Records Are Fun!

Portraits of records by Matt Pakulski.

[recordsarefun]

Top ten listened to records, March 2015: “listen while you fold” edition.

10. What We'll Be - Subject/Object EP

9. Den - Exhausted. ...ey so this one snuck the MxIxTxBx through the back door while I wasn't looking cause I was all, "Loud! Harsh!" but they got that dirty groove thing with the brutality, this is a great record from a great band.

8. Reade Truth; Atomic Babies; Freax; Puke Slaughter - Germany vs. New York. Second month in my top ten (down from #3 in February), I played the hell out of this record, so much it was actually my #1 listened to record for Q1 2015. Yes, I do quarterly top tens. Maybe I'll start publishing them one of these days.

7. Miltiades - Outermost Sensitive Paranoia

6. Lucretia Dalt - "Esotro" / "Veta". Was #6 last month, too. Lucretia Dalt makes quality music, songs that don't sacrifice depiction of the empty horror of existence while still making it a joy to be alive. Hooks from the noise that take many listens to be revealed as such.

5. Little Women - Lung. Intense.

4. Black Pus - Pus Mortem. Hellish, infuriating, repetitive, inscrutable, repeat.

3. James "Jack Rabbit" Martin - "Only Wanted to Be (Unreleased Acid Version)" / "Rabbit Trax I (The Next Generation)". Seriously, believe the hype. This record is insane.

2. Fanon Flowers - Chicago-Detroit

1. Virgo - "Free Yourself"; "Under You" / "My Space"; "R U Hot Enough". This record is one sound that I could imagine heaven sounding like.

[mathyouland]

My friend Emily from the band Zigtebra asked me to design this flyer for a record fair she is organizing with FPE Records. Should be a pretty rad setup with like 18 great chicago labels.

[recordsarefun]

One reason I haven't been posting pics of records on tumblr that much recently is cause other stuff has been occupying my attention, including this record fair that I organized coming up on March 22. Fortunately the awesome poster by the great Math-you Land-vote makes a real nice recordsarefun post. Come on down to the Empty Bottle and buy some records!

[recordsarefun]

Top ten listened to records, February 2015.

10. Quest feat. Liz Torres - "Mind Games". Hear this early Chicago underground house record here and here.

9. Germ House - Showing Symptoms

8. Glacial23 - untitled 12" (Savage Quality 008)

7. Lætitia Sadier - Something Shines

6. Lucretia Dalt - "Esotro" / "Veta" 10"

5. Xerome - Xerome c-120 (Primitive Languages)

4. Alan Stivell - Un bewezh 'barzh 'gêr

3. Reade Truth; Atomic Babies; Freax; Puke Slaughter - Germany vs. New York

2. Dope Body - Lifer

1. Fresh - "Dum-Dum"

[recordsarefun]

Top ten listened to records, January 2015. (Playing ketchup edition)

10. Whatever Brains - SSR-64 / Sorry State Records Number Sixty-Three. Fourth and they found their confidence, I think I feel about this band the way lots of people felt about Fucked Up in like 2K10, amazing record.

9. Henrik B - Ricochet Part 2. 2015: I learned that awesome techno is a thing. Thanks, 90s.

8. Humongous - Miniature Pinschers. Hey this has been out for a while and they are one of those bands that seems to come up, be awesome and disappear and maybe the people from it show up in other stuff but this is totally brilliant no foolin' you gotta hear it at least on Bandcamp it's got a country song about a "cookie" (as in female thingy) with wings and that's not even the second or third best song!

7. Connections - Into Sixes. The closest I've ever gotten to being "into" GBV is getting into less prolific and famous bands that are not them but that are post them. Columbus 4eva bro

6. Su Wai - Gita Pon Yeik. She's Burmese and playing traditional harp music but she lives in California (I think) and is from now; the music's a dead ringer for Foday Musa Suso even though it's from two continents away and played on a different instrument in a different language, but so.

5. ONO - Machines That Kill People. Thank you ONO for having a career renaissance so I could find out about you and so there could be a reissue of your first record that's 32 years old now and that is a machine that kills music.

4. Andras Fox - Vibrate on Silent. Legit new cheeze-funk, so good

3. Total Control - Henge Beat. They had a new one in 2K14 that I didn't hear yet but this is the first from 2011. Usually I hate bands that sound like Joy Division but this one sounds more like the first New Order record except more urgent and less boring. Also I was pronouncing "Henge" like it was German, with a hard "g", but I think it's actually soft like in "Stonehenge", so.

2. Lazy Magnet - Some Jams. I got this from him one year, three tours, and two name changes ago and played it a lot this month cause I was psyched on the recent Xerome appearance in my town. This and Pure Psychic Zero represent the first fully formed statements he's made in this radical new style (post-techno?) pushing music to the limit this blows me away.

1. Television Ghost - Television Ghost. Got this, their first and turns eight this year, used at Bric-a-Brac based on the awesome cover and the fact that I vaguely recalled hearing the name. It's the sickest jams, reminded me of Swell Maps but uglier which is I guess why they get lots of Lubricated Goat comparisons. Dooky, catchy casio lines over angry guitar band.

[recordsarefun]

Exhausted.

Get it

[recordsarefun]

Some Shape.

Get it

Her voice hints at things but the wave carries the day

[recordsarefun]

Xerome.

Primitive Languages put it out and I heard it's in stock at Analog Underground so don't be a fool Jack, this here's two full hours of the undiluted shit

[recordsarefun]

Vibrate on Silent.

Get it

Like the cheesiest of 80s production music, endlessly farting bliss to your canal

[recordsarefun]

Television Ghost.

[recordsarefun]

Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome.

This Record is Fun (tm)

[recordsarefun]

Georges Moustaki (1974).

I put my notes in the photo but they're not too legible so tl;dr "This record is very douchey but it's got some lovely moments of prettiness"

[recordsarefun]

Henge Beat.

Get it

[recordsarefun]

Gita Pon Yeik.

Get it

[recordsarefun]

Armonico Hewa.

Get it

[recordsarefun]

Top ten listened to records, December 2014.

10. C. Ramchandra - Navrang

9. Nwokolobia Agu - Folk Songs from Nigeria with Love. Lovely and complex Nigerian choral music by a guy named Humphrey Nwokolobia Agu. There's almost nothing about him on the internet except a discogs for a different record, but his son is a Nigerian pop star named Obiwon.

8. Calliope's Children - Harvest. This record of a teen steel band from Chappauqua, NY is better than it seems like it should be. The steel band duets with an oboe on the two Bach selections to gorgeous effect, and side one closes with Scotland the Brave in collaboration with an actual bagpipe band which is like, as mind-scrambling as you think it is. Also the private-press style realtor sponsorship belies the fact that this came out on a real-ish label, Fretless.

7. Syna So Pro - Loop Talk Vol. 1: The Power of One; The Power of You

6. Clifford Jordan - In the World

5. Yola Fatoush - Thugs Intro, Dreamland Wakes

4. Deerhoof - La Isla Bonita

3. Alec Wilder: Sonata for Horn-Tuba-Piano; Poulenc: Elegie for Horn; Scriabin: Romance; Persichetti: Serenade No. 12 for Tuba. John Barrows (horn) and Harvey Phillips (tuba) are the featured performers on this beautiful horn and tuba record.

2. James Newton - Axum

1. Feedbacula - NOW

[recordsarefun]

Some Jams.

Hear other stuff by the same dude

[recordsarefun]

USA '13.

Get it

Crazy kids throw stoner bliss in the Smiths R.E.M. blender, toss in a smidge of punk and turn up the gain, I think people called this "grunge worshiping freaks" (or was that Weed?) anyway it ain't grunge and it's, improbably, shoegaze-ish and I compared it to bands I hate but I like it anyway. wut