abacus 5/20/2015 A Library, CD
snarling britscum crustpunk out of Oakland; roadie hosting and ain’t giving two shits towards the whole mess of it. hats off and fingers up, crass and immature through and through. fuck all hating everything from our quotidian servitude to the hypocrite students that protest it. they talk shit, drink shit and eat shit. broke, alcoholic, breaking down and dragging the world with
teetering between rock-inspired maelstrom and bleeding jazz lines, Butcher and Moor blur genre lines in deconstruction destruction; grinding guitar gutting juxtaposed by ferocious but fluid tonalities from the saxophone. the deftness of abstract scale execution a stark contrast to the grit and ugliness of six-string desecration. shake, rattle and roll
abacus 5/4/2015 CD, International
after three years performing with his trio of two guitars and maracas/clave, Miguel Matamoros decided to expand his group into septet and then orchestra form: adding trumpets, clarinet, percussion, bass and piano. music popularly performed in clubs and hotels throughout Cuba and the Americas leading up to the revolution, this is classic in the afro-cuban styles of son and bolero. music for dancing and lounging alike, perfect for basking in any hot sun.
aka a battle of opening orifices aka Damion Romero out of LA that ran this same label. experiments in electroacoustics; self-constructed signal converters producing primitive tonalities, dirt-gray drones of rhythmic phasing machine buzz and wavering vibrations; whirred and sputtering warped static with some additional processing added to these live recorded tracks. sure to lose listeners.
abacus 5/4/2015 12-inch, A Library
“Venezuelan-born, Seattle-native. a motherfucker.” and ain’t that the truth. a middle-class rebellious kid growing up in the 70s, Yva’s parents sent her to boarding school in the US, but she couldn’t be tied down. moving around the country she eventually settled in Seattle in the early 90s, busking the wet streets of the Emerald City with her Venezuelan cuatro (a ukelele type instrument) in the folkloric bolero style but with a mean punk aesthetic. mixing in with the local grunge scene she hooked up with former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic and had a brief stint with a band as Sweet 75 but it didn’t last long, the world not quite ready to hear a queer woman of color. here Moniker captures her style at its most raw, her street-fostered punk attitude permeating the traditional folk style. singing poignant songs with glaring wit and razor sharp passion, her music penetrates and purges societal woes. the songs may be mostly in Spanish, but a universality of communication is there. a motherfucker indeed.
abacus 4/30/2015 12-inch, A Library
a dialectic of styles in the grime variety, UK/US counterpoint extracted to maximalist effect; grit production style, meticulously constructed and stripped down; reductive composition at its most blaring. apostasic introspection.
abacus 4/23/2015 12-inch, International
dagger wielding trance mania: dancing around tireless gamelan hypnosis; between taunting horns and leering double-reeds; a lone bass clarinet roars in and outside the center, absorbing the chaos of its context and lashing it back in vehement discourse. the ebbs and flows of conversation are there, but the content transcends idiom. a universality of tradition.
abacus 4/23/2015 A Library, CD
gentle drones of country rustic drifting elusively between san francisco fog and new orleans haze. spacious melodies and distant vocals stretching songs vast. listless nostalgia for anticipated memories.
abacus 4/22/2015 A Library, Cassette
three useless cassettes of ratchet feedback scrape and ragged foot dragged drones of warped steel and empty squall. teetering between ear shreding screech and sizzle to undulating low end bends all subsiding to parkside serenity. los angeles artist Oxen affiliate.
abacus 4/22/2015 A Library, Cassette
three useless cassettes of ratchet feedback scrape and ragged foot dragged drones of warped steel and empty squall. teetering between ear shreding screech and sizzle to undulating low end bends all subsiding to parkside serenity. los angeles artist Oxen affiliate.
abacus 4/15/2015 A Library, Cassette
festering pustules post-punk hardcore from Santa Cruz’ most wretched. caked with the slime of the San Lorenzo, one might lean towards stoner but this is some serious shroom doom; lurching no frills riffage churning in agonizing elation but shrouded in psychedelic gloom. just as likely to lash out wildly as it is to writhe and smolder in a sludge that’s more frail than sluggish.
abacus 4/13/2015 A Library, CD
aka Blue Sausage Infant out of Washington D.C. an unerring yet unstable renunciation of faith; reverential organ evoking the ritual then injecting the inorganic pollution of squelching and skreeking synth grating drills. a series of distressed drones and digital maltreatments ensue; celestial loops bleeping and buzzing, drifting precariously on off-balance ether. an aural examination of religious hallucinations and visceral tradition. thoughts and sentiments fleeting yet impressive, discarnate yet concrete, bold yet Intangible. audible denial.
abacus 4/9/2015 A Library, Cassette
liable for abuse: aural corruption a la crumpled beats, compressed and sliced static and beeps – harsh. strangled vocals claw at the skeletal structures, grasping for air in the toxic slime. short circuited dance music for blue screen saturated bit junkies.
abacus 4/1/2015 7-inch, A Library
old style hardcore out of SF pissed off at the world and themselves for not caring enough. garage rock hipsters jaded to the point of aggression, fed up with the piss soaked junkies on the street and the privileged liberal elite that walk blindly by them claiming to care in the name of counter-culture. fuck the system, fuck the culture it breeds, and fuck me for doing nothing to change it.
abacus 4/1/2015 12-inch, A Library
nihilist industry felons dissecting dizzy dysfunctional robot rock and callous dirge folk alike, racked with erratic insecurities and bitter delusion. distant noise pollution echoes that evoke mind gouging memories of affective decay; deteriorating dimensions of ulterior perception. shoot to kill
abacus 3/18/2015 12-inch, A Library
more filthy scum sludge from the delta boys after 14 years. first release since Joey’s untimely death but new stickman Aaron Hill sets off ripping from the start: Agitation! leaning more to their hardcore days, showing off his unrelenting chops. fear not, though, the sludgelords ain’t losin’ their heavy blues roots; digging in dirty and dragging deep in the muck by Parish Motel, really sloggin and slobberin on Robitussin, even slipping into some country fried noodling on Worthless Rescue. on Flags Williams lets loose ranting gutter poetry over a lumbering mess of feedback that segues nicely into the massive deteriorating hulks of Noose and Bootcamp. They may have cleaned up a bit since their Dopesick days but these southern hicks can still pound out southern riffs heavier than any.
abacus 3/17/2015 12-inch, Jazz
New York free jazz journeyman Tchicai travelled to Kabul in 1977 to join German artist, philosopher and musician Geerken while he lived there in the mid-70s; Geerken is truly on a different wavelength (at the time studying ethnomycology in rural Afghanistan) and the two together go off the deep end into mystical tripper jazz embarking on journey long explorations of roomfuls of musical artifacts, all sorts of toys to jump around and lose themselves and each other in heady subconscious voyages to heightened realms of hyper realities. tribal space drones throughout but bringing a soulful, joyful praise to the frame; letting the spirits of ancient civilizations permeate through their very psyche, closing the recordings with a couple of rhythm and blues roundabouts to really wrap up the trip. a couple of truly under-appreciated geniuses of their time basking in the radiance of each other’s auras, lose yourself in their presence.
abacus 3/16/2015 7-inch, International
native Los Angelanos Very Be Careful have been hitting the streets with Colombian vallenato-style cumbia since 1998, recording several albums and bringing their party all over the world. traditional styles with a sun-scorched urban countryside flair, this is dazed and sweaty warehouse party music to keep you dancing till 2AM; the B-side is more of a light-hearted celebration while the B-side is more brooding, misterioso y peligroso. tenga cuidado es muy caliente
abacus 3/16/2015 A Library, Cassette
international collection of sludge ballistics, damaged and degraded fuck all rock n roll. not straight muck, rather a splintering barrage from every angle, with plenty of vehement variety to enervate and animate. amongst the heavy hitters: Arabrot spitting hissing goth-core and Cyberne’s crust thrash, Sabatini drags R&B staight to the mud letting Batpiss coat us further in black viscosity, Hombre Malo offers up an interesting brand of screaming prog that clashes nicely with Time Killer’s off-kilter rockabilly. plenty of dirt for everyone, but rock music ain’t for pussies. bite it and bleed.
abacus 3/16/2015 A Library, CD
neo-Dada playtime with these German swanksters and flabbergasters. abstract surrealist celebrations of the mundane everyday everything as music; spoken word nonsense monologues of celestial cyborg voices and vacuum flogging air-conditioner drone. ringing telephones and intercom buzzing; squeaks, squawks and screams of lingering tinkerers. recorded during the fluxusfestival in 2002, a concert of life.
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