12XU Punk | Hardcore 14 Items

"At the very dawn of the 90s, Love Child's debut 7” made a splash on the burgeoning scene of shambolic bands and lo-fi recordings. Back then, they were mentioned in the same breath as Pavement, Sebadoh, or Beat Happening. But Love Child’s two great albums and sparkling singles have become the stuff of record collectors, unavailable vis streaming and out of print, until now. Never Meant to Be: 1988-1993 pulls from these releases and some unreleased radio sessions, unearthing a trove of lost gems by a band that could be the bestof all of the 90s buried treasures. Culled from their smashing debut 7-inch, their two full-length albums, another great single and some unreleased radio sets (including a Peel Session), Never Meant To Be has catchy hooks, gritty noise, sneakily-deft playing, brainy but blunt lyrics, and lots of other awesome stuff. Love Child were part of lo-fi’s beginnings, but also had the NYC pedigree to absorb predecessors like the Velvet Underground, the Voidoids and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. (Their swirl of brightness, brains, and brawn led Byron Coley to liken them to a fantasy VU made up of Moe Tucker, Doug Yule, and Angus MacLise). Will Baum started Love Child while a student at Vassar College, bringing on classmates Rebecca Odes and Alan Licht. At first, Baum wrote the majority of the songs, bringing a Modern Lovers-like garage-pop attack to the band’s 19-song whirlwind debut album Okay? (Homestead, 1991) But Odes and Licht contributed songs as well, each with a distinct sonic fingerprint (One fan, Kurt Cobain, allegedly predicted Love Child would become the Fleetwood Mac of the 90s). All three members were happy to trade roles and instruments from song to song, but they also had some specific chops. Licht was a bit of a guitar prodigy, having taught himself how to tap like Eddie Van Halen, but versed enough in punk to know simplicity could be just as powerful. Odes’ bellowing bass was equally prominent, and her vocals could veer quickly from sweet to snarling, like Kim Deal or Georgia Hubley with a jagged edge. Take 'Asking for It' (taken here from a 1992 Peel Session), whose righteous slam makes it a proto-riot-grrrl anthem. Not long after Okay?, Baum left, replaced by drummer Brendan O’Malley. Love Child’s sound evolved too, toward a dronier zone not far from the bubbling haze of then-nascent shoegazers like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive. On their next album Witchcraft (Homestead, 1992), smart hooks stretched into deeper ruminations, without any loss of brashness. 'Stumbling Block' turned a riff into a minimalist mantra, while 'Wait and See' took two melodies–one sung by Licht, one by Odes–and weaved them into the band’s most hypnotic moment on record. Love Child didn’t last long past Witchcraft, though it's not 100% sure that they're fully done (Alan and Rebecca have been rumored to be playing together again). But until that comeback emerges, Never Meant To Be should satisfy fans and newcomers for a long time."—Marc Masters

Winged Wheel is made up of four musicians whose worlds have intersected for years without them ever all being in the same room. Cory Plump (Spray Paint, Expensive Shit), Whitney Johnson (Matchess, Damiana), Fred Thomas (Tyvek, Idle Ray), and Matthew Rolin (Powers/Rolin Duo, solo) have been longtime participants in various d.i.y. communities, crossing each others’ paths through shared gigs, working on releases, or taking the stage at Cory's small upstate NY bar. Each player has developed their own personal practice of improvisation and home-recording, and Winged Wheel began by chance when Cory asked Fred to send over some rawly-recorded drum loops to jam over. Cory tracked rangy guitar and bass parts over these repetitive loops and songs slowly started taking shape. Matthew's guitar layers took these foundations to a whole new level, and Whitney's submerged vocal tracks solidified everything, elevating the project from a soup of partially formed ideas into something intelligible. The entire album was written, recorded, and mixed in remote collaboration, eventually turning into a balancing act of precisely arranging sonic details and maintaining the formless excitement the music began as. This paradoxical process can be heard in the final form of the album, a continuous zone that manages to be strange and amorphous while still carving out space for four distinctive musical personalities. It’s a sound that hovers and stumbles as often as it takes declarative turns in unexpected directions, the circles getting smaller the closer you zoom in.

Gram Parsons coined the phrase ‘Cosmic American Music’ to describe the synthesis of country, blues, rock and soul that he traded in. Sheridan Frances ‘francie’ Medosch wouldn’t be born for another 28 years after Parsons’ 1973 death, but that Cosmic American sound was waiting for her all the same. On Big Fall, she embraces it like an old friend. In 2018, at the age of 17, Medosch put out her debut Florry album Brown Bunny (Sister Polygon)… During the pandemic, she began writing again. Her headspace had changed a lot. She was much happier and embraced “absurdist existentialism”—“where you realise that nothing really has any meaning, and that it’s pretty funny that we’re here at all.” She was also bored of indie rock, and for her new songs she looked towards her upbringing among country and folk music, and her fascination with Parsons’ Cosmic American Music…”- Mia Hughes

After a six-year absence, The Dead Space returns with Chlorine Sleep. Recorded days before their breakup in 2015, this album marks a turning point, both the trio of Quin Galavis, Garrett Haden and Jenny Arthur, as well as for their collective scene in Austin, Texas. The Dead Space never quite fit in since forming in 2008, and never really cared to. The trio quietly managed to craft their own brand of tightly wound art rock, equal parts bleak and brooding, presented in stark tones. Whether their allergy to artifice was a roadblock, in keeping with their character or some combination of both, it's hard to say. Either way, the band was very much on the outside looking in prior to the release of their well-received first album, 2014's Faker. And when it finally seemed they could reach a broader audience, they did what any good band should do—they broke up. Slightly before that, however, the band returned to Ian Rundell’s Second Hand Tacos studio to record Chlorine Sleep. The record carries their history forward with arduous blasts of force, contrasting with lean efficiency, exposing a sense of fragility and vulnerability atypical of their prior works. With guitarist Garrett Hadden’s return to Texas after an extended spell in Seattle, the group are readying a return to the stage later this year and next with a renewed vision and sense of purpose. The Dead Space’s ferocious second album expands on previous themes while forging a new path all their own. It’s great to have them back.

Written and recorded amidst the devastating bushfires which ravaged his adopted hometown Canberra, just before the wave of pandemic broke, Shoot Out The Cameras reveals John Sharkey III to be a master craftsman; honing in on the existential dread of living in a burning world, and the imperative to find beauty in what remains. Perhaps best known as the creative force behind Clockcleaner, Sharkey’s credentials include Cleveland's 9 Shocks Terror and more recently, literate rock explorations as Puerto Rico Flowers and Dark Blue, the latter having released a pair of 12xu full-lengths. It was love (of course) that brought Sharkey from Philly to Melbourne in 2008, where he worked behind the bar at beloved venue, The Tote. Sharkey and his partner Yasmin moved back to Philly for several years; then, amid the darkening landscape of US politics, the couple decided to settle in Canberra, Yasmin’s hometown. At a physical but not psychological remove from the horrifying dysfunction of Trump’s America, Sharkey watched catastrophic bushfires encircle Canberra, raging through the hills of the Southern Tablelands, the city glowing orange, the suburbs suffocating in smoke. This is when the songs of Shoot Out The Cameras took form. As if to echo the craters of “before” and “after” that apocalyptic events leave in our collective consciousness, the songs arranged themselves into a cinematic narrative arc, from the foreboding of disaster (Side A) through its aftermath (Side B). The background horrors of totalitarianism, paranoia and surveillance also stalk the album—the cameras of the title inspired by Canberra’s omnipresent Cctv and speed cameras—just to add to the unmistakable sense of impending doom. Features guest appearances from Mary Lattimore and Duncan Lowe

Del Rio is the third album from the Austin triumvirate of guitarist Craig Clouse (Shit and Shine), bassist Nate Cross (Marriage, Expensive Shit) and drummer King Coffey (Butthole Surfers) and the band’s first release to feature vocals from Colby Brinkman (Taverner). While their two prior albums (2017’s Laredo and 2019’s Matamoros) were somewhere on the periphery of rock music, Del Rio is a step or several beyond and a real testament to human imagination (maybe you’re impressed by Tesla Powerwall batteries but that’s because you’ve not heard “Soft Taco,” yet). Coming off a pair of records their respective labels could barely keep in stock and critical assessments that put reviewers’ own chops to the test (see below), USA/Mexico have delivered their most fully realized statement to date.

"chris Brokaw is the consummate underground rock musician. In a career spanning thirty-plus years he has been in countless bands (come, Charnel Ground, Codeine, and THE Lemonheads to name a few) has been a sideman with everyone from Thurston Moore to GG Allin, pounded countless stages on nonstop tours, and played on over seventy recordings. Puritan is his tenth solo album and it's a killer. From the hypnotic repetition on the extended instrumental outro of title-track opener 'Puritan', the wounded grace of 'Depending,' to the fragile beauty of the Velvets-esque duet with Claudia Groom, 'I'm the Only One for You,' and the ghost of Alex Chilton echoing through 'The Bragging Rights,' onto the GBV-like firestorm of 'Periscope Kids,' and ending with the On The Beach-era Neil Young minimal strum of his cover of Karl Hendricks’ 'The Night Has No Eyes,' Brokaw has crafted an understated masterpiece. Puritan is an album that is all heartache and rebirth, resignation and joy, the kind of record that is so needed but all too rare these days. A classic from front to back."—Mark Lanegan 2020

Voice Imitator is the collaborative project of PER Bystrom, Justin Fuller, Mark Groves, and Leon O’regan. All four have been active as part of numerous, cross-genre ventures in the Australian underground for many years. Bystrom has offered a rhythmic heart for Exhaustion and Leather Towel, whilst further expanding on metrical ideas in Compound, his solo electronic undertaking. Zond, TOL, Grane and various solo outings have all showcased Fuller’s severely manipulated, hallucinogenic guitar and unsettling electronics. O’Regan has provided lithe, turbulent and imaginative bass guitar for THE Bunyip Moon, and antagonistic industrial electronics as Dire Ears. Groves, as vocalist, has previously oscillated between the idiosyncratic combination of drily delivered text, close-miked voice and concrète sound for RED Wine AND Sugar and solo project Absurd Cosmos Late Nite, as well as functioning as frontperson for noise rock and heavy electronic acts True Radical Miracle and Dead Boomers. In Voice Imitator, these four pursue mutual auditory fixations and eccentric individual inputs toward a distinctive and cohesive unit. Groves’ texts are the outcome of anxious and fatigued surveillance, emerging as bleak satire and quietly surreal flashes drawn from the mundane. Vacillating awkwardly between barely contained frustration and ironic detachment, this voice is ushered by a relentless ostinato pulse, washes of heavily effected guitar, subterranean electronic noise and a tense ambience of self-conscious nervousness. Recurring undercurrents of motorik rhythm, and motor city techno draw shared obsession together, providing an altogether new construction. Much like the allegory of a boiling frog, here tension slowly builds to an aggressively muscular conclusion.

The quartet's chaotic take on smart-dude avant punk could've passed for one of the best singles of '79, '89, '99.

Big Hotel, the sophomore effort of Winged Wheel, is an evolutionary document. Core members Cory Plump (Spray Paint, Rider/Horse, Expensive Shit), Fred Thomas (Tyvek, Idle Ray), Whitney Johnson (Matchess, Damiana), and Matthew J Rolin (Powers/Rolin Duo, solo) expand their lineup to include Lonnie Slack (Water Damage) and Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), and instead of the entirely remote method utilized to create their 2022 debut No Island, the far-flung party convened in person in Kingston, NY for a long weekend of live studio recording.

The results are undeniably compelling. The band’s signature cyclonic energy is simultaneously augmented and refined with the approach of real-time collaboration. After tracking three days’ worth of group improvisations, weirdly-born songs, and other spontaneous creations, the hours of material were edited with a similar intensity. Half-hour jams became three-minute ragers and fragments were looped into infinity, calling on the same spliced aesthetic as some of the most adventurous material by Can, Faust, or more recently the experimental production of the International Anthem camp. The stereo field has been torn apart and sewn together again, rerouted with strange and mesmerizing left turns. Vignettes of ambiguous construction, both tightly coiled and exploding, revolve around themselves, gathering intensity and mass, coalescing into something greater than the sum of its parts.

'Demonstrably False' swells into existence like a motorik tidepool, tossing fauna onto the shoreline where it sprouts legs with a steady gait lying readily in wait within them. The controlled frenzy of 'Sleeptraining' marks a determined dash to a patch of reeds that are given form by the propulsive and minimal 'Clean Blue Shelf,' where lush terror and the balm of shelter seem equally likely to dwell. 'Grief in the Garden' describes itself like the eventual, fleeting triumph of eyeing the sun as it rises to declare the end of a starless night.

'Smudged Textile' seems another gesture from the sun, where it begins its work of burning swaths of cloud away to uncover the stark and perfect sky; it is around here that the sensation of flight becomes all but irresistible. The aerial coolness of 'Aren’t They All' maintains a reassuring pace much more like a heartbeat than a flapping of wings, which flows naturally into 'Soft Hands,' a piece that widens and ultimately splits the perception, somehow evoking an even, landbound march even as it continues to narrate that endless, gliding flight. 'Short Acting' is blissfully ambiguous in its suggestion, managing to hint at the vault of heaven before descending unhurriedly but inevitably back to earth. 'From Here on Out Nothing Changes' completes the vast arc, teeming as it is with the wild and singular energy of conscious life.

Where No Island was born out of distance and murk, these songs breathe and erupt in close quarters. Though the band isn't necessarily concerned with finding new levels of clarity, there’s a newfound power in the steady drive of Shelley’s unmistakable rhythmic style, and the unexpected interplay that builds on this foundation. Big Hotel is the sound of what happens in the rare and intriguing moments when Winged Wheel are all in the same room."—Jen Powers, March 2024

Sarah Black played bass and guitar and wrote music in several Minneapolis bands including Kickball, Period, Plain Jane, the Bleeding Hickeys, the Lie-Ons, the Pointing Geenas and Brandy Thunders. In the Minneapolis performance scene, Sarah was a performance artist, drag and burlesque performer. Sarah is also a scenic painter and welder who worked on commercial sets, films, and music videos including some rock sculptures that can be seen in Prince's video 'The Holy River.' Jenn Gori trained as a vocalist and was a member of impossibly nerdy musical ensembles and performance groups, singing and arranging music for multi-part vocal compositions including madrigal music, a cappella, and improvisational harmonies. After moving to Minneapolis from Boston, Jenn ventured into punk, drag and burlesque performance, songwriting and playing drums in the Bleeding Hickeys, the Lie-Ons, Pointing Geenas and Brandy Thunders. Chris Brokaw was and remains a member of Come, Codeine and the Martha's Vineyard Ferries, sometimes Charnel Ground, sometimes the Lemonheads. He makes solo albums and film scores, and teaches guitar + drums. Chris and Jenn + Sarah made odysseys living in New York and Seattle for several years each, at exactly the same times, without being aware of each other, all ending up (back) in Boston at roughly the same time a few years ago, apparently following the same north star on the same crooked path. Chris met Jenn + Sarah at a yard show at Brad Searles' house as the pandemic was cooling in 2021 and connected further via the Mr./Mrs. California nexus at 40 South St., Jamaica Plain. J+S asked C to play rhythm guitar on one song in the studio and instead he played on 4. They decided to play a show as Lupo Citta, a name inspired by 1970s Italian horror and spaghetti western film titles. More shows, more songs, more recordings ensued and here we are. Lupo Citta are thrilled to present their first album, are busy writing the next one, and will maybe be coming to your town soon.

Activator is the third installment from the trio of Jayson Gerycz, Jen Powers and Matthew Rolin, who respectively need no introduction writ-large. For anyone observing the American underground in the last decade, whether live, on tour or across various listening formats, these names are attached to the crucial goings-on propelling the Rust Belt and beyond. Here we find the trio expand their collaborative vernacular across two sides of vinyl starting with the steady strumming of 'Entrance', a paradox of pensive riffing and anxious percussion where Gerycz and Powers meld into a nebulous cluster of shapeshifting staccato and phantom rhythms. Tracks like 'Sun Rays' and 'Ivory' walk a tightrope between structured songcraft with chord patterns and concise riffs held together by steady cadence, ranging from hand bells to the bombastic, full-kit eruptions Gerycz has perfected over many years. As each piece ascends and unfurls, Powers provides a gentle tessellating from her dulcimer, with each strike landing like raindrops upon shallow puddles. The title track 'Activator' displays the full range and might of the trio, highlighting and merging the many facets and abilities each individual brings to the table, forming the singular identity that has made the project so beloved. Starting with slow dulcimer swells, watery bells, and mellow, motorik electric guitar, the track slowly tangles up its own elements and tumbles itself with grace and patient beauty while ascending to an ecstatic explosion of distortion and thunderous drumming before dissolving into an iridescent singing bowl meditation. Activator leaves it all on the table, displaying a perpetual metamorphosis of different modes from improv to song structure, a display of seemingly endless possibilities executed with a nimble prowess that comes from time spent in close collaboration. Over 40+ minutes of transcendent music the trio employs these multitudes of music making approaches while remaining cohesive and articulate, beautiful and mysterious - a rare talent for the artists and a gift for the listener."—John Elliott

The fourth studio album from Dutch quartet Lewsberg. Recorded in Amsterdam in Spring 2023 with producer Yulya Divakova. Out And About sees founding members Shalita Dietrich (vocals, bass guitar), Michiel Klein (guitar) and Arie VAN Vliet (vocals, guitar, violin) joined for the first time on record by drummer and vocalist Marrit Meinema, who joined the band in the Autumn of 2021. Out And About embraces a collaborative spirit, allowing each member to contribute their unique songwriting talents. The result is a collection of tracks that capture the band's collective creative energy and their individual perspectives. The album also showcases the continued expansion of Lewsberg's sonic palette, with Arie van Vliet's violin playing adding a rich texture to tracks like "Going Places" and "Canines". Compared to their first three albums, Out And About feels lighter, calling to mind the The Feelies, Marine Girls and Young Marble Giants, whilst remaining distinctly Lewsberg

Rocket 808’s self-titled debut album came out in late 2019, and luckily, absolutely nothing happened in 2020 to divert the world’s attention away from the release. Combining the primitive analog drum machine of 1970s New York underground icons Suicide with the raw guitar of Link Wray, Rocket 808 blasted rock n’ roll guitar into our new, weirder present. Now Rocket 808 returns with a new LP, House of Jackpots, taking up where the previous record left off while adding some new elements to juice things up. Still channeling Alan Vega, the Cramps, and Duane Eddy influences from the first LP, House of Jackpots further explores 1980’s television cop show themes and Ry Cooder film scores. “Punk rock Mike Post” might not be something you knew you needed, until you hear the first cut of the record. Slide guitar gives you your own personal screening of Wim Wenders’ "Paris, Texas" in your mind’s eye, or imagine if instead of the Barry De Vorzon intro, "Simon & Simon" opened with a trash-rock instrumental instead. Saturated in big-screen iconography whether its surf tunes for 100-foot waves or David Lynch soundtracks for a grimy 1970s Las Vegas strip, House of Jackpots takes you out of our current reality that frankly, we all probably want to forget anyway. Covers of 1950s proto-goth Jody Reynolds and reviled eighties electro-rockers Sigue Sigue Sputnik give nods to the obscure rock n’ roll weirdos of the past while dragging them into the future. Recorded by Grammy-winner Stuart Sikes and mastered by Crypt Record’s Tim Warren, 'House of Jackpots' takes electronic punk rock guitar noise into the 22nd century.