Who has more nerve? The band that covers the Negative Approach song "Ready to Fight", a sarcastically psychedelic 15 minute rendition, while actually opening for a Negative Approach reunion show, or the label that opts to press and LP of that recording a couple months later? ...following such an absurd record with output from modern left-field extremists such as Drunkdriver, FNU Ronnies, The New Flesh and The Chickens can only really guarantee "solid gold status" amongst the elite in underbelly of punk.
And so following Fan Death Records has been a no-brainer and largely rewarding path to go down. Something about their work feels sincere, honest, amidst a plethora or "come and go" vendors, who hop on when the going seems good, and depart when they release it's mostly for the sake of the art. 20 releases, or so, in the first couple of years of operation is admirable to say the least. To say a bit more: most of them are legitimately well done and things that I personally do enjoy a lot, to sort of scenario that may or may not lead you to send a copy of your own bands recent record, as some sort of token "thank you".
Thank you for being ambitious, maintaining a quality and (more importantly) a level of integrity that can usually be lost early on. A "thank you" that comes from someone feeling like they've spotted someone who is doing this sort of project for the same reason they are (that is to say, "as I am"). A "thank you", that in this case, unfortunately made it's way back to my PO Box, after a seemingly drunk clerk at the Mesa, AZ main station assured me that she could figure out which Baltimore zip-code was needed, since my printing label had managed to cut that portion of the address off, somehow.
While I was skeptical of her ability to do this, seeing as Baltimore is probably going to have several zip codes, I am a mere peasant in that final stage of the parcel sending process, and we already were having our problems that day: 17 international packages, all of which being the victims of a three to five minute ordeal of having their "new fancy" customs forms that "we don't get here yet", mangled and misconstrued, eventually leading to the right portion on the bottom layer, which has no business remaining on the box itself (would it not be sticky on the back like the left side, if it was?), being fixed in place with copious amounts of masking tape.
I knew I was right, at the time. Paying for the postage again, as a "return to sender / undeliverable address" almost a month later was not really a victory that tasted so sweet, but at least it wasn't kept somewhere for a pseudo-eternity and then ultimately destroyed. That would be a shame, at least this way I know Fan Death has not received "People Problems", at least not from me, or for free.
"Normal Never Happened" is now a distant memory, playing about half an hour ago. I don't forget the song, what it sounded like or how it felt, but time had passed. "Distant". In this case, actually I mean quite the opposite. There is something universally familiar with this band, at least for me. It may have been a few paragraphs or weeks or months ago, but this still feels (and will feel) like something I have always known well.
When I first heard Broken Water, I was obsessed with the idea of them being this sludgy loud, basement take on a Rainer Maria type sound, and while I can still hear aspects of this personal belief on their LP on Night People, while spinning the b-side, "Faux King Vogue", I suppose it is a bit hard to veer to far off of what many others have had to say about this band: "Sonic Youth this, Unwound that, Shoegaze this, 90's that".
None of that discredits the fact that it's an incredibly good song, a melody that is addictive and begs to borrow M'Lady's Records use of the "double A-side" (and sometimes triple) when describing a new single. Yeah, it does sound like a Thurston fronted song from any one of many points in the past 30 years, but that takes nothing away from it's validity, at least not in my opinion.
Besides, that's the b-side. Obviously, this isn't the hit single from a new LP, and the second song is not a "throw away" b-side in the classic sense, but it is the second of two songs here, the first of which deserves much more of a diverse catalog reference.
"Normal Never Happened", while indeed may leech some of these same "tag" words, has a sound the sprawls. One may even offer the idea that is has a cross section from the Sympathy For The Record Industry world, as there's a bit of a garage feel at times (ala Mr. Airplane Man), portions of the dreamier 60's "girl-group" style, and some noisy riffs in the tail end that hint towards passionate sloppy surf-tinged Estrus bands.
Housed in sleeves which are both letter-pressed and sporadically paint-splattered, the aesthetics are in tune with what's inside. There's a lot going on in a short amount of time and space, and it feels like it's the result of an organic process, very similar to the functioning of the Fan Death label. While this is a bit more on the relaxed side of things (as far as Fan Death goes), in a lot of ways, this single embodies what the label is doing and is a perfect starting point for both them and Broken Water as well. ...and both are worth your time.
0 comments:
Post a Comment