Records

BRIAN ENO

LOU REED & METALLICA

GRIMES

CANT

What the hell is going on in Minneapolis? I don’t think I’ve heard an album out of this city I’ve disliked. The entire Doomtree lot is perfectly balanced here, with no one hogging the limelight or being hidden away. This is easily one of the best rap records I’ve heard all year. I think I’m crying.

JONATHAN YOST

TENDER FOREVER

Where Are We From

K

YELAWOLF

Radioactive

Shady/Interscope

Since Yelawolf’s “people” figured it’d be a good idea to build hype around this turd by not releasing it for review, I’ve been left with no choice but to imagine what it might sound like if I forgot I took Ambien an hour ago and started listening to the Sparks album

Whomp That Sucker

instead: Dude, “That’s Not Nastassia”? Fucking dope.

NELAWOLF

Where Are We From

sounds a little like the soundtrack to the popular children’s film

3 Ninjas

, but that’s awesome, actually. I’ve always been a big fan of what they’ve got cooking over at K Records. They keep me young, you know? In that “I might be too old to be a senior in high school, but I’ll never be too old to break up with my girlfriend with a mix CD-RW packaged in a decoupaged wooden box” sort of way.

TEDDY TOILETTSON

This is the soundtrack for a séance-themed slumber party. Wandering, synthed-out gloomsday tunes with lifeless echoing lady vocals and songs that never end. Ever. Help meeeeee! “In the Black” will make the Ouija go apeshit until suddenly flour-faced Robert Smith hovers above and pushes the pointer to spell “c-o-p-y-c-a-t.” Remember Berlin’s classic track “The Metro”? “Time Travel” is a lukewarm rip-off… kind of like the water you dip someone’s hand into when you want them to pee the sleeping bag.

JENNIFER DARLING

GRIMES

Visions

Arbutus

THE BIG PINK

Future This

4AD

Here’s a band that made a record. It’ll sound good on your run, it’ll sound good on a dance mix, it’ll sound good while you’re waiting for your HIV test results at the free clinic. One time I had a blister on my vagina; this will not sound like that. The name of this band does make me think of vaginas though, which is probably the point. Hey guys, what should I get for lunch, nachos or a Subway sammie? Hmmmmm?

BLONDE CAMERO

Claire Boucher describes the music of her Grimes project as “post internet.” I don’t know what that means, especially considering I read that quote on a blog. I do know that

Visions

, Grimes’s sophomore LP, is an important record because it succeeds where nerds like How to Dress Well have failed. Because of the hype, needle-dick critics will want to take this Canadian import down a notch by rattling off her blatant influences—Björk, Beyoncé, the Knife… but those people can go fart in a sock and then smell it.

WILBERT L. COOPER

THE BIG SLEEP

Nature Experiments

French Kiss

These lazy motherfuckers finally filled their Adderall prescription and gave us a glimpse of their potential. There’s still a lethargic element to the psych-rock, but they’ve forsaken the filler instrumentals we’ve seen on past albums for intelligent lyrics and haunting hooks. Next year for Halloween I’m not gonna dress up, and when people ask me what I am I’ll say, “A ghost in a body.” Then I’ll go all apeshit hipster on them like, “What, you didn’t listen to the Big Sleep’s third album? Pssshhh.”

BOWIE CAT

BLACKOUT BEACH

Fuck Death

Dead Oceans

If Carey Mercer had a real band that backed his horrible lyrics, they’d tour directly into the hell-catalogue of late indie rock; if he’d just released the backing tracks, they’d be boring bedroom instrumentals in the age of Bandcamp. But as it is, the sashaying man-poet gives unusual foreground to meandering, reverbed-to-fuck tracks, and the tracks create enough tension with the operatic, ridiculous vocals that you can forgive them. So, surprise, I guess; this’s kinda not bad?!

LITTLE LOCKY

HOSPITALITY

S/T

Merge

Why can’t it just be the 90s again, when we were surfing waves of Zima into shores of cocaine and bands like Spacehog could exist with no consequence at all? Instead, we have to put up with contemptuous reminders of the Christian ska bands our friends used to play in because there’s “so much to fight for.”

HUGO SNYDER

A BAND OF BEES

Every Step’s a Yes

ATO

Sure, Paul Butler, you’ve been off getting enlightened on ayahuasca in the Amazon with a shaman, but you’ve still got a lotta nerve. The idea of stomaching this album on the way to work while being farted on in the subway is a bit much. The US “deluxe” version of what was originally released in the UK back in October of 2010 comes with five new tracks, including a live version of the unfortunately Jason Mraz–esque single “I Really Need Love.” Unless the vinyl takes me to Narnia when I lick it, I’m not buying.

BOWIE CAT

KETAMINES

Line by Line

HoZac

HoZac makes a lot of records for a label of their size. Most are forgettable, but when they make a good one, oh boy, is it good. This one sounds good. That’s the limits of my descriptive power. “Sounds good.” Lots of sound effects like when a person materializes in a He-Man cartoon.

BREAD CROSS

PERSONAL & THE PIZZAS

Diet, Crime & Delinquency

Oops Baby

This is a three-song seven-inch by a band from Jersey that are so Ramonesy I am pretty sure they just changed a few words to preexisting songs. It’s good, though. You can hardly do better than being wholly unoriginal in every way and completely ripping off a band that lots of other bands also rip off. Honestly I don’t really give a fuck about any band that isn’t Ramones-core.

JEFFY HIGH MAN

EX COPS

White Women

Self-released

Imagine my surprise when this wasn’t X-Cops, the all-GWAR thrash band, but Ex Cops, the reverb-heavy, mellow-as-shit band. Now, even despite my disappointment, I have to say: They’re not too shabby. Perfect for those times when you’re trying to bang an American Apparel model (I mean sales associate) and are trying to show how sensitive you are. Plus, the cover of this album has some boobies.

JONATHAN YOST

Anytime you’re given an album and told some backstory about a teenage man-child who started making music in the womb, and then given this look like “you’re gonna LOVE IT,” your first instinct should be to make that obscene jerk-off gesture with your hands and then spit on something, but this 19-year-old man-child screams real good and made me think aggressive thoughts. So that’s pretty nice.

FLIPPY FLAPPY

SEA LIONS

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sea Lions But Were Afraid to Ask

Slumberland

Sorry, kiddies, you caught me on the wrong coast. I’m sure if I were soaking in the rays with my buds in Venice, or even prancing from coffee shop to gluten-free bakery in Portland this would be a welcome addition, but here in New York, where I spent the day trying to hail taxis in the rain while dickheads in ill-fitting suits slammed their briefcases full of failure into my kneecaps, your jangly K Records worship is about as palatable as pedophilia.

CHAUNCEY BILLUPS

LOU REED & METALLICA

Lulu

Vertigo

God, Lou Reed sounds brittle. He sounds like an old man who wandered into a recording session where other old men were trying hard to remember what it felt like not to be super comfy all the time. The sound of Lou Reed’s voice clashed with the music so much that I thought that maybe multiple pieces of media were playing at the same time inside my computer. There are a couple tracks that really rip, but Lou Reed’s singing is so off-putting that I am certain he came in and recorded all his vocals in one day without ever hearing the music he was supposed to be singing with.

PASTOR OF PUPPETS

APACHE DROPOUT

“Shot Down” b/w “Sister Burnout”

Trouble in Mind

The garage revival of the late 00s and 10s is way better than the garage revivals of the 80s and 90s. Those guys were mostly squares trying to be wild men, especially the Dandy Warhols and Brian Jonestown. So corny. Apache Dropout are only slightly corny, but in the same way that showing real emotion can feel slightly corny.

TRELLIS GROANS

HAMMER DAMAGE

“Automatic Lips” b/w “Laugh”

Last Laugh

This is a re-pressing of a classic obscure punk track that most people probably know from the appearance of the song “Laugh” on

Killed by Death #9

. It’s a song about laughing at normals and then them laughing back at weirds. The chorus is “Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!” Awesome song for people who hate people and love drugs.

BURNY MAC

CANT

Dreams Come True

Warp/Terrible

I wish that at least one rogue soloist shoot-off from a freak-folk powerhouse would walk by an analog synthesizer and not make an album with it. Analog synthesizers and the people who use them aren’t bad, but when are we going to stop calling things “bedroom pop solo albums” and start calling them what they are: “masturbation in your studio apartment”?

A. WOLFE

SOPHIA KNAPP

Nothing to Lose

Drag City

Years ago this girl brought a bunch of assholes to a party at my house and they tried to get rough. A lot of things were broken and someone stole some of my roommate’s DVDs. I asked her if her friends had stolen my shit, and she said that while she thought it might have been them who stole our shit, she had no intention of asking them. Fuck you, that is not how you act. You have to be responsible for the actions of people you bring to a party. Now you made a record and I am giving it a bad review! KARMA IN ACTION!

MYSTERY JERKO

BORIS

New Album

Sargent House

I’ve learned to expect genre orgies from Boris, the Japanese power trio who have released more than 20 albums exploring the vast nexus of heavy music from experimental noise to stoner metal, but on this they venture out to the final frontier for headbangers—pop. These catchy hooks and synth and string flourishes make this album sound like a new direction for a band that already seemed to have a pretty great direction, and despite the toned-down axe-sludge, Wata’s guitar hijinks still makes me burst my dorsal veins.

WILBERT L. COOPER

THE SOFT MOON

Total Decay

Captured Tracks

When it starts getting cold out and Williamsburg starts looking like an industrial wasteland, I like to listen to some spooky shit while power walking through these stomping grounds in a black coat and combat boots like I own the motherfuckin’ place. This EP landed in my hands on a bleak day, so I took it out for a stroll. Walking around listening to this made me feel like some postapocalyptic protagonist of a sci-fi cult film.

KRISTEN K.

BRIAN ENO

Panic of Looking

Warp

When it’s 9 PM on a Saturday night and you’re in your sweatpants dicking around in your room, and then hear your roommate’s key in the door and panic like “Oh crap, she’s gonna think I don’t know how to party and aren’t living my life,” put this album on and then it’ll just be like you’re in there doing deep shit. Brian Eno making brainy noises over, around, and in between Rick Holland’s poetry? Whaaaaat? I bet these guys have never even HEARD of an OkCupid profile.

KAYLE MACLUE

RUINS ALONE

S/T

Skin Graft

Boredoms were great, but something about the whole quasi-spiritual aspect and hippie monk chanting always lamed on my parade. Ruins on the other hand were perfect. One chimp-faced Japanese nerd on drums and a guy who looks like the personification of being stoned on bass playing the most barely coherent, just-came-up-with-this cartoon madness this side of Spike Jones (the old one). Yoshida Tatsuya (the nerd) has been cycling through replacement bass guys for the last 15 years and last time he played in New York it was just him bashing and yodeling into the mic with a boombox playing beside him, but it’s still the only music I would ever sincerely praise as “goofy.” To this day, I can tell that I’ll get along with someone if the nervous songs they make up in the car sound like a track from

Refusal Fossil

. And that it’s probably been a while since they last got laid.

TERRY HAND

KOREKYOJINN

Tundra

Skin Graft

OK, so this is just a fuller band with Yoshida Tatsuya playing in it. I’m not going to sit here and go through the whole spiel again. If you like it, you like it. OK? Cripes.

T.H.

THE PSYCHOPATHS

“Till the Stroke of Dawn” b/w “See That Girl”

Mighty Mouth Music

This is a reissue of a gloomy psych single that was originally released in 1966. Probably a good song for paisley people to kill themselves to, I bet. They’re both good post-break-up songs. Oh my goodness, I’m so fucking lonely. Please brush your fingers across this review. I need your touch.

THIS IS A CRY FOR HELP

THE LIMINANAS

“(I’ve Got) Trouble in Mind” b/w “Je M’en Vais”

Trouble in Mind

Would you like to get this record? Don’t bother looking for it, it’s not for sale at your record store. It’s a limited-edition tour record. I mean, I have a copy. The songs are in the style of 60s French garage and it’s great. I’d put this in VICE’s music bragging column but they refuse to make one so it’s in the reviews.

BONEY BEEDLE

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Camp Skingraft: Now Wave Vol. 1–3

Skin Graft

COUM TRANSMISSIONS

Sugarmorphoses

Dais

Back before Psychic TV and inventing the idea of techno, before Throbbing Gristle and inventing the entire idea of dark music, Genesis P-Orridge was in this performance-art group with Cosey Fanni-Tutti where they’d cut themselves up nude onstage and spray bloody enema water all over one another’s (nude) bodies while all their contemporaries were busy saluting the sun at Glastonbury. This is a recording from 1974 that incorporates a broken piano being played along with a scratchy reel-to-reel of Genesis’s voice. The music was recorded at the Coum Transmissions headquarters, known as the Ho Ho Funhouse, and there’s an explanation of what the whole deal was like written by Gen in the liner notes. Getting to hear Genesis’s stories is a real pleasure, so this record is boss for two reasons. Also, there are only 1,000 of them, so get on it already, Shylock.

NICK GAZIN

SHE & HIM

A Very She & Him Christmas

Merge

What’s the difference between God and Santa Claus? Who gives a shit, ZDUBS IS SINGLE AGAIN!!!!!!

BING FLAWSBY

CHRYSTA BELL

This Train

La Rose Noire

I heard a whisper behind me. What was that? I turned and found no one, just rippling blue velvet drapes. Shit, what happened to my damn bamboo curtains? I clicked “stop” on my iTunes. Again. Again. But

This Train

wouldn’t stop. It just won’t stop. Why won’t it stop?! I looked left. I looked right. I took a bite of my egg fried rice. Wait, did David Lynch just gurgle, “You lookin’ so glamorous / Large heart-shaped diamonds”? I reached a hand to my face, realized my mouth was moving. Oh my god. I was Chrysta Bell the whole time…

A. WOLFE

KING DUDE

Love

Dais

Usually when goth kids pick up the acoustic guitar it sounds like some sort of corny Hitlerjugend singalong, but this is nice and Western-y in a Warren Ellis, cracked-black-leather duster sort of way. Which will probably still piss off King Dude or his label whenever they read this for being the wrong reference or whatever. Goths are so fucking prickly.

BOONY

PLASTIC FLOWERS

Strange Neighbors

Wierd

This seven-inch is the perfect soundtrack for a quick make-out session with empty-eyed goth girls, too detached to admit they’re actually thinking about their cheating bisexual ex while you’re too self-involved to realize or even care. Congratulations to this guy for getting the fuck out of Tallahassee and moving to Brooklyn. Next step is to realize that a black-and-white headshot of looking miserably disaffected does not a record cover make. My ass hurts.

JEW MAKES THE NAZIS?

Before those nerds on the Troniks board turned all noise music into the same shade of hateful, squalling Nazi worship, shit was fun. Come on, Flying Luttenbachers? Quintron, pre-Miss Pussycat? Granted there were some unfortunate forays into slap bass and everybody dressed like they were auditioning for an Urge Overkill video, but at least I could leave the album covers lying around my bedroom without finding my Jewish mother quietly sobbing with the lights off when I got home. Well, most of them.

JULIUS ROSENBERG