N/A: Get off my lap, okay? Let me repeat this for you: I AM A HETEROSEXUAL. Okay?

TG (tickling him with her gun): Oooo, so am I, big boy. Why do you think I like carrying so many big guns around with me? So hard... and long... and waiting to explode....

N/A (wincing): STOP!

TG: You know you want it.

N/A: Never!

TG (looking stern): Then you'll have to give me another review to help me over my deep disappointment.

N/A: I can't remember the last time I vacillated so much over a record. About half the songs on BEAUTY FOR ASHES are great. The other half are absolutely awful. I, uh, I'm confused dammit. For people who care about such things: The Sabians feature two ex-members of some band called Sleep. Apparently they were a big deal with the stoners or something. [n/a]

Remember that Abstractions disc, SONIC CONSPIRACY, from last issue, where i raved about mad vocalist Jesse Quattro and her stuck-pig grunting 'n wailing? Well, she's back, this time in the context of the band she normally plays with, Saint of Killers (her and deathjazz percussionist Tyler Cox plus possessed guitar fuckery from Alwyn Quebido). The results are otherworldy and loud, all spastic bursts of metal and freejazz, noise and drillpress precision, weird psychedelic death-mojo with a stuttering beat that occasionally threatens to actually resolve into something straightforward. And then Quattro opens her mouth and starts wailing and it really gets out of control in a hurry. At points they sound like Painkiller channeling Beme Seed singer Kathleen Lynch, which is a pretty intimidating way to sound, believe me (if you don't, check out "Giant Fly Regurgitates Bread," full of tortured shrieking and jacked-up instrument abuse). I like it when they slow down, as they do on "May Sweet, Your Rot Die In Peace," an actual song (a minimalist one, true, but still) with lots of distressed efx whirling around it. Just in case you got all comfy 'n relaxed during that one, they come out blaring and barely-coherent on "Shitcanal," a mad and swirling yowl that ends when the guitar threatens to go seriously metal, dude. "Rendering Tank" is a tad more ethereal and psychedelic, trudging away in old-school Pain Teens territory for a while and eventually cranking up into blinding white-noise death-by-volume (then winding down and out), and "Baleia" (a short solo electronics bit from Cox) is nothing more or less than diseased power electronics. Note that outside of this solo track, the rest of the album is pretty much divided into two sections: the first, five songs with guest bassist Miya Osaki, are heavy ambient-noise freejazz freakouts in the vein of Painkiller, Beme Seed, or John Zorn. (Matt Waters contributes sax on a couple of these tunes too.) The remaining three tracks are considerably more direct and metal-like, although still plenty "out there" in their non-metalness (dude). "Jaw of Traitor pt. 2" in particular has some seriously heavy guitar alternating with not-even-remotely-heavy freejazz lines, and the heavy parts are beyond pummeling while the other parts are mini-solos or something like that, shifting gears frequently and without warning. "Hanged" and "Soft Targets" feature more of this direct, trio-on-fire sound, plus lots of really insane shrieking from Quattro, especially on the latter, which ends the album in a roaring, pounding blast o' heaviness with all the grace and gentleness of a pack of killers with long knives systematically butchering a whole family. Will the mikes ever work again after being soiled with such vast buckets of blood 'n bile? If you don't check this out they might come and kill you, so i'd do it... you'll be so happy you did....

Hey, i sort of remember this... they used to call this... rock 'n roll. The singer even goes "doo be doo" on "Some Things Will Never Be," for Anu's sake. Their li'l press thingy claims they're "goth punk" or something, but be not deceived -- this is rawk, brutah. Three chords and four on the floor drums and a lot of energy, and they even wear suits (just like those black metal dudes in Akercocke!). If this disc is any indication of the live set, they probably have to have them dry-cleaned or replaced on a regular basis -- i'm having a hard time imagining these guys standing still on stage.... The whole vibe of this album is old-school NYC hardcore punk, before everybody got so uptight and full of shit, which means they aren't afraid to stop periodically and have ballads with handclaps and acoustic guitars (the aforementioned "Some Things Will Never Be," for instance). Unlike a lot of punked-out bands, though, these guys are tight and focused and to the point; this is what the Murder City Devils would sound like if they left the goddamn cheesy organ in a back alley and stuck to the fuzzed-out guitars. Why is this band not on a label? Why are they having to put this out themselves? What the fuck is wrong with the music business when talentless dirtbags like Korn and Puddle of Mudd and other illiterates who can't even spell their own names properly, much less play listenable music, have millions of dollars and whores and ass-licking toadies, while a real band has to put out their own CDs in obscurity? As for the songs, there's fourteen of them and they all rock in a real loud way (except the handful of ballads, which rock quietly). Go to the EPHEMERA section to find their web site and listen to the songs they have up there to hear the noise yourself -- if you don't like it, there's something wrong with you.

[The Moon Unit and the Dynamic Noise Duo are prowling through the lower levels of the Hellfortress, marveling at the shattered wreckage and trail of destruction TASCAM-Girl and CyberLieutenant 12-Track have left in their wake, when suddenly they stumble across the would-be tyrants in the Men's Room, where C12 is trying to stuff himself back into his exoskeleton after a satisfying dump. Let us go now to the tragic scene as it unfolds....]

TG (tapping her foot impatiently outside the stall door): Are you about done yet? We've got to get moving....

C12 (over flushing toilet): Yes, damn you, and this is your fault. If you hadn't damaged the Waste Collector on my suit during one of your turgid gun battles I wouldn't have to be doing this in the first place!

TG: Oh, you are such a crybaby. (reloads Hyperejeculatory Spasmolytic Ion Generator, Hand-Held Model) My mother has bigger balls than you.

C12 (emerging from the stall, still suiting up): If I weren't a gentleman I'd be forced to --

[Both of them freeze as the door crashes off the hinges and The Moon Unit bursts in with the Dynamic Noise Duo right behind him. The Moon Unit looks absolutely crazed and is waving a compact disc in a most ominous fashion. He is flanked by the duo, both of whom are holding cryptic-looking gadgets.]

TMU: All right you sick bastards! You're trapped now! I have you RIGHT WHERE I WANT YOU! Oh, this is going to be so good! I'm going to enjoy this so much I'm practically wetting myself! (Still gloating, he waves to the noise duo) NOW! HIT THEM WITH THE ULTRASONIK!

[TG raises her gun to fire, but it is no use. M--a and M--w simultaneously press the buttons of their devices and the room is filled with inaudible but potent waves of sound. Hair stands on end as the sound waves smash into the would-be tyrants and render them immobile, their muscles suddenly overstimulated into submission.]

TMU (plucking the gun from TG's hand): So you thought you could throw me down the well, huh? Thought it would be humorous to pee on my head, eh? Well feast your eyes on THIS! Your PUNISHMENT! [shoves the CD in her face]

TG: Oh shit. He has a Saint Vitus disc. We're so fucked.

C12: Oh God! No! No! No! Not THAT! Please! I beg of you! Don't play it! It was all her idea! It wasn't my fault! Society is to blame!

TMU (ignoring them as the CD begins to play): Listen to that disturbed, reeking, noisy wah-wah! Tremble with fear before that rumbling bass! Can you imagine how alien and forbidding this sounded when it first came out nearly twenty years ago?

M--a (looking at the back cover photo): Ah, would that I could grow such a handsome and forbidding nest of hair as this young man in the parka.

C12: Please! I beg of you! I cannot handle this! The subterranean grooves... the evil proto-Sabbath riffs... the noodly guitar... those leaden tempos... that voice... please... please....

TG: Whatever you do, don't even think of playing "The Psychopath."

TMU (gloating): You mean this? (mutant, out-of-control wah guitar fills the room, accompanied by a lumbering groove much like a dinosaur having seizures in slow motion)

C12: Oh God! So much like Robin Trower... I can feel my brain cells regressing into hopeless despair....

TMU: Whaddya got against Trower, you freak? I spent half of the eighties listening to VICTIMS OF THE FURY over and over. This is heavy shit, you tasteless jizzlobber.

TG: If they would just pick up the pace a bit....

TMU: Nonsense! That leaden dirge feel is what made Saint Vitus great! Everything should be played this slow! Britney Spears might actually be listenable if she placed at a snail's pace like this!

C12: This album strikes me as a forbidding advertisement for the dangers of excessive Robitussin intake.

M--w: It would sound much better if it were many times louder.

M--a: Yes, this is true, but we must remember the primitive conditions under which they were forced to record. Legends in the making but underappreciated in their own time, they had to make do with the few resources at hand. Even then the evil Madame Onna was determined to crush their spirit, not that she was successful, as you can clearly see.

M--w: What, I ask, does Madame Onna have to do with this mighty band?

M--a: Just as they were the Saints of All Dirges, she is the Priestess of Assdom. Try as you might, shake your ass to this growling, lurching fury -- it cannot be done! She fears that which cannot be enslaved by the power of the almighty ass, so she desired greatly to destroy them. This is why they remained close to the ground during their illustrious career -- they did not dare stay visible for long, lest she muster the power to render them mute. As it was, they were forced to disband just to escape her satanic clutches -- but not before leaving behind several crushing albums of nearly inert motion and fuzzed-out tragedy.

TMU: Look at how slow "Burial at Sea" is, like Black Sabbath slowed down to half-speed. No wonder Goatsnake covered it.

C12: This is the sound of hopelessness. I have no doubt their audiences committed ritual suicide after each performance, I'm sure. Can we please move on to something less blood-freezing now?

TMU: NEVER! In fact, now I'm gonna make you listen to it AGAIN, before the freeze-ray wears off....

As a quintet (plus more sometimes) doing primarily instrumental psychedelic trance/shoegaze rock, Chicago's Salomé reside in a niche that is certainly not lacking in peers. Seems you can't point a car in any compass direction in the country without almost running over someone who has aspirations to topple Bardo Pond's coveted position as kings of strum-happy shree and scraz. Still, while this isn't ordinarily the sort of thing I use to rocket my grey matter 50 parsecs or more away from the nearest strip mall, Salomé really do have a good rapport. Too bad they're all living in different parts of North America now.

The first thing you have to ask with a band who are so obviously influenced by My Bloody Valentine, Neu!, Amon Duul and so forth is how do the guitars (there better be at least two, am I right?) go together. Quite intuitively, I?m happy to report, Saleem Dhamee and Ryan Jackson lock down tight on what the other is doing, making absolutely sure that they themselves are proving the exact complimentary piece needed. If one's ringing single, echoed notes, the other is laying down a thick blurry cloud. If one's providing a riff, the other is filling in with a counter riff. The band is locked down, no doubt, and Sam Leimer and Emma Bryant (bass and drums, respectively) go smashy smashy in the background with enough variety that you'll look away from the jangle long enough to give 'em a nod.

From what little I know of the history of this recording (released only months ago on the Chicago based Dutch Courage label), this is a recording from a few years back, which would explain my forthcoming complaint: while this is a decent enough little album for any trance rock fan to own, it doesn't really capture what kind of undulating thob they put together live. I go out in pretty foul weather, and have braved police stings on assorted bar/venues to see Salomé several times, and that's where they really work it. Which I suppose is the case with any band whose main stock in trade is taking a riff and pummeling it into a submissive gelatin in seven or so minutes. My other complaint is this disc takes a bit of time to get off the ground. By the time "Waiting" kicks in, and the head begins to nod (along with the brain), we've been waiting for about 15 minutes for this kind of blast, which I don't really get from the first three tunes. "Waiting," "Chambers & Vessels" and "Planet of the Apes" as a trio really hit a pinnacle, though, and the closer, "Tarantula," similarly ends the 40 minute disc on a satisfying note.

Okay, here's what. You know who you are, and you know if you want this record. It's cheap as the two ladies who got frisked on my corner by the cops tonight ($8 ppd. from the label), and it does indeed pack a punch. Or, if you're one of those types who doesn't want to read a series by an author that's still in progress until they're all written, you might want to hold off until the companion album, p.m. hits the stores in the future (there's also rumored to be a 2LP version which will contain both halves of the "concept). [cms]

These jokers from the suburbs of Hazelton, PA have been huffin' way too much nitrous oxide while playing their Sabbath and Earth records, that's for sure -- somewhere along the way they bumped the speed down to 16 rpm and never even noticed. Now that's what i call good huffin'. If you can imagine Wayne and Garth trying to shake their hair to Black Sabbath and Captain Beefheart at the same time after that all-night Robitussin chugging contest, well... um... that would be approaching the level of weirdness here. The level of exquisitely deranged loopiness here, all rendered at a volume slightly less than that of a nuclear explosion, gives them an ass-shaking obnoxious quotient of very high proportions. Armed with samplers, Moog keyboards, cut 'n paste software, ancient video games, drum machines, turntables, old records, and a virtual band weaned on monolithic sludge, Jeff Gallagher (guitars, bass, vox, programming, keyboards) and John Bushner (drums, keyboards, programming, vox) manage to make a huge, idiosyncrastic mess over about seventy minutes worth of thundering psychotronic weirdness. The closest approximation one could even begin to make would be to Thrones, that eccentric brainchild of Joe Preston -- this is in that ballpark, but heavier in its pounding metal roar and denser in its collection of instruments and other effluvia. Quite frequently it doesn't make a damn bit of sense, but it's so mesmerizing in its apocalyptic brain-freeze that you'll never dare reach for that dial. As for the sounds 'n melodies 'n riffs and standard equipment, they're all over the map and colliding from all different directions (then frequently drowned out by overamped bass hell). Titles like "This Is Bad Cabbage," "Who's Pumping Estrada?," "Bone Ape Tit," and "DJ Delta Burke" tell you all about where they're coming from (maybe even more than you wanted to know), and they're not above flying in the sound of skipping CDs to freak you out. You may hear weirder albums (interstellar overdrive by way of rhino tranquilizer is a lot easier to come by these days), but it's not likely you'll hear too many blindingly heavy albums quite this weird. (Unless you already happen to be hep to Robot vs. Rabbit, and they're less weird but more evil than this.) Bonus points for the totally mutant cut-n-paste artwork. Put this disc on at the next youth revival and see what kind of reaction you get....

TTBMD (popping his head in the door): Wow, this cd is fucking great. I recommend it to everyone. Go buy it.

Sappho's Fist -- DISTURBANCE PULSE [Little Man Productions]

Remember way back when, some issues ago, when i had good things to say about Frank Smith and Amy Kirk's THE SCHOOL OF VELOCITY? Well, they are back under a new name: Sappho's Fist (and it's a name i like, heh). And i have good things to say about this one, too. It's a bit different than their previous effort, particularly on the opener "Bird Ladders," which incorporates their earlier interests -- Amy's vocals utilizing repeated "found" phrases, strange noises, collage sound -- but also introduces an almost technoish beat and vocal loops to create something as equally otherworldly as it is danceable. For some reason it reminds me (in feel, anyway) of Lida Husik's "Matchstick Men from Mars," which is certainly not a bad thing. "Disturbance Pulse #1" is more eerie, marked by the pulsing sound of some clanking object (heavily distorted bass, perhaps) and various unidentifiable noises swirling around chanted, droning vocals. More heavily repetitive noises turn up in "Blue Shift," where Amy drones on about cello players breaking strings and equally peculiar stuff; then the sound settles into a pattern of odd sounds cycling in and out of a murky sea of other strange background noises. Almost nothing is "recognizable" in a traditional sense, which makes it sound all the more exotic....

"Disturbance Pulse #2" continues where the first one left off, acting essentially as a variation on the first version. "Terrorized by Beez" comes closest to matching the feel of their first effort; a beatless exercise in pure sound sculpture filled with scratchy noises, wailing violins, weird noises like shoes tumbling in a dryer, it pretty much defies description but is nevertheless interesting. The last track, "The Waves," just piles on layers of sound at the beginning, then fades away into the repetition of sounds that have been chopped and diced as spoken-word samples and croaking sounds worm their way through the main layers of sound. The most intriguing thing about SF's style is that it's hard to pigeonhole; there are elements here to please noiseheads, but it's not really a noise album; because of the beat element on the early songs, it also escapes categorization as a purely "avant" album. They may have to invent a new category for this sound, heh. Regardless of what you call it, it's certainly stylish and different, and well worth your powers of investigation....

I deeply grok both the name and the title (I'm down with the grind, yah), but the sound quality of this three-song demo is a tad iffy. Nothing wrong with the performances, though, although "Chico's Prizon Bitchez" (blink and you missed it) is way too short. The malevolent pounding and pained shrieking of "Fuck It" sure hits the spot, though. The lo-fi (and probably no-budget) recording makes it really difficult to tell what's going on sometimes, though, especially on "Demon666," which spoils the fun a bit. It would be interesting to hear this again with better recording. There's a certain quality to their diseased-sounding noise-grind that strikes me as having the potential to be really gruesome, if captured properly.... Bonus points for Ronald McDonald hung in effigy on the cover.

Quite a mouthful, that title. The Satellite Circle are yet another Stoner Rock band from Sweden. They touch all the bases with riffs cribbed from Kyuss, Sabbath, Monster Magnet, and other assorted 70s and retro-70s outfits; the vocals and guitars are drenched in swirly efx, the drums have that Bill Ward sort of stomp, and every once in a while they break away from the heaviness and let things chill with a "psychedelic" interlude.

It may seem like I'm setting up to trash this disc. I'm not. The Satellite Circle manage to distance themselves from the hordes of Stoner wannabes by knowing the value of a good song. A lot of bands in this genre are content to grab a fuzzbox, a delay, and a flange, effect up everything and waffle away. The Satellite Circle are able to focus their fuzz into catchy, concise songs. Also, they are a bit more aggressive than your average Stoner band.... They don't seem to go for any mush-mouthed slacker nonsense. Finally, the bass player, Fredrik Holmgren, has one of the most in-your-face bass sounds this side of Weedeater's Dixie Dave Collins. [n/a]

An achingly beautiful and sometimes eccentric collection of songs featuring mainly the piano and vox of Yoko Sato, this is one of the most compelling things i've heard in quite a while. Apparently the music was composed and recorded over a span of years from 1996-2000, not that you can tell -- it's all remarkably of one piece. She has this brilliant, ghostly piano sound (thanks to lots o' reverb) and a haunting voice with a register so high that i can't even tell whether she's singing in English or Japanese, but whatever it is, it's absolutely arresting. Its overall aesthetic reminds me strongly of the Thymme Jones solo album WHILE (the second time i've been compelled to mention that disc in this issue, and that's highly unusual, believe me). The first two tracks, "Pussyface" and "The Little Prince," are solely Soto and her piano, but the third track, "At Half Past 3," is Soto and her synthesizer (and sounds remarkably like Julee Cruse, in fact). Things get a bit more odd (and more clearly into Public Eyesore territory) with "Egg and Jesus," as hair-raising howling (she and Yoko Ono share more than just a first name, apparently) runs roughshod over her piano-pounding in scary, alien fashion. On "Piano Improvisation" she's back to more "traditional" sounds, although the piano sounds like it might have been treated; she's certainly doing unusual things with it, at any rate. She moves away from the keyboard altogether for the last two pieces: "Voice and Guitar Performance" features a whining, Doppler-effect guitar reverbed and delayed to the point of madness, through which her equally-processed voice bounces like an electronic ghost. (There's something in there periodically that might actually be a piano... or a guitar... or, uh, something else... it's hard to tell.) "Voice Performance" is an even more ear-scraping take on the same concept and guaranteed to offend your neighbors or your roommate. Definitely an eye-opening collection; i'll be keeping by eye out for more by this woman....

At last, the lovely Miz Sato returns with more cryptic bursts of noise, this time employing guitar rather than piano. I would have liked to hear her tickle the ivories again, but this is plenty swank enough in its own right -- four lengthy freeform improv jams (three on guitar, one with guitar and voice), all of them loud and noisy. The first one, "guitar improvisation one," is filled with screeching, droning, train-wreck sounds and high-pitched feedback so loud it starts breaking up; this is the sound the air raid bombers will make when Ragnarok arrives. The second one, "guitar improvisation two," is a bit more playful (if no less noisy), with bursts of mutant sound occasionally heralded by yowling feedback; lots of scratching and beating on the strings, painfully adjusted EQ, and unpredictable noise blurt. There's plenty, plenty reverb on these tracks, especially "guitar and voice improvisation," where she wails wordlessly (sometimes shrieking, eek!) over overamped guitars doing the drone 'n groan thing. On "guitar improvisation three" she returns to the frenzied attack mode of the second one, hopping all over the fretboard and making achy-breaky screechy noises like a disembodied noise cowgirl. In short, a fine example of incomprehensible yet entertaining guitar abuse. But what i wanna know is, how come none of the women i meet are this incredibly hep? I must be looking for luv 'n noise in all the wrong places....

Sauce -- "Why Can't You Be More Like My Stapler? / Home/San Pedro" [Hard Tail Records]

Well, uh... i don't know what to call THIS. Their promo letter describes it as a blend of folk, country, and punk, and damned if that isn't... TRUE. Sardonic, melodic, with a constantly shifting tempo, "Why..." is one of the weirdest and most original songs i've heard in a while that could still actually get played on the radio. (It probably WON'T, because the radio is too busy promoting the pee out of worthless sludge by Alanis and Bush, but that's why they made this nifty li'l single, so you could go BUY the damn thing and never have to turn your radio on in the first place. You're better off that way anyhow, since Big Brother might be SPYING on you through your radio waves... you DID know they can do that now, didn't you?) "Home" doesn't have quite so nifty a title, but musically it might be even more demented -- it opens up like a true country song before leaping into pogo riffing. Think of a punk band with a banjo that doesn't sound like the Bad Livers and you're hot on the trail. "San Pedro" is... um... words fail me. It's good, but i'm not sure i can adequately describe how weird it is to hear a song with a big thumping rock beat, squeaking country guitars, and a vocal delivery straight from the hills of Appalachia. I should point out that none of this would work at all if these guys weren't really good, which they are. An amusing little single, indeed. The cover features some really nifty-looking hand puppets (courtesy of Scairy Hairy Toys), by the way. Just thought you might like to know.

Sauce -- THE CAKE BAKE DISASTER [Hardtail Records]

I haven't entirely made up my mind on these jokers... this is an odd bunch, all right. They have imagination and a cool, twangy guitar sound all the right things like that, but they also have a penchant for bizarre (and occasionally juvenile) humor that i suspect is kind of an acquired taste. It's not so problematic on "Your Love Bites Like A Mosquito" (where the slinky guitar riff and horns would redeem just about any lyrical gaffe anyway) or "She's A Stoner" (a lazy stroll of a song that's actually pretty amusing), or even the intriguingly oddball "Why Can't You Be More Like My Stapler" (sounds like they've been sniffing Scope again), or other similar songs, but by the time you get to the obviousness of ones like "G Spot" and "Fish Taco," the joke starts getting a wee bit stale.

Then again, they make up for it with some plain old-fashioned kick-ass (insert your favorite "all right!" cliche here) rock and roll on songs like "Hey Mom!" and the beyond-saucy "Penetration Tonight," in which it becomes obvious that they are very much aware of the existence of the Knack. (This is a good thing.) Of course, the lyrics to "Penetration Tonight" -- easily the best thing on the disc -- are in that gray zone between screamingly funny and really offensive ("well, your short short skirt has got my heart a-thumpin' / and the way you dress says let's do some humpin' / oh come on baby, i love you truly / your words say stop but your eyes say do me"), depending on how PC yer politics are, i guess, so consider yourself warned in that respect. Plus the slanderous "Defamin' the Prophet" manages to get in some rude but funny nose-thumbing at religious prophets like Mohammed (again, a violation on the PC meter, assuming you care about these things).

Bottom line: Interesting semi-folky music coupled with an eccentric sense of humor that would run the risk of being disposable if they weren't pretty suave musicians. Plus eccentric lyrics and even more eccentric ideas about music....

Did i mention that they're kind of eccentric? Oh, i did, good....

My understanding here (which we'll call "soft-focus" since it's pretty fuzzy, uh huh) is that Savio is in One Inch of Shadow, the mysterious band I babbled about last issue, and that Cat Sun is his own private cd-r label. That makes sense, because not only is the disc's presentation similar (handmade packaging, cryptic photos, arty insert), but the disc's sound is in that same ambient country death folk territory. Apparently all the music here is courtesy of Savio, which is interesting, since I'd swear I hear a female singer from time to time... of course, given the high level of efx processing and endless reverb at work, that may well be Savio himself. The album is tripped-out and hallucinatory, with only a core of folk guitar and vocals (however exotic they may be) keeping it from turning into a full-blown dark-ambient dronefest. Inhabiting a deep, dark space far back in the forest where the sun is nothing more than faint light coming through the tops of the trees, where the world as we know it has never existed. The country folk blues of the gatekeeper at the way station before the desert leading into the Great Empty. There's an extremely high drone quotient at work here too, and the pace is mellow and deliberate. A good album to float off to, wherever that journey into the dark abyss may take you.

O, i greatly approve of this. Forget that it's on Alchemy, Japan's home of whole-grain golden noise, for this actually has a very low noise quotient. No, this is secretly an exotica album, featuring the fab vocal stylings of porn starlet turned chanteuse Miki Sawaguchi, the fetching gal with the hefty hooters indeed on the cover (and in the booklet, where she reveals a lot more than just her psyche). Absolutely nothing can prepare you for the shock of the boss trumpets blaring on the opening instrumental, a big-band swing thing executed (as is everything on the disc, in fact) with swank precision. The bizarrofest gets ramped up in earnest on the next track, where Miki and the backing band (a bunch of swell guys who shall remain unfortunately nameless since i can't read the Japanese liner notes, but there are a bunch of them, including Jojo) turn Joan Jett's "Be Straight" into a funky salsa dance tune -- only to follow up with the lounge-cool funky bossa-nova (with flamenco guitar, no less) "Bad Bad Bossa Nova." Along the way they also churn out surf-rock with scrunched guitars, slow 'n moody neo-folk, and an absolutely gorgeous pop ballad that could seriously be a huge hit if it were only in English. (I prefer it in Japanese, myself.) The album's only flaw is an excruciating stab at a Janis Joplin song that wasn't very good to begin with and sounds really grotesque in Miki's hands, although i think her butchery of the song is deliberate, especially after hearing how well she sings everywhere else on the album. That wacky ironic Japanese sense of humor at work again, i suppose.... There is some noise on the album (probably courtesy of Jojo), but it's mostly buried in the background (especially on the neo-folk track) and in the introductions; the one exception is the sixth track, which is mainly a lot of disconnected noise and meandering while Miki babbles. It's okay, but nowhere near the brilliance of the other tracks. Still, this is already one of my favorite albums of the year and i sure hope this isn't going to be a one-off deal....

Scala -- BEAUTY NOWHERE [Touch] and LIPS & HEAVENS [Too Pure]

Scala is the current project of ex-Seefeel members Justin Fletcher, Sara Peacock and Darren Seymour with Mark Van Hoen (aka Locust). There's nothing very twee or ambient about either of these recordings. It's a truly unique, flavorful blend of post-punk, current dance-floor stylings and the more experimental avenues of jungle, especially the creative use of drums. Take for example, track titled "Torn". It's all live drumming, with a distinctive twist. Here and there, Locust will chop up the drum track or sample a portion of it giving it a hard-edged dance feel, but at the same not nearly as cold and sterile as a drum machine. "Hold Me Down" is a slow, dreamy, almost introspective track with futuristic, solid-state, tribal- like drum sampling lending to an interesting dichotomy in sounds. Or there's "VDT", an edgy dance tune with lots of distortion and gain. Demanding and sweet, it's a swirling, melting, action-packed way to jump- start the grey matter. [yol]

Scanner -- SULPHUR [Sub Rosa]

An interesting live document that was recorded at the Purcell Room in London last year, the seven selections here are an excellent introduction to the work of "telephone terrorist" Robin Rimbaud. Imagine Brian Eno with a hand-held scanner and no sense of privacy (or perhaps an interest in provoking discussion of what DOES constitute privacy these days) and you essentially grasp what Scanner is all about; Rimbaud tweaks a bank of synths and tape loops while weaving in cellular phone conversations gleaned from his trusty scanner. What's impressive is that he's able to make it work live; he has an excellent sense of when to make the scanner's presence known and when to turn it down and let the background music turn over.

The opener, "radio entry," is one of the most ambient tracks here, with soothing synth washes and an eerie climbing tone-loop; periodically he turns up the scanner to eavesdrop on a particularly interesting conversation, but mostly the music holds forth here. A bit later, in "through seven doors," the pattern is reversed: the intercepted phone chatter dominates as the shuddering soundtrack movie wavers far in the background. Then "flaneur electronique" brings in squealing whistles, a stop and start, beat, and the performance begins to approach ambient techno, if you can imagine such a thing. The last (and longest) track, "brittle," allows the prominence of the scanner vs. the music to fluctuate; for a while the scanner is the primary instrument, then the music takes over, and they circle back and forth like doomed vultures.

Ultimate result? Swankness. Pure swankness. The only objection, in fact, is that at 40 minutes, it's too short. The hype is justified....

Scanner / Shea / Main -- SUB ROSA LIVE SESSIONS [Quantum]

An amusing li'l factoid: I snagged this for the Main section and have ended up being most enamored by the Scanner material instead. (Not to disparage Main, by any means -- they turn in some fine work here.) I didn't realize Robin Rimbaud was making such hep sounds, mon. Armed with (apparently) a synth, some beats, and a scanner, he creates some seriously moody sonic ambience (sometimes with major beats, as on "beef," and sometimes not) into which he occasionally drops in scanned conversations, scratching sample loops, and other odd noises. He has five songs here and i like them all, particularly the hypnotic and chirping "thrones of hives," whose rhythm sound (i don't know what else to call it, since it's not a readily identifiable "beat" as such) i would genuinely like to steal for my own band. The lone track by David Shea -- "fragment of alpha" -- is also interesting, as it comes packed with a lot of quirky sonic baggage (mostly in the form of oddly-juxtaposed samples), but in the end, it kind of pales next to the work from Scanner and Main. Main's contribution here (in what was supposedly the last gig with their original lineup) is nothing less than "live firmament" -- a long (37:02) suite of odd, watery sounds that come across very much like Aube with a guitar in hand. I'm impressed that they can actually sound so much like the albums; i always figured that, given the weirdness of the sounds and the immense amount of layering on Main albums, that their sound wouldn't translate very well to the stage. Obviously i am incorrect (again), as they sound flatly brilliant and lose nothing in the transition from studio to stage. This is well worth owning, and probably the companion CD (SHEA > RIMBAUD > HAMPSON) that was released earlier this year is as well, although i haven't heard that one.

Scanner -- "hollowhead / who else is there?" [Soul Static Sound]

Eek, cryptic vinyl! It really annoys me when labels don't even bother to put the proper speed on the label or anything.... At any rate, this is some lo-fi rumble techno (or something like that) from everyone's favorite cellphone terrorist. Oddly enough, the cellphone makes only a limited appearance here, mostly in the form of bursts of static linked to the beat. And indeed there is a beat; "hollowhead" possesses all sorts of hollowed- out noises chained to a pulsating beat. Bonus points for ending with UFO noises.... The cellphone snippets resurface on the flip side, where jagged bits of conversation weave around ominious, shuddering synth drones. This is interesting stuff that sounds very different from other material i've heard by him so far. The ominous groove is a keeper....

Scanner -- "seamless data generator / tape junk" [Soul Static Sound]

From the sound of it (not to mention the packaging similarities), i'd assume this is essentially a continuation of the above single, or something arty like that. The A-side is very much like "who else is there?" in its use of grinding, ominous synth drone, crusty clattering drums, and the occasional chunk of cellphone verbiage. A bassline that sounds like it's been munched permeates the entire song, while keyboards drift in and out of the mix at strategic moments. "tape junk" operates on more familiar territory, at least in parts of it; other parts, though, are dominated by distorted tape loops. Cellphone snippets are carefully arranged around the piano moments and loop savagery. Intriguing... almost approaching noise in places, even. Obviously a man who's not ready to be pinned down to any one sound. I'm not sure this is his strongest material, but he gets an A for effort anyway just because the sounds on the flip side are so swank.

Scenic -- INCIDENT AT CIMA [Independent Project Records]

Bruce Licher's latest musical project, Scenic, brings you their conception of a "soundtrack for the remote East Mojave Desert". It's funny, I listened to the disc once through before reading the press release and within the first few notes, immediatly recongnized the signature Licher/Savage Republic guitar playing. Again we have a clean, demonstrative release. But is that all there is to a recording? The press release lays it on a bit thick by trying to pose this as a "more mature" and "more focused" incarnation under Licher's direction. Take those adjectives and replace it with just "more reserved" and I think we're getting somewhere. Why they even attempt to dimish the absolute brilliance of Savage Republic is beyond me. What sets Scenic apart from Savage Republic is that SR had the guts to do something intense, raw and angular. INCIDENT AT CIMA doesn't even come close to that, try as it might.

Ttwo other observations to note.... describing the recording as a "soundtrack" initially fits perfectly with the use of a blowpipe, harmonica and acoustic guitars. It's the kind of association most people would automatically assume, which only serves to underscore the sense of utter cliche present. Perhaps if Scenic had spent more time listening to the desert, they might have come up with something a bit more provocative and ingenious. Alternately, tracks like 'hole in the wall' seem to be rich with references to the Gastr Del Sol school of minimalist atmospherics. Don't be mislead by the critiques. It's still better than over half of most that the "indie" scene has to offer. hopefully next time, Licher and company won't be so timid about pushing the boundaries a little more firmly. There's no question they could easily succeed at that task. [yol]

Schizoid is actually one J. Smith plus a lot of machinery and very, very loud guitars. The result is something massive and angry, somewhere between Atari Teenage Riot, Rage Against the Machine, and an exploding meat grinder. Beginning with "Two Minutes Hate" and "All Things Are Connected," the songs bleed together in a sustained bolt of aggressive lightning -- heavy beats, scrap-metal noises, loops of found sound, and horribly distorted guitars run through miles of efx are all piled upon the burnpile while Smith roars in menacing fashion. The moments I like best are when the beats go into full-tilt loop mode and the guitars do the same, such as on "Grim Prospects," or when he seizes on a happening riff (such as the one at the beginning of "Extinct and Obsolete" or the one running through "Elitist Musings," which starts as one sound and morphs to another before being overrun by mutant guitar and spastic beats) and uses it to lead into the sonic obliteration. "Dementia" uses carefully-chosen samples to amusing effect amid the stun-gun beat (a beat so loud that the vox is pretty much drowned out -- good thing he provided lyrics, not that i can read them 'cause they're in such microscopic print), and "It Feels Like I'm Being Raped" is a pretty impressive demonstration of how noise can be used in the service of rhythm. I particularly like the menacing wah-skronk and tiki-tiki beat that opens "Amputate"....

The overall effect is pretty much that of an American answer to Atari Teenage RIot, and it rages pretty much full-on for the entire disc -- there are occasional moments of "mood" or even prettiness (the gothic-sounding keyboards at the beginning of "The Big Picture," for instance), but they don't last long before being beaten down and sandblasted into bloodstained paste by the jackhammer beat and tidal wave of noises, efx, and samples. Like chaos in search of a form, the album roars along spinning in all directions and unleashing jagged bits of shrapnel at every turn. Definitely a hardcore beast for those into hammering sonic punishment. This should hold you over until the next ATR album appears....

Michael Schumacher -- ROOM PIECE [dist. by Warpodisc]

Remember my intense raving about the godhead album FLOOD a while back? Well, this composer-type guy was half of the duo that produced that brilliant album. This time he's working on his own, with a disc he's released himself but which Warpodisc (or is it Warm-O-Brisk? i can't keep 'em straight) is kindly distributing. This is a recreation of "The Room Piece," which came to life in 1994 as a sound installation revolving around tones generated by a 16-channel computer setup. With each installation the structural form changes, because the "song" is generated by a computer algorithim derived from six prime numbers (13, 17, 23, 29, 37, and 43). Different intervals of sound vs. silence are generated on each channel, so different instruments are playing for different lengths of time, sometimes alone, sometimes overlapping, all entirely dependent upon the computer, whose algorithim is making it up as the piece proceeds. (The result, incidentally, is that each replay of the piece is totally different.) To make matters even more complicated, each droning instrument is only allowed one pitch, played throughout the entire piece, and with the melodic instruments (piano, woodwinds, etc.), their choice of pitches is severely limited. There are even more rules regulating the piece's generation, but i think that's quite enough of the technical aspects for right now....

The result is an unpredictable kind of minimalism. Sounds come and go, drones linger for some time before fading out, and the structure evolves into different levels of complexity, but the algorithim's fundamental randomness keeps it from getting stale. In fact, listening to it on CD, it's hard to believe this is almost entirely computer-generated. While the relative sedateness of the piece as a whole might be off-putting to the average rock-oriented listener, electronic enthusiasts and followers of the avant should find it extremely interesting. In places there are parallels to the sound generated by the likes of Nurse With Wound and Organum, in fact, while other parts have more in common with the tonal minimalism of Phill Niblock and LaMonte Young (since Schumacher has studied under and is endorsed by Young, that's not exactly a huge surprise). The main disadvantage to hearing this on CD after reading about its intent and construction is realizing that the variations must be infinite live, whereas it's always the same on this disc (although you could probably change that with some judicious EQ twiddling, i suspect). Additionally, this is being presented in only two channels, whereas the live installations are presented in 16, with speakers placed throughout the room for a more spectactularly ambient feel. Nevertheless, the disc stands on its own merits and is a more than worthy addition to the canon of sound exploration. Hopefully more pieces by the man will become available as time progresses.

Paul Schutze & Phantom City -- SITE ANUBIS [Big Cat Records]

Paul Schutze, one of the pioneers of electronic music, has teamed up with avant-jazz king Bill Laswell and a small host of others to put together SITE ANUBIS, a disc composed of melodic, rhythmic instrumental pieces. The drums, guitars, electronics, and wind instruments all meld together, creating the atmosphere of each piece. The disc is very meditative, very low-key, very melodic. The tempo of each piece is rather slow, and as such it provides a rather ritualistic feeling to the recording. It does become difficult to discern the differences between tracks; each has the same mood to it, the same rhythmic structure. [bc]

(While rummaging through the drawers in the Command Center, TG makes a dubious find: a titanic stack of drugs confiscated from drug-runners cutting through the Hellfortress estate one afternoon. Lacking any good common sense, she scarfs everything down in great handfuls and is almost immediately stricken senseless.)

TG: Oh... oh wow... (holds up her Plasmatonic Grok Thrower) I... I can see through my gun! I can see the bullets inside... they're so cute... I just want to cuddle them and feed them gunpowder....

C12: Ah, wonderful. Not only are you a lunatic, but now you are a stoned lunatic. Correction, a stoned lunatic with guns. I knew I should have made out my will before I agreed to this foolishness.

TG: Yeah, yeah, whatever. I'd blow big fucking holes in you and suck the blood from your ruptured capillaries if I didn't love everything in the whole wide world right now. (tottering unsteadily to the CD player) I suppose this is a good time to be checking out that trippy looking Sciflyer disc....

C12 (listening): I've not heard of this band, although the data banks indicate several of its participants have played in the Houseplants and Nitrous previously.

TG: Never heard of them. (slowly spins in circles, waving guns haphazardly like castanets)

C12: Neither have I, but I greatly enjoy this disc. Notice the CD's cover, a time-lapse photo of overlapping phases of the moon -- an accurate indication of their space-rock roots. They wouldn't be at all out of place, I suspect, on a bill with F/i and Hawkwind.

TG: Now you're getting somewhere. F/i... F/i... that's ringing a bell....

C12: The American Hawkwind, essentially. One of their guitarists is married to the guitarist in the criminally underrated Loblolly.

TG: I see from the titles they have the big balls to cover Pink Floyd's "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun." Is it any good?

C12: Indeed it is. It's also much shorter and more concise than the original, for which I am eternally grateful.

TG: One of the things I like about this band's sound is that their bass is mixed way up front, which gives them lots of drive. The psych guitar doodlings trail in its wake instead of the other way around.

C12: One of my favorites here is "the time is right now," which is slower and more trance-like than the opening tracks, and often reminds me of King Black Acid. It's also one of the few places where you can hear the singing. They greatly favor burying the vocals to the point of making them nearly subliminal.

TG: So how can readers get their hands on this spiffy item, seeing as how it's self-released?

C12: We can list their contact address in the EPHEMERA section.... (freezes at the sound of pounding on the door) What's that?

TG: My heartbeat, probably. Woo, I've never been jacked up like this before. (holds hand out in front of her face) Did I grow more fingers or something?

(pounding grows lounder)

C12: Dearheart, I think we may have a problem. We appear to have company.

(monstrous sound of drilling is accompanied by sawdust and holes appearing in the door)

C12: In fact, I suspect it would be an excellent idea if we found a convenient exit....

I like this band's attitude: The first sentence in the liner notes is "recorded @ home on an 80's model Tascam 1/2" eight-track machine." Bands who record at home and aren't ashamed to say so are a-number-one-okay with me.... Like the tracks on their debut disc, also self-released and recorded at home, these are basically blissed-out fuzzy drone rock. The difference this time around is improved production that lends a bit more definition to the instruments, which doesn't detract from their bliss-drone at all. The only shame of this disc is that there are only three songs, but they're good ones, and something is always better than nothing, right?

The first song, "slowfire," starts off like early New Order, but when the fuzzboxes come on, sounds a lot more like what My Bloody Valentine would have followed LOVELESS up with if they hadn't been smoking so much dope. The whole song is bathed in a sizzling bed o' fuzz and you can hear the vocals this time around, but they're so drenched in reverb that what they actually have to say remains mysterious indeed. That New Order thing creeps up again in "studio audience" -- the drummer really favors that sound on this disc, which is fine by me -- but the guitars are fure droning, floating wisps o' fuzz. Both of these songs are long ("studio audience" is over seven minutes), which gives them plenty of time to drone as the guitars occasionally make faraway psych moves. Very hep indeed. They close with a version of Husker Du's "Powerline," which is fast and appropriately spaced-out, although i sure don't recall NEW DAY RISING! sounding like this (although it probably should have).

As for how you can glom this fabulous disc (and their equally swell first one), check out their web site. While you're doing that, i'm going to go play this again....

The Scissor Girls -- S-T-A-T-I-C-L-A-N-D [Load Records]

I bought this solely for the album cover. The front features a strange, ink-stained sketch-in-progress of mutant insects eating Salvador's Dali's droopy watches has has a nifty logo consisting of a skull 'n scissors; on the back are the three women who are this combo looking... uh... well, i'd approach them with CAUTION if i saw 'em on the street, for they look MIGHTY LUNAR. Needless to say, i was so taken with this item that i had to have it immediately -- i wouldn't even listen to it in the store first, for it was CALLING me, i KNEW it was going to be brilliant.

And guess what? HA! I was RIGHT! It's every bit as arcane and alien as its cover would indicate. Sort of like... uuuuhhh... Main on Rophynal? Jim O'Rourke after many swigs of Robitussin? The Butthole Surfers circa 1984 after a couple of really good tabs? Beefheart with more torque? (No, i dunno what that last one means either, but it SOUNDS right....) There are moments that sound like free jazz minimalism, moments of thundering repetition, sick flanged-out guitar sounds, yelping, PLUS it is almost totally impossible to tell where one song stops and another one begins. Yee haw! Let the drummer COOK! Toward the end of "D1 Test/Cracked [???]" they even throw in warped surf guitar while wailing that "it's broken DOWN" -- the understatement of the year (but in a good way).

Some pieces, like the Jim O'Rourke-produced "M. Poison," are fairly well orchestrated; others just sprawl and yaw with dizzying, Beefheartian unpredictability. So many bands have aspired to be the second coming of Beefheart, but this is the first one i've heard who have actually succeeded (scary as that may be). And it just gets flakier -- weird chanting, beeping noises, violin-like guitar sounds, quasi-tribal drumming, and all manner of mayhem show up in "Noster Virtis," while "s-h-a-r-p-e-n-i-n-g" is mostly a quirky, heavily reverbed guitar figure to which various peculiar sounds (and some yelping) are eventually attached. More muted jazziness darts in and out of "Weird 09" along with shamanistic drumming and some of the strangest guitar noises i've heard outside of a Main or Jim O'Rourke record (perhaps Jim produced that track too). Tom Smith of To Live and Shave in LA is by and large the "producer" throughout (except for Jim O'Rourke's occasional helping hand), but i suspect he was there mainly to keep them from completely bouncing through the walls.Flaming brilliance. Ingest and quantify or live forever in shame.

Scorn -- EVANESCENCE [Earache]

It's hard to believe these guys were once in Napalm Death -- this is about as far removed from grindcore/death metal as you can get without turning into Whitney "yes i am a chihuahua, listen to me squeal" Houston. Three magic words here: Ambient industrial dub. Got that? In other words, funky bass, fucked up vocals, weird noises, and it all sounds like it was recorded underwater. BLUB BLUB BLUB, bloop bloop BLUB BLUB... you get the idea. While this is essentially cool, more or less, it works best as background music while you're doing something else (or maybe while you're floating in salt water in an isolation tank thinking deep thoughts about Bhuddism or something, whatever), and the biggest drawback is that there isn't a whole hell of a lot of variety here. Strings do make an appearance on "The End" to good effect, though, and all the songs have various intriguing noises blipping in and out. Still... the first album was better....

Scorn -- WHITE IRISES BLIND (ep) [Earache]

Ah, more fun from those jolly dub-heavy fat-groove boys Mick Harris and Nick Bullen. This was recorded around the same time as EVANESCENCE -- maybe even during the same sessions, for all i know -- and as such, bears a strong resemblance to material from that album. Basically, if you liked EVANESCENCE, you'll like this too. "White Irises Blind" employs a thunderous, lock-step beat and a big dubby bassline over flanged-out weirdness that cycles up and down throughout the song to hypnotic effect; "White Irises Blind (minimal mix)" strips out most of the vox and the cyclotron guitar and drops in some interesting percussion moves. Of the two, i favor the latter (but just barely).

The Scorn formula -- and make no mistake, there is a formula of sorts at work here -- continues on the flip side with "Black Ash Dub," "Drained," and "Host of Scorpions," which all tread the same territory of beat vs. dub bass with weird flanged shit thrown in at regular intervals. It's all pretty good, although if you aren't already heavily into Scorn and the whole repetitive minimalism/isolationist thing then you might occasionally wish they'd pick up the pace a little or find another variation to explore, but that's kind of like life... you either like what you get or you don't and there's nothing you can do about it anyway....

Scorn -- DELIVERANCE [Earache]

Oooo, lucky us -- Earache, in its infinite wisdom, has inexplicably decided to reissue a couple of heretofore "lost" Scorn goodies on CD now that the bird has flown the coop and landed at Invisible Records. (The other thing being reissued is the WHITE IRISES BLIND disc, which includes a couple of bonus tracks not on the vinyl edition.) Here we have the five tracks from the original version plus three previously unreleased remixes of "Exodus" (from EVANESCENCE, one of their best albums). This is an important disc in the Scorn saga, for this is where Harris and Bullen jettisoned all the frantic death-metal jitterbugging that made the first album sound like a splintered hurricane and moved seriously into the dub influence that would overtake their second full-length album, COLOSSUS, and throw the death crowd for a loop. (The other EP is essentially a continuation of this one, with most of its tracks eventually showing up on the album.) The first track, "Deliverance," points the way with a thundering slow-motion beat, subterranean bass swaying back and forth, occasional "vocals" that drift in and out of the mix, and somewhere in the background, landslide guitar riffing (the only holdover from VAE SOLIS). "Deliverance Through Dub" is a devolved, dubbified version of the same, with lots of strange drum effects (hell, a lot of strange effects period) and many points where everything falls out but the truly staggering low end. "Delivered" is even stranger, ambient most of the time; "To High Heaven" is essentially dub with a ridiculous amount of fuzz. "Black Sun Rising" reprises the ambient tip with lots of hissing and heavily reverbed vox. The last three tracks are different versions (mixed by Andy Weatherall) of "Exodus" and are plenty hep on their own, so they make a nice bonus. Essential stuff.

Scorn -- ZANDER [Invisible]

Apparently word in the various newsgroups that discuss these things has it that this is a hideous abomination of an album, which i find kind of curious, since to my ears it's the best thing Mick Harris has coughed up in a while. It's certainly a new vista of sound, or at least a different direction, at any rate. "twitcher" has a sparse edge of harshness to it unlike the efforts of previous albums, although the rumbling, dubby bass that eventually comes in does blunt the edge somewhat. By the second cut, "well sorted," it becomes obvious what the biggest change here is -- the drums are dry! They're also really upfront in the mix... perhaps this is what's bugging people? Well, whatever. Sounds all right to moi. Of course, the songs don't really "go" anywhere -- this IS Scorn, after all -- but the sounds are interesting, as in the hollowed-out thumping on "strand" and the heavily-gated noises of "wreck shop." Probably the best things on here are "check the sonic" (which actually sounds more like old-school Scorn) and "not answering," the latter of which drapes its clattering beats and inevitable dub bass against what sounds like a curtain of ringing bells. The ending "416" is pretty hep in its own right, with a happening beat and not a hell of a lot else save the dub machinery. Bottom line: Probably not equal to albums like COLOSSUS and EVANESCENCE, but still worth hearing....

Scorn -- LOGGI BAROGGHI [Scorn Recordings / Earache]

Um... well. Dunno what to make of this. What we have here, mostly, is the old-style Scorn (heavy repetitive beat and bass bleats) vs. the new Scorn (weird noises, apparent conversion to techno in a very twisted way). I'm still undecided yet as to whether or not this is a good thing. Certainly, there's some hep drum sounds happening on tracks like "Look at That" and "Do the Geek," and the latter is considerably more spartan than previous stuff, which is interesting, but what the fuck's he doing running his vox through weird boxes and crap? I... I dunno.... Overall, the songs here tend to emphasize the beat, with sparse accompaniment that actually approaches sheer minimalism in spots (as on "The Next Days"). There IS some truly interesting/deranged stuff happening on the title track, and "A Mission" has some nice tone-generator sounds over a swell dubby bass, but those vox... damn, i liked Scorn a lot better when the vox were submerged, mon... Oh well... i think i'm going to consider this a transitional album and hope i like the next one a lot better....

I'm going to try and ignore the name -- I mean, I played in a band called Bongwater 666 * so I'm in no position to criticize anyone in the band-name department, but, um, ouch. [Note: tmu is most curious as to what, exactly, a scrotum grinder might be; send any pix to the Hellfortress mailbox at the beginning of the issue.] Name issues aside, Scrotum Grinder kick all kinds of ass. They play a crusty variation of hardcore that falls into the grey area between noisecore and grindcore. Judging from the lyrics and song titles, they have a bit of an obsession with Ronald Reagan. They're also quite pissed -- see "You Are My Favorite Line In The Worst Song Ever Written," and, uh, the whole disc. They also have a sly sense of humor. There's a Slapshot cover credited to "traditional." Some of the backing instruments include horns and kazoos. All good things in my book. [n/a]

* It wasn't my fault. Kramer didn't want to share the name.

Ha! The band with the ridiculous name return to ROCK! Their last couple of albums and EPs have wandered back and forth between rock and weird experimental moves, but this one they largely dispense with the quirky stuff and rock like a piledriver. In keeping with the title, three "No" songs kick off the album: "No Star," "No Telephone," and "No Luck." The first is a loud and crazed raveup, one of the most furiously energetic things they've ever done; the second one starts out in a similar fashion, with even more noisy guitar squiggles, but quickly devolves into "choruses" of bassist Nao chanting "I ain't got any telephone" over and over in obsessive fashion while fuzz guitar drones away in the background. The pace slows down a bit on "No Luck," with choppier rhythms and weird girl-group harmonies, and the rest of the album rocks back and forth between these two styles -- fast 'n furious or not-so-fast and cryptic. "Red Dress" alters the formula a bit -- it begins with Aiha chanting "Hey Rou -- Hello" over Noa's growling bass as drums and guitar gradually enter the picture, building to a lurching midsection in which Nao spits out the rest of the lyrics as a slashing guitar is followed by a thundering beat in repetitive fashion; as the song essentially doubles back and repeats itself, violin and cello get dropped into the mix toward the end. The obsessive chanting (something that's become a hallmark of their style over the past couple of years) shows up again in "Krazy 4 U" and "Do I Love You Enough" (the latter of which is one of the best songs on the album). Things get really interesting on "Everyone's Fave," though, which opens with a loop and semi-funky beat; as Aiha intones the lyrics, the guitars gradually fade in, and as the song progresses, violin and cello lines are layered on top of everything for a new variation on their hard-candy sound. As with many of Seagull's best songs, here's plenty of inventive drumming on this track as well, too. (Incidentally, their old drummer appears to have vanished; the drumming on this disc is provided by two different guys, who may or may not actually be in the band.)

Aiha's baby makes an unexpected appearance at the beginning of "A Guitar For Me and Milk For Her," another turbocharged guitar excursion that's broken only by the sputtering "Guitar! Milk!" chorus in the middle. Like most of the other songs on this album, this is pretty direct and simple -- in fact, this is probably the most structurally uncomplicated album they've ever done. Whether that's by design or due to the departure of their original drummer is hard to tell, not that it matters either way. The tunes rock, so what does it matter? On "Motor Psycho" they return to what is apparently one of Aiha's favorite subjects (tuff boys on bikes); which is more pulverizing melodic hard rock, while "8" is sort of a fast (and short), demented blues-derived thing with intensely minimalist lyrics (chanting "1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8!" and not much else). The final song, "Do I Love You Enough," shifts through a couple of different tempos and rhythms before settling into a hypnotic rock-grind as Aiha chants "Do I, do I, do I, do I, do I love you enough?" over and over as the solo comes not from the guitar, but the violin, until the song fades out with her still chanting.

While SSKHKH have yet to make a bad album, this is by far and beyond the best thing they've done yet. So what i want to know is, why don't they have a stateside deal? What's the problem here? Why do i have to keep shelling out $30 or so for each new installment of my Seagull fixation? Somebody needs to get on the stick here, dammit....

Separation -- MANIFESTATIONE VOL. 1 [Corprolith]

An interesting variation in the noise sweepstakes... almost ambient in its technique. Slowed-down shuddering sounds form the brooding bedrock over which distorted snatches of conversation, twitchy sounds, and other unidentifiable sounds are superimposed from time to time. Some of sounds toward the end of "Divisions Within Appearance (parturition edit)" approach the territory of Main's watery guitar sound, actually. "Ritual Suicide" is a bit stranger, with abstract basslines in the background as distorted vocals and occasional bursts of overdriven noise; it starts getting interesting when bellike sounds swirl into the mix. It runs a little too long, though, and the distorted-vox effect is not always applied in a manner that suits my tastes, but otherwise i like it for its ambience....

The opening track on side two is looooooong, with a tumbling sound repeated ad infinitum and augmented by repetitive skipped-CD sounds deep in the mix, skipping record sounds, and other oddness. (As usual, i lot track of the song titles midway through the first side, so i don't know what's what here now.) There's a lot of open space at work here, unlike the average full-speed-ahead noise thunderfest, which is a positive thing -- variety is needed in the noise genre! So while cassette will never work for the average pain-above-all-else noisehead, it is still worth checking out for those who desire something a bit different, perhaps a bit more... CRYPTIC. (And for the masochist in you, there are actually 17 volumes in the series so far. HA! And i will review the second volume in the next issue, so be prepared to learn more....)

Separation -- MANIFESTATIONE VOL. 2 [Corprolith]

Another 90-minute selection from the evolving, staggering multi-volume epic that is the MANIFESTATIONE series (up to at least seventeen volumes, if my count is correct). Long expanses of low-key rumble and keening audio hiss, presented in undramatic ambient fashion, make this a record better listened to as background music than anything else... at least, until a beat eventually shows up, followed by more deep-in-the-trench rumbling. Still, Merzbow this ain't (which is okay, since the bludgeoning display of power thing has become kind of boring and routine anyway). The flip side offers variations on the same general feel -- more subdued scraping and squeaking that is eventually augmented by shuddering bass and what sounds like twisted pipe organ/kazoo lamentation. Weird, intriguing, and definitely following a different path than the usual band of lemminglike Merzbow and Masonna clones.

This is the debut from September Plateau, an offshoot of acceleradeck, and it's an intriguing departure (or perhaps a new direction?) for E+J. Guitarist/beatmeister C. Jeely composes tracks of scattered, clopping beats overlaid with growing sheets of melodic ambient guitar. On "occasional light" the beats come first, startling in their directness, like butchers chopping on wood blocks; the guitar creeps in, melodic notes eventually expanding into full sheets of sound. This is where MBV would have headed after LOVELESS had they not been too busy smoking dope to ever get around to making a new album. Eventually the beats fade out, leaving only a wash of delayed and reverbed guitars tinkling away for several minutes. Most suave. "Pure" is even more swank, with an endless beat 'n bass loop over which Jeely drones and tinkles, like light scattering through the blinds. After several beatless, largley ambient songs, the beats that arrive again in "almost alchemy" are jolting, although they are soon drowned out by waves of cascading arpeggiated guitar lines. The slow and deliberate pace, even the construction, of "thinking of storms" is reminiscent of Windy and Carl -- bass throb and watery guitar anchor the piece while a wave of reverbed guitars gradually filter in, building and transforming the overall sound as the piece unfolds.

Some of the shorter pieces, like "shadowal," with its translucent slide and static progression, and "coast collapsing," are more like brief vignettes. Several, including the slow and dreamlike "hold your breath," are entirely beatless, outside of implied beats that come from the regular ebb and flow of guitars washing in and out as Jeely lays down a fusilade of ghostlike notes over the top. The guitars of "bluetone" act almost as a cyclotron, cycling over and over with minute changes without ever really going anywhere, although a bassline pokes through eventually to give the track some propulsion. The drone that opens "glacial kiss" leads the way for a repeated arpeggio progression that is in turn augmented by bass drones and other elements. The track grows without really progressing in the traditional sense, turning into a mantra that is hypnotic in its near endlessness until it gradually fades out as slowly as it faded in, ending in a wavelike drone.

This album also reminds me something consistent to all of the E+J releases -- the artists all get great tones. Yet another fine release from E+J, who are shaping up as one of the most consistent experimental labels on the planet. Need i say that the artwork, as usual, is stunning? You should own this.

Shea/Rimbaud/Hampson -- SHEA > RIMBAUD > HAMPSON [Sub Rosa]

Blood flows as the Captain and TASCAM-Girl beat the living shit out of some more bad guys. Bones splinter; blood vessels are burst; bombs explode in the background; bullets riddle the walls and wreck the china. the Captain lays a drone low with an uppercut as TASCAM-Girl kicks his evil minion in the balls. Without pausing, they offer this exchange:

"What is that fuzzy droney noise in the background, Captain?"

"One of the live collarobations between David Shea and members of Scanner and Main, my dear."

"Oh. I see." Another wave of bad guys pour into the room; more bones are broken as fists and feet fly in a choreographed symphony of pain.

"What's the matter? Don't you like it?"

"It's all right. Still, I think the other one, SCANNER > SHEA > MAIN was better."

"And why is that?"

She shrugs. "Just... because."

The Captain rolls his eyes and continues to beat on the skull of a hooded wing commander of the Evil Empire. "Now that's some summation...."

Sheavy -- BLUE SKY MIND [Dallas Tarr Records]

Interesting... i had no idea that Canada was so stricken at the passing of the (original (and worthy)) Black Sabbath that they felt compelled to create one of their own. Enter Sheavy, who sound much like PARANOID-era Sabbath, down to the convincing faux-Ozzy singer Steve Henessey. Really, when "Mountains of Madness" began playing, i thought i'd dropped a Sabbath CD in the player by mistake... and when "Blue Sky Mind" came on afterwards i started having terrifying flashbacks to the metal days o' high school, when we used to sit around horribly stoned waiting for AC/DC to show up and play, arguing in the meantime over which version of Black Sabbath was better, the Ozzy version or the Dio version. (Like there was ever any DOUBT that runtboy Dio could even BEGIN to suck up to the Great God Osbourne.)

So anyway, the press thingy (which came adorned with dominatrix pix, mucho swank) claims they're big on the Monster Magnet/Big Chief tip, but that can't possibly be true, because Monster Magnet bore me and i actually like this, even though it is tremendously retro. Really, i've never heard classic Sabbath recreated so lovingly (or well). They can only get away with this because they do a really good job, especially on tracks like "Domelight," where they drag in a bit of Hawkwind as well. Oh wait, "Cosmic Overdrive" DOES sort of remind me of Monster Magnet, which may be i'm only lukewarm on it.... I could live without the squeaky falsetto vox on the otherwise swell "Sea of Tomorrow," and i don't know WHAT to make of the weird intro to "Supa-Hero" (a lot of blabbing and giggling that sounds suspiciously like Beavis and Butthead on fast-forward), which sounds so much like Black Sabbath that is it SCARY, except that their guitarist plays lead with considerably more dexterity than Tony Iommi ever did (blasphemy, i know, but i never listened to Tony for lead wanking anyway). But then they allow the Hawkwind thing to take over for an instrumental cosmic space-jam (appropriately entitled "The Gun-It Jam," and i... i... mon, i'm flashing back to London listening to Hawkwind's "Space Ritual" on the Metro while eyeing some English girl's ass... eek... we're all in trouble now... i'm becoming possessed to pick up my guitar and play like this even though i have no talent for it, hide the cat....

They also include a live version of "Psycho Universe" that matches the rest of the CD in recording/playing quality, unusual for live tracks. As an added bonus, the CD tacks on eight tracks from their SLAVES TO FASHION demo cassette, which includes a cover of (surprise!) Sabbath's "Rat Salad" and is generally more of the same classic metal madness, only, uh, tubbier. (Damn cassette mastering....) If your world caved in when Sabbath kicked Ozzy out and were foolish enough to continue releasing weak-ass albums while Ozzy did the same, then this CD is for YOU. Find their address in the [ephemera] section; the CD is $15 postage paid and, while ridiculously and unashamedly retro, is still better than 95% of what passes for "metal" right now, believe me.

I have a hideous confession to make. Many moons ago when Shellac's first album came out, i did a review of it and the Jesus Lizard's DOWN at the same time and came to the conclusion that DOWN was the superior album. (As i recall, this was in the context of much smart-assedness.) But to my surprise, my ears have improved since: I rarely ever listen to DOWN now, but am rapidly growing more and more enamored of AT ACTION PARK every day. So along comes this, the new Shellac disc (well, it's been out a few months now, but it's their latest opus, howzat?), and everybody's telling me it's not all that good and generally running it down... and i don't get it, because this doesn't sound all that different (in essence) from the first one, which everyone likes. Huh? Go figure....

I have to admit, i think some of the songs this time around are a tad more accessible (well, as accessible as you can get under the circumstances -- Shellac has never had any real resemblance to "normal" rock bands in sound, lyrics, or vision), but others are far more bizarre than anything the band's ever done. The real key to this debate, though, is that they're all basically variations on the same theme. (While I haven't heard it, I suspect TERRAFORM is much the same way.) More than anything else these guys have been involved with, Shellac is looking more and more like the continuous refinement of a single brilliant sound. Their albums aren't so much about evolution or variety or "progress" as they are documents of the ongoing process of stripping away all but the best parts of their music. This is a good thing, because it insinuates that Shellac are going to get even better as they go, which is most promising since they're already better than 80-90% of the bands out there now.

"Prayer to God," with its big crunch and lyrical bile, and "Squirrel Song," with its familiar outrage about a different subject (yes, it's really about squirrels), are probably well within what most associate with Shellac by this point, but "Mama Gina" is the point where they start weeding out the weak. Built on a minimalist guitar riff repeated endlessly with little variation against a beat almost as minimal, the bass is almost nonexistent thorugh the first third of the song. When the bass finally does show up on a steady basis, before long it sounds like the bass is the only thing there, with the rest of the band sinking underwater before it all roars back at triple-time or more, roaring like a swarm of angry bees being chased by a steam engine, only to all totally derail at the end. All of which segues into "QRJ," which is all full of Zeni Geva and Swans noise-moves for a moment or so before turning into a snakelike procession of quixotic basslines over the guitar and drums acting like a metronome. This is the sound of math-rock by way of Illusion of Safety and no-wave. I can see where the sound, especially accompanied by a really insular and borderline opaque lyrical stance, might throw people a tad. It's definitely not your father's math rock... but i like it.

"Ghosts" is another bizarre one -- the bass leads the way, riffing in complex wheels, with the rest of the band following behind dutifully... then it all abruptly stops, the guitar and drums devolving into skronk almost -- and then it picks up like a bizarre, dissosant-guitar driven answer to Motown as Albini tells a ghost story, sort of (how he tells it is the best part, although it's impossible to describe here, but I'll bet you never imagined you'd get to hear Albini say "she's crazy about ballerinas," did you?). Speaking of bass, the introduction to "Song Against Itself" (every bit as absurd and angular as the title suggests, believe me) owes far more to Joy Division's sound circa "She's Lost Control" than to any goofy math-rock concept invented in the wake of Polvo and Unwound. Of course, Joy Division never had the whole band delivering lyrics at strategic points in the manner of a crowd executing a baseball cheer. In Canaveral," as the band flexes its rhythmic muscle, Albini asks a series of questions leading into "what do you think would make him / stick his cock in my wife / what on what earth would make him stoop so low?" and as the band goes through start 'n stop moves, Albini escalates into a barely-controlled rant filled with lines like "they'll fertilize the rocks in China from space / with the ashes of his remains" -- only to be interuppted by a bizarre trumpet (?!?) solo that ends with the band winding down in increments. The arcane and the absurd reach an apex with "New Number Order," where Todd Trainer relates (in an incredbily rambling fashion) how we should change the order in which numerals appear to "make things more interesting" while the instruments wind around each other in precise, geometric patterns. Yeah, i can't imagine this appealing much to people who spend all their time listening to Christina Aguilera or Korn or anything like that. This is seriously cryptic shit, which for my money is always way better than obvious shit.

The best song on here, in my opinion (or my favorite, anyway -- same thing, right?), is "Shoe Song," coming on like a minimalist version of Rhys Chatham's "Die Donnergotter," only with actual lyrics and happening in a much-reduced timespan (Chatham's song takes up an entire album side, but Shellac get by with just over five minutes). It starts with the guitar and (nearly inaudible) bass ping-ponging through a quixotic riff as the drums eventually come in, then it turns into this hypnotic lockstep groove over Trainer cycling endlessly through the same minimalist drum pattern. After the first verse, the band starts to seriously swing, robot-style, and by the end of the second verse, Albini's riffing away in such precise time that half the time you can't tell him apart from the hi-hat. Then a breakdown of sorts during the third verse leads out as Albini shouts over the gradual dissolution of the multi-instrumental groove. Listening to this, it's not hard to imagine that Albini went to college to study some really disciplined structural field (architecture, i think, or sometihng similar). "Watch Song" is almost as good, built on a similar structure and field, but delivered far more forcefully (although on a peculiar subject: getting testy over returning a defective watch, if i'm interpreting the lyrics correctly) and riddled with bizarre, almost jazzlike riffs.

I can see how some might write this off as an overly-intellectual and academic execution of post-modern rock, which is what it would be if Shellac didn't have three powerful things going for them: brilliant, precise playing steeped in a wild variety of influences; equally brilliant production (while everybody automatically thinks first of Albini, the truth is that all three members of Shellac are excellent recording specialists who all make their living not by playing in the band, but as recording engineers); and Todd Trainer, the secret rhythmic weapon of the midwest. (Trainer was formerly the beat behind the always-excellent Breaking Circus and concurrently serves in both Rifle Sport and Brick Layer Cake, so he's had plenty of practice at perfecting the beat.) While everybody's attention regarding Shellac is generally focused on Steve Albini after his stints in Big Black and Rapeman, the scary part is that as good as he is on guitar -- and at this point he's very good -- he's not necessarily even the strongest link in the musical chain here. Bob Weston is every bit as disciplined in his bass-playing and Trainer is simply one of the best drummers on the face of the earth. As a result, what many have unfairly dismissed as just "Steve Albini's new band" has become one of the tightest rhythm sections around that actually swings. That they happen to prefer minimalist art-rock riffing has less to do with any reaction to or against the current state of rock than with their own peculiar influences, which they have honed down to a science.

And those influences, mostly from the art-rock period of the late seventies to mid-eighties, are what make Shellac the band they are today. It's like they took the best components of Wire (arcane sense of humor, tricky riffs), Joy Division (midrange bass 'n guitar, robotic riffs), and Brick Layer Cake (the dude on the drum stool), then threw away all the weak shit and reassambled the parts to make a distinctly American model... and one with an extremely intellectual and arcane sense of humor, at that. Lyrically, Shellac have more in common with Pinter and Pynchon than with any of these bands, with the possible exception of Wire (assuming that the guys in Wire had grown up in Chicago listening to Stax records) That absurdist sense of humor, delivered in a highly educated, intelligent, and arch manner, is what sets them apart from their peers at the moment, many of whom are just as well educated and intelligent, but way too serious and kind of boring. (Plus they don't have Todd Trainer either.)

Needless to say, the more i listen to it, the more i'm convinced this is a pretty swank album. Maybe even one of the best albums out right now. The best part is, unlike many other albums, this one gets consistently better the more you listen to it, and not the other way around. As a packaging bonus the disc comes in a box designed to resemble a professional recording-tape box, which looks really nifty, even though it won't fit on the rack with your other CDs. (The LP comes in a similar design and includes, for some warped reason, the CD as well.) Now if i could just figure out how to get my hands on a copy of THE FRIENDS OF SHELLAC i'd be in good shape....

Disclosure: Shevel Knievel guitar player T. Darlin and I have a play-by-mail thing going, so it's possible that the following review might be slightly biased. That being said, I've never been one to cut my friends slack when it comes to their music (go ahead, ask TMU) [TMU: It's true!], and luckily I don't have to start now. Shevel Knievel are three young ladies based out of Oakland, CA. Their music is hard to pin down. They play a dirty, hazy, filthy brand of rock that inhabits the space where punk, sludge, indie rock, noise rock, and straight up rock and roll crash out after long nights of cheap booze and messy sex.

"So," you're saying to yourself, "it's all well and good that they don't fit into any particular genre and all this stuff about booze and sex sounds great, but man, what do they sound like???" (shakes head) There's no pleasing you people, is there? There's a bit of mid-to-late period Black Flag (think SLIP IT IN and LOOSE NUT) in there. I can hear some Flipper. I'm sure people are gonna say they hear some Sonic Youth. There may be a touch of L7, but these gals are way more into the fuzz than the chunk. They also write some damn catchy songs and lay down some great riffs. [n/a]

Shifts -- PANGAEA [E + J Recordings]

And here you thought Main was the only band that really did this whole "is it guitar or isn't?" thing well. Shifts is yet another musicial incarnation of Frans de Waard (Beequeen, Kapotte Muziek), in which the guitar (and nothing else except an EFX box) becomes the source of minimal, tripped-out exercises in avant atmosphere. The album's title and concept come from the process of tectonic plates shifting subtly in the earth (Pangaea was the original one-world continent that eventually cracked and shifted into the other separate ones, more or less), and the sound reflects it. The first and last pieces are the only ones in which the guitar is actually recognizable as a guitar; in the first, layers of loose, slo-mo guitar picking (with plenty of rattling incidental notes) form a loose and shifting latticework of monochromatic texture, and in the last, a similar theme reintroduces itself. The arid desert landscape in between those two instances is occupied by long, shimmering drones and rumbling like sand dunes shifting in the moonlight. Some of the more penetrating drones in the third section would make really ominous fright flick music, mon. Not bad for a guy who, at first glance, appears to be doing damn near nothing but maybe letting his guitar feed back. Then again, sometimes that's all you really NEED to do. As a texture freak, i certainly think this kind of album is a hell of a lot more interesting than, say, the latest spoo from [name your generic platinum-selling sheep]. Given the quality of this and the Aube release reviewed last time, i'm definitely looking forward to the forthcoming Tabata release on this label.

Shiva Speedway -- [demo]

The evil men in black of Terrorists United to Remove Democracy (T.U.R.D.) were sitting around in the table in the subterranean bunker, carefully assembling the last of their satanic running dog time bombs, when the door exploded open and Captain 4-Track and his trusty sidekick TASCAM- Girl burst into the room, ready to kick their scruffy asses.

"Gaw!" One terrorist said, staring pop-eyed at the girl in the tight black latex outfit roughly the size of a postage stamp. "Look at da HOOTERS on his sidekick!"

"Sexist backwoods motherfucker," she snarled, backhanding him into a wall. "Bad enough you goons want to rule the world, but you're sexist pigs besides and you probably even drop your g's, don't you?" Dazed, he reached for the gun in his holster; she kicked it away, then kicked him it the head. He went down like a sack of Irish potatoes.

"Uh," the Captain said, consulting his Superhero Rule Book, "I don't think we're allowed to kick them in the head...."

"Oh, don't start with me now." The biggest of the goons rushed her, eyes like crazed amphetamine-fueled pinwheels of wheedling doom, a four- foot machete in one hand and a 9mm Baby Mac in the other hand. She raised one heavy jackboot and kicked him in the balls, then broke a chair over his head, sending him spiraling to the concrete floor.

"My God, you're RESTLESS tonight, aren't you?"

"It's because I've been listening to the new Shiva Speedway demo." Thugs began pouring into the room like water from a leaking roof; she began to beat on them violently as the Captain took others down in a moderately more humane fashion. "They have this one song called 'Below the Belt' -- just like where I hit that evil bastard, ha! -- where they do the grinding stop and start headshock guitar thing they've practically patented at this point while Dez and Heidi take turns shouting over a tricky beat. They even have a mellotron warbling away in the background. It's most hep."

One of the men in black grabbed her from behind; she turned her head and bit him on the ear. When he dropped her, screaming, she broke another chair over his head.

"Pretty soon, you know --" he paused to slam a gun-toting thug to the ground -- "you're not going to have any more chairs to break."

She ignored him. "So then they have this slow squealing grindy thing called 'Lucky,' where they put to use their other really cool move, which is having one guitar play something moderately tuneful while the other approximates the aural sound of Lysol being sprayed on roach hotels. Sort of like... like... Marshall Crenshaw meets early Swans or something."

"My God. What a frightening thought."

"But then they top it with 'Spider,' where they go back to the Black and Decker approach with more lurching stop and go guitars like lawnmowers, and 'Coyote' alternates squealy overdriven dissonant passages with some actually catchy parts before going into overdrive, and if that doesn't all make you want to beat the shit out of bad guys and stay up late and wreck your mother's brand new car and set your bratty little sister on fire, then by God i don't know what's wrong with you." She emphasized her point by breaking the last chair over the head T.U.R.D.'s head, smiling as he sank to the floor, eyes forever crossed.

"You know, I think I'm going to have to monitor your listening habits more closely from now on...."

Shiva Speedway -- [demo # 2]

Coolness incarnate, although the overall sound begs for release on CD... Shiva Speedway are simply too HEAVY to be contained by skinny strips of mere magnetic oxide, okay? This is a post-reorganization demo, with only Pam Nicholas (drums, vocals), Dezaray DeCarlo (guitar, vocals), and Heidi Saperstein (guitar, vocals) present, and contains the two songs from their most recent single ("Hell" and "Twister"). Aside from the mondo brief instrumental "Envoi" that closes out the tape, there are three other songs --"Angel" (which wins bonus points for the name alone, obviously), "Moonshine," and "Texas." Hard to say which is the best when they're all good, although "Angel" is my favorite at the moment. Everything is drenched in feedback, even the "quiet" parts, and the heavy parts are so teeth- grindingly immense that you'd think they learned to play by opening for Zeni Geva or something. Most of the songs here employ a devious guitar attack in which one guitar plays something pretty and reognizable as an actual chord progression while the other wallows in heaviness or spurts pure sonic filth. In other places (especially "Angel" and "Moonshine" they alternate pretty parts with heavy parts before crawling around in the gutter and laying waste to anything that moves. Bonus points for the climbing wall of chaos as "Moonshine" heads into a tailspin -- THIS is the way guitars and drums were meant to be abused! And the thudding lurch-metal of "Texas," with its military marching beat and chopped-up guitars is not to be missed either.

Shiva Speedway -- [demo # 3]

All right, four more tracks by the Loud Goddesses o' Boston. I'm always impressed by bands who can make their guitars sound like the speaker cones are ripping apart even at low volume. Three of the songs on here will be coming out on singles sometime soon; i forget which one is the "extra" track. Not that it matters, 'cause they're all brilliant. "Deal with the Devil" continues in the vein of earlier stuff, which fuzzed-out guitar death and swirling slow-motion tornado chord progressions; "Burning Building" alternates chime-chime riffing heavily borrowed from Creedence Clearwater Revival, of all things, with considerably heavier moments of thuglike guitar punishment. "Winterland" surges back and forth between contemplative chiming and heavy guitar as well, but adds plenty of pinpoint stop 'n start riffing for good measure. And the fourth track, "El Loco," is just purely loud, crazed, and obnoxious, right down to the bizarre ending (sampled weirdness and screaming from a '50s monster flick, phaser noises, other loopiness -- truly it is hysterical). This is, of course, a good thing and something you should not want to miss out on. [And yes, i know you're not supposed to end sentences with a preposition, my degree is in English dammit, i IGNORE THE RULES OF GOOD GRAMMAR AT WILL, okay? Child