By Adrienne Casey

Pissed Jeans
Shallow
(Parts Unknown Records, 2005)

Immature, maybe, but it was the name that had me curious at first, and then the beautiful Ron Rege cover only helped things. Even though they’re young, they musically avoid a lot of youngster clichés, and at the same time they’ll never be asked dinner with your parents (song titles include “Ashamed of My Cum,” and “Boring Girls”.) It’s a tricky line they walk. But then their musical influences, and you sure can hear them, suggest a wisdom that push them ahead of their peers—obscure ‘80s hardcore and punk. I hear the Laughing Hyenas more than anything. The guy on vocals is ferocious, possibly in pain, though maybe just inspired. The songs are sometimes too slow to please the hardcore crowd, and that’s when they seem to have more in common with late ‘80s Seattle sludge. Their noble goal, as they put it in an interview, is “to bludgeon the listener with dull, monotonous, droning rock music.” They succeed, but believe me, it’s even more exciting than that sounds.

Residual Echoes
Residual Echoes
(Holy Mountain, 2005)

If I’d randomly picked this up I’d have probably put it back. Not a great cover, or at least it tells you nothing about the band, and not the best name, though it does tell you a bit more. Fortunately I didn’t pass on it. It was a caring friend who had pointed it out, also pointing out that midway through the first song it sounds as if the recording equipment is melting. A good sign. Residual Echoes, from the West Coast, play acid-influenced, loud-as-hell, very damaged rock. Instrument credits include hollering, shitty bass, fuzz, unseasoned drumming, shirtless drums, and air. The fuzz takes front seat to the air, and the hollering applies to over-worked amps, not vocals. Heavy stuff, and if the songs aren’t always there, the sound sure is.


Monolake
Polygon_Cities
(Monolake, 2005)

“Tons of bytes have been shuffled,” Monolake say on their web site about their newest recording, and “millions of samples have been scanned for peaks.” And so they have. When everyone else was in the parking lot listening to the radio loudly with the car doors open, Monolake were staying behind in the science lab, an interest that later translated nicely into the tech world. On Monolake’s newest, minimalist synth grooves appear and disappear, and percussion literally bounces around like different size beads in a ball. When it’s not funky, and it often is, it’s brooding; here and there it’s both. They owe a debt to Kraftwerk, but who in front of synths and samplers doesn’t? It’s not disco for sure, but they’re more interested in the groove than a lot of their non-dance lap-topping peers.

Reigning Sound
Live At Maxwell’s
(Telstar, 2005)

Live albums are thorny—it’s almost always the case that if you weren’t there, or a fan already, they’re worth avoiding. This one is no exception, although if you aren’t a fan you might want to consider signing up. Reigning Sound are about as no-frills as it gets—they belt out rockers that sound so classic and familiar you’ll swear you’ve heard them already. Recorded in July 2004, this showcases not an exceptional Reigning Sound gig, but a very typical one, which is to say a gig well worth going out of your way for. Greg Cartwright, songwriter and the one group constant, sings like a cigarette-damaged Keith Richards and he plays rhythm guitar like a Sun Records session man. His songs sound a lot like both of the aforementioned. In the liner notes, drummer-legend Miriam Linna says the band “is capable of blowing many, many little noggins into itty bitty bits.” Their cover of “Stormy Weather” is the proof, and in case you still have doubts, their own “Drowning” should wipe them away for good.

Afrirampo
Kore Ga Mayaku Da
(Tzadik, 2005)

Their name translates to “naked rock,” but musically they seem to wear quite a few different outfits. Afrirampo are two uber-hyper, young Japanese women. The first song alone, “I Did Are,” has a full wardrobe. It clocks in at almost 14 minutes though you’d swear it finished eight times. It starts with unaccompanied screams, morphs into a bloody thrash, then a prog jam, then a vocal play in the park, and then into something much lighter, back to thrash, more vocal play (think furry forest creatures), and … well, you still have two minutes and I’d hate to ruin the ending. Afrirampo may suffer from ADD—this is prog played by two people who can’t play it and with no desire to learn. Although the rest of the songs are considerably shorter than the first, listened to as a whole it’s impossible to know where one thing ends and the next starts. Played loud it’s almost a party unto itself, one where the host has lost control, although I can’t guarantee you’ll stick around long enough to see anyone get naked.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
(Self Released, 2005)

Music is exactly like sports in that emotions run irrationally high, both create enemies for life and people often look stupid in their exuberance. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, for some reason beyond me, seem to have divided camps quickly and sharply. Just out of the gate they were hailed as the best things since before music even started. Early hype is a curse though, and you apparently couldn’t pay half the people who’ve heard them to ever listen again. People, why? Go into your separate corners and think about this one. You’ll all look back and laugh. What were we thinking anyway? you’ll ask. The Talking Heads comparisons are off, the Clean comparisons even more so, and with Neutral Milk Hotel you’re at least getting warmer. Has anyone mentioned the Pixies yet? Like them, the tension and the hooks dominate. If nothing else, you’ll remember the songs, and that one always goes both ways.

Lau Nau
Kuutarha
(Locust, 2005)

I can’t tell you too much about new, spotlighted Finnish music, but Lau Nau—it’s also her name—is one of a number of groups in question. At first this release didn’t stick at all, although something must have caught otherwise I wouldn’t have wandered out to see them, and during the week no less. I’m glad I did, because listening to this after the show I started to hear things like Nico’s The Marble Index in the way that both are infected with the Western tradition of cold and atonal composition. This is a folk record in that it’s acoustic, but I’m not sure how much of it is particularly Finnish since this sort of thing is being done in a few places. At the show people sat cross-legged on the floor (until it became too crowded) and the group played in a darkened room on what seemed to be homemade instruments. Yes, in fact there were some nice vibes present, but no, nobody was making love. It was all a little too spooky for that, sort of like the album.

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