KFJC 89.7FM

Music Reviews

Versa – “Seed” – [ZamZam Sounds]

rasbabo   4/27/2022   7-inch, Reggae

Another great release on Zam Zam. Instrumental spacy dub for top shelf enthusiasts. Side A- ‘Seed’ is a high-energy sativa-esque up-tempo 130 bpm four on the floor dub stepper, that dips and darts smoothly through time.

Side B- ‘Plant’ is an indica-induced dream-state meditation, running at half time of its counterpart. Plodding bass and hypnotizing melodica eerily gives a nod to Augustus Pablo, but this is music for this decade of dub, these times. Rough and gritty, raw and powerful. Photosynthesize your Dub.

Riley Geare/Time/Joker’s Chair

carsonstreet   3/27/2022   7-inch, A Library

Riley Geare is a Los Angeles singer-songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist. This 7″ is a mix of chill wave and jazz-laden funk. Geare’s sound blends soft-jazz and mid-tempo electronica. Riley is jazzy with a little lean toward progressive rock. Shoegaze, dream pop, ambient and electronica could all apply. Very pleasant and a nice way to segue between genres.

Dreihasenbild – “Visitation” – [Wet Barbed Wire]

cinder   1/26/2022   7-inch, A Library

Endearing, whimsical, delicate recordings of violin, mood, charms, and found sounds. It’s introspective and pondering, definitely has a foreign film score vibe. A soft beauty of sounds, either in enhanced vibrance or wafting droned ambient clouds. A project of Stefan Keydel from Austin. 

Struggle Session / Arryam [coll] – [Genjing Records]

whngr   11/18/2021   7-inch, A Library

Wildly chaotic Hardcore from across all the oceans ca. 2018.

Struggle Session: Frenetic Hardcore Punk expats from Beijing. Heavily represented in our Library and prior to pandemic a guest in our pit. They’re members reside all over the world (China, Australia, Sweden) and they’re pissed. Not exactly touching my happiest place but they were nice enough gentlemen, we possess everything else in their catalog, and I defaced the sleeve before I became a little more picky about what we… addy add add. Though if I’m honest (often to a fault), the music is not at all what I find distasteful, It is more the cover that offends me, reminding me of former cohorts that once cast their shadows upon my life. So take my petty grievance with a grain of salt in the eye, opinions being what they are… for everyone!

Arryum:  South Korean, hyper frenetic HXC punk. Did not visit us or record much at all and appear now to be defunct. Maybe if I had added this 7″ when I received it they would be huge. World stadium tours and fawning groupies, incinerated hotel rooms, and myriad other examples of rock n’ roll excess. Sorry guys!

All lyrics are in English and watch out!

FCC on 1

FCC on 3

FCC on 4

Dipygus/ Cosmic Reef Temple [coll] – [Wave Guardian]

whngr   11/18/2021   7-inch, A Library

Murky curls of doom-laden surf.

As the light of the moon glint across the black Santa Cruzian waves festooned with kelp hanging like the limbs of undead surfers as a dark hybrid of genres seeps like a cinematic fog into the vast KFJC library from just over the hill of lost souls on this split 7″ from Wave Guardian Records.

Dipygus unfurls down-tuned dirge and riff from the rhythm section with shimmering tremolo guitar and soft guttural bellows. Beautiful and perverse. 

Cosmic Reef Temple offers a more frenetic instrumental with cascades of echoing guitars and thundering drums with a horn section that evoke a slightly Middle-Eastern sound, a haunted market in Cairo perhaps or maybe mummies on the prowl for teenage flesh soaked with palm oil and Blue Hawaiians. Delightful and macabre.

Courtesy of The Honey Bear

2021

Bastard Noise / X-Eyes [coll] – [Bastard Eyes]

whngr   11/18/2021   7-inch, A Library

Subversive Electronic Trauma

This split features harsh noise stalwarts Bastard Noise (Man is the Bastard aka Charred Remains off-shoot) and a project that is new to this miserable volunteer, X-Eyes. Surely a play on the word “excise”, to remove by cutting. Which may be what you’d like to do to your eardrums while this seven inch spins through your frail consciousness. 

Track 3 “instrumental”

Crunchy swells of nausea inducing noise with some low fidelity, buried yells. Unpleasant and dissonant, Bastard Noise has a long standing practice of espousing the merits of the DYI ethos and builds their own devices to unleash their anti-human sentiments upon a suspect audience. 

X-Eyes employs ambient washes of static and assorted bleeps under feminine vitriolic shouts before a tsunami of electronic malice crashes upon the bloody caverns where your ear canals once resided.

Los Angeles/Claremont(?) – 2021

Pobreza Mental – “Ya No Me Pertenezco” – [Toxic State]

whngr   11/18/2021   7-inch, A Library

Excellent four-piece Hardcore from NYC with Spanish Lyrics.

Gravelly and menacing, these indignant anthems of spite amid grinding guitars and machine gun fire snare hits evoke images of failed revolution due to crushing mental health concerns. Your failure is the system’s objective, our misery is their reverie.

Deja de pisarme.

Toxic State – 2017

Mortiferum / Hyperdontia [coll] – [Carbonized]

whngr   11/18/2021   7-inch, A Library

Dreary death metal split for a plague-aborted European tour. 

Mortiferum: Four-piece out of Seattle belt out gloomy dirge with terrible aplomb. Lumbering and battering their way through the gloomy fog of down-tuned bass and wraith bellows, guitars wail with unusual effects, and the bellow of an unintelligible prayer for death. 

Hyperdontia: The more up-tempo side of this split has slightly more guitar virtuosity and tumbles forth at a ruthless clip. Battling forward feverishly toward the abyss of eternal, ghastly repose.

A 2020 split release from Carbonized Records in the states and Saco Un Rojo in Europe (this clear repress from 2021).

Gnaw Bone – “Rotten Earth” – [Auris Apothecary]

Max Level   10/12/2021   7-inch, A Library

Sick, rotten black metal out of Bloomington IN. Discordant ringing guitars and pummeling. The sound of drowning in primordial sludge. Three members and they all do vocals; one of them reminds me of Gollum— how sick is that? Among the lyrics on the B side: “carcasses, piles of carcasses, piled on carcasses.” You have been warned. A lathe-cut release on clear vinyl; both sides about three minutes long.

O’Seis – Suicida/Apocalipse- [Mr Bongo]

Thee Opinataur   10/5/2021   7-inch, A Library

Both of these songs are drenched in morbid humor (see lyrics below). The record features anthemic, psychedelic rock undertones on ‘Suicida’ with deeper, tripped-out Brazilian Tropicalia folk, with mellow, sweet, harmonies, feel-good, vibes, on ‘Apocalipse’.   

Originally released in 1966, it was one of the rarest and most sought-after records. Re-released by Mr. Bongo in 2018, It was their only recording before three of them, Rita Lee and the Baptista brothers would go on to form Os Mutantes who went on to spearhead the Tropicalia / Psyche-rock explosion in Brazil a few years later. – Thee Opinataur

Sucidia

I scared out the other day and wanted to kill myself
I went to throw myself off the Tea Viaduct
The passing class didn’t want to leave
Life for my side was bad
Heavy conscience told me to jump
Heavy conscience told me to jump

So I decided to jump
The passing car I flattened
My head’s shaved
And the chauffeur inside screamed

The viaduct broke
Or someone crazy got
On top of the bonnet my body lay
And by my face the blood was dripping
They called my father but my aunt came
Take it to the morgue she wanted

For I no longer lived
Another useless man died

The next day the funeral came out
For the Fourth Parade he was heading
A black flower my coffin covered
Cold tomb the earth covered
It was another one that left
I was buried in my uncle’s shirt

It was midnight when I wanted to leave
The pit was tight for me to sleep
I was a ghost and I wanted to talk
With someone who was sitting smoking

It was an ordinary skull
You can’t even a**ustar me

Apocalipse

I’ll have the world in my hands (anytime I want)

And I want it all to end

My power will not be in vain (I destroy what comes)

The world will end

Everyone tries to escape

But it’s useless to live

Everything will be annihilated

And humanity perish

With screams of terror

They won’t know where to go

But only I know

That the world will disappear

Now I’m so lonely (and the world finished)

Without having someone to talk to

I then keep meditating (if I did something wrong)

And with the world ending

(If I did something wrong)

everyone tries to escape

But it’s useless to live

Everything will be annihilated

And humanity perish

with screams of terror

won’t know where to go

but only i know

that the world will disappear

Now I’m so alone (and the world is over)

not having someone to talk to

I then meditate (if I did something wrong)

And with the world ending

Crayola Summer – I Know Who We Are – [Emotional Response Recordings]

Thee Opinataur   9/22/2021   7-inch, A Library

Released in 2017

Psyche pop/ Indie Pop, Starts with head-bobbing rhythm fuzzed-out guitar-driven, Voxed out psychedelic trip. A thick and throbbing summer drive, top-down, cruising the PCH, playing it loud, great road trip music.

The artist known as Crayola was born Simon Williams in Leicestershire, United Kingdom.
Since the mid 80’s he has performed with numerous bands most notably, The Colgates and Sarandon.

Bright, Jeff & The Sunshine Boys -I’m Still Missing You – [Waggletone Records]

Thee Opinataur   9/22/2021   7-inch, Country

Western noir, a twangy blue, countrypolitan/cocktail country vibe.

Both tracks are moody mid-tempo numbers with earthy nuance. 

Catchy simplicity of traditional country and western with the cool, casual euro of a cocktail revival meeting. 

It was the Mid Nineties, San Francisco was in the midst of a Western Swing revival. Jeff Bright and the sunshine boys were part of that. This single pre-dates their full-fledged dive into Swing, instead, it highlights Brights lyrics of love, loss, and yearning, with a band backing of vibrato, slide, and shuffle. – Thee Opinataur

Sludge – “Just Die” – [Cheezy Farm Records]

Max Level   9/14/2021   7-inch, A Library

Sludgy, grindy garage punk on this 7″ from 1995. Three short songs on Side A and one longer one on Side B. Car crash guitars. Yowling vocals remind me of Stooges-era Iggy. General discontent expressed. I could find no info about this band.

Blu Anxxiety – “Baptized In Space” – [Toxic State]

whngr   8/25/2021   7-inch, A Library

Spooky unhinged extra-terrestrial Death Rock Bizarre rock meets disturbed electronic dance rhythms.

Blu Anxxiety is the encephalitic brain-child of one Dracula O (Chi Orengo) along with collaborator Justin Schmidt. Raised on Rap and perhaps raised from the dead, this project is clearly informed by the likes of Skinny Puppy and Nitzer Ebb but with diverse influences that rear their disjointed alien heads at the most subversive and perturbed intervals. Another beautiful bit of vinyl heresy from ground-zero for punk perversion: Toxic State Records.

NYC – 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKg8Cq5mVkg

FCC on B1 “fuck”.

Damagers – “Damager” – [Deranged Records]

whngr   8/25/2021   7-inch, A Library

Low fidelity Hardcore Punk outta Toronto.. 
Buried vocal antipathy with call and response from the gutter. A squealing guitar lays down frenetic pentatonic solos, vitriolic peals of feedback, ugly downstrokes with venom, simple hooks, and four on the floor bass attack. Impassioned sounds from this four-piece on Deranged Records – 2018.

FCC on A3 “fucking”.

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