BEST REASON TO WRITE A FUCKIN’ RECORD REVIEW IN 2014…
SCRABBLED Welcome To Pig City cassette (Virtual Cool, Australia)
To discover such an insanely melted nexus where the Vaselines, Whines and Velvet Underground meet is to unspool this 8 song cassette from end to end into the promise of a breakdancing dawn. Imagine a grown man invoking comparisons to the Velvet Underground in this day and age, right? But Scrabbled’s storytelling pop squall adheres to such an internally consistent point of no return, it really can’t be helped. The impact of the violin leaves scarring, plus the fe/male tongue thrust is consensual and compelling, as one might imagine it might be given the collective of Muura, Per Purpose, X Wave, Bent and Gravel Samwidge members who allegedly play all the parts. (There’re additional source bands listed on the bandcamp page, but the whole spiel is impenetrable to a northern hemi dope like me. Maybe TEAM UGLY’s Michael McClelland can help us figure it out.) If I was ever gonna spend $37 USD on international shipping rates for a pinkprint cassette this would be it, but it’s “sold out” - thankfully - and besides, that’s why Sterling Morrison invented the internet. Download available 24/7 from Virtual Cool.
This year, Fuckin’ Record Reviews will cheer our heroes day by day, to see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly and follow thee more nearly, day by day.
We were the very last media entity in 2013 to publish a Best Of list, with our top 97 listenables tapped out on a typewriter and cut n’ pasted in the early hours of 12/31/13. Looked great though, so we’ll surely do it again on 12/31/14…
…but we’ll also spill these out day by day for the remainder of 2014. There will no particular order to the FRR Best Of action, cuz that’s juvenile and besides, we’re saving such juvenelia for the Top 10. The combustibles to be listed are all so fuckin’ good however… truly the best of times during the worst of times.
(psst: These Best Of 2014 entries ain’t exactly full fledged fuckin’ record reviews…we’re saving those for the zine - remember that?)