★Superior Viaduct
Hard Attack
MX-80 SOUND is one of the real oddities in American music. Their debut album, Hard Attack (released in the UK on Island Records), found little-to-no audience in the States upon its release in 1977, yet remains a key document of the mid-'70s proto-punk zeitgeist. Hailing from Bloomington, Indiana, MX-80 SOUND is lead by guitarist Bruce Anderson and defies simple classification with relentless riffs, dual drummers and vocalist Rich Stim's absurdist prose and dizzying sax. Assimilating the avant-ro…
Graduation
2020 repress. Necessary vinyl edition of some of the greatest minimalist/hillbilly/rock/psych music of the century, the goddamn motherlode from violinist/composer/philosopher/artist Henry Flynt: Flynt penned a bunch of amazing texts across the years (check the special issue of Richard Grossinger’s Io journal dedicated to his thought, 1989’s Being = Space x Action for more on that), he studied with Terry Riley and LaMonte Young and was briefly associated with The Velvet Underground, though Lou Re…
Martin Rev
In 1980, shortly after Suicide's second full-length, Martin Rev released his first solo album on preeminent No Wave label Infidelity (Lust/Unlust). Uninhibited by the trappings of a collaborator, Rev was freed to explore his most experimental and pop leanings with dirty synths, dark melodies and dreamlike textures, and produced a masterpiece of modern alienation that captures a uniquely New York landscape.
Echoing other electronic forerunners such as Silver Apples and Kraftwerk, and foreshadowi…
Music for Sick Queers
The German Shepherds, formed by Sandy Stark and Stephen Scheatzle in Nov. 1981, released a three song ep in early "82 with "Booty Jones" -- to child molester and kidnapper Kenneth Parnell; "I Adore You" -- an offering of prayer and submission and "Message from JJ" -- a rousing sermon by Peoples Temple chief Rev. Jim Jones. Later that year a dub version of "I Adore You" and "The Earthquake Has Come" appeared on the "You'll Hate This Record, Record" compilation lp. In 1983 the Shepherds began work…
Scheintot
LP version. "Arguably the most prescient band of the entire late '70s San Francisco underground, Factrix released just one 7-inch and two pioneering LP's in the early '80s. Formed in 1978 by Cole Palme (one-time member of the LAFMS group Airway) and Bond Bergland (later of Saqqara Dogs), the two initially called themselves Minimal Man and performed a handful of shows along with Patrick Miller (who would go on to have a great solo career under the MM moniker). Soon they enlisted bassist Joseph T.…
Love God, Love One Another
Black Humor was an experimental rock band from San Francisco in the early 80's. (Not to be confused with "blackhumor," alias of noise artist Frazer Hall.) They released just one, very hard to find LP on Fowl Records in 1982. Only 1,000 records were pressed, each with unique handmade covers: thick slabs of paint, collage, parrot feathers, dirt, whatever else happened to be laying around their Tenderloin flat. Many of these have since gone for high, collector prices or ended up in oblivion.…
California Babylon
* LP version with insert * "California Babylon is a far more sparse and caustic offering than Factrix's debut, Scheintot, documenting their live collaboration with notorious artist Monte Cazazza, who along with recording for Throbbing Gristle's Industrial label also coined its 'Industrial Music for Industrial People' motto. Originally released on the seminal Subterranean Records in 1982, California Babylon remains one of the best collections of violent guitar and primitive machine-noise resonanc…