Tyvek on Les Disques Steak Records

Tyvek has consistently been working in this dirty blown out style since I first heard their Sidewalk single on M'Ladys back in 2008 and their latest on Les Disques Steak finds the pace increasing and the vocals staying tinny and distorted, blowing out a mini megaphone, getting ever more punk... but not to them. They can't be oversimplified like that. After catching them live I saw a completely sincere bunch of guys with no pretensions, playing uncategorizable rock. I appreciated all of their work differently after that. If they like to smoke weed all day, or love their cat they certainly don't make it the focus of their music. There doesn't seem to be any preconceived construct of their sound and this single is a another solid step forward in their trash rock evolution.

'Time Change ' on the A-Side starts out with the grungiest guitar, it almost feels like the early Mayyors singles, a near metal sound, clean grungy distortion, with rapid fire vocals...what makes this different then the punk or hardcore cassettes you had to beg borrow or steal in the early '90s? Not much really...in a good way. Just like their live show, this one is a short pile up and so what?
Inter City Walks then takes their straight ahead immediate approach with Kevin and Heath dueling back and forth with ever increasingly glitchy guitars. A new development? By the final chorus it hits it's peak only to have the virtual needle skip on the last word 'om, om and abruptly end.
'Hole in my Mind' on the B-Side is still raw as the steak discs will let it and there's never any buildup, no breakdown parts, The Ramones had that same practical approach. We are here to do a job...I have to say I could do without the tedius stage banter from some bands. First of all I know it's the same thing every show, this isn't the best audience and I read that anecdote from another live review. I just want some honesty in your performance...that can be too much to ask sometimes.

The vocal and guitar start simultaneously on the first note. The 7" is also the perfect format for me for Tyvek. Everything is always about to end and you had better pack it with your best work at the time. It makes the deliberate pauses full of hum and feedback on this track feel like ages, are they really coming back in again?....or is this it? It's probably as close as you're going to get to a solo with these guys.

LDS offers a simple back and white sleeve, the disjointed text spread out, hardly resembling letters. On the reverse is typewriter text lyrics from the three tracks, cut up and arranged out of order, really a perfect representation of the band, no frills, back to basics like those xerox punk sleeves, they are purists of the form, in all possible ways. Keep it simple, get rid of the excess and create poignant bursts of rock. Tyvek is reinforcing their stance on all of these things in this latest single.

But you're going to have to look hard for this one, at Fusetron, maybe SS but maybe this kind of raw honesty maybe shouldn't be so easy to find.

Go listen to it on Bandcamp and then suck it up and trust the overseas shipping for this single on Les Disques Steak or your favorite importer.

Shake Shake Bolino on Les Disques Steak Records

This latest single from Les Disques Steak showed up on my doorstep last week or so and it's from Shake Shake Bolino. I'm a fan of their packaging, really nice heavy glossy sleeves with the half fold on the other side. The art is great as usual, that tin foil They've got a whole cohesive style to the label, and I have to say after hearing everything so far it continues to get me excited about the garage blues scene in France, I think I say this every time, but who knew?
This happens to be a side project with Cheveu guitarist Etienne and Marie Bolino, they have a great sound the two of them screaming along together, out of their heads.
The A-Side 'Don't lose your friends' is all treble peaking out jangly picked guitar, layered, just a little bit distorted vocals from Etienne, it's a slow lazy toe tapper. A laid back Ty Segall sort of guitar centric sound, stripped down, all kinds of texture and imperfections add up to a catchy chorus that goes dark 'Tie them to a bathroom chair / don't lose your friends!', that goes off at the end...when the friends are inevitably gone.
'Please Pony Please' on the B-Side repeats a bluesy country twang riff and then quickly drops off into a harder 70's metal area to rock. These awkward changes are totally their own, and I'm hearing where certain parts of Cheveu come through, but working with just one hell of a garage guitar and drums. This would be one of those raw bluesy sweaty shows where they just win everyone over completely. Another solid release from LDS, the french Goner.

Just 300 heavy vinyls....Write to LDS direct disquessteak(at)gmail.com, or get it locally at this distro I've never heard of Kill shaman.

Hello Sunshine on Les Disques Steak Records

Another one today from the Les Disques Steak catalog, this one from Hello Sunshine, which comes in one of 150 of the three sleeves cycling above at a seizure inducing rate...it makes it impossible to try to type...I got the 3 little girls weird dresses one. Try to stop looking at it.

The name, Hello Sunshine might lead one to believe this could be some kind of sensitive indie rock, but you would be insanely mistaken knowing LDS, and that is the case with this 4 song EP. If we learned anything it's that The Disks that are steak, want their singles loud and dirty, and Hello Sunshine is pummeling from the first kick. Screaming vocals, cavernous percussion and scratchy distortion.
'Living in a new world' is blistering, reminding me of the Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste days of Ministry, almost sampled speed guitar, but they keep switching it up, taking away the drums, the guitar re-amped through a tiny speaker for a measure, a feedback rhythm...it's not quite in the low-fi garage genre as it is some kind of rockabilly industrial hardcore hybrid? I think it's the vocals...which are mostly screaming, and the drums are double-timing it always.
'Flying Chariots', has a low-key opening, nice kick and strumming combo, and then they punch you in the ears again. The guitars here are just a thousand percent louder than anything else, super clean gated distortion, fairly traditional well played hardcore, from what I've heard of them, you might have them open for Fucked Up or something.

Les Disques Steak goes all out in the printing side, putting together a nice looking release every time, they have a pretty clear direction for the bands they're putting out and someone has thought out the series graphically as well...it's not a bad thing to have this consistency. You could pretty much pick these up without hearing a note and know what you're getting into. Look for it from a local distro or get it direct, email disquessteak (at) gmail.com

Bobpopkillers - Yeah on Les Disques Steak

Another one from Les Disques Steak up today, this single is from the Bobpopkillers, two tracks from a recently expanding world of garage punk in France. Les Disques Steak seems to be singlehandedly documenting this movement with their recent line of singles or they just happen to be friends with a close bunch of guys borrowing each others equipment and filling bills at the last minute with side projects.

So what do they have to contribute to this pretty saturated scene? Well, it's a duo making a pretty faithful racket with just fuzz guitar and drums. There's not the usual no-fi overblown recording happening here, someone knew what they were doing with mic'ing the project, for better or worse. Blues chord punk progression, screaming narrative about being wasted.
I'm just a rocker / rocker in wasted
Maybe I'm just a fan of the translation, but that's nuts. Punk here can apparently be completely changing English sentence grammar. I'm not claiming I'm any kind of words genius...is that how you say it? But something is a little off there...in a good way. It's just a little too... clean. Compared to the B-Side where it gets trashier, bigger, with more distortion in this ode to Jagermeister. Everybody! Jagermeister! The most unpunk of alcoholic beverages first homage, I'm sure.
There are some things that just highlight the cultural differences.
Paired with the A-Side, I'm beginning to think this band has some kind of problem..where's my drink?
But then it fades out! What the fuck! You don't fade punk! Just end!

Floridas Dying has it, or go straight to the source, email disquessteak(at)gmail.com

The Last Rapes of Mr Teach on Les Disques Steak records

Les Disques Steak, who put out that tour Tyvek single a little while back, are at it again sending me their latest. I have to hand it to the production/art on these things, they are serious.
The sleeve is excellent as usual, heavy card stock screen printed. The green reproduced above doesn't do this fluorescent color justice. It's just great...the detail in the brown pen coloring, all the hieroglyphs, and the two color layers of raised ink, a little off register in places, it's amazing. Check out this guy PRT's myspace, he's been doing their flyers and it's all this wood cut, high contrast, primitive stuff...

The Last Rapes of Mr Teach...that's one hell of a name...I don't know what to say... at least they're done right?...with the raping? 4 Tracks at 33 1/3 from these French imports, and damn this is a grungy, punk blowout. They would have had me at 2.

Like Ty Segall, on 'Blood of Another Man' they've reinvented this familiar garage 60's sound with almost comical massive shitty surf reverb. The guitar is really bright, all rhythm, with sort of lost layered nasal vocals. It's full of overblown fuzzy hooks, and doesn't stop barreling through both ears. This one is mixed and recorded loud.
Last Rapes fits in exactly with the current crop of garagers from Hozac, Woodsist, Captured Tracks...they are making a case for some kind of universality with this stripped down raw recording. Everyone loves it, when the feeling is there, the rest is just audio semantics.
'I saw a corpse' is such a stand in for old Stones, or Sonics it's ridiculous. Slightly English mod sounding, with some honkeytonk... whatever that is. The sound quality is all there. It's scary sometimes how I think I might have been able to trick my Dad with some of the stuff I'm listening to these days. Especially on vinyl, I could just slip it in there and see if he even noticed. This one might be a little too textured...he'd probably check the stylus, the speaker connections...but the unmistakable era is here.

'It's all over' keeps this great bassline groove going under the surf guitar slight changes and solo tropic soul melody. The vocals are the best, they have that garage, overblown gritty sound massively in front, really driving every one of these tracks. It's got a little Nodozz in there, it's a fun trip, complete with off key moments, misspellings...the human moments of imperfection that just make this better.

I had to include a video from these guys, the sound quality sucks but french dudes are literally throwing themselves at these guys in the middle of their set. They hopefully can come through NYC and play with The Beets or Woods....Times New Viking.

Order direct from disquessteak (at) gmail.com or get it from the usual distros...it's a perfect release in every way. These 'last rapes' guys are the new ipad of France.