Discover Top Posts Tagged with #r-zac

I'm making up for a long-overdue (now found) tag from @rivetgoth and here is the original receipt!

As many of you read, I fought through seasonal depression, and my music quotient and habits have gone up again. That’s something I needed back. I’m shifting into connoisseur mode and listing (a diverse range of) 10 albums I recently listened to.I don’t do this like I used to, so you’re all in for a real treat. And if you behave, I might do more.

# 1: Mercy Girl Closer. I prefer my synthwave to be all seriousness. No games, no fun, no gimmicks. No doubt why Mercy Girl sit at the top of this list. They have that sinister, deeply seductive quality like Balvanera, Boy Harsher, and Ratpajama before them. All five songs they released (now collected here) hit, and they bring an intense energy not many can deliver. All in.

# 2: Cashier The Weight. High-flying, electrically-surged shoegaze that’s not afraid to get their own sound dirty. Kylie Gaspard’s vocal register on the upbeat “Part From Me” along with her and Joseph Perillo’s drag-and-pull guitar riffs help make that track the crown jewel of the album.

# 3: SDH Rider. I forgot to mention this duo when talking about serious synthwave acts. Please send Andrea Perez and Sergei Alejandre my apologies. It didn’t take long for them to follow up Fake Is Real with this newest outing. I can find you at least five tracks that are bonafide replays. Rider is that damn good that I recommended this to @tewz.

# 4: Fib Heavy Lifting. Here’s nine reasons that describe perfectly how today’s post-punk / art-rock / d.i.y. (whatever you call it) should be; art concept included. It’s been like that for as long as I was into this genre or style of sound via my former colleagues at my radio station; and I’m happy Fib continues that tradition.

# 5: Das Nest self-titled. Lord, how I love Diat and Clock Of Time. You had me fooled that this was another one of vocalist Chris Onton’s projects. It closely sounds like him, but it’s not. Rather, there are some people comparing this as one of Killing Joke’s lost albums (if there were such a thing, one can hope!) based on riffs alone. Still, this is one of many albums I feel that capture that d.i.y. spirit. Hear “Legion Of Shadows”, “Noise Of Time”, and “New Normal” and you’ll know this flies right off.

# 6: Resolution 88 Vortex. What?! A ‘24 jazz album that sounds like it was made in the mid-Seventies? If so, then this is one hell of a tribute to that era. My cut-off is ‘82 and that would say a lot. A fellow dee-jay from my station played “Final Approach” and immediately I could’ve swore that was the grand-daughter of Kool & The Gang’s “Summer Madness”. Vortex stayed with me since that one cold January day where I up and drove out to Buddha Belly Records and it’s never left me since.

# 7: R-Zac Trailer Trax. Without Beastie Boys’ Mike D introducing us to Alec Empire, none of us in the states would be breakbeat fans from the get-go. That’s a hill I’ll fucking die on. He’s what got me into this mess of jungle, gabber, speedcore, and acid in the first place. R-Zac happened around the time when breakbeat emerged, and Trailer Trax shows it. It’s an endless endurance mode of all-out ultra high-speed sonic warfare that just keeps going when you no longer can’t. “Dance To The Leader” gives me Not Breathing’s “Emprov Aceed Garbosh” feels, along with the usual police-state vibes scattered all throughout. It’s a heavy stomper, I’ll say that.

# 8: Witch Trials, The self-titled. Wow. No shit when you’re told that this is undisputably Jello Biafra’s creepiest moment. It’s evident beyond a shadow of a doubt once you hear “Trapped In The Playground”, and Eric Boucher stops short at all-time stalkerish and disturbing levels. Or, “The Taser”, pre-dating his political spoken-word albums with a sinister take on a then-new police weapon. What else is he doing here? Is he also holding celebratory synthpunk sermon get-downs (“Meat Beat”), too? It’s an unavoidable oddball curiosity that’s interesting enough to wonder where this post-Dead Kennedy’s UK tour project stands. Industrial, maybe? You’d be right. After all, he did attend Throbbing Gristle’s final show at his hometown’s Kezar Pavilion.

# 9. Exit Electronics I'm Your Beggar. Enter Justin Broadrick’s newest solo project, where pulsating low-end rumbles verges into hang over rhythmic noise to shit-your-pants levels. Wake up in a city totally obliterated beyond recognition to post-Judgment Day levels, and confront Broadrick's totally hellish screams that usher in The New Beginning. Invasions don’t wait for anything. They just go as planned and keep going with no regard for human safety.

#10: Conflict Increase The Pressure. 29 tracks at under an hour, but it feels like forever when you’re listening to the UK ‘06 re-issue that may be one of the busiest and hardest-working (and –fought) punk documents out there.

Not calling on anyone to do this, but please do. Play at your own risk!