From The Vault: Head Wound City E.P.

I don't really like music that takes itself 100% seriously. It's never really jelled for me that an artist would ever think of art, something objectively valueless and disconnected with the base human experience, to be worth being upset over.

I think that's why I've never enjoyed records made by so-called "supergroups." The ego and self-seriousness in most of these projects is palpable. 

With that said, when a supergroup possesses a sense of fun and excitement about them, I almost always dig it. I think that's why Head Wound City appeals to me so much. It's all about fun.

Formed in 2005 by members of The Locust, The Blood Brothers, and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Head Wound City play chaotic, noisey artpunk that takes the most distinctive elements of the bands it splintered from and ramps them up times 10. Gabe Serbian brings The Locust's spastic drumming and time signatures. Jordan Billie and Cody Votolato bring their distinctive throat/fret shredding from The Blood Brothers, while Nick Zinner brings a whole lot of, gasp, pop sensibility. 

They released a self-titled, 10-minute EP that very same year on Three One G Records and it's a banger. 

I'm a Taxidermist- I'll Stuff Anything is a highlight of the album. It's The Locust filtered through '79 punk steez and neon lights. There's a sweet double-time breakdown and power-electronics part somewhere in the middle.

Thrash Zoo is black metal with actual dynamics, a rare treat indeed. The vocals make my throat hurt in sympathy.

This album is definitely worth a listen. Grab it here.

Top 9 albums of the year

Well, it's that time of the year again, time for us to reflect on the great music that graced us in 2014. It's been a damn good year. Lots of amazing records to pour over. These are my top 10.

10. Copkiller- Alien Soccer

Another excellent  release from a label that only puts out excellent releases, Rainbow Bridge. Industrial pop meets avant-garde meets everything else. It could only have been produced in the 21st century by Justin Marc Lloyd, a person that I believe is looking toward the 22nd. An album in a league of its own. 

Buy here.

9. Waves Crashing Piano Chords- Young Mouth/ It wasn't even worth my back seat. 

A three minute blast of negativity from New York's only juggalo noise act. It's amazing that this album, recorded only with feedback and screamed vocals, manages to be 100 times more powerful than other albums made with twice the budget. 

buy it here

8. Aaron West and The Roaring Twenties- We Don't Have Each Other

This is the debut solo album of Wonder Years frontman Dan "Soupy" Cambell. I'm not exactly a fan of the Wonder Years, but I've always respected Soupy as a lyricist. This album really lets them shine through, telling a story of divorce, loss, and parenthood through the eyes of New Yorker Aaron West. The music is infinitely more restrained than the Wonder Years, closer to Bruce Springsteen than New Found Glory. An emotionally brutal effort and a job well done. 

buy here

7. Young and In The Way- When Life Comes To Death

A damn site better than Watain. All of the black metal showmanship with a thousand times more chaos. 

buy here

6. 

Compiled by Genesis P. Orridge of Throbbing Gristle, this is a compilation of spoken word and tape experiments from beat legend William S. Burroughs. If you want to hear the absolute genesis of post-modern art, this is what you want. 

buy here

5. Full of Hell/Merzbow

Less of a collaboration and more of a testament towards the Full of Hell Lads ability to use Merzbow's raw noise to craft great songs, this album is quality, from music to packaging. High Fells, in particular, is an amazing track. 

Buy here

4. Wolves In The Throne Room- Celestite

The first purely ambient excursion for the Washington black metallers, Celestite is surprisingly deep and fully formed. It is just as vital as any of their metal records, and one of the best dark ambient albums in a long while.

buy it here

read my interview with Wolves In The Throne Room here

3. Pharmakon- Bestial Burden

Margaret Chardiet, frontperson of noise juggernaut Pharmakon, will not let anything or anyone keep her down. Just as she was about to embark on her first European tour, she ended up severely ill. Undergoing major surgery, she was bedridden for nearly three weeks. As a result, this record is very much informed by the idea of health and body, of interconnecting systems and biology. It's skin-crawling, powerful stuff. 

Buy it here

Iceage- Plowing into the Field of Love

Iceage, with their third album, have made the best rock album of the last ten years. This is, without a doubt, the most complete and effective piece of sound art I've heard this year, a brilliant mix of post punk, noiserock, hardcore, and even country. Elias Bender Ronnenfelt is the best white singer I've heard recently. He's got something to say. You should listen.

Buy it here

From The Vault: Boredoms- Chocolate Synthesizer

Japan's legendary lunatics of sound Boredom's have a bit of a misleading reputation in America. Due to their association with Merzbow and the praise heaped upon them by noise rockers Thurston Moore and Justin Broadrick, music fans seem to want to peg them into the harsh noise/power electronics category. 

The reality is that Boredoms come as much from A Saucerful of Secrets as they do Metal Machine Music. Besides their early Boretronix releases, Boredom's releases fall firmly into the avant-rock category, with much of their music being extremely distorted ppsychedelicand kraut-rock. 

Their fourth album, Chocolate Synthesizer, released in 1994 in Japan and 2004 in America, is a perfect example of Boredom's ability to transcend genre without falling into free-form territory. It bounces among psychedelic rock, minimalist drum and bass, chanting, punk, powerviolence, kraut-rock, and synthpop with little regard for any kind of formality.

With that said, miraculously, Boredom's manage to always come back around, no-matter how much they stray into freakout jams, to the poppy psychedelic rock that make up the core of their music. This quality ads to Chocolate Synthesizer's woozy, bizarre sound.

The song Voredoms is a good example of this. Over its six minutes, it blasts through MC5-esque fuzzrock, walls of noise, groovy, ritualistic funk, gypsy-folk, minimalist prepared guitar, and krautrock, before looping back in on itself. Surprisingly, it works brilliantly.

Turn Table Boredoms is another highlight, a dirt-rock jam that sounds like Yoko Ono fronting the 13th floor elevators.

Vocals, provided by Yamantaka Eye, are nothing short of bizarre. They flit between grunts, gurgles, shouts, yelps, and, in occasion, clean singing. Oftentimes they are so buried under layers of tape delay that they're barely audible at all.

Perhaps the most interesting quality of this album is its childishness. Now, I don't mean this as a bad thing. Childishness is joyous. Childlessness is experimentation.  It's childishness that makes it's genre-experimentation work. Professional musicians, Miles Davis or Hendrix types, wouldn't have been able to make this music.

The album, originally very difficult to find, was reissued last year on 1972. Unfortunately, the label has since shut down.

Listen to it below. If you can find it, buy it. It's well worth it.