Thing of the Day
GAY BEAST ARE COMING! CHILD ABUSE ARE COMING! SkinGraft things and…
January 8th 2011
That’s right, GAY BEAST have
a new album and they’re on there way to Europe... Now the bad news is,
no dates in the UK, just mainland Europe, the good news is they’ve
locked down a new album, it goes by the name of TO SMITHEREENS
and SkinGraft Records have it scheduled for a March 22nd release date.
You can grab a free download right now from the SkinGraft site. The
tour starts in Brussels on Jan 26th and carries on through mainland
Europe for most of February. The first five dates are with Child Abuse,
- blimey, those two bands together is almost too much of a
thought… full dates are on the Newsdesk page of the SkinGraft
site at www.skingraftrecords.com/news_desk.html You can download the excellent title track of the new album from the SkinGraft jukebox page - www.skingraftrecords.com/audio.html
- where you’ll find a whole load of other treats from some of the
finest bands of our times – Pre, Aids Wolf, Made In Mexico, Arab 
On
Radar… I don’t think I’ve ever not liked anything on SkinGraft, they
are just about the best label out there and if you haven’t explored the
sound of Koemjihakkei then you really should not wait until the year
ends to put that right, they got some Flying Luttenbachers on there,
there’s bag loads of brilliant stuff on there, just go get it and then
go buy some albums so the cat gets fed and they release more…
And GAY BEAST may not be coming to the UK but CHILD ABUSE
are…Never mind that name, they are seriously seriously
high-end progressive noise monsterists, who give the likes of
fellow New York avantists Zs, Lightning Bolt and Behold...The Arctopus
a run for their money. This is exciting news, and they're playing
London in the middle of a great bill put together by the good people at
Upset The Rhythm. Here’s the details, and some words on the event, for
it will be an event and not a mere gig (although a gig poster might be
mistaken for the plot points of a particularly lurid episode of
Eastenders):
DIVORCE
CHILD ABUSE
DEAD DAYS BEYOND HELP
Monday 24 January
The Victoria
451 Queensbridge Rd, Dalston, E8 3AS
8:00pm | £6 |
DIVORCE
were born in Glasgow through a frustration that their kinda music
wasn't getting heard in their city. Brought together through random
encounters, solid friendships and drunken obsessive discussions at
terrible parties, the four members who make up Divorce have no more of
an exacting agenda than just MAKE NOISE and MAKE IT GOOD. The end
result has been likened to a roughly grafted assemblage of no-wave punk
bands like Teenage Jesus and DNA, the squalling noise of Big Black and
Swans, and the rhythmically violent sounds of bands like AIDS Wolf and
Arab On Radar. Divorce have music released through Optimo, Merok, Milk
and Winning Sperm Party but are best experienced live, in a small
sweaty room, with all the ear-splitting volume and uninhibited audience
confrontation that goes with it. Bring it on!
www.myspace.com/puredivorced
CHILD ABUSE,
from New York City, bring together playfully wild keyboards, throbbed
bass stabs, stuttering piledriver percussion and demonic vocal fits.
Brutal, catchy, complex, dissonant grind. Child Abuse is the logical
result of an entire generation raised by Nintendo and overbearing,
Tipper Gore-admiring moms. "Reading is for people who don't vomit, and
Morbid Angel lives in my closet next to my porno!" the band seems to
shout with its avalanche of Casio squeals, death-metal percussion and
forgot-to-take-my-Thorazine howls. Child Abuse have several
records available now through Lovepump United, Zum and Rock Is
Hell.
www.soundsofchildabuse.com
www.myspace.com/childabuse
DEAD DAYS BEYOND HELP
are a dissonant and somewhat melancholic duo consisting of Alex Ward
and Jem Doulton. As the only constraints they acknowledge are the
limits of what can be achieved with one guitar and a drum kit, the
results can range from country-tinged simplicity through hyper-composed
intricacy to flat-out noise. The band have records available through
Copepod Records and a newly finished studio improv album in the can
awaiting release too.
www.myspace.com/deaddaysbeyondhelp
More details from www.upsettherhythm.co.uk/
Hang on, let us refresh you with some old Organ words about some of these people…
10th MAY 2010: CHILD ABUSE – Cut And Run
(Lovepump Unlimited) - The silence at the end is almost
deafening, to actually make it through the non-stop head-pecking storm
of Cut And Run and come out in one piece to the silence on the
other side, really is something, silence never quite sounded like
this... Where did the noise go? Did we all make it? Did anyone bale out
half way through? Are we all still here? Where is here? Where are we?
Did they challenge us to actually cut and run? “For far too long
Child Abuse have existed on the fringes of independent music, on Cut
And Run, the band’s 2nd full-length, Child Abuse have reached an apex
of weird” reads the promo blurb press release thing that landed here
with this crucial disc. This is a glorious set of hard-boiled noises
from New York, Child Abuse are far far more than just a jarring name,
the trio weld together awkwardly fluid sonic violence, angular noise,
obtuse death metal, molten grindcore, no-wave free jazz and a whole lot
more besides. Innovative, polarising, nah, how could anyone not like
this? Could it be that this is something akin to classic Hella, only a
little more hardboiled and a little more complex? Yes, really,
Cut And Run is that good, that challenging, that vital.
Child Abuse are a thrilling hardboiled ride of complex progressive
unorthodox convulsions, jazz for people who like extreme metal, prog
rock for those who need a little more, who need it on the brutally
bizarre, while still requiring depth, clarity and head-pecking musical
intelligence... for those who need their music to challenge just
a little bit more. Brilliant album, vital... www.myspace.com/childabuse or www.lpurecords.com
ALBUM REVIEW: 22nd Oct 2009 DEAD DAYS BEYOND HELP - Access Denied!
(Copepod) - We like lyrics you can get your teeth into, and these (of
the three tracks that have them) are intense, the man sounds like a
pressure-cooker about to explode...
'But he seemed such a nice, polite chap' say eyewitness after
London-based musician Alex Ward goes postal with an Uzi on the High
Street. 'It was so unexpected' says neighbour (identity withheld). "He
was always so cheerful".
With so many avant rock bands choosing to be completely instrumental
it's a real pleasure to have blasts of human emotion giving this music
life and purpose. Ward sounds and writes like a gutsy and much more
stressed out Peter Hammill: My nerves are not really all that bad, it's
just they / Feel like they've been ripped out of flesh and dipped in
salt / And left out twitching in the air...
A natural, warm, live sound, where the interplay between the drums and
guitar matters the most - Access Denied
sounds like it should be out on a label like Skin Graft Records, sounds
like those early 90s American gritty Steve Albini-produced underground
bands (Slint, Shellac, Colossamite, Sicbay etc kind of bands, even Arab
On Radar at times). And homegrown: good news for those of us
casting envious eyes at the rich avant-prog wealth across the Atlantic
and wondering where all the UK talent is. And there's a kind of
particular London dirt in there, a satisfying lost and insular
roughness that smells of damp rehearsal rooms and overheated amps and
paying three quid to see a brilliant band in a venue that has no
corporate lager sponsorship. It sounds like patched and crumbling East
London streets, of pressure and frustrations, sparks of beauty and
catharsis.
There's a lot of those twisted Voivod chords that make
Nought distinctive, and lest we forget, Alex was a very large part of
the late and missed Camp Blackfoot. Dead Days Beyond Help are easier on
the ear than Nought (what isn't?) by being packed with moody, varied
dynamics rather than being so unrelentingly unrelenting. It's reminding
me of why Camp Blackfoot was thought of so highly - ahead of their time
in many ways... although I think I'm liking DDBH more. There's input
from violin and cello on a couple of tracks; it's nicely mathy, in all
the right ways, textured, and subtle enough to bear lots of
listening. Uplifting at the end, on instrumental final track Doomed Forestaller - days without help, but maybe hope. - www.copepod.co.uk or www.myspace.com/deaddaysbeyondhelp
