HOLT BODISH Gorgeous LP (Celluloid Lunch)

Like much of his other works and the Mordecai records that came before them, Holt Bodish picks a particular lane on this latest solo effort and stays in it. Fortunately for us, it’s a really clear lane, enough to get so far away from the traffic that he can afford to drive however he likes. There’s a layered confusion amidst his playing that sorts out any punters who come near and don’t recognize the architecture, a monotone vocal delivery that pitches around the defined range of Peter Jefferies or the late Jim Shepard, and a pronounced poetry to his words that cuts a sly bit of humor with well-considered verbiage (“precariously timid flashes of your hearts cock” got me) that plays off the music as if Pavement decided to deconstruct Slay Tracks for their career. Meaningful baseball, intentional walks, ants swarming on the sidewalk a few doors down, and a sort of porch-sat comfort underscore the brightness and intellect at play here. It is what it says it is, and more, a full and oriented language of the guitar defending its thesis.

DRAINOLITH Drainolith’s Montreal LP (Celluloid Lunch)

Limited repress of a lathe cut LP from last year, a course of Alex Moskos’ electronics and guitar interruptus that takes on the international locus of Montreal, part minimal Sightings cord-in-mouth whispers, part shag carpet/bass pad Shadow Ring running away from rock weirding module, part Kim Fowley-esque attitude (“Memetic Flow”), part sampler rejoinder, and 100% an expressive tribute to a place I am admittedly never going to understand, but an attitude I cannot ignore..

THEE RETAIL SIMPS (D/B/A THEEEEEEE RETINA LAMPS) “Quality At Your Feet” b/w “More Lies” 7” (Goodbye Boozy)

Joe C. and the Simps warm up with this little souvenir in time to host some away games for the Cheater Slicks, and Canada could not be luckier. “Quality At Your Feet” has a hesitant start-stop quality that cuts the dance floor cold, an ode to taking out the garbage at the appointed night of the week, and the veritable rat festival around it. It’s great, all Simps is great, “More Lies” even more so as it rolls the Foggy Notion into a bunch of challengeable statements, and it just dawned on me that there could very well be a corollary happening in Montreal with the estimable Rickety Thursdays orbit in Pittsburgh from the late ‘90s to the mid ‘00s, a veritable DMZ of Velvets/Electric Eels/Royal Trux worship that configured to big band sleaze (The Johnsons), winning folk/pop (The Working Poor, Tiny Little Help) and some of the best goddamn rock bands I’ve ever seen (Dead at 24, The Dirty Faces). The Faces’ second album was a CD-R also called More Lies and I want there to be a way to unite these particular moments, then and now, there and there but not here, civic justice for wanting to live your life a certain way, then doing it. Please go out and find any recordings you can, starting with the Dirty Faces CDs that Oneida put out on Brah, and the posthumous DA24 LP Blast Off Motherfucker that Chris Strunk released, alongside any Retail Simps product that’s ever passed through your sieve-like hands.

RAZORLEGS + JIM SAUTER Live at the Footlight LP (Fadensonnen)

Wednesday, October 10th, 2018 was a night I probably spent in stasis in Chicago, if I wasn’t trying to forget the personal setbacks and professional cul-de-sac I’d drawn for myself, kicked to psychic death, or maybe I went out to a show or something. But this very night in the up and coming Ridgewood, Queens likely pierced the veil: a chapter in a concert series curated by Clifford Allen, featuring the unimaginable powers of Tamio Shiraishi’s ice pick sax, the steamrolling percussion of Marc Edwards with one of his latter-day ensembles, and for the finale, the duo of Razorlegs (Heathen D/Still Single faves PD Fadensonnen on guitar and Andrew Hurst on drums) turning into tar with Borbetomagus’ Jim Sauter on sax. 26 minutes of coarse-grit, high velocity combat trials, circle of salt on the floor style demonology, absolutely locked, rippin’ and fucked like tomorrow never came. Of course it did, but this was an era in which nothing was certain, so the trio combatants here sound as if they are going off to war in a weather machine, Hurst playing at such pummeling speed that he’s essentially egging them on. Absolute gutfucking freedom. Buy two. Jesus.

SICK GAZELLE Veld LP (Vampire Blues)

Five rangy jams of prideful, ambling sunset improv from guitarist Eric Block, who recorded the last Winged Wheel album here in Chicago and possibly roped in Steve Shelley as a result. They’re joined by Yakuza tenor sax man Bruce Lamont and high-leverage reliever bassist Doug McCombs to see this through. This is the Block and Lamont show – it’s their project, after all – and they bring the Epic Dude out on this one: two opening blares and three meandering ones on the flip, all past the seven-minute mark, all swishing waves and checking the time. Not a meaningless effort or anything but you’re really gonna need to be in the bag for that Tribute to Hot Sax to buy in on this one.

Address in footer — alright (Doug M)