Trophy Wife on Private Leisure Industries

Got a single in from Private Leisure Industries, which is a follow up from Trophy Wife and their self titled debut from well over a year ago. This one sounds like more minimal, ghostly, primal catharsis offerings from the trio who continue to polarize opinions.

"Stella my star", the A-Side has a strong echo bassline and definiely referencing Kim Gordon sounding vocals here. A generally big distortion melody, deliberately sounding like it's not meant to traditionally fit together melodically or even in rhythm necessarily, like some kind of statement about songwriting itself. Made up of fills and odd timings, sort of what I imagine a really abrasive contemporary dada sound without being loud....a malfunctioning Prinzhorn Dance School. Really nice vocal harmonies in that breathy cold style...memories of Goo with that bedroom unrehearsed weirdo sound. Offputting in the way that this character has probably completely sold their soul, completely dark, and not a hint of pop.

"Frankie's song" on the B-Side gets a big synth involved... equally as cool, big echo on this strange vocal, really going for a unique sound here which ends up like some kind of impression of dance, a new manifesto for anti-everything.
Don't stop talking on the telephone
This one really takes a left turn and gets really dark, like they're given up, and really can't be friends anymore.
I have to say this is that sort of scary world of girls that I don't understand, the part I can't understand where they're nice to each other, but secretly hating each other for years, and forming pacts to kick one member out of the group. The weird girl bullying that's different for guys? It brings some of this up. You're getting a glimpse into that world and it's impossible. Like this cover, she's laughing at you.

Pick it up from Private Leisure Industries who are offering a very public single for your purchasing.

Buffalo Bangers on Private Leisure Industries

This one came in from Private Leisure Industries, who put out that Brian Lewis Saunders' bedbugs full length spoken word album. You aren't going to find anything even close to that release on any other label, and this single from Buffalo Bangers is just as unique. Private Leisure is quickly standing out with some truly original releases.

The A-Side, "Blockader" has a slow, deliberate attitude, that raw, stripped down electric over a simple beat, plenty of room to breathe, the sound of the silence as much a part of the composition... it's Lindsey Elcessor that's the standout element pushing this simultaneously into a goth place alongside that minimal post-punk place. It's as much informed by the cold nu wave of Pylon as it is the dark themes of Siouxsie Sioux. The minimal grooves of post rock get me every time, maybe because they're so accessible...if they're doing it, why can't I?... but her delivery and vocal is definitely anything but. In contemporary music I'd compare her to Zola Jesus, just being such a unique singular talent, an artist who is approaching the tracks with a complete vision with a willingness to go more experimental. There's no hesitation in switching from a deliberate quieter monotone vocal to breaking vocal.

Like Cosey from Throbbing Gristle, Lindsey's exploring a similar psychic territory, with a Georgian slant. Like Benjamin Smoke, who would have only been able to evolve in that environment, the darker southern elements, combining in that swamp, the unfamiliar specific creepiness from that part of the world. She's doing some great things with her voice, a croaking 'ahhhhhh' vocal, it's the way she's completely giving in to her instrument that I appreciate. If it's going to be a great contrast to go from that to a trained vibrato then that's where this track is going. There's no pressure to pretty it up.

The B-Side, "Granite Grandma" has a chorus-y, Cure guitar melody and a chanting vocal this time from Lindsey...when you are honestly able to pull this homage off, it's remarkable. Getting to that same place is just as interesting now as it was then. It is crazy to even try, but they're coming together with the right feel. She's obviously talented right out of the gate... a serious vocal force... she makes you think about the obvious advantage that female singers can have, putting energy into a track like this while still sounding laid back, or effortless, it's not exactly 'yelling', but she's got your attention. This one instrumentally is equally as creepy as the A-Side, a sturdy drum track and distorted bass. Lyrically there's a lot to dissect...plenty of layers here to transcribe in teenage diaries. It's really bringing back listening to the saddest bastard music on the bus on the way to school and praying the batteries would hold out for another side.

I'll be damned if I can't recognize what this sleeve is done after, I've been searching out every Siouxsie and Bauhaus cover for that typeface...but no luck. Get this one on black vinyl from Private Leisure Industries Records

Bryan Lewis Saunders on Private Leisure Industries Records

Got this 12" in from Private Leisure Industries, a full length from Bryan Lewis Saunders, who turns out to be an album of stand-up tragedy. This got me thinking about the late '90s when KRS had their "Wordcore" single series...I forgot that their first release was a split spoken word album... (actually the first 10! - ed), and I remember a friend working at a station upstate and playing a lot of this guy... I can't find his name or album anywhere....all I remember is some kind of beat behind him while he talked about how 12 packs of soda are so cheap they really start fucking with you thinking you could start selling soda...eating fast food, not having any money...sort of like Slacker, but angry...just bitching about everything. But this poetry slam stuff seemed to be going around during that period....don't forget John S. Hall, detachable penis, the resurgence of The Beats appreciation...Gap khaki ad's with Kerouac, apple ad's with Ginsburg, unpublished letters anthologies, documentaries...a huge show at the whitney...I think it was around this time that Burroughs did some kind of collaboration with Kurt Cobain? Or Henry Rollins putting out spoken word and poetry books....I guess looking back there was a fair amount of dealing with this untapped genre. It wasn't just artists reading their already published work anymore it was coming up with material that was specific only to the recorded piece. I feel like that's where we get to Bryan...sure there's a huge 20 page xerox booklet in the liner notes with the lyrics to the tracks, but I feel like these three specific pieces are so tied to the sounds happening in concert that it hopefully elevates it beyond just spoken word? At least I think that would sort of be the next logical step for anyone bringing this back.

There's three massive tracks here all titled "Bedbugs 1-3". The first one gets into a tragic relationship with a pretty messed up girl, with a droning nightmare background. His slightly distorted vocals, weirdly phrased, half singing at times, are at points delivered with a low measured unemotional repeated rhythm and other times he breaks out of character to get scary, or pan the story back and forth across the speakers. It's not a story with a narrative plot, I think a lot of it comes off as disjointed prose diary entries, as weird as that waking dream must have been. Or really high composition notebooks.

It's also reminding me of Joe Frank and his awesomely weird stories on NPR Sunday nights...he's a lot like Bryan, coming up with a whole experience, it's not just a reading, but using all audio to create this weird atmosphere.

This second track is tough.. thanks to a morse code style beeping that repeats on and on for the entire half side of the A-Side, with Bryan barely drunk mumbling underneath. The shrill high pitch tones at random intervals....I'm sure it was thought out enough to represent something, but I haven't been able to properly get through this one. It's impossible to pay attention to what he's saying, and maybe that's the point. An audio bedbug is caught in this one, always there, impossible to get rid of.

The B-Side starts out with an entertaining tv channel 11 report about a bedbug infestation, and interviewing some guy who talks about wearing layers of clothes and tucking them in...I got news for him, in Greenpoint everyone has bedbugs...you either have a reaction to their bites or you don't...it's like mice or roaches...deal with them. They are totally disgusting, but what are you going to do? Honestly the solution is worse than the problem...spraying everything you own with poisons...wrapping everything in plastic for months. They live forever. Bryan really fucking hates these things....I don't blame him. I just know resisting is completely futile. Unless everyone in brooklyn...in the world deals with them all at once. They'll just come from the apt next door...it will make you insane and take over your life. I understand where Bryan is coming from...it's hard to listen to his whispered clinical diagnosis of the problem. I honestly don't want to hear it...it's completely paranoid...the ramblings of a madman....but this is where Bryan's at by the end of this ordeal. I sympathize.

I will play this for the kids trick or treating.

Truly terrifying.

Private Leisure Industries Records

Trophy Wife S/T EP on Private Leisure Industries

Not to be confused with the Trophy Wife out of DC/philly, Trophy Wife from Murfreesboro, TN, just outside of Nashville sent their latest single on Private Label Industries to me the other day, and I should be used to a band not ever having anything thematically to do with the place they currently reside except for this description:

... Murfreesboro's Trophy Wife have managed to forge their own brand of dark pop music seemingly inspired by the haunting specter of the many Civil War era cemeteries and battlefields surrounding them.

It's all relative...here I am thinking about stereotypical Nashville and country music, and turns out it was the civil war graveyard down the street influencing this. I think the same is true about a band in Brooklyn, you can imagine it's all about fixie bikes and smoking cigarettes, but it turns out they like going down to the East River and watching the sunset. One minute I think geography has everything to do with a band and the next, nothing.

The A-Side first track, 'Widows', begins like a dark night in a graveyard, half talking, low whispering voices, with barely a melody, bizarre instrumentation like xylophones. Mostly a terrible dream, but the echo-y, ethereal, vocals make the whole thing sound like mythical alien harpies trying to imitate the human construct of music, they've heard a few songs, but never sang or played an instrument, and it follows the rules just barely.
God bless this Pocahaunted feel, it's completely improv sounding, they have an overall vision and then play loosely within that structure, mostly haunting and nightmarish, it creeps louder and louder. A '70s horror movie moment, a psychological one, fucking with your head.
'Light Socket' is even more minimal, it sounds like plinking wine glasses, and then a violin makes an appearance, but the most puzzling is the chorus 'Somebody jizzed in a light socket?' Yes, that's what they're saying.
Their sound is new wave and primitive but mostly frightening, due to the high echo harmonies that contrast so completely with a weird bare bones structure that isn't trying to be pleasant at all. It's exciting when something comes so far out of left field so confidently like this. There's no clue how they arrived here, there aren't any references left to give it away. Am I witnessing some secret seance?
This reminds me of a folk/organic These are Powers, her similar lone, almost terrifying vocal, the tribal, primitive rhythms....or lack of them alltogether.

The B-side, 'Aunt Palatka' has a raw, messy out of tune guitar jarring you out of the distant woodwind melody, they're both equally in their own compositionally abstract worlds. It's weird how I start to focus on the sound of the crackles and pops of the vinyl, like Gastr Del Sol, it's heavily composed and deliberate. Then the vocalizations start, mournful howling, buried under echo. I think that can be the most compelling thing about the female voice is that ability to be singing lyrics, but in such a high register, they sound abstracted. I know they're forming words but you can't understand them.
'In the Water' is a single tambourine and a harmonized melody. That was the most shocking thing about Gastr Del sol at the time, this lack of instrumentation when everyone else was piling it on, layers of distortion, these guys were making very deliberate weirdo music...it's made out of different instruments but that sensibility is present. This builds up to a tom fueled attack while the four members harmonize about the Mexican border. It's the weirdest avant garde beach boys inspired cover you've ever heard. It has to be near impossible to recreate this accurately, this must be a rough sketch for a long conceptual piece about dread. It's honestly hard to get through numerous listens because there's just so little to hold onto, more importantly, like a good scare, everything starts to look sinister around you, the shadows, some wind outside...it wasn't like that a few minutes ago. This is powerful and challenging, exactly something I would expect from the NNF label, people pushing boundaries and this does just that.

PLI is made up of the members of Trophy Wife and if this is any indication here's hoping they have some like minded friends up for a seven inch. That double LP comp of bands is probably an amazing place to start.

This single is housed in an equally obscure, nicely printed 2 color silkscreen on chipboard. As little information as the record itself, belying any frame of reference, anything that you might mistake for a trend or fad, as if there was any danger of that. Really a bizarre unique sound which should be played at 33, or maybe not.