Unpiano | Music Blog

//photo by jason fisher

Monterrey, Mexico has been kicking out some interesting noise-rock these last few years. From the Sonic Youth inspired Los Llamarada to the weird-punk of Ratas del Vaticano, this city and its surrounding area are breeding a hot new crop of bands you should watch for. Bass guitar and drum duo XYX are no exception, in fact after their stunner sets at SXSW (some of my favorite of the whole festival) you might even find them the cream of that crop.

XYX – Anel And Her Problem

Here’s another post-SXSW post, I’m trying to document the handful of bands that got a lot of attention before the fest. Per usual with SXSW, I missed most of the bands I wanted to see (I missed most bands period) due to trying to shuffle our stupid gear from one show to the next in a mob, while navigating Austin’s terrible freeway system, usually while drunk. Wavves were one of the bands I wanted to see, but since most trusted reports point to them being one of the worst live bands of the weekend, I’m not going to dwell on it. The records are pretty heavy with filler, but there are some interesting, blown-out pop gems buried under all this tape hiss that are growing on me.

Wavves – Wavves
Wavves – Side Yr On
Wavves – So Bored

Seattle punks Bend Sinister happened upon a little known Sacramento California band called Karate Party and had their minds blown. They shuffled their aesthetic, borrowed from Karate Party’s bag of tricks, and reformed as the thunderous art-punk outfit the A-Frames. Mixing harsh, art-damaged punk with rigid krautrock and a heap of bubblegum catchiness, the A-Frames put out 2 amazing LPs (A-Frames 1, A-Frames 2) and a grip of killer singles (Police 1000/Traction 7″ an all time fave) before dropping and “eh” of an album on Sub Pop. Nevermind that, the first two records are must-haves and if you can E-Bay any of their singles you won’t regret it. Members moonlight in The Intelligence, AFCGT, Children’s Hospital, Rodent Plague and others.

A-Frames – Hostage Crisis
A-Frames – Electric Eye
A-Frames – Ionic
A-Frames – Wasteland
A-Frames – Search And Rescue

Canada’s Women put out a pretty interesting self-titled LP last year, an odd (but likable) mix of pop, experimental noise and math rock. This track in particular has me hooked.

Women – Black Rice

This French art-punk outfit came through the U.S. a couple of months ago and delivered. Not that its something that hasn’t been heard before but they do it really well and brought it live. Lots of driving bass & drums, wild noise freak-outs and chattering guitar riffs. They’ve got an LP that just came out on In The Red, here’s a couple tracks from an earlier 7″ as a teaser.

A.H. Kraken – Gianna Michaels
A.H. Kraken – Je Suis Ton Marecage

Ho-lee-sheeeiit. Wow. Whoa. If someone’s going to call them “noise-punk” from now on, they’d better sound at least this good and this harsh. Arizona is fucked, anyone who’s driven through there knows its hot as Satan’s butthole pretty much all the time, the desert is boring and shitty (except to Europeans, they love the desert for some stupid reason) but all that brain cooking is good for weird-o rock and Francis Harold And The Holograms proves it. Like the crazy, addict Yankee cousin to the Brainbombs (just more meth and less criminal pornography).

Francis Harold And The Holograms – The Eagle Can’t Fly With One Wing
Francis Harold And The Holograms – Two Faggots One Cunt

When I first moved to San Francisco in the mid-90′s my apartment hovered over the corner of Stockton & Columbus streets in North Beach. For the first month or so the only way I could sleep at night with all the yelling drunks, jocks in stupid waist-length leather jackets, screechy Marina-girls, bums fighting shopping carts and yelling at ghosts, buses, cars, yelling, pissing, puking, fighting and partying was to put on Flying Saucer Attack’s New Lands and bury it all under a fluffy blanket of white noise. Fans of the Radio Department, Deerhunter and the like should fuzz out to these records. Here’s some tracks off a few long-gone singles from way back when.

Flying Saucer Attack – Standing Stone
Flying Saucer Attack – Soaring High
Flying Saucer Attack – Crystal Shade

Two Spaniards and one Nigerian got together (link) and created the kind of degenerate punk I can’t get enough of. After a handful of vinyl releases comes their debut LP Dialectics Of Shit and it slays. Giant Jesus Lizard drums and guitars that sound like telephone wires whipping in a hurricane give way to blistering noise breakdowns and bizarre production. I’ve had this one track on repeat for a month.

Billy Bao – Tight Ass Bleeds

Portland Oregon’s Eat Skull has been killing it lately. With a string of quickly out of print singles and their debut LP Sick To Death (Siltbreeze) already landing on lots of “Best of 2008″ lists, their deranged lo-fi pop has hit it big in the small time. Landing somewhere between ear-splitting 80′s hardcore and those wonderfully wasted GBV records, here’s a few favorites off their two long-gone 7 inches and an even longer-gone split cassette.

Eat Skull – Dead Families
Eat Skull – Seeing Things
Eat Skull – Survivable Spaces

I was going to write something about Can’s history and influence on everybody but then I realized that’s pretty boring and I’m a crappy writer so I’m just going to say that I really really really like Can a lot. Oh, and I like Damo Suzuki’s crazy get-up.

Can – Pinch
Can – Vitamin C
Can – I’m So Green

Bonus:
Can – Spoon (video)