More, more, more music. Look for some Purple Vu coverage of reissues and less-recent jammers this weekend. Subscribe to that now.
Meanwhile, here’s the HITS.
Sign up to proceed, subscribe to read it all!
PO Box 25717 Chicago IL 60625 USA
Let’s GO
RADON ABATEMENT s/t CS (self-released)
I met Davis Salisbury and Tyler Magill and other associates in Charlottesville, VA back in 2003 on a dogleg to what I’ll call charitably an errant romantic sojourn to Richmond. Apart from meeting these gents, I tried my first raw oyster (get your mind out of the gutter, I was comped), got flattened in the soul-destroying pestle to my mortar of read signals incredibly wrong, and spent much of the time alone. I record shopped alone, I saw Blade II with only one other person in the theater (a curse, really), drove someone else’s car alone, sat in an airport terminal alone (flight delay) and was the sole passenger on a commercial flight back to NYC. My carbon footprint is regrettably larger than most due to that last one. I’ve not been back, but I have kept tabs on the activities of these merry men; they are heroes, they stood up when it was needed the most, and they will haunt the Tokyo Rose irrespective of whatever that place may ever become, and what’s more, they’ll do it together, for they are very much not alone. Unalone is better with the right people. Not all of us are built for the ascetic life or self-designated hermitude. It’s not quiet enough, for one. So it’s my pleasure to welcome them back from the wilds of improv and to the realm of living matter with the five-piece Radon Abatement, this rangy, noisy, excitable milieu alongside Erin O’Hare (Outer World) and folks less known to me (one Josh Krahn, one Ian McCulloch and probs not the one you’re thinking of). It works because of the people involved, but thrives because they have re-lit the fire under the collective ass of a college town that steered clear of open flame for obvious reasons. This is exciting in the same way their forefathers were – Pitchblende, Wingtip Sloat, Doldrums, Fly Ashtray and some more rambunctious corners of the Unrest/Teenbeat web, bands that didn’t fit in the mold back then and there and still don’t. Krauty trommelmaschinen, cascading synths, loud guitars, shouted declaratives and driving basslines combine to take us back to an era where, unburdened with responsibility, we could make music and not have to sweat it too hard. It fits for these times not because it’s a callback, but the powers that be have laden us all with debts no one asked for that who FUCKING cares about normalcy and rules and ailments when we can just ... use our minds to find the lane to be this free in? It’s the lesson, it’s the rule, it’s a good use of time otherwise wasted. Make your loud chaotic fun band and dump all your shit in there and see how it nets out.
