No Other on the Negative Fun singles club 2014

There are some serious overlooked gems in this Negative Fun subscription series. First the Midnight Plus One single opened up a dark psych direction and that Positive No single introduced me to one of my recent favorite EP's. I think I'm saying that not only do I like a label blindly sending new music every couple of months but I NEED the curation. If Negative Fun has taken the time to schedule out a years worth of singles to deliver to subscribers it's because these are the singles they feel strongest about. No Other is a philly based trio with one of those naturally gifted lead singers in Maria Sciarrino that can pull off the demanding range of hardcore or go completely breathy and atmospheric alongside their equally eclectic mix of post punk and experimental shoegaze.

A-Side's "Option C" opens with a severe no frills punk bass line setting the tone for scratchy jagged guitar distortions and heavy foot stomp. Maria on vocals has a full sounding trained vocal like Corin Tucker that can all of a sudden fly into an upper register maintaining serious control of her quiver. The tone is all the way at the extreme end of post punk, modern and stark like those massive concrete eastern european housing projects. Rigid and sticking to a prescribed plan, the solo if you can call it that, is all stutter off kilter notes that work in those minor key ways over the repeating assembly line riffs, sliding or patched in from another track entirely they seem to be saying it doesn't have to fit. Just realizing that 'option C' refers to the other choice that wasn't even brought up. I don't like either of the choices and I'm going with the third one I just made up.
B-Side's "Opaque" slides in with a heavy watery chorus guitar flirting with reverb and Maria has a "Back on the Chain Gang" Chrissie Hynde sound on this one over the slow moving chords. It expands into a dense crashing distortions that get swallowed by delay and this tropical pop sound goes noisy shoegaze. This one breaks for an experimental effects filled solo also, the whole track a big 180 from where you'd expect this to go based on that A-Side. This seems to combine more obscure references into something more unclassifiable. If they can get that surprise on a seven inch imagine where they could go with two sides of a full length.

The only way to pick this up is getting that whole set direct from Negative Fun.

DD Owen from the Windian Records Subscription Series

I could always respect that Jay Reatard went and collaborated with all kinds of people and projects. Lost Sounds or Terror Visions reminded me that it doesn't matter what you're using, punk is punk and it's good to get out of your comfort zone and experiment with whatever someone has lying around. Drew Owen from Sick Thoughts has gone and found an ancient drum machine to lay out more of his layers and layers of blown out guitar tones bedroom punk.

A-Side's "Violent Pacifier" has some psych phasered mechanical drums with layers of scuzzy guitar sweeping across the channels. This has all the best kind of noise smothering this track like the classic punk synth of Digital Leather, it's got just enough melting electronics to lean away from traditional punk. But that's what this is all about; twisting knobs and making a great pounding mess of delay and buried guitars, screaming that title lyric in some kind of chorus. Cut wide for maximum volume, it's a quick track of power sludge that plays with metal solos and feedback over that metronome casio beat. Cuts off just like the cassette it was recorded on.
The B-Side is a cover of Gary Wrong's "Setting Fire to Your Loft" where DD keeps the creepiness of the original and ramps up the tempo with this shifting in and out of focus boombox beat. He cuts right to the heart of what made this original track so crazy and gets damaged like the vocal from Blank Dogs. The guitars are a dense muddy sludge of bass heavy frequencies but he layers in some high cranky static guitar just turning the instrument into every possible tool for this horror psych production. I like that Drew is single minded and going for it with whatever he's got, fidelity be damned. It can still work when it's not about a label.

Get this freaking box set already - from Windian Records.

The Seeers on the Windian Records subscription series

I missed Rob Ulsh's latest project The Seeers when they passed through Brooklyn maybe a year ago now and just realized now that this single in the Windian subscription series is their first release. I knew Rob from his last project, The Super Vacations and before I even made that connection (because I'm slow - and sort of deaf apparently) I had thought about the connections between the two.

A-Side's "Without Lites" has a lot in common with The Vacations stuff, and for my money this is a change in name only, Rob and Ross are still nailing that smooth layered psych vocal delivery the only way they know how. I recognize the chorus phrasing right away and that's a testament to their unique songwriting in this garage psych sound. They hit on this hyper dense seasoned sound with the vocals just floating by themselves above the rough chords just like they used to. Maybe a little bit more emphasis on the distortion tones and tempo that's flying in contrast to the somewhat laid back vocal delivery. Unlike psych this one has only a couple of minutes to bang it out.
B-Side's "In Jail, In my Mind, on a Prison Planet" comes on heavier than that A-Side and Rob is still up there in that tower in the clouds barely straining over these rougher power chords. It's like they take all of that meandering jam sound and jangle and compact it down into a frantic minute and a half. The guitars even twist into springy reverb for a measure of outer space solo only to be crushed back down by a punk blast of that chorus. I love what these guys have been up to whatever they're called.

This is the only thing The Seeers have out as of right now and you can even pick this up if alone if you can't spring for the whole set, with sleeve or not, Windian will give it to you.

Flexi Series on Joyful Noise Records

I was minding my own business this morning and happened to be looking to see what was out there on ebay from Battles because I kind of wanted to see how that album has aged in the past few years. It felt like some kind of shift...the beginning of something insane and there still isn't anything really like it. So that led me down the Don Cab road and this new live album I've never heard of "Gang Banged with a Headache" on Joyful Noise Records. Leave it to Don cab to have the best possible name for their live record... and that would have been enough...but then their Flexi Disc series caught my eye...ok, that's crazy, I was just thinking about how no one takes advantage of that crazy format much anymore. If it weren't for PIAPTK or Saved by Vinyl, I think they'd be all but extinct altogether. Then you take a look at the artists lined up for this and it's time to head over there and add it to your cart. You can get this awesome wood box to live in, or go loose for $7/month.

Artists:
Birthmark
Here We Go Magic
Hella
Helvetia w/ mbrs of Built To Spill
Melvins
Mike Adams At His Honest Weight
Monotonix
Rob Crow
Son Lux
The Sea And Cake
Sufjan Stevens & Cat Martino
WHY?

My goal this year is to subscribe to as many year long series as possible so I can just sit back and listen. The way I see it, that's twelve less records I have to remember to buy and track down. Some people like to go out and pick up the paper every day, but it's even better when it just shows up at your house.

Turntable Kitchen 7" + Food subscription series

Here at 7inches we are always in search of the latest innovations in vinyl seven inch technology, whether it's liquid filled 12"'s or picture disc lathe cuts, just when you think it's all been done, every possible innovation has been figured out, every color combination has been explored, my friend Mina pointed out this site: Turntable Kitchen.

Everyone out there loving singles, listening nonstop, hunched over the turntable has to eat sooner or later, and I'll admit, if I wasn't writing about tiny records it just might have been food. Turntable Kitchen has gone and put limited hand numbered singles together with ingredients and recipes...or "pairings" if you will. Should there be a music/food pairing on the next Top Chef? If it was with 7" vinyl then the answer is yes. But they don't just do this for one band, once in a while when they release a record...this is every single month. You can subscribe forever and basically come home to a cute cardboard box full of dinner and entertainment. You bet I subscribed to this.

Go check out some of the artists they've featured in past months, I've never heard of any of them, and that makes this even more interesting. I'm actually jealous that I didn't think of this first.

Would anyone buy this Michael Buble record if I put it together with some aftershave....or a set of steak knives? How about a tiny electronic hello kitty keyboard?

Also, this would be my version of meals on wheels...keep that in mind future self. A record and food everyday. The Hussy or Useless Eaters with some BBQ, Real Estate and a classic BLT on some country white with a lemonade. Grass Widow and some Spider Rolls (those might not travel great) well there's some details to work out. Let's start a restaurant.

The Grapefruit Record club and Yuck single on Fat Possum

I wrote about this single Lonnie Eugene Meth had out on Unread Records a while back (which is still available from Unread). I loved his hushed 4-track bedroom recording sound few people can get away with no matter how accessible recording technology becomes. He emailed me the other day about a pretty amazing 12" record subscription series from Grapefruit Records he's going to be a part of.

Curated by fellow Omaha legend, Simon Joyner and composer Ben Goldberg you get a full length release every 3 months for the year...from who else besides Lonnie? Well... how about Lambchop, Richard Youngs and 200 Years which is awesomely a side project (?) with Magik Markers and Six Organs of Admittance members.

It's a good thing they accept gift subscriptions because I'm going to get someone who really likes me to spring for it.

I'm completely behind this model for distributing music...get people to support it on this small scale where the artists benefit directly from the fans...they release some unique material and we get super limited stuff that will make browsers of the record shelf drool.
Kind of like Jack White pressing his own stuff on 3rd man Records. Sure, I'll never be able to own any of it, but I'm glad it exists, and he's pioneering new formats of vinyl, which is pretty freaking nuts.
They joke about it being like the sub pop club without the singles, but it's done in the same spirit, and curated by people or an institution with a specific personal point of view.

They're only taking orders from Thanksgiving to Valentine's Day where all 300 subscriptions will be gone forever. Don't get all Jack White ebay on them.

Grapefruit Records is a subscription-only record club founded by Simon Joyner and Ben Goldberg to release exclusive and limited, vinyl-only LPs by dedicated artists, both known and yet-to-be-known. The only qualification required for artist participation is that both Ben and Simon love the music. Annual subscriptions include four quarterly released full-length LPs and a deluxe, hard-shell box to house the series of records that make up that year's roster of artists. The artists on Grapefruit are on loan and ever-changing so no subscription cycle will ever be the same.
By selling subscriptions directly to the public we avoid many of the expenses which make it difficult for traditional labels to make a profit. There are no promotional expenses, no distributor fees, and no returns. Since the number of subscriptions sold tells us exactly how many records to manufacture for a given year, we are able to pay all the participating artists up-front without ever having to worry about a record "breaking even" first. Additionally, the label's subscription-only distribution concept allows the established artists to share their audience with the lesser known artists featured on an annual roster. Grapefruit's mission is to expose fans to exclusive, challenging new music on vinyl while ensuring that the musicians actually get paid for creating their art.

The Tennis show last night reminded me of this single from Yuck, who I've been meaning to check out, the A-Side on this single "Georgia" has those layers of indie pop and fuzz with dual guy girl vocals. It's catchy and 90's guitar indie, which sounds good to me. If I'm not insane, they also have a sort of experimental mogwai giant sound slant at times as well. Interesting stuff. This will be gone fast.

Lost Sound Tapes lathe-cut 7" subscription series

Got an email over the weekend from Jon at Lost Sound Tapes about a lathe cut 6 month subscription series he's taking preorders on. I've talked about Charlie McAlister and Sandy City in the past. Charlie is probably going to have another single of his home recorded dixieland jug band weirdo folk and Sandy City should be headed in from the waves to harmonize on more laid back jangly west coast sounds.

I wonder if this is with singlepieceslate a new local lathe cutting operation...and being that there's only 50, that's about the size run they're into, which means by the way, if you want to hear any of this....go paypal.

Until the cassette compilation comes out.

Lost Sound Tapes 7" series, pre-orders this Monday, Nov 1st!

The Lost Sound Tapes lathe-cut 7" subscription series is limited to 50 sets which includes band copies, so there are really only 45 available for purchase.
You'll receive one 7" at your doorstep each month for the first six months of 2011.
Nearly all songs are exclusive to the subscription series.

The first 7" will ship at the end of December/early January.

DO NOT PASS THIS UP, subscriptions are guaranteed to sell fast.
I will post a link to the subscription page on our blog at 12pm (noon) PST on Nov 1st.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE
* $50 for Seattle residents - includes local pickup options
* $60 for North America - includes postage for all six 7"s within the U.S., Canada or Mexico
* $86 for International - shipping is expensive! sorry!

The bands participating are:

Charlie Mcalister - Legendary weirdo home-taper from Charleston, SC

Sandy City - Lo-Fi surf punk wannabes from Washington state

Tyson Ballew - Catchy folk punk stuff, solid dude from Missoula, MT

Hair - Acoustic pop alter ego of the 8-bit Andrew WK synth rockers Math The Band

weakness - Raw garage punk from Cincinnati, OH, blown speakers and distortion

Stephen Steinbrink - Also known as French Quarter, important folk songs from AZ

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www.lostsoundtapes.com