Pucker up and kiss. There was an argument back 50 years ago or so, when the Sex Pistols were preparing to release their first album, that putting out an LP was bourgeois and out of reach of fans. Unemployment was soaring, the very conditions that sparked the initial punk explosion, and poverty was rampant, especially among the youth. Even if the Pistols had eschewed the long player, of course, it would have happened sooner or later, and likely with less control of the teenagers who made the music.
It’s an argument that maybe has come around again with the designer vinyl renaissance (see, for example, A Motown Christmas, a reissue of the 1973 compilation on two “sparkling holiday liquid-filled” LPs and retailing for $110.00). Without wanting to accuse them of money mongering, I have felt a bit that way about the Vancouver band PISS. I’ve followed them through the live videos they’ve posted (which are cheaper to watch than a 7” single cost in the 1970s) and have wanted them to remain outside the industry (as if YouTube were outside the industry). But I also wanted them to have the success they deserve. Inevitability came knocking in the form of Sub Pop
Records and you made me / skin on linen made it to the marketplace at the end of last month.
Fronted by the ferocious Taylor Zantingh (who is also a published poet and literacy teacher), the band is resolute in its feminist stance. There’s no kumbaya going down, although the presence of a mixed gender lineup shows that Zantingh’s perfect society isn’t exclusionary. Cis-men are allowed, even if the ones who should listen—the ones who hate or are threatened by women, who commit sexual violence or lie for sexual advantage—won’t. There’s no missing the point. The songs are smart and strident, and confrontational, punctuated by spoken samples that serve as introductions and footnotes. “Time Loop at Hot Slit” has classic hardcore vocal cadence and 2/4 beats. Other songs are blurrier and at the same time disturbing in real-world ways. “Blocking a Scene You Can’t Remember” is a start-and-stop dramatic monologue with slow drive backup. Linking references from the late 20th Century references (author and activist Andrea Dworkin, German guerilla group Rote Zora to the recent (the abuse and multiple rapes of Gisèle Pelicot) and very current (songs built from interviews with audience members), the album reads like a college course, but it sounds like a revolution. you made me / skin on linen is the holiday gift every punk on your list, preteen and up, needs to receive.
Toronto’s Fucked Up committed an offense even worse than releasing a whole album with their Zodiac Series, so epic it’s made out of 12 smaller epics released over the course of 20 years. It’s a rock’n’roll Ring Cycle, a 10¼ hour hardcore polyptych I can’t shut up about. Year of the Rooster (2LP, download out Nov. 13 via Tankcrimes) is the final installment in the Grass Can Move Stones trilogy (preceded by Goat and Monkey) and brings the Zodiac Series to a conclusion. There’s a complex tale of friendship and self-discovery running through and laid out in liner notes, but what has always appealed to me is the long-form thinking of the compositions. The installments have consistently gotten longer, usually divided into LP-side length chapters. There are, to be sure, passages of hardcore punk, with Damian “Pink Eyes” Abraham’s guttural, throat-ripping vocals at front. But there’s also melodic sections, bits of glam flash and triumphant arena rock, and quiet noise, sometimes in unexpected amalgams, with additional vocals by the rest of the members, sometimes in succession like an amped-up song-circle.
Guitarist/keyboardist and principal songwriter Mike “10,000 Marbles” Haliechuk might be the only person in rock history to out-Townshend Pete Townshend. It’s satisfying but bittersweet to see the cycle reach its conclusion. Maybe now they can start in on the table of the elements.
Two drumsticks and a microphone. Drummer Teresa Riemann makes a wonderful ruckus. Her drum kit, augmented by effects pedals, explodes with distortion, delay and controlled feedback. Even without the augmentation, though, she’s a heavy player. The 37 minutes of Can I stare at you publicly?: A Living Contradiction (out Nov. 6 from 577 Records) could stand up to most three-minute drum solos. But there’s more to Riemann’s songs than just that. The three tracks on the album are songs, long and loud songs with Riemann fighting—but not straining—to be heard over her own resounding rhythms, seemingly recorded as single takes; video documentation provides evidence of her singular attack. The voice is at center, clear but not louder than the drums, giving a claustrophobic sensation to the songs, which take a form something like extended liturgical chants. But with the halos and undercurrents of triggered noise, the result is like a Butthole Surfers song with the guitars removed. Really, though, it’s more like nothing else I’ve heard.
Stone Temple Pagans. The four members of Bosco Sacro take their collective name from a 16th Century sculpture garden, also known as the “Park of Monsters,” in central Italy. They’ve only been active as a band for a half dozen years, but their music feels as ancient as the carved gods and mythic beasts that populate the park. Inhabit, their third album (CD, LP, download out from Supernatural Cat Records Nov. 6) is super dramatic and slightly gothy, with an ancient spiritualism suggested in such song titles as “Gift From the Fog” and “Desert of Sense” and running deep in the lyrics. The title track extolls selflessness and oneness with everything around us before concluding that “we lose time just if we reclaim time / and we lose touch just if we demand touch / and we lose love just if we retain love / and we lose love just if we demand love.” The folky and oddly catchy “Dong-Dee” could be a new entry into the pantheon of nursery rhymes about death. It’s an eerie album, kind of witchy, but not an assault. Singer Giulia Parin Zecchin moves easily from fragile soprano to authoritative alto, in front of hovering, shimmering guitars and slow, solid bass and drums. The Siouxsie and the Banshees vibe is strong, but there’s nothing frantic at play. Bosco Sacro is old and calm as stones.
Add to Playlist. Whatever happens on Election Day, we’ll still have need for the punk folk anthems of yore. Three days after the final vote, Cooking Vinyl is reissuing three classics by Billy Bragg on CD and limited LP. Tracks like “Island of No Return,” “Help Save the Youth of America” and Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards—not to mention his takes on “Which Side Are You On?” and “There is Power in a Union”—are, sadly, timeless.
