them.

This week we got to the GGreen single from Out of Order Records, then Cave bears on Feeding Tube Records and finally Fuck Montreal on Stumparumper.

Download it here

Travis has a bunch of his own music up on his blog: Choice Grinds, I think they should be seven inches.....check it out.

Cave Bears - Crawl Space on Feeding Tube Records

I can get into super drone, experimental weirdness that is basically just sounds, the weird manipulation of a single tone, instrumental, slowly building (this is better on a full length obviously) it can be a little pretentious sometimes...it can really be taking itself too seriously, it's humorless and challenging. Sometimes it's too much of an investment. Like the foreign films on netflix I get, I really want to see and then they sit on the coffee table for weeks. I kick myself for not watching them later, but can't a guy just watch snookie get into a fight again?

But then there are the Cave Bears. It's the other end of the spectrum weirdness that blows my mind and is equally rewarding in a completely different fucking-around-seriously way. Everyone wants to get together with their friends, get drunk, make some weirdo music in the garage, which is what Cave Bears are essentially doing, but in a way that's pretty unique, and is a tiny window of something totally genius. This is like a found cassette on the side of the road, or at the thrift store, it's exactly what you've been looking for for years...it's completely insane, there are no rules to music, I think it's good to be reminded of that. I get obsessed with a genre, who's slightly outside the box, but just adding to the insane movement that's already started. Cave Bears are starting over with a basement full of instruments, capturing amazing moments, and are genuinely funny. That's important, I'm in on the joke, you realized in the middle of what you were singing how this is going to sound, and you can't keep it up anymore.

This is mostly a conceptual single about a crawlspace. I can imagine they rehearse in someone's attic or basement and there it was...that creepy tiny door that leads to the crawlspace. Or the pull down rickety ladder in the ceiling. That abandoned place in the house where you can't even really store things, it's just an empty area where all kinds of things/people could live. It's inherently scary...Cave Bears are dong their best to get that across through this free form rehearsal jam insanity.

Crawlspace Pt. I:
First off, this is the cheapest quality cassette tape that cuts in and out, I had to start the record over a few times thinking it was pressed wrong somehow, but I think it's just the master itself either being so overblown it gates out or the 4-track was sitting on top of the kick drum and it vibrates the record head out of place every other beat. It's a complete mess. There's no beginning or end... They are adding another level to the sound of someone like Foot Village, maybe they knew what they were doing but chances are they just caught that moment that can't be duplicated, or would sound contrived if they ever tried to repeat it. This isn't the kind of band that's going to play live....this is it. We caught these imperfect moments, and pressed them on vinyl because it's the only place they are going to exist. The song starts over and they start to do something about a barbershop quartet, which immediately devolves back into more lyrics about the crawlspace. The vocals are too close to the mic, or running around the mic. I think what's so inspiring about this is it's so unfinished, so raw, but I can completely relate to it, unlike the weirdness of Ariel Pink, or Gary War, who are doing something just completely alien, I can't imagine anyone even producing it.

I'm not positive where the tracks break up but eventually 'Electric Dog' starts as some kind of Tom Waits character sing growling over some real jazz on LP playing in the background (who knows what), but the lyrics are truly inspired:

your hindquarter starts bleeding / here comes Electric Dog again
I like moonbeams / lazer beams too / Electric Dog gonna burn you

A finger gets jammed on the tape rollers exactly where the vocals are, nice touch.
And that's just the A-Side.

Crawlspace PtII
The crawlspace theme is back, I have to think an altered state of mind was at work here. Free form drums, sometimes a capella, Starting and stopping the recording to get just disjointed passages, don't get me wrong it's a nightmare, completely unlistenable, but it's not often you hear this total honesty. It was even recorded over a classical cassette which plays through before 'Beetles Rock' which is either the best tribute song I've ever heard or it's about insects, either way it borders on Daniel Johnston unintentional beauty. I'm going to cry.

I love the inner label art, these great color illustrations, and the insert is full of weirdo scribbling and a Bed Bath and Beyond portrait. The whole thing is a suburban wasteland masterpiece.

I can only imagine what a test pressing at the plant sounded like, they must have been double checking the equipment.

Go get this from Feeding Tube records, who are probably putting out equally as insane records...a truly great find.