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Misplaced Lens Cap
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2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
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@womeningrindcore
Agoraphobic Nosebleed
Kat Katz is a poet, painter, and is best known in metal circles as a vocalist in Agoraphobic Nosebleed. She joined the drum-machine driven grind project in 2007 and has also appeared on two Pig Destroyer records. ANb have slowed things a little, in a sludgy and perfectly heavy direction, and recently played their very first couple of live shows; perhaps we can hesitantly hope to catch her performance with our own eyes soon.
Closet Witch
Sick mathy grind outta Iowa, USA. Fronted by Mollie Piatetsky with a hoarse, harsh buzzsaw voice that is an awesome match for the rest of this noise. They have a demo and an EP that are sweet, check ‘em out (and send them to the PNW please). Thank you animearcade for the recommend! Bandcamp | Facebook
This list is an intervention, an interruption in the endless and self-perpetuating loop of betrayal in which we find ourselves mired. This list will not have the same fate as other lists: lists that guard the entrance of a decaying facade of communal space. This list is your finest opportunity.
What are your options in the face of a musician or community member being outed as an abuser, rapist, stalker? What do you do? What can you do? Please circulate widely.
helpful hints for writing about diversity in music
A couple of friends asked me for some tips as to how to address diversity in music without being accidentally tokenizing or erasing. We don’t have a great social vocabulary for such things; this is my effort to provide some genuinely helpful guidelines without being censorious or pointing fingers at people for doing the Wrong Thing.
1. AVOID REDUCTIONISM.
The whole idea behind celebrating musicians from lots of diverse backgrounds is that you get a lot of different perspectives, right? Plus, music is something that shouldn’t have barriers to entry based on social position. Diversity in any form is about leveling the playing field and about giving a spotlight to people who are routinely and systemically crowded out of it. Gender, race, sexuality, class, and ability are ASPECTS of an artist, something that may have shaped their relationship to the world and in turn the art they make. They shouldn’t be ignored, but they also shouldn’t be the only thing you notice about an artist.
The thing about marginalization is that it means that you don’t ever get to be the default when it comes to how you’re perceived. Your experiences aren’t universalized. You don’t get the kind of freedom and leeway with your work that people who aren’t marginalized get. Push back on that as a critic; find the human and universal in the art you’re writing about without ignoring the specific circumstances of the people who created it (which could be other things other than socially inhabitable identities).
2. START WITH THE MUSIC ITSELF AND WORK BACKWARDS TO THE PEOPLE. Sure, the people making the music give great context to the music you’re hearing, but they are not the sum total of it. If you’re doing a profile piece, by all means, start with the people involved, but if you’re doing a review, start with musical and lyrical analysis. Try not to compare artists to other artists who share particular identities and marginalizations who might not sound anything like them.
Music is an interesting form of art to write about because it is so intensely personal and the delineation of artist vs. art can be so incredibly blurry. Musicians can inhabit characters in one breath and say something deeply and personally true in another. With most film, the fictive element is very clear - film that blurs those lines must do so consciously. With most visual art and writing, the artist themself is not constantly physically present in the form of their work. But with music, even electronic music, it’s hard not to be consistently reminded of the person in the work, the person whose voice you are hearing, whose hands are pushing on buttons or holding down strings or hitting things with sticks. Be aware of that as you write.
3. “ALL-GIRL BAND” IS AN ANNOYING PHRASE.
Unless you are talking about a band of actual girls (female musicians under 18), this phrase comes off as incredibly patronizing and tokenizing. (You might want to ask rather than assume gender, too; this is a thorny thing but hey, gender is a mess.) Also, when every other band on the bill gets a sonic descriptor and you get “all girl,” as if “girl” was something that had a specific sound attached to it, that is deeply irritating. This happens with other identities, too, but this is the one I see the most often, and it has multiple levels to it, so I pulled it out as a particular example.
4. IF YOU FIND YOU’RE WRITING ABOUT ALL WHITE MEN, LOOK ELSEWHERE. It’s not that we don’t exist, it’s that we just might not be in the places you normally look.
5. FESTS AND COMPS BASED ON IDENTITY ARE GREAT, BUT THEY SHOULD BE A STARTING POINT. A wide range of representation in music is great, and fests and comps meant to highlight the work of marginalized people in music are terrific for that reason; they’re also great for smaller communities coming together and getting a chance to bond over a shared artistic experience.
But they shouldn’t be the place where efforts toward diversity in music end, and, as a journalist covering such offerings, it’s important to recognize that and to push for greater inclusion. It’s not enough for a label to do a Hardcore Comp (of all white guys) and then a Female-Fronted Hardcore Comp and then a Black and Latino Hardcore Comp. Why are they all separate? Ask those questions.
Hopefully this is helpful; I may continue to update this with tips and situations you may encounter often as they arise.
Yes! Great suggestions and pointers to keep in mind. Thank you.
do you know like a bunch of keys and stuff? like when ppl are playin n they're like it's in the key of A do you know that? do you feel like its really helpful to learn keys/scales?
I know them and yes I do think it’s important to know the fundamentals of your instrument, and we so many free resources I can only blame laziness when people skip out on this knowledge.
When I was younger and dumber I thought all that shit was for nerds and I didn’t need it. It’s really nice to be able to hear a song and know you can jump right in and play along though. It’s especially great to know how to describe your music to someone your playing with so you don’t have to fumble around and get it. It’s a language if you don’t learn the language you’re just a tourist.
except ‘laziness’ might just be true actual lack of resources/access to education about these things and who the fuck cares anyways. like seriously? ‘lazy’ is such a loaded word. helpful to learn these things: yes, essential: no. this is such an elite response that is probably a reason a lot of people don’t start bands/making music cause they hear this from dudes at guitar center WOW
^^^ Yes, thank you, ‘lazy’ is a bullshit, ableist word. It also obscures that learning and teaching are both WORK that require time and other resources. Everyone is different, and learns differently, and teaching yourself doesn’t work for everyone. I was able to teach myself to play guitar, but I needed a lot of help from patient teachers to learn the basics of just reading a piece of sheet music. And I was only able to do that because my parents encouraged me to pursue it and financially supported my taking lessons, playing music at school, and taking music courses in college.
Knowing theory helps me to organize how I think about music, which is helpful for me, and it also helps me to communicate. If a person wants that or thinks that that will be good for them as a musician, they should go for it. But it is absolutely not necessary and not necessarily a good thing. If you want to play music, the only thing that really matters is that you’re enjoying it.
Also fuck this ‘if you don’t learn the language you’re just a tourist’ bullshit. If you’re getting up every day and playing and/or writing or practicing or whatever, you’re doing it, you’re not a tourist, so long as you’re trying you’re legit.
Cretin
Female-fronted extreme music, coming at you out of the Bay Area and worshipping the early days of grind and death metal. (Think Repulsion, Napalm Death, Carcass.) The band released their first full-length Freakery in 2006 and went on hiatus in 2008, in part so founding member Marissa Martinez-Hoadley could come into her newly-revealed gender identity. Marissa performs lead vocals and rhythm guitar, while Elizabeth (Liz) Schall of Dreaming Dead has played lead guitar since joining in 2013. Their 2nd LP Stranger was released in 2014. Bandcamp | Facebook
Beyond stoked for this
Fuck the Facts
Fuck The Facts started in 1998 in Ottawa, ON as a recording project, eventually evolving into a fully-formed band in 2001, which Mel Mongeon joined in 2002. They play their own brand of technical and experiemental grindcore that has always been hard to pin down, and is accompanied by Mel's raw and vicious vocals. Aside from being a very talented vocalist, Mel is a visual artist who has done much of the band's artwork, as well as a mom who performed when she was six months pregnant. Fuck yeah.
Bandcamp | Facebook
+HIRS+
I honestly don't know if I can do this band justice in a paragraph or at all.
In your face, queer, trans, satanic thrashy grindcore two-piece from Philadelphia. The kind of band we need more of. Hates: bros, cops, god, the gender binary Loves: rainbows, skulls, audio samples, glitter Web | Bandcamp | Facebook | Tumblr
Sete Star Sept
Sete Star Sept are an insane and harsh-as-fuck noisegrind two-piece from Tokyo who started in 2004. They have toured all over the world and have a split-heavy discography as long as your arm. Kae growls over her distorted Jazz Bass like a dismembered zombie cat out of hell, and performs like it too. Like I said, harsh as fuck.
Web | Facebook | Soundcloud
ALL GRRRL ASSAULT Kayla Phillips of Bleed the Pigs ( bleedthepigs ) "What is it about a black girl doing the same shit white men do that makes them feel like it is too much? How am I the only one being labelled as too aggressive in a genre that is all about aggression?"
Lycanthropy
Female-fronted grindcore from Czech Republic. Established in 2000, Lycanthropy have played hundred of shows and put out a pile of records and splits. Zdisha brutally screams and shrieks over fastcore-influenced grind with hardcore-esque male back vocals. Any punk with a pulse should want to mosh to this.
Flagitious Idiosyncrasy in the Dilapidation
You heard it here last, folks. Flagitious Idiosyncrasy in the Dilapidation are an all-female grindcore band from Tokyo. Since their start in 2002 they've released a handful of demos and records including a split with Insect Warfare. Dig the shrieking, blasting, growling assault that is FID. Web | Facebook
I also got this Rape Revenge tattoo because why not?
Body Betrayal
Rough and heavy grinding punk to crush your ideas of queercore into pieces. I missed their Vancouver show last year (because I'm a total idiot) but their EP Soft Cage deserves much rotation. There is an articulate, frantic (almost Nomeansno-esque) intensity to their sound that mixes very well with frontperson Frances' coarse yet steady vocals. I can't wait to see what else this kickass cistem-smashing band has in store for the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Check them out NOW.
Bandcamp | Tumblr | Facebook
Cloud Rat
Punk has never been about one particular sound, though I feel like nowadays punk encapsulates more styles and ideas than ever. Michigan's Cloud Rat is an excellent example of that, and more on their new album Moksha than ever. Madison's low and often articulate vocal style carries lyrics that are passionate, honest and dark, over equally heavy grindcore steeped in melody and emotion. Hardworking female-fronted 3-piece grind that strays from any formula. Support this DIY band next time they come to your city.
Bandcamp | Blogspot | Facebook
Photo by Degross Punk Photography
Phobia
Grindcore mainstay Phobia formed in 1990. If you aren't familiar, you probably should be. Sonically Phobia have stayed true to their grind-by-way-of-anarcho-punk roots, while touring with bands that span the spectrum from powerviolence to crust to melodic death metal. Cece Loessin, aka CC Grind, joined in 2010 as a live 2nd guitarist and eventually joined full-time. She also plays in grrrl-powered punk rock outfit So Unloved, and runs a blog called The Heart Shaped Vegan. Cece played on the most recent Phobia album, Remnants of Filth.
Bandcamp | Facebook
Photo by Beau Patrick Coulon
