I Dischi Del Barone: Summer 2018
Matthias at I Dischi Del Barone has had a world-beating string of releases these past few months, five limited-to-200 singles with hand-glued artwork and hand-stamped labels. A summer of a labor of love for Mr. IDDB in Sweden, no doubt. Every one’s worth the steadily increasing price of admission and custom-built for decreasing attention spans. Take a look under the microscope.
The Dead C, “On the Outbreak of Civil War/Good Consul Is Punished": This is the only one already outta print from the label, and it’s because people seem to understand that the Dead C is getting better with age. Bruce Russell says so himself on the press release. The A-side sounds like the band disappeared while playing the coda to a song, an ominous lead-in for the walloping “Good Consul Is Punished,” which is about as aggressive as the Dead C’s ever sounded. Drums pound through sheets of guitar noise, advancing and receding until the track unceremoniously cuts out. Maybe it should’ve been IDDB’s first 12″ but I’m happy to keep flipping this teaser all day. (Fusetron has some copies left.)
Leda, “Japanese Key/The Silent Contest”: Leda, née Sofie Herner, is one of the more interesting artists from Sweden right now, both as a solo artist, one-half of Neutral and who knows how many other units. This new 7″ is a turn towards more electronic tendencies, though the end of the plodding “Japanese Key” features something that definitely could be a guitar piling on the dread. The unnaturally slow gait of the song is accompanied by half-buried spoken word vocals, the surrounding elements ratcheting up the tension as the voice stays calm. “The Silent Contest” utilizes waves of slow-breathing static that increase in size and volume, nearly succeeding in burying Herner’s quietly powerful vocals. Stunning.
Maxine Funke, Eternity: Maxine Funke’s intricate and intensely personal folk songs are like hand-cut doilies with fresh edges, fragile and raw and capable of nicks just as delicate. This 7″ features three songs and a little sound experiment in “Sandhopper.” The short format suits her, as sometimes her songs can get lost when piled 15+ high on an LP. This whole 7″ hits you right in the chest, short vignettes full of gorgeous imagery and laced with melancholy, but the two tracks on the B-side are my favorites. The end of “Nicest Thing” (”Anyway, I just called to say/the zucchini in the cake was the nicest thing”) is one of her best so-sad-it’s-funny or vice-versa lines, catching herself spilling her observations of the day to a disinterested silence on the other end, and quickly putting a cork in it. And closing track “Make That Dream”’s vaguely familiar melody and resigned, brave tone oughta silence any size room, crowded or otherwise.
Midnight Mines, “Stations/Radio Dub”: I came around late to Midnight Mines, stumbling upon We Are the Primitives of a New Era and working backwards through the two members’ solo tapes and finally succumbing to “Accattone.” On recent releases, the band has been playing more with dub and noise, much to my delight, but “Stations” is a sort of return to If You Can’t Find a Partner form, a totally raucous jammer with doomsday vocals and one of the best guitar lines of the year. You really oughta hear it. May it become an anthem for the disillusioned youth to dance and make out to. The flip, “Radio Dub,” is exactly what it sounds like: a dubby, water-logged version of the A-side, its brilliance split up into a funhouse number of warped reflections. No need to ever file this one away.
Fåglar I Bur, s/t: New-to-me, and maybe new in general, duo outta Gothenburg playing with snippets of industrial, coldwave and minimal synth on their self-titled 7″. You know exactly what you’re getting into when those words are thrown around, but Fåglar I Bur still bring the heat. All the pounding bass, snapping electronic snares and sheets of noise never coalesce into a beat on “Platt,” Felicia Lindgren’s vocals speak-shouted to keep things from even approaching comfort. Following the brief-but-effective A-side is “Öppen Inbjudan,” the cold ride home on some dark and empty streets, spoken vocals and sighing keyboards always heard around the next corner but never seen.
I Dischi Del Barone releases tend to exist solely in the physical world, and most of what’s mentioned above can be bought directly from the label. Fusetron has some older titles, while I’ve been going to Careful Catalog for the newer titles. Matthias has also been putting out the excellent, enthusiastic Fördämning zine the past few years as well. Last month unfortunately saw the release of the 15th and final Fördämning issue. Again, Fusetron’s got a lot of the older issues, and Careful Catalog has the more recent ones.
