SEX/VID - VOYEUR EP. This is a totally non-essential live record, although I'm sure it will be going for obscene amounts of money on ebay anyways. If you're a fan, and you've acquried this by some less than ridiculous means before the 500 (?) pressed were gone, then it's probably worth your 4 or 5 bucks. That being said i was still very surprised and excited to get a couple copies of this in the mail. (thanks suzie though you''ll never read this)
It sounds pretty good, Not the greatest recording but I have heard worse live records and the lo fi approach probably works better for this band and their aesthetic anyways. There are two previously unreleased songs offered up (I'm pretty sure?) here that I'm assuming will show up on the new LP. Opening with "cleansing", a rager, followed by "nests" and "excoricism" from the "nests" ep, and closing with "no room", a song that stands out a lot more than the first one. It has more of a stop and start kinda feel and that heaviness that the last record brought. Great shit, I'm excited for a real record.
I hope they can keep living up to the hype and proving wrong all the naysayers with good and interesting songs. Most bands this exciting tend to not come this far before stagnating into bullshit.
Again this is labelled as being released on DOM AMERICA although I'm pretty sure Troy (CLARENCE THOMAS RECORDS) didn't do it and i heard it was a label from New York. Another strange phenomena to release all their records under and obscure label leaving little credit to those who do the job. I guess there will only be money to fill the glory hole.
photo googled



CONDOMINIUM - PUPILS EP. This record fucking smokes. You may have thought the first one is great and you're right, but even having heard these songs several times before, I was still totally impressed and unprepared for the way this record tore me a new one. I have a hard time trying to compare this band. They have themes in common with other bands aesthetically but I don't really see them sounding like anyone. They kinda bring together a lot of elements and successfully do something pretty original, which is hard to say for others.
The a-side, "pupils" is a plodding midtempo jam that will have your toe tapping until you decide to through your tv through the wall. "On/off" is a jumpy number that keeps the pace up and the last song, "displacement" is another rager that cuts into a seperate wall of noise track when he asks for silence, with terrible moaning from Matt. real creepy. The song kicks back in and continues to pummel then its all over nice and quick. These guys continue to kick it up a notch. Highly recommended. Yet again, self released, with a real simple printed sleve and a cool weird layout.

Condominium phot by Jason Penner

DICK IN A MOUSETRAP

RE(tarded)VIEWS.

Again, let me stress that i do not consider myself qualified to review music, let alone shit like this, yet i'll talk out of my ass here on things i know very little about.








BILLY BAO - DIALECTICS OF SHIT LP. So... I actually downloaded this a few months ago after taking a quick listen to the "Accumulation" ep at Double Decker, and deciding against giving a shit. For some reason I was still interested a few weeks or months later to hear more, and gave this lp stuff a couple listens through the old soulseek...
and again, I didn't seem to get it.
Although i recognized a pretty heavy-handed BRAINBOMBS influence in some of it, I pretty much just wrote it off as some hipster noise with no musical merit... but again i found myself drawn to listen over and over on lonely nights in front of this shitbox. Possibly due to the fact that i have a shit computer and can keep very few downloaded albums on it at a time, but the attraction probably had more to do with something else because I keep growing to like it more and more.
This band is kinda a mystery to me still and I guess that's nice. Apparently BILLY BAO is from Nigeria with a couple dudes from Spain? I guess that makes things a little more interesting. You should probably go learn more about that somewhere else...
So if you don't know what this sounds like here's a quick description. It kinda goes back and forth between total dirges of noise and feedback interspersed with digital blips and silly intentional editing disasters, real primitive noise and repetitive jams layered with feedback and vocals/lyrics that bounce between sketchy and obnoxious ravings ala BRAINBOMBS and hopeless anti-establishment ranting.
I don't know much else to compare this to, but this is not for the weak. This is the kind of antisocial music that no one should really like except for the real creeps, like finding kinship with a fellow child molester checking out little kids at the roller rink, but somehow this music is popular with MRR types and punk scenesters??
Anyways, for some reason I've fallen in line with them and find myself throwing this lp on pretty frequently, with the opinion that its a lot cooler than the previous 7". I've heard there's also a 10" and some other older shit out there that I've never seen a copy of or heard so there's something else to seek out.


DRUNKDRIVER - s/t LP and live (minneapolis, 11/8/08)... so PARTS UNKNOWN has been releasing some weirdo shit as usual, but lately straying a little more into arty noise, almost verging on hipster bullshit, yet i must say i am into it still. Those vibes are a lot more prominent with the BILLY BAO shit then Brooklyn NY's DRUNKDRIVER, who are more of a hardcore band that plays noisy as shit and is recorded distorted enough to almost come off as a noise project. The drums are so blown out on the recording that seeing them live almost sounded like a completely different band, which i guess is a cool thing.
The record is pretty hard, I'm pretty into it. They're a trio with a real aggressive drummer who beats the shit outta those things and a guitar playing going through a couple different stacks and pedals to get a really layered noisy effect. The vocals are snotty and screamy and live the dude was trying real hard to provoke people, slamming into them and hanging from the ceiling. slamming somebody's mic into the ground repeatedly. I guess that is par for the course with this kind of ugly music but the dude was kinda rubbing me the wrong way (he kinda reminded me of this douche I used to know which is a totally unreasonable excuse to dislike a random dude). He would breathe hard into the mic with it shoved down his throat and that sounded pretty cool especially when he was swinging from the pipes, and there's a couple parts where he does that on the record. I was a little worried that this wasn't the kind of thing that would translate well live, let alone at a punk show, but they played hard and it was pretty cool. Pretty tame audience kept in check.
Jumping back to the record, the songs that are more riffy than rhythm oriented seem to work better and hold my attention a little closer, but if any of this sounds cool you should check this record out cus they're one of the cooler bands doing shit like this that I'm aware of. Not for the purist.

On a side note, I think their guitar player was hitting on me. Possibly the drummer as well...
Apparently these two bands are going to be doing a split 7".

photos and images stolen from the internet. boo fucking hoo.