Preview of Palmist Records split series!

Been meaning to check out at least one of these split 12"'s from Palmist Records, Fatcat Records sister label specializing in these exclusive tracks from a lot of really great bands. A great cohesive package, down to the Trouble in Mind style sleeves, of splits from the very inception. I appreciate a label like Mississippi Records that comes out of the gate from the first release with a look like this and then curating a particular bunch of sounds the whole way...

First up is their US Girls/Slim Twig split, The US Girls on the preview track sound like they're going all out on that Shangri-La sound, heavy reverb on the layered harmony vocals with tambourine all shrouded in this spooky haze. Slim Twig is a solo project that recently has evolved into this live incarnation, rooted similarly in a psyche organ sound with Slim's vibrato bass vocal, a very weird carnival ride.

Palmist says united them on this split goes even further:
each artist's participates in the other's side; Slim Twig co-produced and recorded Remy's side, while the U.S. Girl lent her pipes to Twig's 'Priscilla'. 

Next up is a a couple of damaged sounding punk acts, The Bitches who are a London based guy/girl duo, drums and scuzzy bass coming together in a Nu Sensae edge of experimental sound way. A towering wall of fuzzy rhythm, one hell of a racket yelling back and forth, like Divorce. Played loud and packing a full length amount of tracks on one side. The flip side features Yuppies, who are taking me back to The Sediment Club's roomy vocal and post punk jagged riffing. All energy and off kilter sounds, falling apart completely punk.

Then they dropped this Whines/Burning Yellows preorder, a perfect combo.

They have five so far, all handnumbered in an edition of 500 and up for sale on the Palmist site, get ready for some overseas shipping, but I've seen these everywhere locally, Permanent Records in greenpoint has a selection of these, so they are definitely carried by the big US distro's stateside.

The Whines on Mt St Mtn Records preorder

Got an email about this Whines single coming out on the venerable Mt. St. Mtn. Records, with their typically tiny pressing, and awesome packaging (that image above is not it). They're taking preorders for this one which will ship in a couple of weeks.

To me, Hell to Play was a return to that scrappy, local band sound that didn't have a gimmick of any kind at all. They aren't the loudest, the most lo-fi.... they don't combine weird genres or have a ukulele. Just a group of friends coming up with some great solid songs that you're going to want to put on and listen straight through. I've been steadily listening to this full length since it came out a few months ago...whenever I don't feel like working on another review.
They will play a rocking epic, layered, off the rails psycheout and then they come up with the simplest acoustic stripped down melody. I remember when I first listened to that Blue cover debut Health album and how varied it was, how they would go all over the place one track tot he next. It still had an overall sound, but they were really diverse....maybe it's that willingness to experiment, or that they really go where ever the sound takes them.
There isn't one hint of hype with The Whines, whatever you hear about them is deserved, like Broken Water, it sounds '90s or classic, but to me that's because they take those elements that any band has, the drums, guitar and bass...they care about the songs, there's no image it seems like...but of course that is one....
I could go on and on why I relate to these guys, you don't need convincing.

All I could find was this track, Straybird to check out, sounds like they're going unplugged acoustic, slow tempo on this one, and like Pink Reason they're not going to be that band with that one sound. Solid all around....always and forever.

The Whines - "Shootinhead" b/w "Straybird" 7 inch
45 rpm, limited to 300 copies, mtn-07
Digital print with one-color letterpress, debossed overlay on thick uncoated stock
Illustration by Jay Howell, Design by Mark Kaiser

... Ships in 2-3 weeks, $7 ppd to mtstmtn [at] hotmail [dot] com. Overseas customers get in touch for shipping rates.

Hot on the heels of their awesome debut LP Hell To Play, we've got two exclusive tracks on limited edition wax. The Whines have been on our radar for some time, with Karianne hopping in on drums for Eat Skull for all of ten minutes and their debut 7″ making rounds a year or two ago. Previously backed by alternating members of the aforementioned Portland faves, The Whines have solidified a touring band and are hitting the road in May. They offered us these two reverb soaked noise pop tracks, one new and one alternate recording off the Hell To Play LP. Layers of over-saturated tape hiss, as well as Karianne’s sweet-to-sad-to-sexy vocals, glue this hot little single together. A dreary Portland Sunday with a hangover put to wax just for you.

U.S. tour information here.

The Whines debut 7" on Just for the hell of it records

The Whines 4 song EP paying at 33 is just the thing for this rainy NYC weekday. Maybe they are bringing a little of the overcast Portland to Brooklyn...via the Velvet Underground. It could just be that I saw Adventureland which was really perfect. The music, that time period, first love, getting drunk, mix tapes...everything is really important and at the same time you are completely ridiculous...your world is small and you have no idea what's happening ten feet past your face.

'Insane OK': Takes a while to build up, far off reverb guitar strum. I think it's going instrumental jam until Karianne's vocals come in. They really have this high pitch little kid feel to them, slightly off, like Nico or something, but with emotion... don't get me wrong. It's maybe the determination that's the same? The disregard for any way you think you're supposed to sing. It's got it's own charm... like Sarah Vowel fronting Times New Viking.

Starving Dog Art: This is slightly fast garage-punk at first, the drums are recorded with a weird echo some kind of effect that makes it sound like they are hitting a flat piece of tight metal for a snare... A snare made out of aluminum foil. It see saws from fast with a lot of yelling to slow down breakdown for a part..then the vocals are back all whiny distorted. It's quick and dirty...exactly how I like my coffee.

Indian Homewrecker: That scratchy punched up 60's guitar is way out in front here. It's turned up, and you can hear the amp hum at the ends of the track. It's a pretty mellow track until Jesse kills it with a screaming solo at the end of every verse, then pulls it back to get back in line before the vocals start up again. Really nice. It's a pretty sick sound... reverb scream...I'm glad is kept pretty clean here. This is generally recorded pretty raw, but it's not done afterwords, if that makes sense. It's doesn't feel like it's hiding anything. It actually sounds like a clean recording of a noisy session, loud high end PA. It captured it all.
Karianne ends up screeching 'Someday it will be good and it will be fine!'. The high end in this entire recording really has to be boosted for extra hiss and crack. I keep trying to turn down whatever treble is left and it's at zero.
It sounds a little like RTFO bandwagon, soft and loud, lots of layers...a real live collarorative sound. Raw and spontaneous.

The thing that carries this is Karianne's vocals, it's definitely good garage punk but vocally she takes it somewhere interesting. She's singing with all kinds of range, she's yelling like a maniac and then whispering...but it's not overdone, it's almost buried by distortion in the mix sometimes. It's just got a good sound, she knows what she's doing, she's confident. I don't have to hear every word to know what they're talking about. She's singing backup on the new Eat Skull album that's out now and that makes perfect sense. I'll be looking out for that.

Lines Between us: Karianne's quiet talking here over an up and down chord progression that gets louder, more blown out by the end while her vocals switch into some other effect for the chorus, just a little phaser? Unlike the Pixies, this is Loud Loud Louder. I like this one.

This sounds like it knows where it's going. It's 4 bad ass songs with a xerox cover of knives. I just described the perfect 7" from any time period in music history.

I want to hear more...that's it.
Give it to me.



Go send Just for the hell of it an email and see if this second pressing is already sold out:


THE FIRST PRESSING OF THE WHINES 7" IS NOW SOLD OUT! BUT THERE WILL BE A REPRESSING OF ONLY 300 MORE COPIES, I AM NOW TAKING PRE-ORDERS FOR THESE THEY WILL MAIL OUT THE FIRST WEEK OF MAY! IT IS VERY RECOMENDED THAT YOU PRE-ORDER THIS AS THE THE FIRST PRESSING SOLD OUT SO QUICKLY, AND THESE WILL BE THE LAST OF THEM MADE EVER! TO HAVE ANY SAVED FOR YOU YOU MUST PAY IN ADVANCE, ALREADY GOING QUICK! just released! the first 7 inch from just for the hell of it records!
the debut release from the whines. this 7 inch is limited to 300 copies. it has 4 tracks side a - insane ok, starving dog art
side b - indian homewrecker, lines between us

the record is $6 ppd to the usa , $7 ppd to mexico, canada and $8 rest of world.

order online via paypal
send money to: justforthehellofitrecords@gmail.com

The Whines on just for the hell of it records

Not sure if you really have a chance of picking this up but this is worth noting anyway, the tracks I've been able to hear so far feature lots of echo guitar, recorded with that attention to crystal clear production values everyone likes to use these days...ummmmm right. Anyway the lead female vocals caught me off guard I have to say, for a little bit it I was convinced it was some kind of weird ween tape manipulated effect, but no it's just some kind of not super blown out distorted mess, a little held back, or that's just her voice. It's original.
Straight up garage rock, sounding a few decades ago, backed up nice with some organ, Barky, who plays bass as well, certainly has got an energy, this is near Love Is All proportions, but without the cute (for better or worse).
'Insane OK' is the case in point, it's a little quiet kind of meandering number which she completely pulls together with this great vocal quality, kind of nico-esque. Making it her own without a lot of overused references. The other tracks I sampled on the myspace go from blowing everything out with super distortion rock out mess to acoustic near twee, but edgier....and sad.

I hope there are still a few copies left...email below first and paypal immediately.

the whines - insane ok 7" ep

THE FIRST PRESSING OF THE WHINES 7" IS NOW SOLD OUT! BUT THERE WILL BE A REPRESSING OF ONLY 300 MORE COPIES, I AM NOW TAKING PRE-ORDERS FOR THESE THEY WILL MAIL OUT THE FIRST WEEK OF MAY! IT IS VERY RECOMENDED THAT YOU PRE-ORDER THIS AS THE THE FIRST PRESSING SOLD OUT SO QUICKLY, AND THESE WILL BE THE LAST OF THEM MADE EVER! TO HAVE ANY SAVED FOR YOU YOU MUST PAY IN ADVANCE, ALREADY GOING QUICK! just released! the first 7 inch from just for the hell of it records!
the debut release from the whines. this 7 inch is limited to 300 copies. it has 4 tracks side a - insane ok, starving dog art
side b - indian homewrecker, lines between us

the record is $6 ppd to the usa , $7 ppd to mexico, canada and $8 rest of world.

order online via paypal
send money to: justforthehellofitrecords@gmail.com

or send cash, money order or check made payable to hendrik deherder to:
just for the hell of it records
p.o. box 28187
Portland OR 97227