V/A - Peeling (Gaarden, 2010)

Dustin Wong - Breezy Comfort


Compilations only interest me if they do 1 or more of the following: A) Introduce me to new bands while incorporating bands I already know and like, B) Have exclusive songs by great bands that I won't find elsewhere, or C) Generally have a cool "mixtape" feeling. GREAT NEWS. Peeling accomplishes all 3 in spades.

Before I go any further, I need to press upon you just how fucking PUMPED I am that there is a new (and exclusive) Et Ret track on this comp. Et Ret was the genius behind the unheard masterwork Gasworks and then he kinda fell off the face of the Earth. Never heard from him again. Apparently he's been hiding in Germany waiting for Gaarden to put out a comp that he could contribute to. His piece "Today's Cake" starts Peeling off with a subdued acoustic guitar with minimal processing and lots of resonance. It's a damn shame that it's not even 3 minutes long. Maybe it's just a diving board for his second album?

Ok, so, here are names you should already know and love on Peeling: Matthew Robert Cooper (aka Eluvium), Jason Urick, and Holy Sons, all of whose songs are fucking fantastic. That should be enough to get you jonesin for the other 10 tracks of magnificence. Like Tests' (don't say that out loud) skittering river of synth static. Or the Lexie Mountain Boys and their basement cult wall of trash can chants. One of my favorite tracks is Dustin Wong's (of Ponytail) "Breezy Comfort" which in two words is able to capture everything perfect about the song, something I probably couldn't do in 20.

The sequencing on Peeling is impeccable, too. Not only does it have ridiculous flow from one song to the next (the first 5 tracks, especially) but the album as a whole retains a general mood of joyful ease even while jumping from genre to genre. The transition of electronics to acoustics and back again is refreshing and seamless.

However, I have one singular problem with Peeling. Electric Kastle's (Martyn Leaper of The Minders) "Jubilee." UGH. It's not that it doesn't fit, because it kinda does, I guess, but I just can't get into it. Guy's voice just gets on my nerves. I think I wouldn't like Electric Kastle in any circumstance, but it makes it all the worse with him popping up in the middle of this otherwise totally fucking awesome compilation. Sorry dude. I bet plenty of people will appreciate "Jubilee." It just won't be me.

As if you needed any other reasons to buy Peeling, the Holy Sons song is only available on the CD version and completely absent from the digital download version (licensing issues or something, don't ask). And the artwork is fucking sweet: 4 color screen printed bi-fold cardstock (find the gnome!) and a letterpressed track listing insert. 150 hand numbered copies britches. ACT FAST.

P.S. I've got two sets of relatives visiting and my birthday on Saturday so things are going to be a little quiet on AGB for about a week or so. Make me proud and learn the words to this while I'm away.

V/A - Whitehaus Family Record Family Record (Whitehaus Family Record, 2010)

Rene - Destination: Mars


Avi Jacob - Till The End Of Time


If you live in/around Boston, you should already know who and what the Whitehaus in JP is. It's a big place with lots of people and they all make stuff. It's a record label. It's a place where super fun shows go down. It's like something you see in a movie that is the most awesome thing ever and you want so bad to be a part of it but you realize it's way too cool to ever happen in real life (aka Empire Records). Well, these kids made it happen and the world, or at the very least Boston, is better for it.

The Whitehaus Family Record put out a 2xlp compilation, the Family Record. Clever, right? 27 songs, all different bands, all different styles, and one single cohesive mindset. Yes Wave.

This comp is full of the greatest non-noise Boston has to offer. Unnerving spoken word, dusty Americana, warped bedroom pop, whole hearted folk, tropical drone, expansion psych, hand clapping hootenannies, electro hip hop, delicate guitars, chilled out dance jams, intimate angel choirs, fiddles & banjos, Casios & drum machines, 100% FUN

I've given lots of love to these bands in the past so you should recognize plenty of the names on here. Many Mansions, Morgan Shaker, Prince Rama Of Ayodhya, Turtle Ambulance, Truman Peyote, Manners, The Needy Visions, The Great Valley, and Peace, Loving are the ones you should know. And love. And that means the other 18 bands are in great company and you'll instinctively open your heart and ears to them. The official release date is March 20, aka Blastfest 3!

V/A - Have It Or Grab It Or Go? (Clowny Clown, 1996?)

DJ Pete Hothead - Split


I grabbed this one at the Record Exchange in Salem on Record Store Day based almost solely on the album art. I mean look at that. A white kid with a white afro and a black kid with a black afro wearing a shirt that says "Soul On Ice"? There was no way I wasn't buying that. But the more I looked at the record itself, the more I realized I had no idea wtf it was. There's no artist info and no pressing or release info. What I got is an album title (Have It Or Grab It Or Go?), a label (Clowny Clown Productions), and some song titles. That's it. So now I had an album with ridiculously cool art and a shit ton of mystery. Sweet!

From what I gathered on this site, Have It Or Grab It is somewhat like a cross between a split and a mixtape. The A side features a bunch of badass beats from DJ Pete Hothead. And they are fucking slick. Due to my utter lack of knowledge in the genre, the best comparison I can make is Clutchy Hopkins. They're instrumental and repetitive, kinda jazzy, kinda funky, and they got plenty of soul. Perfect music for pretty much anything.

The B side is the mixtape part, with Hothead picking some of his favorite "lost breaks." Luckily, the site I found listed the artists for 4 of the 6 tracks on the flip side, narrowing my labor intensive Google searching to 2 songs. My best guess is that "You Tried To Warn Me" is by Piero Umiliani (which strangely enough is the B side to the "Máh Ná Máh Ná" single) and "Sunday Morning" is most likely The Velvet Underground. Other than that, the only other artist I'm familiar with is the Moog master Gershon Kingsley who does the title track. Then there's Pool Pah (did the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film The Flasher), Ralph Carmichael (whose "Switchblade Theme" is from The Cross And The Switchblade), and The Glimmer Twins, who are actually Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. Their song on here is "Aladdin's Story," which may sound familiar because Death In Vegas covered it on The Contino Sessions. I mean, this all sounds about right but I have no real way of knowing. All I know is that these tracks are all fucking killer and I've been listening to them nonstop. They fit perfectly with Hothead's style.

Since I doubt you'll find this available anywhere, I have no problem letting you download the whole thing, which I highly recommend. You won't regret it. Just an fyi, I'm not super picky with the clicks and pops when transferring vinyl so you're just gonna hafta deal. The record is in great shape and sounds fine, with the exception of the second track by Hothead ("Snack Food"). There's a skip in it that I tried to fix a little but it's still noticeable. I don't want any complaints, though, 'cause you're getting this fucking sweet ass gem for free.

V/A - (Triskaidekaphobia) 13,000.00 Milliseconds

Animal Machine / Yellow Crystal Star - Ball Gagged And Used / IxChelAscent


Insects With Tits / Wenapta - Untitled / Mama Toxic Apocalypse


Fruss / I Can't Read - Missing Teeth / Ofu


Richard Devine / Suck My Beatles / The New Jedi Order - 13 / I Am A Walrus / MV17669copy.aif


Reviewing this record is like reviewing the radio. Yeah, the whole thing, not just one station. It just doesn't make any sense. Every song (aka station) has it's own sound. Some are blasting grindcore, or glitchy electronics, some are just bits of dialogue or speeches, and some are sheer noise. The only running theme is everything is 13 seconds, hence the phobia. Each of the 99 tracks has 2 or 3 songs, each from a different band, totaling over 200 bands. I assume it makes it easier to navigate. Or maybe there's a 99 track limit on CDs. I have no idea. Whatever the reason, I'm sure it's a good one.

Nothing ever really develops into a traditional song but there are pieces on here that definitely stand on their own. Just because everything is wicked short and gets lumped together into a massive bizarre sound collage doesn't mean the individual parts aren't special. In fact, just the opposite. There are some real winners on here.

Songs by big(ish) names like Matmos, Venetian Snares, Cock E.S.P., Two Dead Sluts One Good Fuck, AIDS Wolf, Otto Von Schirach, Wildildlife, White Mice, Eats Tapes, and they're all really solid but the fun part is discovering all of these brilliant bands with the craziest fucking names. Cum Sock, James Brown Hands, Testicular Manslaughter, Insects With Tits, Batman Vs Predator, Alienslang, Super Pizza Party, and my personal favorite, Fag Muscle (click here for a full tracklisting as a JPG). It's hard to get an idea of what these bands sound like, especially since there's no reason to assume these little snippets represent the "true" sound of the band, but I'm sure they're all as awesome as they seem.

I like to think to myself that I'll listen to 13,000 Milliseconds a lot. You know, for those times when I'm either completely ambivalent to what I listen to or when I'm so torn between different genres/moods/whatever that I can't make a decision. This will be perfect for those times. Except I get the feeling that maybe I'll never listen to Triskaidekaphobia because it's so fucking brutal and chaotic that I'll have to be in a very specific mood to enjoy it. Either way, it's a ferocious adventure that's cool as shit and I know it's here when I need it.

By the way, if you get this CD and you pop it into your computer, the internet won't magically get all of the information. Because of the anal archivist in me, I had to manually (and painstakingly) input the artist and song title info by the hundreds but once I did it, I wasn't able to "Submit CD Track Names" so... if you have any ideas how I can do that, lemme know and I can lend a helping hand so no one else has to go through what I went through.