So I've finally emerged to add my list of favorite records from this past year to the pool of billions of other lists. Apologies all around for the lack of activity around here lately, but the end of the year is always a busy one for me and hopefully I can get the ball rolling once again at the start of the new year when things start to calm down. Anyway, here are my favorite releases, many of which who read the blog have probably already seen/read about/heard already...but oh well. Some singles that I enjoyed... [...]
As we approach thee end of 2010, we open the gun locker, gaffer tape a flashlight to our pump action shotgun and slide into the vietcong tunnels of what went on this year. There be monsters there. Being the all encompassing unstandardised weirdoes that we are, we make no attempt at ranking our choices, or to classify them by format. We just about manage to drop them into different buckets which aren't quite genres, but a chromatic scale of the kirlian aura colours that they impressed upon us. Let's begin with black. Things that go slash [...]
#10 Robedoor - Pacific Drift Download: [MP3] Robedoor - Pacific Drift #9 The Fresh & Onlys - Vanishing Cream Download: [MP3] The Fresh & Onlys - Vanishing Cream #8 The Liminanas - I'm Dead Download: [...]
Reclusive, magnetic, downtrodden synth-project Puerto Rico Flowers made friends for the last time several weeks ago in the habiliments of Baltimore's Talking Head, with full support from Screen Vinyl Image, Pfisters, and maybe a bit of Major League Baseball. Toward the end of the fitful existence that was the abrasive, cult-followed Clockcleaner, the sounds began to be a bit more poppy, sullen, and maybe splashed with just a zest of eyeliner-after-dark. So it was no coincidence that front man, John Sharkey III, coupled his bass with a synthesizer and foraged a sound born in these fires (as I [...]
Two releases from the darker and lighter side of the great pop spectrum. Clockcleaner's John Sharkey is still keeping things dipped in heavy synth with his Puerto Rico Flowers project and Floridians The Jameses channel a bit of Flying Nun pop. All in all not a bad Friday. Puerto Rico Flowers – 2 7" Naturally, Sharkey's latest release is branded 2 being that it has two songs on it. Somehow I'm sensing a theme here. Anyhow this picks up [...]
The Hounds of Tindalos leap across the angles connecting temporal dimensions lean and athirst. They truly are truculent beasts who have put a ghastly end to the career of many a chrononaut, yet they can be house-broken with a thick enough edition of the Great Race of Yith's newspaper, and a powerful purpose. To kidnap [...]
Cleveland ex-pat John Sharkey (Nine Shocks Terror, Clockcleaner) has re-emerged in Australia with a new musical project called Puerto Rico Flowers and it's probably the farthest thing you'd expect from the man who made a name for himself melting faces and being an all-around abrasive kind of guy. Remember that article in the Philadelphia Weekly where Clockcleaner were coined the city's most hated band ? Or, maybe you recall Clockcleaner's single, "New in Town," where Sharkey snarled about making friends over a bunch of brutal scuzz and the impression given was one where here's one [...]
Last week was filled to the brim, and indeed, overflowing with praise for Sockets Records as they celebrated five successful years and pushed on into the future. Even I took a moment to sit down and explore this District aural victor. But stepping back, and simply allowing your head to swivel, just a bit, in either direction, will yield a harvest of other, in many different ways, equally deserving labels. The first of which popped into my brain was Fan Death , a young outfit that already has several quality releases, and [...]
Built on a Weak Spot
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Some House Bangers for the Week.. (2/15)
