Looking back on the peak of the CD-R era, it now seems like a golden age in the history of experimental music distribution.
Dinosaurs (like me) claim that young people these days, who’ve grown up under the tyranny of streaming services, can’t begin to imagine what it was like to purchase a physical LP based on hearsay alone or its intriguing artwork, perhaps, without having heard a single note of it prior. Then taking it home, placing it on the turntable and being blown away, underwhelmed, baffled or incensed by the contents.
In actual fact, they can imagine that quite easily and many often do it themselves. Record stores and sales remain rife. Not every purchase is pre-listened to first.
It might be harder to get across the thrill of ordering a Hair Police side-project on CD-R for about five quid plus minimal postage costs because it hardly weighed anything in its dainty card sleeve. Then you’d wait until it arrived to find out whether it sounded like Merzbow, Brian Eno or an abstract deconstruction of The Cure. See also, the frisson of perusing the merch table after an MV & EE gig in the games room of the Brudenell Social Club and pondering out how many live albums with photocopied artwork and felt-tipped tracklists it was feasible to purchase.
I had a flashback to such innocent thrills when recently browsing in a northern record shop and discovering a second-hand copy of 2006’s Road Pussy by Magik Markers. Even the young chap at the counter was bamboozled by this alien item, wondering aloud where he should place the home-burned compact disc. In the funny red envelope, I supposed. “What… is… it?” he asked. They’re a noisy art-rock band, I tried to explain. Sonic Youth were the closest comparison my brain could muster at the time. “Which bits of Sonic Youth?” he asked. “Not the ‘Dirty Boots’ kind,” I offered. Best I could do. (I am a professional music journalist.) “Nothing wrong with ‘Dirty Boots’,” he replied. True, but Road Pussy is not like that.
I mention this because Sunburned Hand Of The Man were once serial peddlers of the CD-R format, releasing umpteen hundred of the things in the 2000s, with a little less frequency thereafter. And just look at them now…
Sunburned Hand Of The Man – Nimbus
(Three Lobed)
It’s only taken them a good 30 years but they’ve finally done it. Sunburned Hand Of The Man have made an alarmingly listenable album. Don’t get me wrong. Michael Ball won’t be airing any of these tunes as the newly appointed host of Radio 2’s Sunday Love Songs. ‘Ishkabibble Magoo’ could get played on the folk show, mind. That one’s adapted from the Franklin’s Mint repertoire of revisiting founding member Phil Franklin. He also sings ‘Lily Thin’ which is inspired by Sun City Girls’ version of an old Younes Megri song. And if you’d told me it was performed by SCG’s own Alan Bishop (aka Alvarius B), I’d have been fooled.
There are none of Sunburned’s signature mammoth improvisations here. Nevertheless, ‘The Lollygagger’ burbles effervescently out of the cosmos and ‘Walker Talker’ finds the notches cranked up for what is basically their take on a desert-rock jam. Particularly engaging are the sections featuring poetry by guest readers Peter Gizzi and Matt Krefting.
This album was laid down in a real-life recording studio, as opposed to the usual process of bottling freestyle shenanigans in tiny provincial nightclubs. As such, some long-term listeners have complained that Nimbus is a little too crisp or conventional. It’s hardly Go To Heavenby The Grateful Dead though, is it? (Nor is it any of those other, often tepid, non-live efforts by Jerry & co.) It’s refreshing that Sunburned’s dilated pupils are more focused than before. There are three extra tracks on the CD version, as well. Vive le format mort!
E – Living Waters
(Silver Rocket)
On this trio’s latest record, one of the finest noise rock bands of our time have a new drummer and some fresh approaches. Replacing Gavin McCarthy is Ernie Kim who also contributes saxophone to the title track and takes lead vocal on two numbers. The first of these is ‘Jumprope’, a song about grief with a chorus so infectious it could have been written by the topless frontman of Biffy Clyro (and I think I mean that as a compliment). Jason Sidney Sanford’s self-made steel guitar is being fed through new, “feverishly-built” stompboxes. Thalia Zedek’s guitar, meanwhile, has an extra pickup and an octave pedal to allow the bass-less trio more low-end than prior. This is, then, E’s heaviest record to date. You could say that applies to the lyrics as well. Along with death, other themes include the Orwellian nature of government and corporate surveillance, the mass migration that results from climate change and warfare, and scientists who play God with dystopian consequences. “You will not survive this / You will not survive or get out alive,” Kim warns on the penultimate tune. I’m making this urgent and cathartic record sound much bleaker an experience than it actually is. The important thing is it really does rock.
Objections – Optimistic Sizing
(Wrong Speed)
Now that the mighty Shellac are no more on account of the sudden death Steve Albini, we’re going to have find other minimalist rock trios to provide that kind of fix. How about Objections from Leeds? They’re a new group featuring two former members of Bilge Pump, Joseph O’Sullivan (guitar) and Neil Turpin (drums), plus Claire Adams (bass/vocals) of Nape Neck. Their instruments are crisp and earthy, slotting together like an exciting jigsaw. They don’t go mad with the distortion pedals; the spacey and shimmering ‘Excuses’ being an exception that proves the rule. The music twists, jerks, shapeshifts and holds attention without getting too math-rockingly Byzantine. The lyrics deal with some serious subject matters, such as bigotry and gentrification, yet not in a preachy or sloganeering way. They also cover unfulfilling relationships. (The song title ‘BSA Day’ stands for “bad sex and argument day”, something noticeably absent from descriptions of a typical week in the life of Craig David.) There is a playfulness running throughout. ‘Small Change’ sounds a bit like Fugazi with a female singer. What’s not to like? Credit is due to Michael Ward’s excellent engineering job on this set, too. As soon as other bands hear this recording, the minimalist rock trios will be lining up to have Ward record them, if only to save themselves the flight tickets to Electrical Audio, presuming that studio keeps running. (Let’s hope it does.)
Mahti – Musiikki 3
(Riot Season)
Don’t expect any intricate lyrics about plants. Following his botanically themed joint record with Circle, 2021’s Henki, Richard Dawson has now shuffled his way into one of their side-projects too, along with his partner and Hen Ogledd/Bulbils bandmate, Sally Pilkington. Which band wouldn’t be improved by adding those two musicians to the line-up? AC/DC? Sugababes? Run The Jewels? Answers on a postcard, please. Anyway, they join Jussi Lehtisalo and Tomi Leppänen from Circle, plus an ex-member of that group, Teemu Elo, and the kantele-playing academic Hannu Saha. ‘Brisahka’ is the gorgeous opening piece on which Dawson’s non-lexical falsetto floats on top of bubbling synth noise and tinkling strings. ‘Ruskoi’ is a touch darker thanks to the regular interruption of distorted thunderclaps and the way it grows more insistently pumping in the second half, almost like John Carpenter playing with Heldon. Chanted group vocals form the spine of the pastoral ‘Hof-falssi’. Again, Dawson can be heard wailing soulfully in the background. ‘Lippa’ provides a nice ambient ending to drift off to. Lovely stuff.
METZ – Up On Gravity Hill
(Sub Pop)
Is it time for METZ to drop the full caps? It’s always been such a shouty name. That might have suited their earlier output, which was defined by bludgeoning Jesus Lizard traits, Bleach-era Nirvana-isms and yelling about rats. In recent times, their music has become more sophisticated, intricate and subtle. Don’t get me wrong. It still rocks, just in a more elusive and interesting way than before. Their fifth album’s opening song, ‘No Reservation / Love Comes Crashing’, is a case in point. It’s all about the dynamics, the shifting multiple structures and the exciting drum fills. Apparently composer Owen Pallett plays violin on this maelstrom too. ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’, it ain’t. There’s a post punk essence to much of the later material. That’s in the true spirit of the term, which relates to doing unusual things with the instruments at your disposal, rather than shouting catchphrases over unimaginative three-chord flimflam that isn’t played quickly enough to qualify as actual punk. ‘Entwined (Street Light Buzz)’ has the tunefulness of Pink Mountaintops and the knotty heft of Skull Practitioners. The band are still prone to stomping on the make-it-loud pedals during choruses but the more skeletal nature defining some of the verses suggests somebody’s been listening to Wire. Offering another possible avenue for future stylistic developments is ‘Light Your Way Home’, a duet with Amber Webber of Black Mountain, which is a nu-gaze slow dance number in the vein of Nothing. They keep getting better, do METZ. Sorry. Not METZ. Metz. Whisper it? Ssh. Metz.
Luiz Bruno – Chicken Dinner
(1Selo / Pecan Crazy Records / Tal & Tal)
The Brazilian-born Luiz Bruno has recorded under different aliases and began releasing material under his own name in 2018. Most of the songs on Chicken Dinner are rooted in observational satire, such as ‘Kids Vaping On The Double Decker Bus’ on which the unwelcome stench of tropical fruits is just one of many grievances. ‘Marathon Mike’ takes the mickey (aptly) out of people who are desperate for everybody to know they do a lot of running. (“He goes into the shops in real tight outfits…”) ‘He’s A Coach’ tells you almost everything you need to know about the titular guru in its first line: “He’s a fan of Jordan Peterson…” As the album rolls on, it becomes clearer how much Bruno hates change for the worse, sees the emptiness in other people’s material success and wishes the internet, social media and mobile telephones had never been invented. The outlook could get depressing if the music wasn’t so jolly, woozy and daft. Thus, when Bruno sings “capitalism has made me mentally ill”, which is probably true, he seems pretty cheerful about it, like Winston Smith having finally been taught to love Big Brother. Although clearly a talented musician and songwriter, Bruno has a lack of care about sounding, well, good. He revels in the wonky, the lo-fi and the weird, rather like early Ween. Respect.
Somesurprises – Perseids
(Doom Trip)
Here’s one for fans of shoegazers. I haven’t had the fortune of seeing Somesurprises live so can’t verify whether they do indeed spend whole gigs staring at the polished vamps of their winklepickers. But that’s the derogatory genre tag we’re lumped with and we’ve got to box everybody in somewhere. Somesurprises started as a bedroom solo project of Natasha El-Sergany, with shades of artists like Grouper. Her vision has gone from strength to strength as other members and contributors have been enlisted and further ways found to make the guitars sound less like a stick with some strings on it and more like the different elements of the weather or parts of the sea. Their first album in five years is trumpeted as “not a reinvention of the group’s sound, it is the perfecting of it.” Well, it’s hard to disagree with that. It is lush. Engaging. Soothing. Oceanic. Very well recorded and mastered, so that the different parts and players are all weaved into serving the greater collective whole. It begs this question, though. What does one do after achieving perfection? Hospitalisation is one option. Perfect matters further? Is that an oxymoron? From the inside out, destroy the legacy that’s been built? Can’t wait to find out.
Earth Ball – It’s Yours
(Upset The Rhythm)
Earth Ball bassist Isabel Ford recently told tQ’s Julian Marszalek that she hoped her band would never perform anything resembling a conventional song. Intro? Verse to a bridge to the chorus? Middle eight? Solo? Coda? Fade-out? Forget it! That’s the spirit! So committed are Earth Ball to the ethos of spontaneous composition that both live performances and studio recordings are strictly improvisational. “If we record something really cool, that’s only going to happen once,” guitarist Kellen Maclaughlin confirmed to Marszalek. It must be difficult for them to resist the temptation to repeat any of the cool bits on Earth Ball’s latest transmission, given there are so many of them. There’s the sax-streaked skronk rock of ‘Moon FM’. ‘Antifreeze’ suggests an apocalyptic jam between Thurston Moore, Nate Young and Chris Corsano. ‘Through & Through’ is sparser and more eerie. ‘A Need To Cool Down’ is fast and frantic, like a punk or no wave band that’s discovered Neu!. I realise I’m just going through all the cool songs here rather than dissecting more deeply into the many individual and often fleeting cool bits of each very cool song. But a man’s got a word count, a deadline and a limited vocabulary, so I’ll leave the rest of the investigation up to you. Don’t miss out.
Electric Wizards: A Tapestry of Heavy Music, 1968 To The Present by JR Moores is not available in CD-R audiobook format but the paperback version is out now
