Oakland’s W0RK released Paper, their latest EP, back in April, a futuristic dystopian pop record filtered through post-punk and experimental electronic music. The duo have a rich aesthetic that involves hi-tech business attire and plenty of retro-futurism, and it all comes to life on their new video for EP stand-out “Screen Eyes.”
The quartet, led by Ben Grigg (Geronimo!, Whelpwisher, Future Biff), formed in the late months of 2017, having released their debut single just as 2018 came to a close. The band have become somewhat of a fixture among the PRF community, contributing to their Monthly Tribute Series (specifically Guided By Voices and Kathleen Hanna), which might give you a fair indication of their sound.
Led by The Locust’s Bobby Bray, together with Brandon Relf and Chad Deal, the trio will release their exceptionally titled debut album, Western Spaghettification, via Three One G. Gloriously mangled and deranged, INUS take a hyper-active look into corporate malaise and dead-inside institutionalism, with a jerky and erratic approach to deconstructed punk and serrated noise rock.
Austin’s Delicate Boys are getting ready to release their full length debut, Mineral Empire, due out July 26th as the inaugural releases of No Wisdom Records. Their sound throughout the album takes more than a few weird shifts, but at their core the quartet draw influences from garage rock, psych punk, and burly stoner fuzz.
Pet Fox’s admission of impatience is telling, “Swerving” is less than 90 seconds long. However, in that minute-and-a-half, the band are able to squeeze in a lot: several different musical phrases, one of their strongest vocal melodies to date, a metaphorical narrative, a lead guitar solo/outro, and a killer leaning chord progression.
All of God's Money / A Tribute to Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot features contributions from Slow Mass, Bethlehem Steel, Ratboys, etc, with all proceeds to AIDS Foundation of Chicago. We’re excited to premiere Meat Wave’s “War on War,” adapting the original’s jangly space-age boogie into something more muscular and driving.
Boston’s Zip-Tie Handcuffs have been making stoney garage punk for over a decade now, earning a reputation as one of the city’s most reliable live acts. Set to release their fifth album, Warm Shadows, the record is a culmination of everything they’ve built over the last years from heavy fuzz rock to retro surf pop and hazy, shreddy, psych punk.
Due out digitally on June 28th, with the tape release to follow, each band are offering a pair of noisy tracks, displaying a disparity in their otherwise similar approaches, one dense and overdriven, the other nuanced and prolonged. It’s a great balance between their sounds, complimenting each other as they in turn highlight each other’s differences.
RONG are your mutant freak punk dreams come true. The Boston band have been kicking around for a year or so now, having released a fantastic split with Landowner last summer, and now the band are ready to unleash (and i do mean “unleash”) their triumphantly rampant full length debut, Wormhat, on July 2nd.
Toronto psych punks Possum are set to release their full length debut, Space Grade Assembly, in just a few weeks (June 21st via Garment District), a record that is both swirling with garage rock excess and cosmic basement fuzz. It shreds and shreds, brain cells be damned, bringing to mind early albums from Wand or Meatbodies.
Hailing from Boston, Little Musket started out as the songwriting vehicle for Catherine Conley but has expanded into a full-fledged four piece. You can expect a big sound with a direct, personal point-of-view. Little Musket’s upcoming debut record, Fever Blister, is being released by Dadstache Records (Calicoco, Fuzzrod).
The song’s slow and ominous introduction is paired perfectly with the video’s lighting, backing out into frame without any sense of urgency. The clip is fantastically off-centered which works together with the song, a dirge of psych tension that opens to primal drums and eventually the surfy bliss of Grace Wayne’s vocals and guitar.
In this video, Esterhammer-Fic’s powers of arrangement are on full display, as is his vulnerability as an untested artist that is stepping out as a songwriter, in many ways, for the first time. What better way to do that than by showcasing an orchestral reinterpretation of the Grammy Award Winning Certified R&B Banger “Boo’d Up” by Ella Mai.
