Heathen Disco Music Reviews #0090 (May 2, 2025)

Spring’s hesitancy is creating flux in the seasonal mood here in Chicago. The pattern is off; the nice days happen on Mondays when we’re all doing something, only to lead to pissing rain and unseasonable chills by the weekend. My weekend will consist of looking at more estates, which has become a thing I do regularly (note to readers: if any of you are looking for Letraset or Normatype rub-on lettering, talk to me). I could offer advice and thoughts on those if anyone wanted to hear it. No? OK.

Here’s some new music and a great reissue coming your way.

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UNIFLORA More Gums Than Teeth LP (Shuga/Charm Co-Op)

(This won’t be out for a while, but that’s fine. Gets you psyched.)

Deeply next-wave young Chicagoans following in the path beaten down by Horsegirl, Lifeguard, Post Office Winter and all that. I’m looking at my copy of the 1972 debut by Jerusalem right now and their producer (Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan) waxes about how it’s important to catch a band “before inhibition and consciousness set in, before fire and aggression die down” – that’s definitely the case here, a shared excitement of listening to a band figuring it out. What’s even better is that their trio mechanics, plaintive vocals, leans toward a non-machinelike pattern to their songs and light through the dirty window demeanor play not unlike another all-timer great band: SST’s underdogs, Slovenly. Admittedly those guys were incredible songwriters in a different way, but they had to start somewhere, and that’s what I’m catching here. Tracks like “Fence,” “Two or More” and “Elongated Cat Fist” howl with feedback but settle into something approaching a folk reel, working up and settling down into truths that become evident even as they’re playing, laid out and brought to us. Part of me is just kinda excited that newer bands can kinda jump over embarrassing punk and emo moments in 2025 and land on something this alive. Whatever is coming next, so long as it’s built on these rudiments, is going to shine even brighter. I could be pickier, but at the end they sound like an underheard band that I truly love, and to the extent that that is, I hope they feel the same.

G.I. JINX Mind Freak LP (Celluloid Lunch/Psychic Handshake)

Grey sludge vomits forth nonstop from a duct in the Montreal area. No one knows when or why it was installed; it just appeared one day. It’s low to the ground, not connected to anything and can’t be turned off, just keeps issuing forth this bile and spreading it outward. Near the mouth it’s all piling up and so it just keeps pushing forth inside of and under itself, gouts of this creamy, filthy, chunky, greasy grey sludge that never dries out, which smells like rotting shallots and exhaust and dirty sponges and wet magazines meandering in a basement, coating the entire apparatus. A band decided to form as a means to comment on this substance and it’s G.I. Jinx, who embody its texture and cadence, and show the aggression that meets the moment of this problem which isn’t being solved anytime soon. The slow-mid onslaught moves like the sludge, alarming and ceaseless. This makes for a hell of a debut record in Mind Freak, like a mid-‘80s NYC baise de cochon ensemble clipping their temples on this one sharp corner in a low-ceilinged room, and when they come to someone’s spraypainted Missing Foundation stencils on them. Comes close to one of those lower-right quadrant UK noise rock bands such as The Shits — a thick wall of guitars going in several directions, ceaseless rhythm section, deadpan vocals, but with the masculine presence of that music properly modulated out – not blown out or clipping, sounds hissy and a little distant instead, like it came from a cassette tape. The recent Bag People compilation also comes close, but they didn’t have to deal with this sludge. You might. First record of 2025 to really embody the fucking cess of this year so far. Cathartic but not overwhelming, it’s one hell of a coping mechanism to face this shit that becomes everybody’s problem.

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