by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Earlier this year Make Believe Records, a new label based out of Brooklyn, released a compilation that featured many local bands whose names we’ve seen on bills over the years including Gustaf, Sic Tic, Sailor Boyfriend, The Rainbows, and more. Some we’ve caught live, some we haven’t yet had the pleasure of catching. One of the bands on that release that really impressed us was Toyzanne, a New York sextet that came together following the dissolution of The Yin Yangs, Bodega Bay, and Chimes. After a string of lead up singles, the band will release Chores, their full length debut via Make Believe in July. The release is wildly expansive, a post-punk marathon that twists and turns through uncommon structures and a variety of sonic temperaments, all drawn under the same lo-fi recordings.
The record, which comes as a standard digital download and an extended deluxe cassette, is both jangly and jagged, the band playing it loose even when deceptively locked in. Tracks like “Cosmic Onslaught” and “Duras” are light and airy, buzzing with activity, but keeping everything in the breeze, watching it unfold as it may. On the other end of the spectrum, “Lady Byron Katy” and “How Sway,” both of which sounding buried in a ocean of tape hiss and fuzz, rip with a slacker punk charm that would fit in with early Sebadoh recordings. The record makes a point to embrace just about all in between, using their dirty recordings to create a lens that is blurry but magnifying all the same.