Labels

Ever/Never

  • cover

    AL KARPENTER

    If We Can´t Dream, They Won´t Sleep!!

    [engl] Strange connections -- Bilbao meets Japan via Berlin on a record that will put you in a constant state of WTF. ASMR rock? Post-internet punk? A political manifesto in times of generalized madness? After his acclaimed 2017 destructo-punk single on Munster Records, Al Karpenter now delivers his mature, complex debut LP on the world's premier record label for adults, New York City's Ever / Never. Al Karpenter is an elusive figure. On this record, he comes off like "Che" Guevara fronting Suicide in the year 2020: In halting, quivering tones, he warns us not to fall asleep, even as he slips into a dream state; he reminds us that we must not give up hope even in these times of collective self-destruction; then he shakes our very core with an agonizing scream. There is no resignation, no giving-up, and no mourning for a lost future in his work. Instead, Al Karpenter pits the burning energy of the present moment against older underground musical forms, playing things "wrong" as a technique for exposing the fundamental wrongness of consensus reality. His record is a puzzle, a conundrum, at once conflictive and erotic, violent and beautiful. Yellow Green Red's Matt Korvette described Al's debut single as ”Very deconstructed and cuckoo, as if one of Fushitsusha’s psychic jams was condensed into a couple minutes of indigestion" -- a perceptive appraisal, seeing as Al is now joined by time-bending drummer and percussionist Seijiro Murayama, whose early credits include Fushitsusha’s Double Live. Further strange connections include key players from Bilbao's exploratory music scene -- drummer Joxean Rivas of Bilbao's demolition unit Killerkume, experimentalists María Seco and Mattin -- alongside the legendary Chie Mukai, of Japan's Ché- SHIZU and the seminal East Bionic Symphonia school of improvised music. Tying it all together everything are the lucid sexophone and electronics of Lucio Capece. If it is no longer possible to dream of a just and equitable future, Al Karpenter's answer is to shout desperate truths, to disrupt the notion that "weird" music is the province of the connoisseur, the specialist. For Al Karpenter, the ugliest racket and the most sensual textures are instruments for change. He transforms his angst, fragility, and sense of powerlessness into a force for destroying(-)destructive Nonsense. Al Karpenter's love-cry, his healing force, is violent and fragmented and paradoxically smooth. Things are not right, he insists, and we will not make music that pretends they are. -e/n
    Format
    LP
    Release-Datum
    10.04.2020
     
  • 01. The Forthcoming (w/ Triple Negative)
    02. 1995 (w/ Triple Negative)
    03. A Brand New Brontophobia (w/ Sunik Kim)
    04. Poison Sun (w/ Triple Negative & Dominic Coles)
    05. Happy B-Day! (w/ Dominic Coles & Sunik Kim)
    06. Drood (Can You Hear Me Now)
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    AL KARPENTER

    The Forthcoming

    [engl] On their third album, Al Karpenter merges its singular vision with a host of collaborators. After finally becoming a band in 2022 with Marta Sainz and Enrique Zaccagnini from Santander joining Al Karpenter and Mattin, and in synchronicity with a recent CIA Debutante team-up, this group rises to the challenge of expanding its parameters. As Al Karpenter’s resident theoretician Mattin explains, “The last record was a result of the pandemic, introverted, isolated and with a blues energy. Instead, “The Forthcoming” is the outcome of the possibilities of making music and touring again. We had such an amazing time on tour with Sunik Kim, Dominic Coles and Triple Negative that at the end of our concert at Cafe Oto, we all played together.” Whether delving into manic plunderphonics with Sunik Kim on “A Brand New Brontophobia” [an intense fear of extremely loud, natural noises in the environment - dict. ed.] or accessing the hidden burrows that tunnel beneath polite society with anarchic rock-folk deconstructionists Triple Negative on the title track, Al Karpenter is revolving around its own matrix. “Poison Sun” throws the New York-based Coles into the mix and you feel as if you are seesawing between competing parties, attempting to soak up their atmospheres during each pass through. Mattin again: “The feeling of exuberance, chaos and fragmentation is confronted with the pleasures of collective music making. This record is outwards, cathartic, full on and complex. Against algorithmic fascism and Tiktok attention span, The Forthcoming attempts at a sonic liberation front through its genre screwing approach. This record is of today.” It’s about time—The Forthcoming is here, for ever more.
    Format
    LP lim
    Release-Datum
    21.07.2023
     
  • 01. Born Dead
    02. Public Scaffolding
    03. Medieval Cocaine
    04. Ruined Map
    05. Fuck You All To Fade No More
    06. Put On Your Mask
    07. For Your Love
    08. This Is An Invisible Song
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    AL KARPENTER & CIA DEBUTANTE

    s/t

    [engl] A collaboration between the Spanish Cabalists, Al Karpenter & French Rosicruanists, CIA Debutante, was not specifically foretold in the Fama Fraternitatis, but read between the lines, friend. That is where the truth lurks. The bilious Marxist splatter of the former, coursing alongside the dystopian surrealism of the latter, is a nefarious seance gambit born in the ether. Many voices are heard-fractious, cryptic, suffused, fading one into the other, the results often as hazy as the most bewitching pastis. Don't look now, but all the tables are levitating. Is that a spirit trumpet in the distance? Am I hearing the channeled moans of a ghost, or did someone miss last call (so eerily similar in their discontent)? The plachette is moving so fast across the ouija board, it's making a blabber-mouth out of my fingers. I had no idea anyone spilled this much verbiage in the afterlife. The crackle & whoosh of electronics fill the air. A cape is not required, but considering these Mandrake-like shenanigans, it couldn’t hurt. But then I am the one being charmed. Al Karpenter/CIA Debutante are the beguilers. Trance-medium discourse never sounded so preposterously spot on. File alongside fabled, like minded alliances such as; Ash Ra Temple & Timothy Leary, ‘Seven Up’, Brigitte & The Hansen Experience, ‘Frau Hansen Am Bass’, the Shadow Ring, ‘Lighthouse’.
    Format
    LP
    Release-Datum
    21.06.2023
     
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    BALLROOM

    s/t

    [engl] On their debut 12'' EP for Ever/Never Records, New York City's Ballroom explode out of the gate with a whirlwind fury. Anchored by a tornado of vicious snare drum thwacks and excoriating guitars, "Corridor" is a threat made manifest by singer Eric Cecil's warnings to "not let the sight disturb ya." Ballroom are a powerful ensemble assembled from scattered remnants of other notable bands. Cecil (who also plays guitar) did time in Chicago punk standout Busy Signals, and has featured in numerous NYC bands since his relocation. The other axe-slinger, Kristian Brenchley, is a founding member of long-running scum rockers Woman, and also lays down the bottom end in Ever/Never labelmates Degreaser. Ballroom low-end is provided by Home Blitz' Theresa Smith, while the drums are beaten into submission by Steven Fisher, leader of Wilful Boys and Dozers. On "Dismal Sun," the band locks down on the central riff as guitar leads and frantic snare rolls keep pace with Cecil's thousand-yard stare vocals. "I'll Keep Coming Back" points to a key influence -- the sun-scorched blacktop rumble of prime Scientists, Australia's sultans of swamp. Smith doesn't let up on the gas, pushing Brenchley and Cecil into the realms of the unhinged. Ballroom's debut features no mellow songs, sappy ballads or moments of false sincerity. "Nail's Head" stands out for its approach to rock n' roll as controlled demolition. This song will bite your hand off if you get too close. "Burnin Billy" could be a feedtime cut, but there's also echoes of the Gun Club and past Crypt Records powerhouses like The Beguiled. The epic final track, "Anti-Hole," coalesces all of Ballroom's excess energy into diesel fumes and takes it for a ride out into the open range, traversing peaks and valleys and mountains and digging for something deeper. Ballroom doesn't so much ride off into the sunset as reach up into the sky and pull it down into the dirt.
    Format
    12''
    Release-Datum
    26.05.2015
     
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    CHARLIE TWEDDLE

    Fantastic Greatest Hits

    [engl] Born and raised in Kentucky but calling Northern California home for some time now, Charlie Tweddle is an outsider polymath: musician, artist, taxidermist, designer of cowboy hats. And while that last one (imagine a wearable ten-gallon peyote trip) brought him a degree of notoriety among a certain swath of the showbiz elite beginning in the early seventies (Cher and Reggie Jackson are fans of his hats), it’s his music that has been peaking the curiosity of underground and private press fiends for some years now. A beguiling patchwork of lo-fi country, warped folk, and way-gone found sounds, Tweddle’s 1974 self-released opus Fantastic Greatest Hits is back in print for the first time in decades.The estimable chronicler of all things underground and way out the late Patrick Lundborg dubbed Fantastic “one of the major pieces in the Fringe of Everything genre.” Indeed, the album is clearly the work of a rustic iconoclast following his own hidden path, yet there is something peculiarly inviting at play here as well. The A-side comes off like a lysergic hootenanny that shares as much in common with Mike Rep and first-generation Shrimper tapes on the one hand as it does with Townes Van Zandt and Mickey Newbury on the other; while the B-side is a sort of Americana concrète piece where the gentle beat of the earth takes over, full of crickets and the wind. Cosmic country indeed. Essentially impossible to find since its initial release, Fantastic has been lovingly reissued as a co-production from Mighty Mouth Music (who released Tweddle’s The Midnight Plowboy in 2012, a collection of slightly more straightforward but no less charmingly odd country tracks recorded in the 1990s) and Ever/Never Records. The double-LP gatefold set presents the original 1974 LP and a bonus LP of recently unearthed experiments from the early ‘70s. This is essential stuff for fans of psychedelic roots music, loner singer-songwriters, or just plain strange sounds.
    Format
    DoLP
    Release-Datum
    10.12.2014
     
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    CHINESE RESTAURANTS, THE

    Instant Music

    [engl] It only took 23 years but the first long-playing record by The Chinese Restaurants is finally here. The Chinese Restaurants is the long-term partnership founded in 1996 by artists LF Restaurant (a.k.a. Richard Papiercuts) and Keith Restaurant. The duo follows three core principles: (1) Never rehearse; (2) Never discuss what you do; (3) Never do the same thing twice. Over the years, LF and Keith have performed with a revolving cast of friends and fellow players, including erstwhile members of Broken Talent, Country Teasers, Billy Bao, and Rocket No. 9. Instant Music is a concise monograph of the project’s many facets and contradictions, spanning free improvisation, reductionism, Third Stream, primitive rock, punk aesthetics, non-cochlear sound, plastic soul, and ASMR hypnotics in just under 30 minutes. The six-song LP was conceived, recorded, and mixed over three days in the group's spiritual home of Bridgeport, Connecticut, where they were joined by longtime friend and associate Malcolm Restaurant and jazz reedsman Erik Elligers. The tracks apparently consist of spontaneously composed first takes, overlaid with improvised overdubs and mixed in a single afternoon. The only previously performed song on the record is "LFO," a rudimentary blues that first entered the band's repertoire in 1997 and is here given an expansive treatment in the style of Philip Cohran or the 1970s Arkestra. The record comes packaged is an exquisite gatefold that offers clues to the Restaurants' process and their queasy, unsublimated relationship with visual art. Limited edition, one-time pressing of 200 copies.
    Format
    LP
    Release-Datum
    01.11.2019
     
  • 01. Nuclear Holiday
    02. The Face
    03. Sinkhole
    04. Haixing Song
    05. Corner Of The Room
    06. Faulty Appliances
    cover

    CIA DEBUTANTE

    Music For Small Rooms

    [engl] Tiptoeing in, stealth-like, CIA Debutante’s Music For Small Rooms 12” on Ever/Never Records tempts the listener with secrets and their inevitable spilling out into the open. Over the course of several releases, the France-based duo has shown a real gift for delving into the particulars of paranoia, seeding their songs with threats disguised as hooks. On its perfectly succinct new EP, CIA Debutante refines this method, as each of the six tracks plays like dystopian theme songs for closed-circuit television dramas. From the gradually increasing disquiet of “Nuclear Holiday” to the full-on terror of “The Face” (“There’s a blank spot/where the face should be”), CIA Debutante are well-versed in navigating the eternal eddies of existential doubt. With molten electronics accompanying a resigned vocal, “Sinkhole” really does feel like the planet is opening up beneath you, but perhaps you don’t mind as much as you’d have expected. “Faulty Appliances” is a kitchen sink nightmare and even elicits a couple chuckles as it wraps up the leftovers. If you find yourself routinely menaced by everyday objects, then you are primed and ready for the sounds that CIA Debutante pipes into Music For Small Rooms.
    Format
    LP lim
    Release-Datum
    15.10.2021
     
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    CODE BMUS

    Strike Now

    [engl] Nineteen hundred and seventy-eight was ground zero for the UK post-punk explosion. The previous few years had seen raw rock n' roll claw it's way back into the mass consciousness, but '78 was the year a veritable army of disconnected and discontented art students decided, en masse mind, to pick up cheap guitars, switch on malfunctioning synthesizers and beat upon cobbled-together drumkits. From the art colleges they came, inspired by the throbbing rhythms of PiL, The Pop Group and Pere Ubu, but also by politically-charged reggae and dub such as King Tubby, Prince Far-I and the Coxsone Sound System. Code BMUS was just such a unit. Four too-smart-for-their-own-good lads converged in London with an itch to join the fray. Pitched somewhere between squatterpunk art-scrabble and headier RIO-style instrumental tangle, Code BMUS carved out their own peculiar identity in an unforgiving London music and art scene. For years they plied their trade, hauling their unconventional set-up - "a rhythm kit built from Indian tablas , Irish bodhran, an assortment of metal tubes and plates, snare, marching band bass drum and a miscellaneous collection of objects to hit wired up with transducer mics deconstructed guitar played with bottleneck, bow and sticks on an ironing board" - to all manner of clubs, converted showspaces and improvised venues. In 1981, Code BMUS brought their musical contraptions to Cold Storage, a meat locker that had been transformed into a recording studio by the fiercely independent and experimental post-punk trio This Heat. The resulting 12'' EP, Strike Now, There is No Cover, is a mini-masterpiece of right angles, sharp turns and unclassifiable agitpop. With its driving bass, slashing guitar and inspired junk percussion, Code BMUS echoes contemporaries such as Cabaret Voltaire, Fire Engines, and 23 Skidoo, but Code BMUS operated in the squatter scene, rubbing elbows with Crass and their ilk. Code BMUS' politics don't come off as theory, but as the righteous anger of those who live everyday under the thumb of the powerful and corrupt. The turmoil of their daily lives comes through loud and clear, imbuing Code BMUS' turbulent music with an immediacy that cannot be faked. Kicking off a busy 2014, New York City's Ever/Never Records brings you a faithful reissue of Code BMUS' overlooked post-punk classic, Strike Now, There is No Cover; four songs of collapse and struggle that resonate loudly as ever, sounding better than ever and available as never before.
    Format
    12''
    Release-Datum
    22.01.2014
     
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    CRAIG BELL

    aka Darwin Layne

    [engl] To many, CRAIG BELL is well known as bass guitarist / singer with MIRRORS and ROCKET FROM THE TOMBS, two bands that were among the foundation stones upon which the Cleveland, Ohio music scene of the 1970s was built. What many may not know is that Craig was also an integral part of the beginnings of another era of creativity in New Haven, Connecticut in the following decade. With like minded musicians, Craig formed SAUCERS, FUTURE PLAN, THE PLAN, THE BELL SYSTEM and THE RHYTHM METHODISTS in the years he lived on the East Coast (1976—1989). Craig released few recordings during this time, two singles with Saucers, “What We Do/Muckraker” (1979) and “A Certain Kind of Shy/She’s Alright” (1980), songs on the compilation LPs It Happened But Nobody Noticed (1982) featuring cuts by Saucers and The Plan, while The Bell System had their “America Now” released on the radio station only SCREAM promo LP (1985), and a single by The Plan, “I Love New York/I Hate New York/When It’s Too Much” (1983), most of them on his Gustav Label. In 2002, a CD compilation by Grand Theft Audio out of Los Angeles collected the entire studio output of Saucers on an album titled What We Did. This, along with reissues of songs Craig played on with Mirrors and RFTT, was the only recording of his work available. 2016 brings aka Darwin Layne, an LP featuring 11 historic recordings, both live and studio, featuring Craig’s songwriting and his bands Future Plan, The Plan, The Bell System, and The Rhythm Methodists, along with selections by Saucers, Mirrors, and THE BRIDGEPORT BAD BOYS.
    Format
    LP
    Release-Datum
    09.09.2016
     
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    CYANIDE TOOTH

    Midnight Climax Operation

    [engl] Midnight Climax Operation represents Cyanide Tooth’s continued research into paranoid states of existence and chance methods of sound-sculpting. Side one of Midnight Climax Operation is a patchwork of intriguing and unnerving sonic explorations. Cyanide Tooth utilizes tape manipulation and other lo-tech methods that recall a time before ProTools and infinite plug-in options. “Heartburn” throws all the cards on the table, encompassing sarcastic tape abuse, skipping CDs, old-school guitar noise and breakout hip-hop beats. “Headline/Heartline” takes a day trip to the death factory as torrents of noise coalesce around an urgent narration that plays out as if Biting Tongues was jamming with Throbbing Gristle. “American Cherry Burst” is pure, righteous scree intent on revealing false truths, while “Press The Mesh” comes on like early Coil captured in a late-night basement session. The side concludes with the frenetic beats of “Techno Animus” and the creeping dread of “Shadow Enforcers,” which recalls Ike Yard and Cabaret Voltaire. On side two, Cyanide Tooth hijacks the listener’s brainstem for an LSD-fueled investigation into chance operations. Performed live with no edits, “Operation Midnight Climax” is a feat of turntablism and juxtaposition, yielding a sonic narrative that picks up steam as it hurtles towards the outer regions. WWNWWD? Somewhere, Steve Stapleton is nodding approvingly. With Midnight Climax Operation, Cyanide Tooth delivers a dangerous package -- handle with care. -e/n
    Format
    TAPE
    Release-Datum
    30.03.2020
     
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    CYANIDE TOOTH

    The Whole Tooth & Nothing But...

    [engl] Cyanide Tooth is the solo noise project of New York's Erick Bradshaw H, and this debut cassette is recorded half live in Indiana, half done in NYC. The electronics that feature throughout the first side are harsh, but not very aggressive. There's plenty of room for voice manipulation among the sounds of crickets dying in flames and whatnot. Meanwhile the flip uses samples of a woman's voice to rather paranoia inducing ends.
    Format
    TAPE
    Release-Datum
    10.10.2014
     
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    DAN MELCHIOR

    Plays "The Greys"

    [engl] Dan Melchior is artist as perpetual motion machine. We could say “shark,” but Dan doesn’t sniff for blood in the water. Instead, he is inviting you to his private lake; his solace relies on his relentless creativity. Whether painting, writing, collaging or recording, Dan offers nothing less than words, images and sounds transmitted directly from his subconscious, but filtered through the rigorous process of a true artist. Dan’s latest offering is a superb collection of songs and sonic vignettes that dips down deep into life’s trenches. Here, where light has to fight to be noticed, misery, monotony and melancholy mingle and bleed into one another. Accordingly, Dan doesn’t play the blues, he plays the greys. Plays The Greys is a patchwork album, but don’t let that imply carelessness. Each odd juxtaposition serves a purpose and illuminates its surroundings like a torch in the night. Part one and part two of the title track are perfect examples of Dan’s decidedly non-academic approach to musique concrete’s a-musical gestures. Field recordings bump up against back-porch guitar plucking that morphs into radio declarations by the good Christians among us. Praise be. In more ways than one, “Death Has No Mercy” is the center of the album. Midway through its hazy meanderings, “Death…” jumps into an uptempo backwoods jaunt. It’s good to know that the guitar is always there, providing a means for expression and catharsis. Suffering in recent years through immense personal tragedy, Dan channels all that pain and helplessness into an extended rumination on grief and the challenge of living with permanent ache. So forget what I wrote earlier -- Dan Melchior has indeed made a blues album, one fit for 2016, and beyond. - e/n
    Format
    LP
    Release-Datum
    25.03.2016
     
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    DAN MELCHIOR

    Road Not Driving

    [engl] Last time we checked in with Dan Melchior, he was Playing The Greys (see Ever/Never # 21). What has he been up to lately? Melchior is as aesthetically restless as he is endlessly creative, so in between recording an album with Austin TX art-punk trio Spray Paint and a myriad of tape and vinyl releases, Dan found the time to gift Ever/Never with another classic slice of Melchiorcore (please, shoot the messenger for that one). Road Not Driving is a 12” EP that covers a fair amount of ground during its runtime. “I Got A Feeling” starts out as a feel-bad ode to, well, feeling bad, and then finds itself truly sinking into the muck as the track distorts beyond all reason, until coming around full circle at the conclusion. Climate change has got us all down, but at least you can commiserate with the guitar slicks and (gulf jet)stream-of-consciousness lyrics of “Another Oil Spill.” In the icily observant “Cold Town,” Dan’s previous locale , Ohio -- and the lake-effect of the Midwest pokes its head through the (grey) clouds. The storm clouds hover over side two’s “Relics,” which finds Dan casting about for some kind of connection. Those bleak months -- half a year really -- can weigh a man down but they leave plenty of time to come up with creative ways of dealing with the isolation. Yet, when connection comes in the form of “Bus Stop Ghouls,” perhaps it’s preferable to be alone after all. Melchior closes out this potent dip into his stewing brain with the title track and all we can say is Godspeed, sir. -e/n
    Format
    12''
    Release-Datum
    01.12.2017
     
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    DEGREASER

    Rougher Squalor

    [engl] Crawling out of the deep, dark hole they dug for themselves on Bottom Feeder (2011) and Sweaty Hands (2012), New York City?s premier psychedelic swamp rock unit DeGreaser are set to take an unsuspecting and tepid rock scene by storm. Courtesy of NYC?s Ever/Never Records, Rougher Squalor is DeGreaser 2.0. The band has evolved from their previous caveman dirges into a true power trio, heavy on the muscle and out for blood. Drawing inspiration from classic bands like Blue Cheer, The Groundhogs and Coloured Balls, to outer-limits rock deconstruction reminiscent of the finest Japanese ensembles such as Mainliner and High Rise, DeGreaser are able to satisfy the need to bang your head, and also the desire to immerse said head in glorious waves of wah-wah pedal abuse. The ?squalor? part of the title is no joke, as main ?Greaser Tim Evans ? formerly of noted Aussie band Bird Blobs ? drenches the proceedings in a sheen of speaker-shredding noise that would make the likes of James Williamson sit up and take notice. Anchored by the granite-solid rhythm section of drummer John Coates and bassist Kristian Brenchley (Woman/Ballroom), Evans is free to blast his surroundings with all manner of ear-piercing and ?tickling tones. But let?s not make the mistake of filing Rougher Squalor under the section labeled ?Headcleaners.? There are great songs waiting here for you. Opener ?Words in Your Mouth? establishes the band?s ability to harness melody and write memorable tunes. Straightforward rocker ?Follow Me Down? is a hook-y request to join Evans in the downtown shadows. Tracks like ?Got No Need? and ?Do Me In? come off like Screaming Trees after an acid bath, while fleet-footed rockers like ?You Said? and ?Doorway? get in n? out before you know what hit you. With Rougher Squalor, DeGreaser has staked out their territory and are defending it with the considerable rock power that they can muster.
    Format
    LP
    Release-Datum
    17.06.2014
     
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    EN KERNAGHAN BAND

    Divine Body Care

    [engl] En Kernaghan is a spiritual seeker who yearns for salvation through the world’s least hypocritical religion: rock n' roll. After his previous 12" EP on Ever/Never last year, Kernaghan received quite a bit of praise for his idiosyncratic take on classic garage-punk via covers of The Cramps and Pussy Galore, and originals which fit perfectly within such esteemed company. Kernaghan reinterprets the bump n' grind of rock n' roll through his devotional prism. On his new 7", Kernaghan ups the recording fidelity while expanding his range to incorporate psychedelic touches that have been lurking in the wings all along. "Divine Body Care" could be vintage Donovan chanting a mantra as sitar-like guitars and ringing bells conjure the atmosphere of an ashram invaded by flower-punks hellbent on transcendence. Even George Harrison would welcome such a trespass. "Things Are Constantly Changing" dives even deeper into psych rock. With it's strange stop/starts and outwardly-expanding chorus, "...Constantly Changing" is not so far from The Pretty Things and other denizens of Abbey Road Studios. It's safe to say that En Kernaghan is still walking his singular path, moving along to his own peculiar drumbeats.
    Format
    7''
    Release-Datum
    10.07.2017
     
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    EN KERNAGHAN BAND

    s/t

    [engl] Way down there at the bottom of the world, there is a young man named En Kernaghan who is devoting his life to a higher power. Make that two higher powers; and from our perspective, there ain’t none higher than Rock n’ Roll. For this his Ever/Never EP (200copies), En spins classics by The Cramps, Pussy Galore and more, into his own personal mantras. With the close-mic’d confidence of a young Jon Spencer and the zeal of a newly-tonsured Monk, Kernaghan will make you a believer. -e/n En Ethan Kernaghan projekt experience banned band 1997 started in a bedroom in an australian suburb, slowly turning from that of a recording project into a performance band until being banned, then on to recording self titled LP. Kel ANG
    Format
    12''
    Release-Datum
    14.02.2016
     
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    HAND OF FOOD

    Swimming Mindlessly

    [engl] Following up their initial cassette release ‘Tropical Income Tax’, Providence/NYC based holiday hypnotherapists Hand Of Food have returned and invite you to luxuriate in a perverted idea of paradise with their debut LP, ‘Swimming Mindlessly’. Despite coming from noise rock and damaged electronic backgrounds, the band sits in an odd nether region somewhere between a brutalized ambience or conceptual exotica, while at times dipping a toe into the self-help section. The record plays like the warped audio brochure for a struggling resort town, luring you in with motivational rhetoric and a transparent facade of tranquility. Although your instincts tell you something is off and the regional jokes are all lost on you, an all-inclusive vacation deal this good hasn’t landed in your inbox in a while so you go ahead and book the trip anyways. The opening track Sign Of The Lemon would have you believe everything is fine — lush pads, chimes, and 100% real flutes commingle harmoniously — you made the right choice. As your stay progresses similar instrumentation takes a more anxious turn. A professional voice-over artist or possibly the cruise captain interjects to insist that everything is ok, but hazy ambient atmospheres lead to reflection on the flight over, to all the decisions that led you here, and ultimately, regret. Doing your best to keep those spirits high, Chelo’s By The Sea whisks you away to the on-site cocktail lounge for some of the resort's complimentary entertainment, an evening with ‘legendary’ resident crooner Publicity Dave. But by the time the album's title track new-age dirge rolls around it’s clear things have taken a turn for the worse. A catastrophe of some sort has occurred and a strained voice pleads for mercy through a cacophony of eyewitness accounts. Against all odds relaxation is finally achieved when renowned audio book narrator Rebecca Mitchell’s soothing meditation picks you up, dusts you off, and guides you to a seemingly permanent place of peace. Swimming Mindlessly dislocates the typical island narrative cliches to articulately illustrate tropical disarray and tell the story of a retreat gone awry. A transportive listening experience taking you directly to the heart of beach-bum dystopia. Judging by this record the Google reviews comment section for the Hand Of Food travel agency would be a treasure chest of pure gold.
    Format
    LP
    Release-Datum
    06.11.2020
     
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    HOUSEWIVES

    s/t

    [engl] Punk in the age of infinite duplication. Endless algorithms -- strands of digital DNA wrapping like loose cords around the arteries of daily life. We find ourselves mannequin-ed -- gazing longingly at the constant churn of street life; a simulacrum of stimulation. All the dense paranoias of the 20th century have shadow-walked their way right up to our 21st century doorstep and they are quietly picking the lock while we fritter away the hours in the room with the screens. What to do about this concealed drudgery? Where to turn in these bleak hours? How can we break the chains of routine, the labor of labour? Perhaps at this late date, it would be naive to state: “We can listen to Housewives.” What decade is this? How can music still inspire concentrated thought while satisfying its inherent physical demands? Rock music is intended to be functional. Postpunk music is music for doing. Housewives are a band that does; and the content is not mere window-dressing. Housewives are: Industrious music for industrious people. A few years ago, London, England’s Housewives, in the finest of postpunk traditions, began making an intensely focused racket. Their debut took the form of a five-song limited-edition cassette put out by Faux Discx. This self-titled EP had a startling power and hypnotic force that is all too rare in this era of practiced disaffection. Instead of pretending to be bored by this evershifting world, Housewives' approach revealed a microscopic attention to detail. Despite their using the traditional instruments of rock n’ roll, Housewives invert these powerful totems to their own ends. This is music that earns its praise from such high priests of refusal as Charles Hayward (This Heat, Camberwell Now). Like an Adam Curtis documentary, Housewives is music that takes on social constructs, looking for a way to disassemble these ridiculous structures. With it biting lyrics lampooning a lad who is “racist when it’s funny,” bracing opener “Poppy” seems to anticipate Brexit. As the bass throb surges through your system like a blood rush, perhaps you need to rethink your stance on what is and what is not important in the current supercut of media and politics. “In Camera” traffics in impossible clockwork rhythms -- they grind against each other, gathering momentum until the band sounds like an overworked machine on the verge of exploding. “Medicine Bottle” is the closest thing Housewives will serve you to a hit. The no wave guitar spasms -- like a coil snapped by sudden pressure -- collide with the rhythm section in the middle of a congested city. The claustrophobia summoned by the track is hardly offset by the snaking interjections of a saxophone. If anything, this presence of breath reinforces the sensation of necessary and cathartic exertion. Courtesy of New York City’s Ever/Never Records, the unjustly-ignored debut by one of the top operating postpunk bands worldwide, has found a home on wax. Finally, this previously extremely-limited cassette is given the format it deserves. Delivered at a volume-enhancing 45 rpms, Housewives’ 12” EP is a diamond-hard gem of postpunk. “Almost Anything” shows just how locked-in to factory mode this band can get. Few modern bands are playing with such sounds and intentions. “62426” is a series of mutating nodes -- like the communications in THX-1138 made manifest in song-form. At times, Housewives recall the best of the UK’s postpunk gloom n’ doom glory days. The rub is -- we are in the future that those bands warned us about. Housewives are the last band standing, forcing our eyes open and demanding that we address the monolithic edifice of modern life.
    Format
    12''
    Release-Datum
    08.03.2017
     
  • 01. Reality Testing
    02. Tammy and Her Friends
    03. Where The Moon Waits
    04. Freshest Taste
    05. North Sea Shrimps
    06. Three Babies Make Ten
    07. Vessel Creep
    08. No Disabuse
    09. Sewerland
    10. Terminator Baby
    11. Local Wall
    12. Public Private Dream World
    cover

    KILYNN LUNSFORD

    Custodians Of Human Succession

    [engl] Philadelphia’s Kilynn Lunsford had been conceiving her first solo album since she was a young teen. Growing up through the MTV era of Missy Elliot, Timbaland and the Swing Mob collective, and drawn towards its “sometimes ridiculous, but overloaded” qualities, she found herself returning to that state of emerging adulthood when the moment for a solo record finally arose. The image of Britney Spears being recorded in an empty field somewhere in her native West-Philly - “like Alan Lomax recording Betty Boop near the Delaware water gap” - provided a key 'mental mood image’ for what would eventually become ‘Custodians of Human Succession’. As if Blackout was reimagined by Throbbing Gristle, Lunsford’s debut straddles unclear boundaries between electro-pop, post-punk and the avant-garde; it delves into those liminal spaces between pop culture and experimentalism, between city and country, between verse and chorus. Written over four years, drafted during long car rides from work, hewn out first thing in the morning or last thing at night ‘Custodians'…is Lunsford’s first work since the dissolution of her former project, noise-punk outfit Taiwan Housing Project in 2021. Being now uninhibited by the democratic needs of a band writing and jamming in the practise-room, choosing to ‘go solo’ liberated her song building process. While some arrangements would be hammered out for weeks, sometimes it was a loose, “off-the-cuff” take that could make the final cut: “Wanting to combine irreconcilable elements”, Lunsford explains, “we would set up for hours and then do one take, always allowing for the aleatoric to come through”. Working to her preferred rhythms, she was free to approach the studio (read: her living room),- like a “laboratory”, liberally incorporating her smorgasbord of often disparate inspirations and ideas into something cohesive, and entirely of her own making. Inspired by her longtime love of collage, and a “solo exquisite corpse approach to photography”, Lunsford and chief collaborator Don Bruno developed a DIY recording style the two jokingly referred to as “Fluid Fidelity”: We would record things very flatly”, explains Lunsford, “ with cheap broken gear and off-time rhythms, sounds with no reverb or sense of space - almost like an auditory hallucination - and combine that with high-end preamps and high-end mics, so that my voice is out front almost to the point of being disembodied from the music.”. Opening track - the abrasive “Reality Testing” - is a case of this ‘Fluid Fidelity’ in point. The instrumentation of cyclical sheet-glass guitar and minimalist electronic drum is thin and wiry, recalling the deconstructed post-punk of early Fall. Then Lunsford’s sprechgesang vocal steals in from another plane, clarified and prepossessing, producing an ““exorcism-level of vocal presence” inspired by her life-time appreciation of Diamanda Galas. This constant, artificed state of balanced unsettlement is testament to the harsh juxtapositions that frequent Lunsford’s work. Sometimes hi-fi, sometimes ‘lo’, more often than not ‘Custodians’ is traipsing sideways or zig-zagging off on sharp diagonals. The album itself operates like an aforementioned collage, splintered and warped, each song in imprinting its own shape and colour to fashion a finished whole. Industrial-edged electro-pop a la Chris and Cosey sits shoulder to shoulder with twangling new wave rock ‘n’ roll ironies. That “ridiculous, but overloaded” MTV quality dances (un)comfortably with abrasive and bone-chilling sequences of avant-garde experimentalism. Embellishing this collage, more ornately still, are Lunsford’s caustic lyrics, packed as they are with a potent blood-stream of unflinching surrealism and discomfiting satire. Impacted by her experiences as Healthcare Union Organiser working through a pandemic, and as a sufferer of an autoimmune disorder with no healthcare coverage, a festering anger boils at the album’s core. ‘Custodians’ sits in this malicious context: the growth of right wing politics in the U.S; the emergence of authoritarian neoliberalism as an outgrowth of Third Way liberalism's fundamental inability to solve extreme economic inequality. Little wonder how, from all this, comes a record of commensurate disturbance, and brilliant intrigue.
    Format
    LP lim
    Release-Datum
    17.11.2022
     
  • cover

    LOS LICHIS

    Small Mole & The Flavor Jewel Trio

    [engl] Fresh off scoring the Sundance nominated short film, The Rifleman(2021), Los Lichis confidently stumble back with their most recent sojourn into the sub underground popular culture milieu with a new 12’’ EP for ever/never records. Enigmatic only because the world is blind and deaf to certain wave lengths , Los Lichis, one of Monterrey, Mexico’s proudest exports bring to you their latest transmission ‘Small Mole & The Flavor Jewel Trio’ . Like a train lurching out the station that can’t decide if it wants to leave or maybe just sit at home and watch the world crumble on television. Providing a perfect soundtrack for transiting to funerals or weddings or birthdays or really anywhere at all, this strain of Raga(Mexican) will surely bring you back home feeling lighter and brighter than when you left.
    Format
    12''
    Release-Datum
    18.04.2022
     
  • cover

    MAXIMUM ERNST

    Bring Your Own Pencap

    [engl] None or all of the following is true about Maximum Ernst: Maximum Ernst is an art band. Maximum Ernst is a rock group. Maximum Ernst is a jazz combo. Maximum Ernst is fusion. Maximum Ernst is a duo. Maximum Ernst has performed naked. Maximum Ernst is magick. Maximum Ernst is a joke. Bring Your Own Pencap is the eventual beginning, the final phase, the plastic molding wrapped in paper towel.
    Format
    TAPE
    Release-Datum
    18.08.2017
     
  • cover

    MAXIMUM ERNST

    Hallmark Of A Crisis Period

    [engl] Five years into their long strange drip, the duo of Maximum Ernst continues to confound, perplex, confuse and refract. Foetal returns yielded guitar/drum scramble in service of improvisational incongruity and radical reimaginings of alt-world smash hits by Faust, Snatch and Easy Cure. A link with Old Master horn maestro and official NYC gem Daniel Carter emerged and soon thereafter a CD and live cassette popped a few eardrums just right, so tight. Further uncharted territories were conquered and liberated as Maximum Ernst furiously and fitfully would-shedded. Woodn’t you? Quit playing. That was the advice of one medical doctor and also a licensed quantum mathematician; but still the daft, disappearing duo of Maximum Ernst gestured, rudely, NAY and thus, this newest release finds itself in your hands, begging for a vigorous clean. Please, indulge. “Un Menace Natural” welds together extra-dimensional birdsong, soothing bursts of noise, the timbre of waves on a nonexistent beach and uncanny, unnerving shrieks smeared into beguiling patterns. It builds, it ebbs, it flows, it knows. It knows everything. It’s like if Jon fucking Hassell and Black fucking Dice had a fucking Baby. “Hallmark Of A Crisis Period” is a cut-up tour de force that shivers with unhinged delirium and barely-concealed malice. Imagine William S. Burroughs interpreting a Whitehouse “banger” as being live-mixed by Nurse With Wound. Imagine it, you fool! Despair not, heathen, as Maximum Ernst has imagined it for you. And it is as glorious as a sunset must be to a hanged man. Rejoice, for you have entered the Crisis Period, and nothing will ever be the same.
    Format
    12''
    Release-Datum
    04.09.2020
     
  • cover

    MAXIMUM ERNST

    Live at Legion Hall

    [engl] Following a successful collaboration released on CD and cassette by New York City’s Ever/Never Records, legendary reeds-master Daniel Carter and the duo known as Maximum Ernst converge once again. Retaining a sense of continuity within the narrative jolt, Carter is unflappable and steadfast amidst the storm-drone conjured by Maximum Ernst. On each untitled cut, Daniel Carter switches horns effortlessly as Ernst churns, hums and slums via guitar, tapes and drums.
    Format
    TAPE
    Release-Datum
    22.07.2019
     
  • cover

    MAXIMUM ERNST

    Perfect Mixer / Matchless Pair

    [engl] The worm never stops turning at MaxE HQ, so as we make another trip thru the solar system on Spacefish Mirth, Ever/Never presents Perfect Mixer/Matchless Pair. Before you ask—Yes, it’s good. Yes, you will enjoy this ravishing ear-tickle of a release. Past meets future. Beats in space. Time falls fast and twists into a funnel cloud of distortion. Perfect Mixer/Matchless Pair is a funhouse reflection in an abandoned amusement park. Perfect Mixer/Matchless Pair is a suicide ride into the vanity mirror universe.
    Format
    TAPE
    Release-Datum
    02.04.2021