Eat Skull - 'Sick to Death' (Siltbreeze)

Eat Skull's first record, along with the first Pink Reason LP, is a key release in what I see as the 'second wave' of Siltbreeze. It seemingly came out of nowhere, but the I wasn't really hip to what was going on in Portland in 2008. It was exciting to hear at the time, symbolising some sort of bridge to the past greatness of the 90s underground, by virtue of being on this great label. These kids really feel like 'kids' - a youthful exuberance breaks through everything, and if there's an easy criticism here, it's that Eat Skull are a bit manufactured. This cobbles together a bunch of influences I share into a perfect pastiche that simultaneously touches on UK DIY, early Flying Nun, 90s twee indie, contemporary lo-fi, and even a bit of that Shrimper bi-fi feel. The songs are primarily driven by the vocalist, very blown out guitars, and cheap keyboards, and the whole thing sounds like it was recorded on a dictaphone. The pure pop hooks aren't as overt as on their next album, but they poke through on songs like 'Stress Crazy' and 'Ghost List', where the self-conscious static and hiss gets broken through by something genuinely affective. Closing cut 'New Confinement', with a female vocalists, sounds like it could be an outtake by Garbage and the Flowers. I'd like to say it feels a bit disingenuous at times, but the name of the game is 'fun' from start to finish, and while things songs aren't going to bring me to my knees through a sheer understanding of human emotion (if anything, I couldn't really tell you what any of these songs are 'about'), I'm willing to overlook that. It's punk with soft edges, or pop with rough edges, but this is indicative of the new late 00s underground, where its agents are just as comfortable bashing out experiments in tape noise and power electronics as they are writing saccharine indie love songs. Their second record felt at the time like a major leap forward after this, but listening to Sick to Death again, it's basically the same formula only a bit less catchy.

The Dream Syndicate (Down There)

Legends start somewhere. Actually I don't think the Dream Syndicate are even close to 'legendary' - well, the LaMonte Young one, maybe. This one is great too. This is probably their first EP ; most songs will reappear, a bit feistier, on Days of Wine and Roses, but the slightly more raw jams here are great stuff. 'That's What You Always Say' actually sounds like a lo-fi recording, with a really bizarre drum production. And Karl Precoda knows how to tear it up; this wild axe-man vs. rockstar front-men tension is what made early Dream Syndicate so great. When Precoda and Wynn turn totally feral, on the last song, 'Some Kinda Itch', it's just a promise of things to come. One time I saw a great Japanese band, Overhang Party, who sounded like the Dream Syndicate. I told a friend this and he asked 'Which Dream Syndicate?' and I realised both. Wynn and co. aren't quite the minimal drone masters but there's an understanding of deeper musical ideas underneath the Velvets-styled rocking. And the LP, to follow next is just spectacular.

Chris Cutler and Fred Frith - 'Live in Prague and Washington' (Ré)

The cover art to this suggests all of the ghosts of the eastern bloc - or at least, semi-Gothic Polish cinema posters, Kafka, and all that goes with it.  The 4500 Czechs are credited for 'Ambieance and opinions" alongside Chris and Fred here, as this is an unedited improv concert from 1979.  Cutler is a freak on this, clattering all about the stereo field in a manner that's unusually haphazard for him.  You can feel that he and Frith are really letting go.  There's a part in the middle when it locks into a proper 'groove', as Frith's guitar emanates a creeping, uncanny pulse.  But the flailing drumsticks are the core of everything - the guitar sounds like it's buzzing out of a cheap amp, and when Frith does the fingertip-dancing he's most known for, it feels like a manic counterpoint to the earlier groove.  Though he's credited with electronic drums in addition to regular ones, it doesn't feel motorik or tech-heavy.  Overall, it's a dark, dissonant and I daresay messy foray for these guys, who were enmeshed in their Art Bears project at the time.  I guess the pace and intensity rivals a tune like 'Rats and Monkeys' but without Dagmar's voice to anchor it, things are definitely caked in a freeform crust.  Side B is an excerpt from a concert in Washington but it continues the 45rpm squeal, albeit more slow and open.  Long arcs of feedback bend and shimmer, and there's a breath that is missing from side 1 entirely.  The ending turns into a traditional folk jig, with Frith on the violin and Cutler pitter-pattering the momentum up.  The crowd noise is there throughout both sides - in fact, I'm surprised at how lo-fi this recording is  overall, given that I associate Cutler with being somewhat uptight about fidelity.  I'm happy for it though - this rawness is something that really drives the record and shows a side not otherwise heard.

Car Commercials - 'Judy's Dust' (Cenotaph)

This is the new sound of New Jersey, and a pretty carefully cultivated one at that. Half of these guys are in Home Blitz and the other half was affiliated with Ladderwoe, so the resulting mix is pretty accurately a blend - a freeish rock group with a real anti-aesthetic and a particular velocity. The opening track is a long warbling instrumental with noodling casio and scraping, and it never even closely congeals into anything tangible, though with an exactitude and deliberation missing from most free-form ensembles of today's world. When the rock riffs creep in, first heard on '190' and most effecively on 'Babe's out of luck' (which actually approximates a traditional rock song), it's cathartic. A satisfying release to tension and it makes you think the whole mess was quite deliberate. Is it hard to connect to the expressions here? Surely 'Mechanic's yelps and mumbles bear no resemblance to sanity, but then it's hard to deny those rough songforms, when they turn up. 'Collida and Jimmy' begins with an anthemic strum, though soon after the singing starts (an off-kilter warble, of course) it proceeds to follow it's own musings down dark corridors and never comes back. The drumset is used throughout the record with maximum imprecision, but it fits the faux-nostalgia that the sleeve artwork (and liner "notes") create. It's park Jandek, of course, with a smidgeon of Pere Ubu but also a good helping of Kenneth Higney. Just blazing on through in a cavern of one-take songbash, Judy's Dust somehow overcomes it's limitations and communicates. There's no inertia here. The slowly melting, unfolding of 'The Devils' hints at a grand vision, and the occasional intrusion of tape-player speed adjustment or feedback squeal all seems like part of it. Maybe 'The Investigation' is their 'Murder Mystery', I don't know for sure. It's rock music, deconstructed and reinvented yet again. And it ends with a Boomtown Rats cover.