Having temporarily relocated to the other side of the world, leaving all my precious CDs far behind me, I've been experiencing sinister foreign radio stations as I've pootled about in a variety of terrible cars with no ipod connectivity. This has brought me to the same conclusion I reached many years ago in my homeland; radio is what you listen to when you don't really like music enough to care what you listen to. I do like music enough to care what I listen to, even if it might occasionally seem to the casual observer to be an earful of foetid shit. So I've spent the past few weeks burning shiny round mixtapes on my laptop, trying to put together some (relatively) coherent playlists. In doing so I have discovered that a) I can put together some pretty fine easy listening compilations, b) I don't own nearly enough jazz funk, and c) there are certain bands that I struggle with when it comes to making shiny round mixtapes. Charger are one such band. The problem I have is that when I try to pick the best Charger songs to put onto the shiny round mixtape, I eventually come to the conclusion that the best Charger song is ALL OF THE CHARGER SONGS. The extent to which they clearly don't give a single fuck about anything is evident both in the violently uncaring sludgtality of their vaguely musical output, and also in the way in which they have deftly avoided any sort of tangible success or recognition in the ten years or so that they have been retching up their completely inhuman racket. They are the perfect antidote to the sort of musical apathy that makes commercial radio a viable proposition; because no matter how little you like music, Charger like you even less. Fuzzbastards. Website: http://www.fuzzbastards.com/ Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/charger Facebook: nope Wikipedia: nope
I realised the other day that the band I have seen most this year is (I think) Jesse Ventura who, with hits like Dick Sledge and... erm... many more, spaff out a foaming jet of Gay For Johnny Depp-esque homoerotic hardcore. What's this got to do with Mea Culpa? Almost nothing - the only (tenuous) link is that the two bands share a singer. Where Jesse Ventura are a bunch of hip grinding sexual tyrannosaurs, Mea Culpa are a darker, more serious and introspective prospect. Bleak, desparate, etc etc. So if Mea Culpa are such a miserable bunch of bastards, why aren't Jesse Ventura the greatest band in the world ever this week? Partly because they don't have any recorded output that I can try and trick you into listening to (although at the time of writing they're working on that). Partly because I like miserable bastards better than sexual deviants (most of the time). But mostly because I think that while Jesse Ventura are a fantastic live band, its the dismal and discomforting post-whatever of Mea Culpa that I want to listen to at home. Of course, that might all change once Jesse Ventura get around to releasing something - so check them out too (https://www.facebook.com/JESSEVENTURABAND). Get startled. __Prostitutes In Picture FramesProstitutes in Picture Frames Three and a Half Times Three and a Half Times
Until I started looking into it (about 20 minutes ago), I was convinced that at the time Mahumodo were about (2000ish) they were just one of many quite British post-metal bands; all following in the vast soaringly epic/crushingly heavy wake of Deftones, Cult of Luna and Neurosis. But it turns out that the glut of British bands all doing more or less the same thing came along at around the time that Mahumodo were calling it a day. Which I guess makes them trendsetters of sorts; barring the fact that they sound like bits of the aforementioned bands themselves, and were never particularly trendy. After they went kaput the assorted remnants of Mahumodo went on to form *Shels and Devil Sold His Soul; well-regarded bands that I'm sure are just lovely, but they never clicked with me. Fuck off and get yourself a copy of the Waves EP instead. Website: nope Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/officialmahumodo Facebook: not really Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahumodo
To be honest I haven't been listening to an awful lot of anything this week, for reasons mostly relating to travel through time and space. But back when I was all about Animals As Leaders, I also went through a brief (basically an afternoon) but intense Intronaut phase. They kind of tick the same boxes as Animals As Leaders - fiddly guitar lines, proggy rambling song structures, occasional crazed jazz freakouts - but tend more towards the shouty end of the scale. It's like a jazz funk bassist was being held against his will by a brutal metal band who refused to release him until his thumbs fell off. Admittedly, it's not very much like that; but I'm not that great at creative writing, so that's what your stuck with. Fuckers. Now go and listen to some Intronaut. Website: http://blogronaut.blogspot.co.nz/ Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/intronaut Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Intronaut Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intronaut
