Sonic Deaf Squad - The Basement Tapes, Recordings From The Vault

 

Sonic Deaf Squad - The Basement Tapes, Recordings From The Vault
Self-released – 2025
Rock, Alternative, Noise, Punk
Rated: ***

Out since the first of February, a brand new collaboration between four artists that you might know from bands like Geishas of Doom, Kintsugi Empire, Atlanta, Ten East, Hilltop Howlers, Tricklebolt, Automatic Sam, Shaking Godspeed, Love Supreme, Giant Tiger Hooch, Eins Zwei Orchestra and probably a whole hell more! Cause this is a band with four highly intuitive artists that always flow according to the energies of the great magnet. They let the wind carry them and do their magic on whatever canvas presented. Case in point, drummer Stephan Konings is also a visual artist and painter. Free flowing, tumbling and gritty, the punk is presented like slow moving experiments, with noisy outburst and with different grooves for the listener to latch on to. The eight tracks, seven of them only with a maximum length of two and half minutes, are only seemingly chaotic, for even though there are these various channels to swim through, you are always able to head out with the current. In all, these Recordings From The Vault, exhibit a lot of drive, and a lot of sixties, seventies psychedelics turned into punk and noise fare from later decades. “The music reflects the unrest of an unstable social climate with raw, experimental sounds capturing the chaos of the modern world.” A statement that you can hear Sonic Deaf Squad deliver with sinewy momentum and sparks flying everywhere…

(Written by JK)

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Geishas of Doom – The First Four Tapes

Kintsugi Empire – Shun

Automatic Sam – Arcs

Tricklebolt – Honey From The Sky

Tricklebolt – Honey From The Sky

 

 

Tricklebolt – Honey From The Sky
LAB Music – 2024
Rock
Rated: ****

Drummer Daan Wopereis’s other band is called Tricklebolt. Yes! Now I remember, I was searching for that name during the Sonic Whip Festival, as I watched him groove on stage. And tried to tell the drummer from Phe about all his other bands. For you might already know him from noise punkers Geishes Of Doom, the new psychedelic garage-ists Kintsugi Empire that was playing on Sonic Whip at that moment or that wild free rock outfit called Temple Fang. With him are Bastian Pen, Lead vocals / Rhythm Guitar, Tim Kampman, Lead Guitar / Backing Vocals, Daan Pen, Bass guitar and Menno Nijen Es on Keys. Together they formed a band called Tricklebolt, some ten years ago, hit a massive amount of stages, delivered strong albums like their self-titled debut and Straight Into The Blue from 2020. And now they are back with a giant of an album called Honey From The Sky. Nine tracks recorded in eight different studios and with the aid of eight musical friends. The cream of the crop of the Dutch heavy, psychedelic and classic rock scene and we’re gonna namecheck them all now. Wout Kemkens from Shaking Godspeed, Iron Jinn, De Niemanders. Pablo van der Poel from DeWolff. Rens Ottink from Pauw. The entire Splinter crew. Two tracks with the Indian Askin four. Pieter Holkenborg, from Automatic Sam, Ten East, Geishes Of Doom and his new Kintsugi Empire. Niek Cival from The Grand East. And Jim Zwinselman from Bökkers, Boogie Monster, Strand Of Oaks and Jimmy Diamond. That is quite the list! And it turned into quite the album! If you know any or all of those names, you can easily deduct what direction the sound will take. Back towards the golden age of rock, classic, bluesy, soulful and chuck full of love for the good stuff. A bit of psychedelic garage and a lot of seventies and sixties. A kaleidoscopic thunderstorm of sound that will show you all kinds of colors and languidly shifts through the scenery by way or lovely pedal steel, delicious organ work, vocal harmonies that will surely warm the bones and all of it will send flutters through your heart. Honey From The Sky, is like sugar water for the soul!

(Written by JK)

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Geishas of Doom – The First Four Tapes

 

 

Geishas of Doom – The First Four Tapes
Self-released – 2024
Punk, Thrash, Noise, Garage
Rated: ***

In days long gone there was a short period where I shared the same office space with Jan Petit, who plays bass for Dutch (usually) 6-piece thrash, punk and noise band Geishas of Doom. I saw them play live once and could never have imagined before that fateful night that Mr. Petit could make that amount of ruckus. He was such a good and tranquil dude. Now, I do realize that the name of Jan Petit might mean little to you crazy few that might have stumbled upon these words, and therefor we should probably namecheck a few others from Geishas of Doom. Cause yes, the members from this band all play or played in different outfits. And here’s that list of damn cool bands: Birth of Joy, Iron Jinn, Automatic Sam, Giant Tiger Hooch, Tricklebolt, Atlanta and Love Supreme. So, responsible for all that noise, that lo-fi punk, that raw, venom spitting, dynamite throwing explosive racket are: Jeroen Lichter - Vocals and Spaceplank, Pieter Holkenborg - Vocals and Guitar, Rense Slings – Guitar, Daan Wopereis – Drums, Bob Hogenelst – Drums and of course Jan Petit on Bass. And on this album called The First Four Tapes, which will be released in May, they have collected their first four releases, two releases per side, twelve songs each, twenty minutes on Side A, and twenty-one on Side B. Which immediately tells you how furious and fast paced these songs are, still retaining basic melody and offering a primitive groove, the moments when they let some surf in or some experimentation, are the definite highlights. But Geishas of Doom aren’t here for highlights, they’re here to shout and scream against ‘everything that has gone too far in this day and age, the direction of perfection, narcissism, polarization and hypocrisy.’ A righteous punk adagio if ever there was one! And a fiery collection of their work so far…

(Written by JK)

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