PSYWARFARE // BBVGC

 Not to be confused with the recent P.S.Y.W.A.R. post, this is Dwid's PSYWARFARE sharing destruction duties with Japan's BBVGC. The latter takes the BLOODY MINDED hardcore-as-noise-as-hardcore approach and makes it spooky and theatrical while the former....well, I can't speak on the world of Dwid but I recognize that it's a world. And I respect that he has been doing the shit for three decades (plus). And "Evisceration" is a perfect mind-melt of erratic power electronics, harsh noise and deliberate constructions of desperate sound. If you're looking for something to fukk up your day, then look no further. 

DEMONS MOURN FOR BLOODSHED

MOONSCAPE // SMUT

 

It was almost ten years ago when I last posted MOONSCAPE, and I focused on their dark energy. That energy is arguably even more present on this SMUT split. Any if you want to talk about energy.....SMUT is everything you want in a punk. You've had them before but (if you're like me) it's been a minute and this split is a good reminder. "Thirst Trap" is the best punk song you'll hear today.

MOONSCAPE • SMUT

Worth noting that this tape sounds murky as shit in the best and punkest way imaginable.

KAGAMI

 

I feel like it was just yesterday when I posted a five minute long hardcore tape that felt like the greatest thing since sliced bread (a ridiculous saying, by the way....sliced bread is fine, but it's nothing special unless the bread itself is special). These five minutes come from Tokyo circa 2021, and they manage to grab early '00s fastcore, US82 by way of TOTAL FURY style retro hardcore and modern Japanese treble heavy punk all at once. They get in, they get out, there's no bullshit. Who wants bullshit? Nobody wants bullshit.

KAGAMI

POWER OF IDEA

 

How the fukk does this band still get overlooked?! Yellow Thrash is a brilliant piece of grinding Japanese thrash, and there's no logical reason why the band is not held in the highest regard....but you can still find the records in bargain bins. Heavy speed/thrash metal influence, which truly sets their brand of Japanese hardcore in a league if its own....this was the first full length, and to really appreciate "Fashionable White Rice" into "Brownrice" is to know that POWER OF IDEA were more than just a band with a bottomless barrel of riffs - these punks fucking meant it.

YELLOW THRASH

RUINS

 

Like countless other alt-adjacent post adolescents in the early '90s, my first introduction to Shimmy Disc records was KING MISSILE's "Detachable Penis." So after Shimmy Disc led me to BONGWATER and 1/2 JAPANESE (through Jad Fair) I was intrigued to find RUINS, a band who I connected (rightly or wrongly) to BOREDOMS, who I already knew through Zorn (who, in turn, collaborated with RUINS). I tried....I really did. I tried, but I simply wasn't ready for RUINS. It was total freak-punk, intentionally impossible to listen to with unrefined ears (like mine). Not saying 1992's Burning Stone is any more palatable today, but perhaps my palate is just a little older today. Like the rest of me. 

BURNING WORLD

WATCH FOR ME GIRL

I was ripping a ripper last week while I was getting some other shit done, so the jams were mostly lurking in the background. I heard RAMRODS blast through two sets of late '70s Detroit proto-punk followed by a VIKINGS single, then the tape flipped and there was a ROCKET 455 demo from 1994 and mostly this shit is still in the background but I'm still grooving pretty hard on the sounds.....and then I heard the guitar. I knew the song instantly, but the knowledge was buried in the recesses of my sad, cluttered brain. I stopped to focus because this track demanded full attention - the guitar riff I recognized was from DMZ, but this was different. Better, even. And I kept listening; SINIASTER SIX, SUPERSNAZZ, TEENGENERATE, DEVIL DOGA, ACTION FAMILY, THE WOGGLES blast their way/s through timeless bangers from DMZ and I was reminded how bananas the '90s Japanese garage punk scene was just as I was reminded how much DMZ still flies under the radar. TEENGENERATE covering "Mighty Idy" is probably the highlight of your day and in case you're wondering...? No, I didn't get anything else done that day. 

WATCH FOR ME GIRL

CADAVERIBUS

 

Was drawn to the cover initially (for obvious reasons), but when I opened the case and saw "Cadaveribus is a new Death/Doom band from Tokyo, Japan" printed on the inside of the j-card under the track listing....? I was helpless. So I took this four song cassette home and popped it in the deck and I get exactly what I was hoping for - filthy guttural primal death metal stomps layered with stench and doom. The four tracks here are painfully restrained, the vocals are disgusting growls and the guitars redefine disgust itself. "Demonic" is the most melodic cut, anchored by a guitar break around the 2:30 mark that will break hearts, but the individual "moments" are simply too many to count (though you would be advised to prepare yourself for the moment when the tempo picks up in "Eternity" because.....oooff, motherfukkr). A truly devastating release - exactly what I was looking for and exactly what I wanted but even better than I expected. 

OPEN THE GATE

WIPES

 

Some punks in the 40-and-older set gonna listen to this and blurt out TOTAL FURY and RAZOR'S EDGE and I want you to listen to me when I say: 'They're right.' Don't know where this band came from (hint: it's Japan) or how I missed the EP on Crew For Life or the BOYCOTTT SENTENCE split (hint: I'm old and out of touch), but I'm here now and I am on Team WIPES. Shit, I'm the fukkn team captain or the head cheerleader or some shit. "Stupid Sense Border" into "Midsummer" is pretty much perfect, and I take this moment to give thanks to Thrash Tapes for the domestic cassette version of this unsung masterpiece (the Japanese wax is on Hardcore Survives, and is now atop my need list).

W.P.O.

TEENGENERATE

In the '90s SF world in which I existed, there was a general consensus that the Maximum Rocknroll folks were old and elitist and their institutional affinity for "traditional" rock 'n roll was outdated and irrelevant. That wasn't the case, and I wonder (now) if the adherence to some strict garage/punk sound was actually a revolt against the metal and indie and grunge sounds that permeated so-called punk sounds at the time but...I was an outsider so who fukkn knows. But what about this TEENGENERATE demo? So...in in something like 1996 TEENGENERATE played Kilowatt in SF and it was a "thing" at the time because they were popular in the MRR world that loved garge punk and I went to the show and they were really good. After the show.....

TEENGENERATE 1993

Look....there are stories I could tell related to the night of the Kilowatt show and the band in general, but I will spare you the uncomfortable reading and I will share you a killer eleven song garage punk banger from 1993. You're welcome (twice), but it was a really funny story. 

MAREFUMI KOMURA

 

Leaning more into the execution than the title, Komura's 2008 release is a glorious exercise in sound "created by walking through many rooms with a hand held cassette recorder" rather than a traditional mix tape. When my first listen was complete I realized I was just sitting and reflecting - it's like he allows you to hear the past and allows you to see joy while constantly reminding you that you live in a very tumultuous present and you can't go back; a dystopian journey of dead sound and current anxiety.  Tough to describe the power that a thirty minute aural collage can have when it lands on the right ears, and I'm glad that this one found mine.

MIX TAPE 1

TYPHOON FAMILY

 

This tape thing...it's a weird world. I 'get' things and I buy things and I acquire things and sometimes things just kinda come to me and I'm not sure where they came from and I get to listen to them, to (sometimes) learn about them, to (sometimes) enjoy them and then I use this antiquated digital platform to get them to you. Often by the time they reach my ears I don't have any idea how they made it into my hands, and that's the case with this tape from an artist who may or may not be called something like TYPHOON FAMILY (google image translators are a motherfucker). I don't know where it came from, and honestly I don't even know how to describe it. This shit hits like '90s college radio and Japanese indie and '00s heavy alt all trying to figure out who's gonna buy the next round and.....I'm still not sure if and/or why I like it, but I keep listening so I suggest you keep listening. And now? Now you're curious...so you're going to listen more and/or again. And that means I have done my job. 

STEREO SOUND 23FRO15D

CANTOS OSCUROS

 

A stunning collection of obscure tracks put together by the folks at Little Axe in Portland, Cantos Oscuros is an hour long journey into a series of other worlds that left me reeling. MARTHA JEAN-CLAUDE, THOMAS MAPFUMO, ARLETA, FALLING STONES, HILDA MURILLO, NORA HERMOSA.....and a few artists the even the creators couldn't identify. Choice cuts for me are the devastatingly mournful cut from OH JHANG-SAN and a subdued screamer from Tacoma, Washington rock 'n rollers THE WAILERS. Sprinkling a few North American rockers (KEN DAVIS, THE JENSEN SISTERS, CARLA OLSON, THE WAILERS) into a mix filled with artists from Indonesia, Suriname, Cambodia, Jamaica, Greece, Japan, Sweden and Zimbabwe helps to contextualize all of the included music instead of presenting any of the songs as exotic anomalies. But really....? It's a fucking beautiful collection of sound, and that's what I'm here for. 

CANTOS OSCUROS

JERALD

 

No idea where this came from (welcome to my hoard), but there are mobile numbers and no email addresses in the insert so I'm gonna guess 1990s. Music is kinda prog/indie with Japanese pop overtones (vocals particularly) and a serious MINUTEMEN bent on the last track. It's overall really...sweet. Sometimes we need a nice thing in our day, and Jerald are very nice. Also, is the cover upside down...? I think maybe it is.

SUMMER

KLONNS

 

It's hard to explain how something can simultaneously sound this raw and this bombastic, but then it's also hard to describe how KLONNS can feel so completely original within the admittedly restrictive confines of blown out hardcore. Then again, maybe you describe it the way KLONNS do...maybe you explain the sound as the New Wave Of Japanese Hardcore. They first popped on my radar with last year's Crow EP from Iron Lung Records, and digging back in their catalog since then has been a true joy. This tape combines the first two self released cassettes - twenty minutes of black metal tinged grinding crust destruction. Essentially just regular Tuesday stuff around TEHQ. 

DISCOGRAPHY 2016-2017

FEROCIOUS X

 

The Osaka show in 2006 - Kevin brought us a killer spread and scored Jensen and me copies of the new but already scarce Befreia Från Vånda EP before the show, and then FEROCIOUS X blew the fukkn doors off the joint. On a night where we saw FRAMTID, SPRIAL COLLECTIVE and CROW, it's noteworthy that FEROCIOUS X made the impression that they did. And nine years later I was beyond chuffed when I saw that we were playing with them again...and again they were an absolute steamroller. They translate to the recorded medium effortlessly - pure sonic devastation, exactly when you need. That Osaka show in 2006....that was one of the good ones. 

SVÅRT ATT ÖVERLEVA

MAKE WAR NOT LOVE

 

Not sure there's an appropriate way to write words about this comp without just blurting "Look at the bands, dummy" but I'm gonna try. A Euro boot from the early '90s (when these tracks were practically contemporary but already legendary), Make War Not Love compiles a handful of Japan's most legendary first wave hardcores in one place. It's been re-booted several times by and for generations of new fans - COMES, GISM, KURO, CRIME sharing space with lesser knowns HEADLESS and ANTISEPTIC, this is as close to essential Japanese hardcore as you can get without any GAUZE tracks. 

MKE WAR NOT LOVE

TOM & BOOT BOYS

 

YOu get TOM & BOOT BOYS or you simply don't. But to get TOM & BOOT BOYS....is to love TOM & BOOT BOYS. For well over twenty years, these Japanese spiky punk have cranked out noisy adolescent pogo punk of the highest fukkn order - this was the blueprint before anyone else was even building the sound. I snagged the Punks Are Alright on my first trip to Japan and for a song or two I thought the whole band might be a piss-take. But no...TOM & BOOT BOYS are a way of life and they are clearly lifers. This Latest Fuckin' Collection Vol.2015 was given the US cassette treatment by the fine folks at Dark Raids (what happened to Dark Raids...if they're still kicking then I'd love to hang the next time I'm in Fresno) and compiles recordings spanning the second decade of TOM & BOOT BOYS. Older, snottier, spikier, and still as juvenile and irreverent as ever. 

LATEST FUCKIN' COLLECTION VOL.2015

STAGNATION

 

Man...no one sounds like STAGNATION. So much so that it's hard to even know if STAGNATION sound like STAGNATION from one release to the next. Three doses of repetitive, untitled, noise laden mania...if you already know then you surely know. I found out on the Tokyo Sound System comp (my listening ears have not been the same since I heard that compilation, by the way - absolutely formative), and I've followed STAGNATION ever since...actual sonic destruction. The living punk embodiment of not giving a fuck. About anything. Bands like this are best consumed (by me) in small/er doses, and the three track !!! sits just about right with me, so....you're welcome.

!!!

GUILTY CONNECTOR

 

There are times when music doesn't suffice. Times when everything is so....much....that a hook or a chorus or even a distortion laden two note guitar solo and throat searing vocals just won't do the trick. The itch for chaos is too intense and you need less structure and/or more chaos. You need sound that will meet you on your level, and your level is, quite frankly, low. Enter GUILTY CONNECTOR. Japanese crust violence noise lord of the highest order, delivering electronics that are measured, calculated, and fucking debilitating. Deathmaster III clocks in just under twenty minutes and when it's finished it's all you can do to remind yourself to breathe. That's when the good experiences do....they make you forget everything else. 

DEATHMASTER III

YUPPIE GORE FILTH

 

Ramshackle Japanese anarcho-stench presented in seven chaotic movements. Worth it for the title track alone, but the whole thing is only a hair over six minutes, so if you manage your time properly then you won't miss a blast. 

YUPPIE GORE FILTH