Tag: Unsane

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Co-founded in 1979 by the legendary Brian Eno, Bill Laswell and New York-based producer, engineer and producer Martin Bisi, the Brooklyn-based BC Studio has played a pivotal role in New York’s musical history as landmark albums by Sonic Youth, Swans, Unsane, Afrika Bambaataa, Herbie Hancock, John Zorn and others were personally recorded by BC Studio’s Martin Bisi. BC35 is a special compilation that chronicles a weekend of live performances celebrating the studio’s 35th anniversary in January 2016, recorded by Bisi at the studio featuring improvised and written pieces by current and former members of Sonic Youth, Swans, White Hills, Foetus, Cop Shoot Cop, Live Skull, Pop 1280, Violent Femmes, The Dresden Dolls, Alice Donut, Lubricated Goat and others.

“What A Jerk,” the first single from the BC35 sessions is a jam from a new project, EXCOP, which features Algis Kizys, who had a stint in Swams in the 90s and is currently a member of Lydia Lunch‘s backing band; Phil Puleo, who splits time between Swans and Cop Shoot Cop; and Puelo’s Cop Shoot Cop bandmates, Jack Nantz and Jim Coleman, and unsurprisingly, the single is a murky, pummeling and noisy affair consisting of scorching guitar, sizzling feedback, down-tuned bass, thunderous drumming and random burst of spoken word that give the song an art school rock vibe.

EXCOP, along with Bisi’s newest band Nowhere Near, which features current and former members of Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore, Lydia Lunch’s band; New Old Skull, which features all of the original Live Skull members, White Hills and Tidal Channel will be playing at the album release show at Saint Vitus on 4/20/18. Bronson Recordings will be releasing BC on April 20, 2018 as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Currently comprised of husband and wife and founding duo of Cristina Martinez (vocals) and Jon Spencer (guitar, vocals), equally known for his two other bands Pussy Galore and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion; along with Jens Jurgensen (bass), who had a stint in renowned punk/metal band The Giraffes; Hollis Queens (drums, vocals) and Mickey Finn (keys), Boss Hog formed back in 1989 as a sort of accidental side project, when the band’s founding duo of Spencer and Martinez were told of a last minute vacancy on the bill at CBGB’s. Spencer and Martinez reached out to friends and collaborators and quickly put together a band featuring members of The Honeymoon Killers and Unsane, along with Spencer’s Pussy Galore bandmate Kurt Wolf. That first gig together was reportedly an underground sensation — partially because Spencer played the entire set completely naked. And although the band has gone through a series of lineup changes, over their 28 year run, the band have developed a reputation for releasing disturbing and sexually incendiary material through some incredibly renowned record labels — including Amphetamine Reptile Records, In The Red Records, and DGC/Geffen.

BROOD X is Boss Hog’s first full-length album in almost 20 years, and from the album’s first single “17,” the material on the album is a wild and heady mix of dusty, shuffling, sleazy, whiskey-soaked blues, snarling punk rock attitude, noisy no-wave-inspired art rock, shoegazer rock and seductive baroque-inspired pop to create a sound that not just uncompromisingly defies genre conventions while expressing the bilious and strange mix of hopelessness, fear, uncertainty, fury, bitterness and the uneasy, desperate longing to make sense of an absurd, dangerous, new world run by an ignorant maniac. Part existential howl into an indifferent void and part a clattering yet sensual and subversive call to have art be your solace in desperate times, the song may arguably be a call to get out there and resist through one of the most human ways we can — through art.