#cia debutante

[goodbysunball]

Best of 2023

Toledo, OH, Dec. 30, 2023

It's going to take years to unpack the last few months of 2023. Whatever mental trauma is inflicted upon those removed from the situation in no way approximates the devastation and inhumanity occurring daily to millions. That the US is funding it all, and institutions and businesses domestically are punishing those who speak out about it, is sickening and terrifying. The latest Lulu's email newsletter wrote more eloquently about it all than I could, and plainly calls for empathy at the end: "Be good in a bad world."

And we do that, pretending things are normal for the sake of others, our kids, our partners. But things are not normal, and that pressure forces other changes, because while we can to some degree control what happens within our lives, there's no fix for seeing (let alone experiencing) dead, maimed children regularly on Instagram, victims of bombings without caution or consequence. A sense of powerlessness pervades. What we can do is keep talking, sharing and banding together. Being good in a bad world.

Some notes:

Lots more instrumental, or nearly instrumental, music than usual this year on my list, which tracks with the current climate. Music without words, or without discernible words, leaves space for thoughts to become untangled, sure; but a lot of what’s highlighted below felt more transcendent than meditative.

I still listen to rap quite a bit, but very few new songs I heard stuck around past a few days. Call it malaise from living in an era where every other song on the radio has a trap beat. Starlito dropped a clunker, which shouldn't have shocked me but did, and it personally felt significant. Maybe it’s indicative of the old guard’s demise, but hopefully it removes a wall and allows me to engage with newer rap music better. That being said: Veeze's Ganger was head and shoulders above everything else; billy woods' short verse on "As the Crow Flies" made me gasp the first time I heard it (and I also loved ELUCID's verse on "Baby Steps"); and I listened to The Jacka's The Jack Artist most of all.

Of all the books I read this year, two books by Fernanda Melchor, Hurricane Season and Paradais, stood out. Melchor’s prose is incredibly powerful, bleakly funny and vicious in equal measure. The sharp, frank assessments by characters in often ludicrous situations feel like a product of the contemporary but imbued with some ancient wisdom. Shout out to Julia S. for the new and notable South American literature tips.

In the midst of holiday/short day doldrums, amidst endless bleak news reports, it was difficult battling back cynicism to listen to anything, especially back to all of these records and tapes listed below. It ended up being oddly therapeutic, highly enjoyable and maybe necessary, the same as when I force myself out to shows when it's easier to stay home. That feeling chips away at the notion of this list-making exercise as futile, for me certainly, but hopefully also for you. Thank you for reading, and I hope you find something you like, too.

And so:

LP

Lewsberg, Out and About (12XU)

Equipment Pointed Ankh, From Inside the House (Bruit Direct Disques)

The Native Cats, The Way On Is the Way Off (Chapter Music)

Water Damage, 2 Songs (12XU)

VoidCeremony, Threads of Unknowing (20 Buck Spin)

Emily Robb, If I Am Misery Then Give Me Affection (Petty Bunco)

CIA Debutante, Down, Willow (Siltbreeze)

Olimpia Splendid, 2 (Fonal/Kraak)

Nusidm, The Last Temptation of Thrill (Bruit Direct Disques)

Incipientium, Underg​å​ng (Happiest Place)

Witness K, s/t (ever/never)

Leda, Neuter (Discreet Music)

12"/10"/7"/CS

Chrome Cell Torture, Laugh Then Lie 7" (Scarlet)

Joe Colley, Acting As If 10" (Substantia Innominata)

Disintegration, Time Moves For Me 12" (Feel It)

Life Expectancy, Decline CS (Iron Lung)

Gabi Losoncy, Lieutenant single-sided 12" (self-released)

Peg, We Know Who You Are and Everyone Is on the Lookout CS (No Rent)

Romance, Seven Inches of... 7" (self-released)

Sial, Sangkar 7" (La Vida Es Un Mus)

Slow Blink/Stomachache split CS (Hectare)

Howard Stelzer, oh calm down you're fine CS (No Rent)

Troth, Idle Easel 12" (Digital Regress)

Mark Van Fleet, Vordenal CS (Refulgent Sepulchre)

Stress Positions at the Pilot Light, Dec. 9, 2023

Shows

Bill Orcutt & Chris Corsano duo at Jackson Terminal, Knoxville, TN, April 1

Hell & My Wall at DRKMTTR, Nashville, TN, April 7

Cyberplasm, X-Harlow & FKA Ice at the Pilot Light, Knoxville, TN, May 18

Lewsberg at JJ's Bohemia, Chattanooga, TN, September 27

Stress Positions & Utopia at the Pilot Light, Knoxville, TN, December 9

Five songs favorably commented upon by my 3 y/o daughter*

*Something that happens so rarely that I try to take note when it does

Dua Lipa, "Levitating"

Martin Frawley, "Heart In Hand"

Mount Trout, "Hang Around"

Witness K, "In Knots"

The Young Senators, "Ringing Bells (Sweet Music) Part II"

[dustedmagazine]

Al Karpenter/Al Karpenter & CIA Debutante — The Forthcoming/S-T (Ever Never)

The Forthcoming by Al Karpenter

Al Karpenter swamps threads of song in seething banks of noise and dissonance.  You find yourself focusing on blaring surface noise, while sense and melody percolates somewhere underneath.  It is very modern in that there is too much going on and you are always distracted, always struggling to find the point, but you know it’s there.  If it doesn’t make sense that’s on you. 

This pair of releases allows for fervid collaboration, across and within the noise experimental genre.  The Forthcoming supplements the Spanish outfit’s live line-up—Álvaro Matilla, Mattin, Marta Sainz and Enrique Zaccagnini—with like minded samplers, warpers and droners: Sunik Kim, Dominic Coles and Triple Negative.  The self-titled brings in medieval futurists of CIA Debutante, just off their Siltbreeze outing Willow, Down, reviewed here a month or so ago (“The sound is immersive and disturbing, noises like factory equipment clashing with eerie Suicide-like beats.”).  You can’t really call one disc a solo album and the other a joint effort since both gain intrigue and unpredictability from outside influences. 

But let’s do it anyway  The Al Karpenter disc dissolves and reforms across six tracks, now muttering imprecations over inchoate punk noise (“The Forthcoming”), now approaching bass thumping electro-dance clarity (“A Brand New Brontophobia”), now disintegrating into incantatory chaos (“Poison Sun”), depending on who is involved.  The title track, aided by London’s Triple Negative, launches florid arias out of a chaotic mesh of guitars and drums, where the instruments natter on towards their own ends, unconnected by time signature or key.  A shimmery, shoegaze-y instrumental break tips into lyricism but slides out of true, an antic beat erupting from it like an irregular heart in flight.  Contrast that with the clean, driving agitation of “A Brand New Brontophobia,” where Sunik Kim guests.  A jittering, techno bass rumbles, clipped onslaughts of snare-like drum machines rattle, as Mattin murmurs and croons.  “Happy B-Day,” one of the cuts with Dominic Coles, opens giddily with keyboard before cutting all the way back to guitar notes and murmured threat (“I’m not afraid to kill or die”), alternately minimal and maximal.  “Drood (Can You Hear Me Now?)” offers the clearest distillation of Al Karpenter’s haunted eclecticism, layering vertiginous synths over muttered alienation. 

S/T by Al Karpenter & CIA Debutante

The album with CIA Debutante also delivers dystopic poetry but couched more rhythmically and with the agitation of punk rock.  “Born Dead” lumbers like a giant mechanical beast, its beat slow and inexorable, giving shape to masses of guitar feedback and intermittent shouts of the title.  “Public Scaffolding” bangs more frantically, as a voice rages against income inequality.  It slips into static but doesn’t lose its structure; you can hear the toms rattling all the way through.  “Medieval Cocaine” sounds the most purely CIA Debutante-ish of all these tracks, the ping and squiggle of electronics framing unknowable, evocative verses. “Fuck You All to Fade No More,” dances inscrutably on synth rhythms and shattering machine beats, as the lyrics shatter the f-word into fragments, repeatedly.   

None of this is especially easy listening, and you won’t be putting it on at your next dinner party.  But it is full of layers and passionate inquiry, and the chaos is like the world right now.  Listen and feel the ground under you crumble and everything sure come into doubt. 

Jennifer Kelly

[polaroidblog]

Poptones / Area Contaminata / Memoria polaroid: diretta speciale 8 gennaio 2024

Per inaugurare il nuovo anno, Poptones, Area Contaminata e Memoria Polaroid, le trasmissioni del lunedì sera di NEU Radio uniscono le forze per regalarci 3 ore di diretta e raccontare alcune delle uscite più significative dell’anno appena passato. Ai microfoni: Gabriele Savioli, Alberto Simoni ed Enzo Baruffaldi. Questa la playlist della serata: Cut – They Got Beat Chow – Goodnight V/Z – Suono…

[still-single]

Al Karpenter & CIA Debutante s/t LP (Ever/Never)

You can spend a week with Mattin one night but that’s all in the company kept. Ask Nathan Roche and Paul Bonnet; with his Karpentry outfit, Matt’s transformed them into an inside-out Von Südendfed for about half the runtime of this corkin’ collab, which would make him at least 25% upside down Mouse on Mars (or Mars on Mouse). Anyone into the idea of CIA Debutante who’s been whelmed by the records – and understand, that is NOT ME, I love ‘em – might appreciate the crust they’re buried beneath here, and if you’re already on board, this new perspective of Eurothinkspeak crackle is gonna raise a ghost of MES chokin’ on slimy giraffe tongue all over your present abode. Rent’s going up with this one for sure. Much of it sounds pretty easy to discern the two factions at work (“Medieval Cocaine”) but you’ll know when it starts to turn. Easy to have missed out what with there being two Al Karpenter releases at once (the other, which I’ll get to, features Triple Negative, a project that’s always left me feeling like I was listening to someone else’s record and remembering it wrong), but the joys are getting easier to spot amid these balls of freewheelin’ noise, laptop melt, barometric pressure and thog-trog vocalese. Goddamn this one’s great. “New Puritan” / “Papal Visit” levels of confuse. “No one knows where inspiration comes from,” he says, but this might provide a clue. I’m almost certain you can get caught up in the next week should you want one of these. (Doug Mosurock)

[narizentupidocartazes]

[2023] 07 de Setembro | CIA Debutante | Vica Pacheco | Miguel Limão | Lisa - Lisboa Cartaz [Isabela Abate]

[esporaespazioa]

cosecha 2023 uzta

Hauexek dira, 2023an gure orbita hurbilean argitaratu diren diskoak, baita fanzine eta libururen bat ere. Entzun, zabaldu, erosi, bultzatu bertoko artista esperimentalen lanak.

Reunimos aquí un listado de discos que se han publicado en nuestra órbita más cercana. Escucha, difunde, compra, apoya a les artistes esperimentales locales.

A.Maiah F(r)icciones hegoa 2023/09 LP

A.Maiah/Mata Re-act ramble records 2023/09 CD

Abaunz Beire Series negras 2023/06 CDR

Al Karpenter The Forthcoming ever/never records 2023/07 LP

Al Karpenter & CIA Debutante s/t ever/never records 2023/07 LP

Amsia Street of Crocodiles Series negras 2023/03 CD

Asfáltica & Passion Farolas Poemaria crystalmine 2023/02 K7

Baseline + ibonrg + Miguel A. García Dispectrgs República Ibérica Ruidista 2023/12 digital

Benjamín Vergara / Matías Riquelme Asimetrías tayul 2023/06 Digital

Bidai (Mikel Vega / Xabi Strubell) Biarrezgaur hegoa 2023/12 LP

Ccoowwss & Tube Tentacles Abnormal Blood Karma Detonation Tapes 2023/08 K7

Circuitrip / Tube Tentacles split New Approach Records 2023/03 K7

Dopelganger (Garazi Navas / Miguel A. García) Sainen Hildo hegoa 2023/12 LP

Driellya / Gloomy Life Celestial abhorrence 2 anonim noise recs 2023/06 digital

Driellya / Miguel A. García Basement Corner 1000th release basement corner emissions 2023/11 digital

Driellya / Red Hills Contra la opresion el deseo. Compilation rata sorda recs 2023/10 digital

Emankore (Garazi Gorostiaga / Itziar Markiegi) Eman plakton Hazi Esporak! 2023/12 CDR

Enrike Hurtado Hardcore Punk Dissasters Hazi Esporak! 2023/03 CDR

Enrike Hurtado Ghost Futures crystalmine 2023/05 K7

Enrike Hurtado 20.20 repetidor 2023/09 CD

Gaba/Paezur The Void Series negras 2023/09 digital

Gravelbed Dead Future Gravelbed 2023/02 LP

Guzural / Homeless Network Split Autoekoizpena2023/12 K7

Izarne Oyarzabal Ópalo crystalmine 2023/10 K7

Joseba Agirrezabalaga & Mikel Vega lepok urpa i musel 2023/01 LP

Katza 5th anniversary crystalmine 2023/06 K7

Miguel A. García Oppolomuni Hazi Esporak 2023/05 CDR

Miguel A. García Eyezorros Az 2023/10 LP

Miguel A. García Eraginie Cronica 2023/09 CD

Miguel A. García & Coeval Huncill Cronica 2023/06 digital

Miguel A. García & Jean-Luc Guionnet Duo Hera Corp. 2023/11 K7

Miguel A. García & Mikel Vega Explets crystalmine 2023/07 K7

Mila Cloud / Driellya split declive diy 2023/01 CD

N & Tzesne Sismo Denovali 2023/04 LP

Saio irekia (Ander Fernandez/Aida Torres/Tzesne) Borderline#2 Series negras 2023/04 digital

Saio irekia (Ander Fernandez/Andre Koenig/Tzesne) Borderline#3 Series negras 2023/06 digital

Saio irekia (Ander Fernandez/Joseba Agirrezabalaga/Tzesne) Borderline#1 Series negras 2023/03 digital

Schneider/Vega schneider collaborations schneider collaborations 2023/10 LP

Seth Kim-Cohen + Regler (Mattin & Anders Bryngelsson) Regel #12 (Ambient) crystalmine2023/03K7

TTT/Obleak split Mylar 2023/02 CD

Tube Tentacles, Amphetamine Onanism n​/​t (Split) Brutal Arratia Records 2023/05 digital

Txema Agiriano MEM historias de un festival mem 2023/11 liburua

UHIN Uhin#5 uhin 2023/03 fanzine

Útero Bitch & Genoveva Genocide & Daiben Necroxidation Saw Waves Donation records 2023/01 CD

Valentina Vursik / Baseline / Miguel A. García / IbonRG mem quartet mem 2023/11 LP

vv/aa / zenbaiten artean ER046 Compilation V5 eclectic reactions 2023/05 K7

Wolkokrots (Miguel A. García / Ilia Belorukov) Hurdergnod Minimal Resource Manipulations 2023/04 digital

[noloveforned]

we're back on wlur tonight at 8pm after an unexpected week off due to illness (i'll spare you the details but let's just say it wasn't pretty). the last show (see below) has also been posted on mixcloud for your streaming convenience!

no love for ned on wlur – july 7th, 2023 from 8-10pm

artist // track // album // label cool blue halo // too much kathleen // kangaroo // no fort not // tell me nothing // depressed for success // meritorio eaves wilder // better together // better together digital single // secretly canadian pardoner // my wagon // peace loving people // bar/none grandaddy // summer here kids (early demo) // under the western freeway (deluxe edition) // friendship fever upset // she's gone // she's gone // don giovanni soft on crime // i won't try // in the terrarium cassette // eats it it thing // p.c.h // constant state 7" // feel it lysol // clean living // on the corner // deranged mesh // potato head // benefit for prevention point split 7" // strange mono lifeguard // ten canisters (ofb) // dressed in trenches ep // matador cia debutante // a dove // down, willow // siltbreeze loopsel // öga for öga // öga for öga // dfa graciehorse // run ricky run // l.a. shit // wharf cat workhorse // desert // desert digital single // dinosaur city amelia meath and blake mills // neon blue // neon blue 7" (split w/ sam gendel) // psychic hotline chuck johnson // night of the disappearance // music from burden of proof // all saints dorothy ashby with frank wess // there's a small hotel // hip harp // prestige andreas røysum ensemble // lalibela // fredsfanatisme // motvind muriel grossmann // go ahead john // muriel grossmann plays miles 7" ep // third man chester watson // fish don't climb trees // fish don't climb trees // pow clbrks and yungmorpheus // officer dibble // a place i got lost in // tuff kong lord jah-monte ogbon // third times a charm // i’ve really never been better // copenhagen crates georgia anne muldrow // husfriend // seeds // someothaship fatlip and blu featuring mc eiht // street life // live from the end of the world (deluxe edition) // nature sounds martha and the muffins // i start to stop // mystery walk // current mega bog // love is // end of everything // mexican summer laura branigan // self control // self control // atlantic the dentists // both sides now // janice long session on april 2nd, 1987 10" // precious jeanines // tilt in your eye // each day 7" // slumberland entrez vous // beach boys (don't live in vermont) // entrez vous! // (self-released)

[dustedandsocial]

Dusted&Social #11 (4-9-23)

Pictured:  De Ambassade

Retirement - I.C.F. Neon Kittens - I Traded My Kingdom for Magic Beans nondi_ - slightly daydream CIA Debutante - The New Season Yelka - Petrol Donna Candy - Blooming Bergsonist - Collateral Damage De Ambassade - Brand in De Straten Rezzett - Hevvy BZDET - Znowu HUH - Any Nausea Cosmic Drag - Mystery Bird Fulgeance - Connerie #01 Urinoir Désir - Réveil Glacial Debt Rag - New You V - Lux Ubiquitous Meh! - Brainwater

https://www.mixcloud.com/dustedandsocial/dustedsocial-11-4-9-23/

[cyanidetooth]

Don Cherry & Jon Appleton! François Tusques & Don Cherry! Holy Tongue! Cosmic Drag! CIA Debutante! Graham Lambkin! The Cat & Bells Club! Dream Mega! Debt Rag! Soft Shoulder! Receptacles! Model/Actriz! Parlor Walls! Deerhoof! Timmy's Organism! Gluer! The Dark! Divorcer! Why Bother? The Toads! Rainbow Of Death! Y Pants! Gregory Kramer! Carl Stone! Dickie Landry!

[dealgemeneverwarring]

De Algemene Verwarring #99 - 16 October 2023

The ninety-ninth episode of De Algemene Verwarring was broadcast on Monday, October 16, 2023, and you can listen to it by clicking on the link below that will take you directly to the Mixcloud page:

Pictured below is Brooklyn, NY, based band The Rogers Sisters. And you know what, they are actually sisters: Laura Rogers and Jennifer Rogers, and there is als vocalist and bass player Miyuki Furtado. The band didn't exist for that long and as far as I know the two sisters aren't actively involved in music making anymore. I saw the band when I was in New York, they played a gig under the Brooklyn Bridge together with Enon and Telepathe, and I thought they were a really great band. They also got a spot on the Rough Trade Shops "Post Punk" compilation on Rough Traden that's actually where I first heard them and I honestly thought they were an early eighties band somehow. Their debut album 'Purely Evil' that was released by Troubleman Unlimited is still a classic in my eyes. There's more post punk in this episode, new and older, from Family Fodder, Magazine, The Toads, and The Cure, yes. Also some quiet music from Roy Montgomery, Mist and the great new album by Maxine Funke. And a long awaited brand new release from Swedish underground loving and Gent based label B.A.A.D.M.. And beneath the photo you can find the playlist for the show. Enjoy!

Playlist:

The Orphans: Hey Gyp (LP V/A Back From The Grave 10” on Crypt Records, 2014, originally released on a 7” in 1967 on Herbst Records)

The Mirrors: Hands In My Pockets (2LP V/A “Punk 45 - Extermination Nights In The Sixth City, Cleveland Ohio: Punk and the Decline of The Mid-West 1975-1982” on Soul Jazz Records, 2015, originally released somewhere in 1977)

A-Frames: Frankenstein (7” “Complications” on S-S Records, 2004)

Dan Melchior’s Broke Revue: Loveyougirl (LP “Heavy Dirt” on In The Red Records, 2001)

The Cure: World War (LP “Boy’s Don’t Cry” on Fiction Records, 1979)

The Rogers Sisters: Zero Point (LP “Purely Evil” on Troubleman Unlimited, 2002)

Family Fodder: Debbie Harry (2CD “Rough Trade Shops (Pfresh ost Punk 01)” on Rough Trade, 2003, originally released on a 7" by Fresh Records in 1980)

The Toads: Ex-KGB (LP “In The Wilderness” on Upset The Rhythm, 2023)

Magazine: Definitive Gaze (LP “Real Life” on Virgin Records, 1978)

Terry: Miracles (LP “Call Me terry” on Upset The Rhythm, 2023)

Children Maybe Later: Jane Birkin’s Basket (LP “What A Flash Kick” on Slothmate Productions, 2023)

Roy Montgomery: Pranged (LP “That Best Forgotten Work” on Grapefruit Records, 2021)

Maxine Funke: Willow White (LP “River Said” on Disciples, 2023)

William Henry Meung: Foxhole Blues (LP “Hiraeth And Limerence” on Horn Of Plenty, 2023)

Mist: Mist Stream (12” “Glowing Net” on Amethyst Sunset, 2010)

CIA Debutante:  The New Season (LP “Down, Willow” on Siltbreeze, 2023)

Continuity: The Neon God (LP “Continuity” on B.A.A.D.M., 2023)

[goodbysunball]

Best of 2022

Here it is: my yearly summation of the small labels working through rising costs and punishing manufacturing delays, the artists making music unafraid of chance, and the freaks supporting all of it in spite of the daily consequences of a ruling class increasingly detached from reality. Lots more that deserve accolades from more prestigious publications, and I'm sure they'll get 'em, but these are records that were inseparable from certain points of my year, including now. Yeah, they were all kinda my favorite at one point, and could be again tomorrow, but Kilynn Lunsford is #1 for a reason. Glad to be back at shows, however sparingly, experiencing all the awkward camaraderie and room-silencing/room-flattening performances that come with them. It all feels more necessary than ever. Up and up in a world of lava. Happy New Year, everyone.

LP

Kilynn Lunsford, Custodians of Human Succession (ever/never)

Joe Colley, Deformation of Tone (Total Black)

Kitchen's Floor, None of That (Petty Bunco)

Thomas Bush, Preludes (Mammas Mysteriska Jukebox)

Hissing, Hypervirulence Architecture (Profound Lore)

Tim Goss, Afterfly (Penultimate Press)

Carla dal Forno, Come Around (Kallista)

Rose Mercie, ¿Kieres Agua? (Celluloid Lunch/Jelodanti)

Incipientium, Belastning (Förlag För Fri Musik)

Siobhan, Body Double (Nostilevo)

7"/12"/Cassette/CD

The Body & OAA, Enemy of Love CS (Thrill Jockey)

Brain Tourniquet, s/t 7" (Iron Lung)

CIA Debutante, "The Punch" b/w "The Garden" 7" (Digital Regress)

Cube, Proof of Bells CD (H&S Ranch)

Darksmith, Imposter CD (Throne Heap)

Gaoled, Bestial Hardcore 7" flexi (Iron Lung)

Greymouth, Twilight Furl 7" (Kashual Plastik)

Horrendous 3D, s/t 7" (Black Water)

Incipientium, Inhuman CS (Kashual Plastik)

Primitive Man, Insurmountable 12" (Closed Casket Activities)

RRR Band, s/t CS (Petty Bunco)

Sprite, Epic Sundry CS (Tropical Cancer Rort)

Stomachache, Hiss Noise Whir CD (Lagniappe Exposure)

R.I.P. Young Slo-Be

Rap

42 Dugg & EST Gee, “Thump Shit”

BandGang Lonnie Bands, Scorpion Eyes (Anti Media/TF Entertainment)

Denzel Curry feat. Key Glock, “Walkin (Remix)”

Earl Sweatshirt, SICK! (Tan Cressida)

Lil Durk & Gucci Mane, “Rumors”

Maz G x GuttaFoe, “Win Some, Lose Some” - what is going on in Milwaukee

Starlito & Troy Money, Cheap Phones & Turkey Bags (Grind Hard)

Billy Woods, Aethiopes (Backwoodz Studioz)

Young Slo-Be, Southeast (KoldGreedy / Thizzler on the Roof)

Z Money, Back 2 the Blender (self-released) - thx @raygarraty

Pictured: Angels of Mons

Live shows

The Body at 529, Atlanta, GA (May 17)

Primitive Man, Mortiferum, Jarhead Fertilizer, Body Void & Elizabeth Color Wheel at The EARL, Atlanta, GA (May 20)

Brain Tourniquet, Excavate & Thirdface at DRKMTTR, Nashville, TN (July 16)

Reeking Aura at the Brickyard, Knoxville, TN (November 11)

Bitchin Bajas, Maspeth & Angels of Mons at the Pilot Light, Knoxville, TN (December 11)

Five songs that made my daughter dance every time they hit the deck

Bitchin Bajas, "Quakenbrück" from Bajascillators

Can, "Halleluhwah" from Tago Mago

Rose Mercie, "Cats and Dogs" from ¿Kieres Agua?

Träden, "När lingonen mognar (Lingonberries Forever)" from Träden

YL Hooi, "W/O Love" from Untitled

[dustedmagazine]

CIA Debutante — Down, Willow (Siltbreeze)

Photo by DIGARD Aurelien

CIA Debutante-Down, Willow LP by Siltbreeze Records

“Dark web…in the dark ages,” mutters Nathan Roche in voice like a tombstone, as a percolation of electronics corrodes in the background. The sound is immersive and disturbing, noises like factory equipment clashing with eerie Suicide-like beats. A dystopia emerges, but which dystopia? Are we trapped in some pre-Enlightenment dungeon, with dripping walls and iron chains and shadowy instruments of torture lurking in corners? Or are we in the wrong-turn environment of right this minute, where bitcoin billionaires arrange drug deals and assassinations in the blighted corners of a digital reality. “Dark Ages” slips queasily between these possibilities, as dread seethes and beats clatter and Fall-like rants morph into Current 93-ish apocalypse. It’s a creepy ride, but worth taking.

CIA Debutante has been at its unsettling craft for most of a decade, a duo of poet/guitarist Roche and the visual artist Paul Bonnet, who manages electronics and beats. Down, Willow is the group’s fourth full-length album, though there have been a slew of singles and EPs as well, and it has a startling dark clarity to it.

Consider, for instance, the two “Old Masters” tracks that bookend the disc. The opening salvo forms out of void-ish rush, a keyboard oscillating as Roche utters cryptic phrases. The lyrics are full of technological nouns, hard drives and floppy drives, files and replication, but also some archaic markets. “Old Masters” are at once antique oil paintings and neglected wav files, and the mystery resolves in a pun, as Roche mutters, “Truth be told, no one knows what mastering is.”

The second version comes at the very end of the recording, amid a rattle of metal, a foghorn moan of flickering tone. The lyrics are largely repeated—a horse carries old masters under threat of whip, but whether they are paintings or digital files is unclear—but the music is more agitated and dense. A sound like an old typewriter—or is it a glitch beat—clatters in the background, as space-age bloops of tone bloom and fade.

It’s a surreal movie in sense-surround, a VR-environment rusting at the edges, and you never know exactly where you are or what is happening. And yet it’s quite compelling on its own koan-like terms. Contradictions open passageways to strange alternate landscapes. A dove dies mid-ballet. An architect dreams a building. A cabinet minister awaits a clandestine meeting in a boiler room. It might be 1300 or 1800 or some futuristic ruin of now, and as in all the best nightmares, it’s all of them at once and none of them.

Jennifer Kelly

[still-single]

HEATHEN DISCO BEST OF 2023 SHOWS

They're in the can, check 'em out.

For those still wondering, the Ryan Davis record is the best release of 2023.

Set 1: Reissues/Archival + 20 Tracks from 2023

Arthur Russell – In the Light of a Miracle

Dorothy Carter – Autumn Song

Laurie Styvers – Imagine the Lights Have Gone Out

PG Six – Unteleported Man

Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 – Flames Up Yours

The Dark – Resurrection 

Fury – Circle of Lies

INU – Don’t Eat Food!

Las Mordidas – Surrounded

Spike in Vain – Opus I & II

Africa Corps (Savage Republic) – Real Men (live)

Sonic Youth – I Love Her All the Time (live)

Masayuki Takayanagi – Mass Hysterism Part II

Milford Graves with Hugh Glover – March 11, 1976 III

Les Rallizes Denudes – Eternally Now (live CITTA ’93) 

Maxx Traxx – Reachin’ For It

High Rise – Sadducces Faith

Wolf Eyes W/ Spykes – 4

Tolerance – Sacrifice

Shizuka – 6 Gram Star

Rubber Blanket – Gandy Dancer

Khanate – It Wants to Fly (excerpt)

S*GLASS – Sorry About the False Bounce

Föllakzoid – V-III 

Monocot – The Voice Came

Daniel Villarreal – Chicali Outpost

Equipment Pointed Ankh – Late Night A.I.

Witness K – How Do We Count Your Poses

Coffin Prick – Town Without Pity 2

Olimpia Splendid – Jacksonin Paita

Terry – Jane Roe

Nusidm – Arm Unemployed

Dippers – Encouragement in Brackets 

Guardian Singles – Com Trans

Civic – Born in the Heat 

Married FM – I’m Gonna Find It 

Connections – Bird Has Flown

Son of Dribble – Shed

The Serfs – Club Deuce

Corker – Edge of Teeth

Set 2: 39 Songs from 2023

Stella Kola – November

Wheatie Mattiasch – Not the Angels

Maxine Funke – River Said

Suishou no Fune – A Rainbow Is Floating

Jana Horn – Love in Return

V.I.P.P. – Dancing

Famous Mammals – Like a Shadow

Non Plus Temps – Hide Away

Now – Rattray

Spiral Dub – High as Fuck

Violent Change – Whipping Boy 

Disintegration – Time Moves for Me

Home Front – Nation

Lifeguard – Alarm

The Toads – Nationalsville

Ulrika Spacek - Diskbänksrealism

Retirement – No Refund

Mother’s Milk – Xerox Cloak 

Glittering Insects – Remote Viewed Orgasm

FACS – Class Spectre

Skull Practitioners – Intruder

Los Mundos – Luz Perversa (en vivo)

Cheater Slicks – Fear

Emily Robb – Solo in A

The Sundae Painters – Thin Air

Animal Piss, It’s Everywhere – Pink Dolphin

Sparks – Nothing Is As Good As They Say It Is

The Clientele – Garden Eye Mantra

Lewsberg – Debbie

Usurabi – Even If It’s a Lie

Luxor Rentals – A Hallway

Drop Nineteens – T

Melenas – K2

Exek – On the Ground Floor

Silicone Prairie – Mirror on the Wall

Feeling Figures – Movement

The Smashing Times – Tuesday, Coming into Time

Colleen – Les parenthèses enchantées (Movement III)

Jaimie Branch – Take Over the World

Set 3: The Last 41 Best of 2023

Chi To Shizuku – Kawaki

The Lewers – O Karina

The Native Cats – Suplex

Cuticles – Know Not What

En Attendant Ana – Wonder

Tirzah – 2 D I C U V

Seekersinternational – Caught Up (Heart Breaks)

Ron Morelli – Gun Smoke

Leda – 2

Zuli – Bussra

Smirk – Polyrhythmic Ticks

The Dissidents – Patronized

Consensus Madness – Animosity

Stress Positions – Flaming Sword

Life Expectancy – Land Worm

Collate – Guilty Collector

Blue Dolphin – Docile Jannette

Flat Worms – Orion’s Belt

Los Llamarada – Waiting For Your Eyes

Dion Lunadon – Diamond Sea

Natural Information Society – Immemorial

Quade – Measure

The Split Bell Chime – You Can Tell Me Anything

Matmos – Why?

GUB – 4

DJ Manny – Ooh Baby

Tyvek – What It’s For

Gaadge – Candy Colored

Surveillance – Obvious

Miss Espana – Lirio Blanco

Axis: Sova – Join a Cult

Al Karpenter & CIA Debutante – Fuck You All to Fade No More

Beau Wanzer – Warm Waterboarding

Thee Retail Simps – Wrong Direction

Wireheads – Persistent Resistance

Adulkt Life – Blackout

Sharp Pins – Bye Bye Basil

The Tubs – Sniveler

Meg Baird – Star Hill Road

Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band – Flashes of Orange

Water Damage – FUCK THAT (Reel 13)

[bernielikewhoa]

Psychic Abilities and what it’s like by Bernziexox

It’s easy to tell people to get fucked. It is easy to know if someone near you is fake. It is easy to know when someone near you is being remote controlled or brainwashed dur to their brain activity not being intellectual. it is easy to see through the bullshit. it is easy to talk to your Soul Family and Soul Friends. It is easy to not feel like the common term of ‘alone’ because define that. My dad who I did often catch moments of him giving me genuine Psychic abilities advice or twin Flames advice recetly came to my house talking the bullshit I had been hearing  in the telepathy and been ign oring. “Nah I don’t listen to that bullshit.” I say. Cos I am psychich. And Witchy. I don’t listen to lies. It irritates me when people try to say them around me or near me cos I and my Telepathy and Mirco Tawx think they are pathetic and we discuss. Anyway, mydad came over here saying a phrase I had heard people- and I have to use the term ‘people’ as it is THE most common place term for such things that I do not understand- try to say to him in the 1970s, 1980s and alot in 1993. My dad has a footy career that losers with remote controlls have tried to make people think is not his. There is NO Wally Lewis. Wally Lewis is a Pedophile. Wally lewis Footy career is Brad h Scott. brad h Scott fought through the meddling in 1993 and had his second go at his YOUTH with being in the Debutante team for Coyboys 1995 footy team with my friend Nick Tassall’s dad, Brad Tassal. remote controls around then not hypnotizers tried to make people think other things but no you are a loser if you listen or agree with that part of Hillsong. Brad Scott IS a football athlete. Brad Scott DID NOT die in a car crash near the Burdekin it is Billy Slater. Billy Slater died due to being a Pretender. Billy Slater in 2006 had the opporunity to COME CLEAN about trying to do a wally Lewis and he DIDN’t.. That is Brad h Scott State of Origin Debut kick and try that is Worl famous, Not Billy Slater. Anyone encounter the zombie or holigram of Billy Slater and the guilt is there. Right on Q 24/09/2022 9:40 ‘Call me Out’ song playing on Youtube, THANK  YOU YOUTUBE, always so good and thank you TMZ and AFP and CIA and FBI and The P’s and DA P’s and the Dominos workers that say my dad is the footy legend brad Scott. And there is no pat rafter. That is Zac $4Star’s tennis career that Zac Forster used to honeydick the werld into liking SQUASH. And the list goes on. bernadine xox PYT music career- she wants the meddlers to go away so her mummy feels that berniexox can go back out in the werld again how she wants to. Not this Bullshit Camp Quality Shit. FFS. Berniexox Peninsula netball and long distance endurance running. Bernadeanxox has a singing career. Berniexox has a Twin Flame and bernziexox is an Eternal twin Flame, or Eternal Flame if you are In the Know. In 2016 I was accused of things on a human level and cleared of it as a meddling Old fossil nutcase was pretending to mental health I ahd been living at her house and that my parents had abused me and that due to all that what is involved in conservatorship. That cunt was like 80 years old, eyes rolliing all over the place just yuck! the lady assisting me at mental health had the old cunt removed from the room and was told not to go near me, benriexox . That fucking old cunt then went on a phone call spree to the police and losers drove around remote controlling police and my mum. Not my dad who was assisting me. The old cunt and people at the hospital kept saying a male’s name who isnot my Twin Flame. They kept saying the name Joshua Spina. I said that is not my Twin Flame.I was made to write that person’s name as my next of kin and my grandad and my two brothercousins and my twin flame and my dad were talking to me in telepathy and gave me a phone number which was different to the number the people at mental health were trying to force me to write. I was allowed to leave if I wrote Joshua Spina’s name as next of Kin. if I did not write Joshua Spina’s name as Next of kin the fat cunt Jon athan sed a van was going to come for me. i sed “Telepathy won’t let that.” And the AFP were all over it. red Flanalette Scientist had been talking to me for a little while that there may be a time I would have to do some more Psychic evaluation and in that moment AFP sed this is it, this will be Psychic Evaluation. Write that name, go home and have a male call and change it for you and you will agree. And that is that. Don’t use your phone yet but when you can call crimestoppers. I left the Innisfail District Hospital  and walked home. it was alot like the night after The Shire Hall, Innisfail, Burdekin in 2000 and 2001 and 1999 and 2006 and 2009. But less helicopters. I have a positive want in life and ignored the bullshit the badgerers were trying to do spiritually or with remotes or brainwashing as I always ignore them. they were doing their bullshit screaming shit and rarrr and all that annoying shit. Their human plans is what was fucked up. When I got to my grandad’s.it was chill. On the way home I had walked to the Cowboys field and the old cunt pulled up in the car and her and another fossil tried to get me into the car. I had already flipped the old cunt when the fossil ran at me. So they got me into the car and drove to grabndad’s. The nasty old cunt TL gotout fo the car and locked it and walked towards going inside. The old fossil that had sat in the backseat grabbed the top of my hair with both hands. She was screaming and carrying on and wasn like a Papua Fijian Zambie we all know they are pedos. The old cunt made a grab for my private parts with one hand and with her other hand it had a fistfull of my waiste length hair at the top of my head which i could hear tearing as I tried to get away form the pedo. The old cunt did not touch my private parts she could not, the action of her trying to got my leg and booted her with my foot in the head and the old cunts right eye popped out fo its head. The other nasty cunt that had left me in the car walked back to the car and unlocked it. That was it for me with that perosn. So disgusting to try and contribute to that. Berniexox, me, got out of the car and ran inside to her grandad. It was chill. The old woman cunt with the popped out eye called the police. the police came and sed they were looking for my cousin. And they would go to his house if I didn’t go with them. the AFP tried to reassure me that some of those officers were good and the bad ones would get sorted out and that The Queensland Police needed to know who was bad and I sed I was nup for the challange. my dog would be fine. I would look after him from wherever I was. I kept asking the black haired officer if this was about psychich abilities as I saw his list. it was people I was related to or knew. And were part of my berniexox Project 4:20 campaign which is a few things. We had been dodging kiddie snatchers for years since little kids. i knew proserpine. The list was all kids that also dodged kiddie snatchers grown up. As we are sentients and or Twin flames and or ALIENS AF and or Psychic abilities.. I did not want them to go near my cousinbrothers so i sed I would go and the police officers and grandad reassured me that Andy pansy would be fine.