Where were we? Asked that the time before last time, do we need a new editorial yet? Enough of that and on with this and the music and the what we said last time or last week or last year or many years ago. You’ve read all this already, never mind the damn editorial, cut to the chase and never mind the biscuits or the catfish, jump down past this bit, who needs a damn editorial? Let the actual music do the actual walking and the actual talking. Exact same thing again, another five (or so) slices of musical things that have passed our way recently and however you like to slice it and of course it was the price of apples and here comes the intro, Don’t be flippant she said, how could it ever be flippant? I can’t remember why she said that now, in one ear, out the other, we have a bad attitude here apparently, no respect for those who work in the music industry, the the more important that the music music PR people! No poop Sherlock, have you only jsut workedthat one out?

Five? There’s something rather compelling about five. Cross-pollination? Five more? Is there another way? A better way? A cure for pulling flying rabbits out of the clouds? Is there a rhyme? Is there a reason? Was there ever a reason? What do reasons make? Five more? Snake oil? Everything must go and no, we never do and the proof of the pudding is in that proof reading. When we started this thing, oh never mind, it doesn’t matter why we started this damn thing and like we asked last time, does anyone bother reading the editorial? Does anyone ever actually look down the rabbit hole or is it all just method acting? We do really try to listen to everything that comes in, we do it so you don’t have to, we are very (very) very very picky about what we actually post on these fractured pages or about what gets played on the radio or indeed what we hang in a gallery. Cut to the chase, never mind the editorial, there’s loads of music further down the page, well five or so pieces of music that have come our way in the last few days and what’s Wordsworth? Just the basic facts and links and those sounds (and visuals), that’s surely all you need…

Here we go, five more slices of music that have recently come our way, this time we start down in Australia…

1: Party Dozen are doing new things, last seen doing things with Nick Cave in our local park (they were on the bill at Victoria Park on that day). The Big Man Upstairs is the second single from Party Dozen’s 4th album Crime In Australia, out September 6th 2024, are they sounding a little more refined this time? Well on this one track they might be and that is no bad thing, but there’s another slice of their new album up on Bandcamp that has all that trademark menace… We like Party Dozen!

2: J.R.C.G – Where we’re we? Away with the flowers, one more sleep until the Tories have gone? Music? You want more music? This is Dogear by J.R.C.G. From the album Grim Iconic…(Sadistic Mantra), out on Sub Pop Records on August 2nd.

There’s a bit more of the album here on the Bandcamp thing, kind of like the menace of it all so far, the undercurrents. Here’s some words someone else wrote, I really don’t have time today…

“To experience Justin R. Cruz Gallego’s pulverizing Sub Pop debut is to get burned down to ashes and burst forth, born anew. Grim Iconic…(Sadistic Mantra), the Tacoma-based artist’s second album, is driven by opposing forces: noisy abstractions and tightly structured beats, anguish and dissolution at the outside world and empowerment within, apathy and catharsis. Grim Iconic…(Sadistic Mantra) weds scouring electronics to hooky songs and Gallego’s powerful drumming in a way that feels visceral and new. It’s his most personal statement to date, at once playful and intent, driven and combustible, total f**king chaos mixed into glints of broken-glass beauty.

Born in Tucson, Arizona, Gallego experienced culture shock as a child after relocating to the frigid climes of the Pacific Northwest. He found solace in the Seattle punk scene centered around Iron Lung Records and has since remained a fixture in the underground community.

“I see this record as first and foremost a musical statement,” Gallego says. “I grew up in punk and DIY subcultures, but before that I had Latin music playing in the background through my childhood and every phase of adolescence. It was surprisingly natural to incorporate. I realized I wanted to go deeper into these rhythms. I wanted to make a record that felt as experimental as much as it felt from the perspective of a Latino. When I got a glimmer of that possibility, it felt exciting.”

“Drummy” launches J.R.C.G. beyond the sound of the project’s 2021 debut, Ajo Sunshine, marrying that album’s noisy experimentalism to a newfound focus on rhythm. “It was the first song I wrote for Grim Iconic. To me, it’s the very next scene after the last album closes. ‘Drummy’ married the two approaches and pushed it into this next sequence of songs.” Fascinating amalgams of visceral rhythms and incandescent noise permeate Grim Iconic… (Sadistic Mantra), from the looping hand drums of “34” to the Funhouse-meets-Tropicália blasts of “World i.” It all embraces a sense of freedom while facing modernism.

“Dogear” is a face-melting party starter that sounds like someone forced Talking Heads and Rudimentary Peni to share a practice space. “I wanted a song that felt playful in the way it attempted to be dissonant without taking itself too seriously,” Gallego says. “Cholla Beat” is even more ambitious, an anthemic mix of WAR and Wire led by unruly synthesizers spiraling down a labyrinth of production.

Gallego’s influences for the album are vast, ranging from British documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis to electric Miles Davis to audio miscreants like Demdike Stare and Oneohtrix Point Never. But it’s Gallego’s assured sonic vision that resounds the loudest. And, while J.R.C.G. is a solo project, conceived and executed primarily in Gallego’s home studio, he found strength in opening the project to others, starting with Seth Manchester as co-producer. Manchester’s penchant for bone-rattling frequencies, as seen in his production work with The Body, Battles, and Mdou Moctar, made him a natural fit for Gallego. Together, they retained the intimacy of Gallego’s home recordings while taking advantage of the hi-fi stylings of his Machines With Magnets Studio in Rhode Island. The closing song, “World i,” offers a glimpse into the live experience of Grim Iconic…(Sadistic Mantra), with upwards of seven band members blasting off. The album features a fascinating mix of supporting players, many of whom cycle through J.R.C.G.’s live lineup: Morgan Henderson (The Blood Brothers, Fleet Foxes), Jason Clackley (Dreamdecay, The Exquisites), Jon Scheid (Dreamdecay, U Sco), Erica Miller (Casual Hex, Big Bite), Veronica Dye (Terminator) Phil Cleary (U Sco), and Alex Gaziano (Dreamdecay, Kidcrash, Science Amplification).

Taken as a whole, G.I.S.M. is a whirlwind of sound, pummeling, and cleansing. It’s a sweaty, thrilling aural adventure and, like a great basement show, it’ll leave you breathless, exhausted, and wanting to repeat it all over again. As any good mantra should”. 

3: Oxbow – We haven’t really been keeping up with the Love Holiday videos, we did cover Oxbow rather a lot in their earlier days (and play them on the radio) here’s the last of the Love Holiday video (do we still call them videos? Films maybe, this one beautifully directed by John David Levy). You can watch all ten films here

Eugene says of the video, “Insofar as possible this is a tip of the hat to my favourite movie of all time, The Servant, directed by Joseph Losey. At least lyrically it tapped into the same mordant vein that makes this almost a perfect capstone for a meditation on love.”

Niko goes in-depth on how the song and video came to be, “We moved into an old house in San Francisco in 1999 and I bought a $100 piano on half-price day at Salvation Army, put it in the garage under the living space, and I think the first time I sat down to play it out came what became “All Gone.” Something intensely sad had happened in that room, as I came to feel it, and found its way into the music.

Eugene and I first performed a version of the song at a tiny bar with a dirt floor up on the side of a hill in Lyon, France. I used to play it before family dinners at my sister’s house with my mother and father there. Now my parents are gone, as is my first marriage. Such is life.

The first time we played it on tour, I closed my eyes and saw the faces of my children above me like cherubim, biting my tongue to stop the tears. Listening to “All Gone” on the test pressing for Love’s Holiday I found myself sobbing three separate times. Unable to approve the test for days, I just couldn’t get through it.

What the hell is all that? Why so sad? I have no idea.

Thank you for taking the journey, now completed, of Love’s Holiday videos with us. Thanks to the extraordinary director John Levy.”

Shall we have another one? Why not…

4: Friendship Commanders – Outlive You (Steve Albini Mix) from the forthcoming re-release of Bill, featuring the previously unused Steve Albini mixes of the album. Bill – The Steve Albini Mixes releases on July 22nd. More about under the film. It all rather speaks for itself really

“In late 2017, Nashville-based heavy rock duo Friendship Commanders set up shop at Electrical Audio in Chicago to make their second album, BILL, with Steve Albini. The result of their week-long collaboration was a thirteen-track body of work about change, grief, and the ever-elusive idea of community. Tracked entirely to tape, BILL bridges the stylistic gap between the band’s punk/hardcore beginnings and the sludge/grunge metal sound of their later releases, 2020’s HOLD ON TO YOURSELF EP and 2023’s MASS album. The version of BILL that was released on October 5th, 2018, was mixed by FC drummer, Jerry Roe. But the original mixes were done by Steve Albini himself. Like the recordings, those mixes are analog, performed live in the studio. About the mixes, FC songwriter, guitarist, and primary vocalist Buick Audra says:

“We always planned on releasing the Albini mixes. Always. But we kept writing and releasing new work and the right moment never seemed to present itself. We didn’t imagine that Steve would ever pass. It was a joy to make this record with him, and his mixes are reflective of the loud, lovely time we all had together. They’re guitar-forward, angular, and dynamic. And now I guess it’s time to share them. We’ll miss Steve for the rest of our lives but feel immense gratitude that we had this experience together—and that we have this work to show for it. The album was written about complicated grief, but losing Steve has given way to clean, uncomplicated grief. So, this release feels different this time around. More loving. More pure. I’m so happy to be able to share about what it was like to work with Steve, especially as a woman in music. He cultivated a welcoming, balanced studio culture that I very much needed at that point in my career, in my story. He was the first tracking engineer to encounter us as a band and treat me like I mattered, like I was the songwriter. It changed my life.”

The full album, BILL – The Steve Albini Mixes, will be released on July 22nd, which would have been Albini’s 62nd birthday. In advance of the full collection, the band have chosen to release one track as a single, “Outlive You – Steve Albini Mix.” The reason for that is simple: it was Albini’s favorite. Buick Audra says:

“Steve told me that he related to the message of this song—a moving moment for me as a songwriter and lifelong fan of his music. I think you can hear that he favored this one by the way he mixed it. The amp sound at the beginning of the track makes my eyes water now. I love that he chose to leave it in there. And we didn’t release this as a single the first time around; it deserves its moment.”

“Outlive You – Steve Albini Mix” is a song about fearing the death of someone you love. The sentiment of “I don’t wanna outlive you” is one known by many, regardless of the specifics. It was written about a friend whose addictions had become visible from a distance, and which Buick Audra saw as potentially fatal. On an album about navigating the myriad difficulties attached to loving other people, it serves as an earnest plea to stay alive. The song bears new, sobering weight today, and yet the recording remains vital and propulsive.

As an album, BILL – The Steve Albini Mixes journeys through stages of mourning on songs like “Horrify,” “What You Ravage,” “Charade,” and “Eulogy Envy”; discovers resilience and defiance on songs like “Saw and Heard,” “Of the We,” “Resolution of the Wants,” and “In the Afterthoughts”; and calls for solidarity in songs like “Women to the Front” and “Desperately Seeking.” The album opens with “Your Fear Is Showing,” a song punching back at the fear that tries to trick one into smallness and self-defeat. Written in the wake of several life transitions and friendship failures, the collection lays bare what it is to be a human navigating loss while trying not to lose oneself altogether.

The only of the band’s albums so far to have had its basic tracks performed live to tape, Steve Albini’s contributions to BILL were many. As the aural documentarian that he was, he captured FC’s sonic leanings at the time as well as the moods of the music. To the surprise of the band members, he acted as co-producer of the album, getting particularly involved in vocals and guitar overdubs. FC happily welcomed his suggestions. Of working with Steve, Jerry Roe says:

“I don’t know if I’ve felt or experienced a more welcoming collaborative environment than working with Steve at Electrical. He kept it fun, he kept it warm and light, he kept it moving, and he helped me to recalibrate what I should prioritize and value about the process of making music. I feel like anyone who’s making good work should get the chance to experience that on a human and creative level, and I can’t believe that it’s over. Listening to these mixes, I hear that he saw us and interpreted the music for exactly what it was, and I think these mixes are probably the definitive way to experience this body of work. So glad to have known him and worked with him.”

In one of his last emails to Buick and Jerry, Steve wrote, “Stay safe, hang on, don’t quit.” They offer his mixes of their album in the spirit of his kind, fortifying words. They are grateful to have been part of his legacy of music, and to have had him be part of theirs. They can think of no better way to honour their late collaborator and friend than with loud music. Long live”.

Here’s the Bandcamp

5: Geneva Jacuzzi – Art is Dangerous, but then most of really isn’t that dangerous is it, kind of like the bite of this single. Art is a serious thing, this is the new single and video off of Geneva Jacuzzis forthcoming album Triple Fire, out August 25th. Did I just see Ron Athey in the video?

“This video is about artists… of all different mediums. Musicians, performance artists, painters, filmmakers, photographers, writers, video artists. The community I come from is quite special and full of incredible friends and people who motivate me. I’m a solo artist but I cherish my community of people who inspire me and wanted to share this debut with everyone.” – Geneva Jacuzzi

“Today Los Angeles-based multimedia artist Geneva Jacuzzi announces Triple Fire, her third full-length and first since signing with Dais Records, due for release August 23rd, 2024. The announcement is accompanied by the scorching lead single “Art Is Dangerous” which comes with an equally arresting yet celebratory video that Geneva created and stars in (alongside Peter Kalisch and Byron Adams), additionally featuring numerous cameos from a variety of artists in her orbit, including: Weyes Blood, Jae Matthews (Boy Harsher), Mac DeMarco, Drab Majesty, Ian Svenonius, Ron Athey, King Woman, Seth Bogart, Twin Shadow, Izzy Glaudini (Automatic), John Carroll Kirby, Patriarchy, Sextile, Riki, Dynasty Handbag, Tempers, Kontravoid, Cooper B Handy, Chris Coady, Iggy Gonzalez, Nick Aguayo, Nour Mobarak, Josh da Costa, Donzi, Romy (Romy Hoffman), Diva Dompe, Toucan, Thalia Mavros, Nedda Afsari, Skylar Kaplan, JJ Stratford, Mira Billote (White Magic), Cate Kennan, Isabella Behraven, Mike Long, Renee Clark, Emily Anderson, Roderick Edens, Andrew Briggs”

More in a bit, here’s the Bandcamp

And talking of Art, tomorrow, under the Westway, well tomorrow if you’re reading this today… ORGAN PREVIEW: The Art Car Boot Fair joins Low Life for a Way Art West party by the Westway over in West London, we’re promised a post election comedown or dance up or art attack or something like that, hopefully we’ve voted them out by then…