Zs – “Acres of Skin” (Gabe Andruzzi remix) MP3/download
After reviewing Thee Oh Sees‘ Grave Blockers 2X7-inch yesterday I threw in a few of the records from the “Rock is Hell” boxset — featuring eight white 7-inch records in a personal pan pizza box w/ insert and a singlestar (one of those doohickeys you put on your record player to spin large-hole 45s) — on a lark and ended up being permanently scarred and emotionally battered. Which is why I’m reviewing this motherfucker today; I suppose I’m a glutton, especially for the most absurd forms of punishment.
I suppose I should mention the bands first, however:
- Zs
- Sasqrotch
- Foot Village
- Fugu & The Cosmic Mumu
- Death Sentence: Panda!
- Rokko Anal
- Child Abuse
- Bug
- Reflector (not the punk band from mainland China, mind you)
- Bulbul feat. Carla Bozulich & Philipp Quehen-Berger
Whew! That’s a lot of dizzy record-changing and hectic needle-placing (as at least one of these 7-inches has a hole cut off to the side a bit, causing a woozy sort of spin that’s reflected nicely in the music) and, if your a crazed audio spelunker like myself, plenty of dark, scary-ass terrain to explore like the folds of an unknown lover’s body or the creases in one’s oldest, dustiest, sofa-pizza-bearing couch.
Of the bands included, the only I had up-close experience with were Child Abuse, Death Sentence: Panda and Foot Village; I’d also been yearning to hear more Zs, which turned out swimmingly for all involved (though I guess it was only me, in the end; sigh).
I was trying to decide how to weed-whACK and whittle this review down so I’m not just extolling weirdness over and over, and I think I’m going with the stream-of-conch-style milieu because to write about all eight of these fuckin’ things isn’t going to do anyone any favors.
To start, one side of the Zs 7-inch is only halfway there, but the hard-hittin’ side represents at least a portion of the forward-thinking two-man-bandying-about I expected when pretty much every Tiny Mix Tapes writer crispy-creamed themselves over them last year (or was it the year before? aww hell, rock is). To me it sounds kinda basic and, dare I venture, bland when compared to skull-violating tandems like Hella, Zach Hill/Mick Barr and Oxes — particularly the former two — yet there’s just enough here to merit further investigation, which I plan to undergo soon. Ish.
Child Abuse, to me, need more time to reveal their distinct layers of insanity; a 7-inch isn’t nearly enough, their flare for sudden shifts and bleeping out Coleco-style not as charming when the many detours of, say, their split with Miracle Of Birth.
Now to the pure breeds; the bands/sides so practically infantile in their playful instrumental innocence they shook me to my core.
Rokko Anal, for example, are even sicker than their hole-filling name, on Side A balancing hard-noise, New Blockaders THROTTLE with full-band performances as otherworldly as a science fiction radio broadcast and much stranger than any visual depiction of aliens I’ve ever seen (and that includes Admiral Akbar). Side B also plumbs the depths of outright oddity, perhaps with even more satisfying returns, bouncy-ball bass blurps and Joe Meek-shall-inherit-the-earth alienspeak and, later on, some indie-rock noodling fairly close to what satisfies the Portland punters these days (see: fans of Joggers and such). It’s all gloriously twisted, seductive like that first lick of dulce de leche and rich as the sweet milk from which the caramel-ish product was named.
After a good round of rough, oily, unprotected Rokko Anal I figured nothing could shock me, but therein lies the rub-a-dub: Music is the one medium that can shock me no matter how many of its representations I imbibe.
Which brings us to my favorite blanco side of the entire collection: Fugu & The Cosmic Mumu’s side of their split with Death Sentence: Panda.
If I were to fold all of my hang-ups, dreams, nightmares, fears of molestation and phobias into a song and shit it onto the earth, this very well might be what it would sound like. Fugu is one bitch of a lover, like Gary Wilson slapped silly, spun like a top for hours then released into heavy moving traffic and pummeled pinball-style by a parade of passersby. The folks are shooting rubber bands of sound right at my face and it STINGS man! The wooziness I feel when I even think of this record is so worth the price of admission I scant need to even delve into its flip, though I will for posterity.
Or … maybe not. I’m just underwhelmed by what I’ve heard from Death Sentence: Panda!, this jam included. Definitely doesn’t live up to the pus-breeding promise of Fugu’s Cosmic Side A (which I just realized I listened to at the wrong speed; fuggit).
Bug’s “God Loves Those Who Smile” just lost me altogether. Creeps On Candy/Dead & Gone, Black Flag, Half-Past Human, Sick Of It All, Unsane, Flipper, that band with that song that’s like “SOMEONE JUST FUCKING TAKE ME OOOOUUUUUTTT” (it’ll come to me … just a second … just a second … almost there … almost the- Strife!) … actually, hell, I like this just fine, extra points for filling out the entire side, right up to the edge, and going 33 RPMS with it so we all gets our money’s worth.
Reflector take a similar route: slow, dirge-y, sludgy, tom-tom and cymbal crashes … nothing wrong with that, and if I weren’t fatigured from writing so-damn much already I’d tell you more about them and their similarities to a few bands of my youth and present: The Melvins and Fudge Tunnel (not to mention Black Cobra; they weigh in heavily, literally).
That’ll have to wait; until next time, stay true to your tunes, chickadees.
