Max Level

Screaming Bloody Marys – “Musica De La Revolucion!” – [Zip Records]

Max Level   6/12/2018   7-inch, A Library

Hell yes! Local ass kicking punk rock. The Screaming Bloody Marys were around in the 80s-90s, went on hiatus, and are back now playing shows and recording. This 7″ came out in 2017. Side A: Cranked up beat and big guitars. Johnny’s dead, too bad. Side B: Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” done with a march-flavored beat, a wall of guitar, and some wicked theremin by my new favorite vocalist Angelique, who belts it out like crazy on both sides. East Bay Ray is on here someplace.

Amirkhanian, Charles – “Lexical Music” – [Other Minds, Inc.]

Max Level   6/6/2018   A Library, CD

Amirkhanian is the dean of American Text Sound Composition. His work on this 2017 release dates from 1973-77. Here Amirkhanian is using words and language and vocals as sound elements, building compositions out of mostly nonsensical spoken words and phrases. Among his methods for creating these pieces: Live vocals combined with pre-recorded vocals. Tape loops colliding, then syncopating, then diverging, creating insistent yet seemingly random rhythmic patterns. Multiple tape recorders in a series, continuously recording and overlapping until the words eventually disintegrate into unrecognizable sounds. Things like that. Track 5 integrates location recordings as environmental backgrounds. The liner notes in the accompanying booklet are detailed and fascinating, and toward the end there is a breakdown of each of these pieces and and how it was made. Super avant-garde and I love it.

Henry Blacker /Black Bombaim (split 7″) The New Evil /God Unknown

Max Level   4/24/2018   7-inch, A Library

A Side: UK trio Henry Blacker offers a spare rocker built on a repeating descending guitar riff. Heavy bass and drums. Good and crunchy with inspired yelling replacing the calm vocals in a couple of places.
B Side: Portuguese trio Black Bombaim cranks out a high energy psyche-rocker with an alien-sounding guitar line commanding attention, as the rhythm section pounds away relentlessly. This side is instrumental.

Gem – “Sheep” – [Car Crash Records]

Max Level   4/10/2018   7-inch, A Library

A rockin’ 7″ from 1995. I couldn’t find much info on Gem other than one of the members is/was Doug Gillard who has connections to Guided By Voices and My Dad Is Dead. Side A “Sheep” is hard-charging and relentless and would probably have stirred up a mosh pit back in the day. I like the thick guitars all through the song. Side B “Smiling All The While” is an indie-pop type of thing with more in the way of arrangement than Side A. Shimmering guitars and a hard rhythm section. “Apartment Life”-ish I’d say. Solid.

James, Timothy – “Wind” – [Tiger Shrimp]

Max Level   2/28/2018   12-inch, A Library

Lovely little guitar pieces by Mr. James. Some are on the floaty side, some are more insistent. Overdubs of multiple guitars, bass, and occasionally a simple drum machine beat. Lengthwise, most tracks are in the 2 to 3 minute range, with the longest topping out at just under 4 minutes. DJs who don’t enjoy playing short tracks on the air–I tend to be one of them–can take advantage of the fact that there is not much space between the tracks, which means one could create a “mini-suite” by playing 2 or 3 or 4 tracks in a row. All instrumental.

Usufruct – “Windfall” – [Vauxflores Industrial]

Max Level   2/13/2018   A Library, CD

Usufruct is a super interesting local project. Polly Moller Springhorn and Tim Walters bring us an unpredictable mix of flute music, vocals in different styles, and computer glitchery. Tracks 2, 4, and 5 are my favorites–heavy on electronics and processed flute sounds. Track 3 is pretty much all spoken word–it’s dramatic and tense and not really my cup of tea; however I do like the reverberating electronic sounds that accompany it. Truly avant-garde stuff here.

She Didn’t Respond – “Chagamole EP” – [Shplargnarf Records]

Max Level   2/6/2018   A Library, CD

She Didn’t Respond is Patrick Harsh (aka Fuckmaker) working with someone named IZFERNOR, of whom I know nothing. If you have been craving an adorable little 3″ package of relentlessly harsh/ugly noise, here you go. Actually I’m not surprised that she didn’t respond–I’m guessing she is probably dead.

Fuckmaker – “Untitled” – [Trashfuck Records]

Max Level   2/6/2018   A Library, CD

A seething bundle of ear-shredding noise from Trashfuck. If you took a Masonna record and a Government Alpha record and played them both extremely loud at the same time, you would eventually wonder why go to all that trouble when you can just put Fuckmaker on instead. The man behind the Fuckmaker curtain is named Patrick Harsh, and that might tell you all you need to know about this CD. Track 4 is not as harsh as the other tracks but it’s no walk in the park either.

Granli, Gaute – “Animalskt” – [Unhinged]

Max Level   1/30/2018   A Library, CD

Norwegian weirdness. Droning off-balance situations with raggedy guitars, voices, and random percussion. Odd things provide odd counterpoint to other odd things. Haphazard slide guitar and incomprehensible vocals throughout. One track sounds like a pair of sneakers tumbling noisily in the dryer. To be honest, I couldn’t really make heads or tails of this CD. Compared to this, the Bren’t Lewiis Ensemble sounds almost normal.

Mazurek, Rob – “Chimeric Stoned Horn” – [Astral Spirits]

Max Level   12/18/2017   CD, Jazz

A fantastic listen. Trumpeter/cornetist Mazurek dives fully into electronic manipulation of his piccolo trumpet. Synth processing, samples, and loops are the tools being used. My impression is that the trumpet is largely the source of the sounds, and sometimes that is apparent, but a lot of the time it’s hard to tell–the sounds are bent and modified and crushed and corroded and squonked-out beyond recognition, so who knows? Mazurek’s super creative manipulation drops you into a sound-world the likes of which you have probably never heard before. Long tracks, short tracks, it’s all here. Fascinating.

Clawman – “Citizen Gorgeous” – [Imaginator Records]

Max Level   11/28/2017   A Library, CD

Eccentric solo recordings with a ton of overdubs. Not exactly rock, not exactly pop, not exactly anything really. Clawman is one David Rogers-Berry, of whom I know nothing. With the exception of a guest or two on a couple of tracks, he plays everything himself, including guitars, keyboards, percussion, vocals, and various unidentifiable sounds. The musical style changes from song to song and in fact it often changes quite a bit within each individual song too, so it’s not easy to get a handle on what’s going on here. I listened to this CD three times and it sounded different each time–new parts that I hadn’t heard before kept showing up. An interesting although somewhat baffling listen. There is something on here for you so check it out.

Lord Fyre – “Destruction At 2013” – [Auris Apothecary]

Max Level   11/21/2017   12-inch, A Library

Droning, lo-fi, semi-bedroom recordings. Lord Fyre uses all manner of oddness to make their music–listen for hippie drums, various guitars, lap steel, viola, rhythm box, bells, tape echo, found sounds, flute, public address system, califone(!), solar feedback, sonic overload… there is even a Tony Conrad LP in the mix, adding violins.
A2 is an actual song with vocals, chord changes, and lead guitar. A3 and B2 have vocals too, but they seem more random and off the cuff, which fits the droning, stoned-sounding music.
For the most part, this record will satisfy your need for hazy, laid back, psychedelic drone experiences.

Gravitas – “Godspeed & Good Hunting” – [Auris Apothecary]

Max Level   11/7/2017   A Library, CD

Respectable, math-style heavy rock from now-defunct trio out of Bloomington, IN.
Solid playing throughout. Four short tracks (1 to 3 minutes) and two longer tracks (5 to 6 minutes.) I found the latter two to be the best tracks–they move through different passages in tight arrangements and kept my interest. My favorite part is the Sabbath-inspired jam in the middle of #5. #1 is two minutes of solo flanged-out guitar.
The label says this is their only recorded work. It’s too bad there isn’t more material here, but as I said this is respectable the way it is.

Adams, Steve / Perkis, Tim – “a Few Eccentricities” – [Self Released]

Max Level   10/24/2017   CD, Jazz

This is delightful. Check out Adams (ROVA Saxophone Quartet) on various saxes and flutes playing duets with electronics master Perkis. On some of the pieces the two players work within the same timbral environment and pitch range, rendering the line between the two less than clear. But not always– sometimes it is quite obvious who is doing what, just as one would expect with duets involving such dissimilar instruments. Each piece explores different terrain and they are all compelling and fun to listen to. A great release from two local musical treasures.

Mezzacappa, Lisa – “AvantNOIR” – [Clean Feed]

Max Level   10/17/2017   CD, Jazz

A great record. It may as well be subtitled “People Up to No Good in Sketchy Locations in San Francisco at Night” because that is exactly what it sounds like. A high concept record–music composed by bassist/bandleader Mezzacappa as accompaniment to (and extension of) noir literary works and films that she found intriguing and inspirational. Her detailed liner notes lay it all out. The music is skillfully realized by an ensemble of first-rate local jazz/avant-garde players. It twists and turns, making the listener wonder what is waiting in the next dark alley. Snippets of film dialog pop up here and there, and I like the way the electronics of Tim Perkis add a sense of subtle unease throughout. An evocative ride through nighttime SF more than a few decades ago… Fillmore Street, Army Street (not Cesar Chavez), Green Street, etc.

Unholy Triforce – “Cru/cifict/ion” – [Auris Apothecary]

Max Level   10/10/2017   7-inch, A Library

I don’t know why the hell we are adding this to the KFJC music library. Clearly it does not WANT to be added. It’s a limited edition (61 copies) one-sided clear plastic square with eight little black nails driven through it, and a ninth glued across the spindle hole in the middle. If no one ever plays it, who could blame them? If nothing else, it serves as a cool, fucked-up piece of art, but what the Auris Apothecary people really want is for you to figure out some way to play it. Disassemble it or whatever. Don’t just admire it–use it. Nothing worth having comes easy is the message I get. This thing–the nails have been removed for your convenience–has one track (1:30) of PURE NOISE lathe-cut into it. Yes, one brutal track that is a mere minute and a half long, but it ends in a locked groove, so the playing time is actually infinity.

Machine Listener – “Sentient System” – [No Part of It]

Max Level   9/26/2017   A Library, CD

A wide range of sounds across the Noise spectrum. There is a sort of “musical” element to some of the tracks–musical as in minimal melodies and drones and repeating patterns of notes, and Tracks 4, 5, and 7 are probably more power ambient than noise. You’d still want to file this under Noise though. The first track starts off gently with a soft drone but not long after the one-minute mark the thing suddenly jumps the rails and starts throwing alarming noises at you. Machine Listener is a solo project by Matthew Gallagher. It’s quite interesting, actually.

Tagg, David With Forces Mobiles – “Improvisations For Cancer” – [Self Released]

Max Level   8/29/2017   A Library, CD

Atlanta guitarist Tagg has released a ton of stuff, much of it on mini-CDs like this one. Here we have Tagg’s 2006 collaboration with an outfit called Forces Mobiles who provide clarinet, violin, piano, and percussion. The result is instrumental ambient music in small doses (tracks are in the 3 to 7 minute range.) Nothing I would call super innovative but if you are in the mood for a bit of ambient soundscape action this should do the trick.

Midnight Mines – “If You Can’t Find a Partner Use a Wooden Chair” – [Mystery Plane Tapes]

Max Level   8/8/2017   12-inch, A Library

Two guys from the UK who aren’t afraid to make a lo-fi racket out in the garage or wherever this was (poorly) recorded. Baron Saturday and Private Sorrow are their names and they play drums, guitar, keyboards, and at least one of them does vocals. So it’s pounding/crashing drums and blurting guitars and primitive keyboards all over the place. Sometimes similar to The Fall in that they will occasionally roll out a ragged/catchy/rockin’ musical pattern and one of the guys is talk-singing over it.

This record reminds me of those cassettes I used to send away for in the mid-80s, offered in ads in the back of music zines, where it would be some unknown crazy-ass noise-rock band from Ohio or New Jersey or wherever, on some label I never heard of, and when I finally received it in the mail and listened to it, it was badly recorded and a real treat. This is kind of like that. Track B3 is an instrumental.

Au:Tone:Al – “S/t” – [Cloister Recordings]

Max Level   7/18/2017   A Library, Cassette

Intriguing trips into the hidden dark ambient recesses of your mind. Two side-long tracks on this cassette, each in the range of 17 minutes long, recorded live at the Luggage Store Gallery in 2010. Joining forces here are Andre Custodio (Say Bok Gwai, Nihil Communication), Dave Ed (Neurosis), and Kevin Gan Yuen (Sutekh Hexen) on Moogs and other synthstuff, along with guitar/amp/noise. Long, extended tones, sometimes meditative, sometimes more outward-reaching, wash over the listener. Reminds me of a subterranean journey through outer space, even though that’s not actually possible… I don’t think.