Thinking Fellers Local Union 282 - Admonishing the Bishops

Thinking Fellers Local Union 282 were quite an amazing band during their heyday. They formed in San Francisco in 1986, combining lo-fi noise rock with various outsider elements to make their own brand of noisy pop music. This EP of theirs is just perfection.

somehow your hurricane, envelops me in misty rain

Unwound - Leaves Turn Inside You

Unwound were an alternative act active from 1991-2002. They were more or less a unique singularity amongst their peers, utitlising angular guitar lines, complex drumming patterns and shifted toward more atmospheric production aesthetics for their masterpiece and swansong (one of the best swansongs of all time).

At this point, I have to mention that I was introduced to this album by a good friend called spiritof77, on RYM. His real name was Mike and he was a writer and a poet with very little parallel, even amongst professionals. He passed away earlier this week. This is his entry on 'Leaves Turn Inside You'.

the smell of ash-spewing 18-wheelers passing you in late fall when the branches sound like glass as you cross over them and your neighbourhood is so cold that you can hear the sewage beneath your feet slow to a crawl with the approach of december. dead animals keep from rotting like sarcophagi of hair and teeth littered around the city in a first wave of eternal greying. sickness creeps. sickness is that halo of cigarette smoke that always seems to appear from nameless mouths in red that never quite speak in your direction. you go home and drink because it's all you can do to keep your blood from idling and turning your whole body to stone. words and impermanent shit you say to people in an ambiguous tone to keep from really letting the heart out of your cage and wishing you weren't such a coward later. wheat and tulips slipping into decay because fewer things are more final than another year of your life. it's touching hands in an endless crowd and wondering when the last time it wasn't one more stranger. it's realizing that the greatest affliction isn't cancer or AIDS but rather loneliness. it's when a ghost disturbs the veins of a tree and the leaves turn inside you.      


Terminus

Wipers - Youth of America

Wipers were undoubtedly one of the most influential bands for the American alt rock scene. Led by Greg Sage, they crafted what was essentially a mixture of hardcore punk's demolishing ferocity with prog rock's vernacular and a penchant for longer tunes. This is exemplified on 1981's 'Youth of America', which is just about one of the best albums ever.

Like injecting a raging bull with a barrel of coke. And then sitting on it. No other record would match this level of creativty and ferocity until Refused would release The Shape of Punk To Come, imo.

living in the jungle

Boris - Pink

One of the best rock bands out there at the moment. Japanese act Boris have been around since 1992 and have explored nearly every facet of the noise rock and sludge aspect of the genre. This is one of my favourite album entries into the noise canon, and in fact you'd be hard pressed to find much music in the 00's that rocks as hard as this.

Pink light, from the mouth of infinity. Let your senses be destroyed. Also, title track lasts 4 minutes and 20 seconds. You know what I'm getting at.

afterburner

The Terminals - Touch

The Terminals are a NZ psych/garage/noise pop hybrid of an act, fairly unclassifiable in terms of sound, they create something that is entirely their own. They are, quite possibly, my favourite band of all time, my best kept secret. I've been getting into them slowly but surely, from their humble beginnings in the Flying Nun/Xpressway scene to watching them develop their sound throughout the 90's to their current tenure on the brilliant Last Visible Dog (who have reissued all their albums by the way, hint hint). Here's their 1992 album, Touch.

How many of those cheap ass, unsatisfying, low-diet post rock/garage/shoegazer albums have you had for dinner as of now? Well 'Touch' is different. Why? It's like doing 3 rounds of speedball for dessert and diving headlong into the jaws of oblivion. It's a world that is completely unique; deconstructed and noisy, the atmosphere ranging somewhere between twilight and the deepest fucking abyss you have ever imagined. Your life might never be the same again (*)

dark and scary, staring down

Bailter Space - Robot World

Led by former Gordons guitarist Alister Parker, noise rock unit Bailter Space emerged from Christchurch, New Zealand in 1987. Originally comprising former Clean and Great Unwashed drummer Hamish Kilgour, Pin Group alum Ross Humphries on bass, and Glenda Bills on drums, the group issued their debut EP, Nelsh, on the famed Flying Nun label later that year; both Humphries and Bills departed soon after, resulting in the addition of former Gordons bassist John Halvorsen in time to record the 1988 full-length Tanker. A tour followed, but when the Clean re-formed, Kilgour joined them on a permanent basis; his replacement in Bailter Space was Brent McLachlan, also the drummer in the Gordons. In 1993, they dropped Robot World, what I consider their best. 

Paradoxically enough, this album is really pretty yet completely jagged hard, droning, unforgiving guitar music with occasional lapses into verse/chorus regularity. Wikipedia says it's Beatles harmony blended with Velvet Underground's dissonance. My $0.02 - this is one of the coolest pure noise experiences you'll have with pop music. Full volume with some good headphones is really recommended. 


Orbit