Rowland S. Howard

Rowland S. Howard
"Pop Crimes"
2009 (Liberation)

1. (I Know A Girl) Called Jonny- 03:51
2. Shut Me Down - 04:21
3. Lifes What You Make It - 06:43
4. Pop Crimes - 07:23
5. Nothin - 03:51
6. Wayward Man - 03:42
7. Ave Maria - 04:00
8. The Golden Age Of Bloodshed - 04:31

DL: MP3-320k-LAME3.98

Review from Wire Magazine (March 2010):
"Despite a lifetime spent playing with groups and collaborating with a variety of postpunk musicians, ex-Birthday Party guitarist Rowland S Howard produced only two solo albums. The second, Pop Crimes, emerged a decade after its predecessor Teenage Snuff Film and two months before his death from liver cancer in December 2009. Backed by his ex-Birthday Party colleague Mick Harvey and The Hungry Ghosts’ JP Shilo, with appearances from Brian Hooper and Sean Stewart, Pop Crimes is Howard at his finest. Opening track “(I Know) A Girl Called Jonny” is an organ driven, lust-fuelled duet between Howard and HTRK’s Jonnine Standish, which recalls the 1960s cinematic pop of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigette Bardot. The timbre of the album moves from a sonic detournement that evokes the structures and tonal moods of 60s girl groups, to the driving rhythms and slashing guitar of the title track and “The Golden Age Of Bloodshed”. Howard’s guitar playing moves from raw notes to sonic barrage, yet it retains a unique delicacy of touch. His voice, rich and dark, enunciates tales of desire and failure. Along the way he makes Townes Van Zandt’s “Nothin’” his own and transforms Talk Talk’s “Life’s What You Make It” into a churning, relentlessly hypnotic beast through almost abstracted layers of guitar noise. One album highlight,“Shut Me Down”, echoes with the refrain “I miss you so much” – yearning has rarely been so well articulated as here. Similar images of decline and ruination dominate these songs, but there’s a knowingness and dark humour at play. When he sings “I do all my best thinking, unconscious on the floor” in “Wayward Man”, it’s with a wry worldliness."

GHQ

GHQ
"Everywhere At Once"
2008 (Three Lobed)

1. Rembrance - 04:42
2. Four Trees - 13:37
3. Drop City Blues - 04:54
4. Morrow Rose - 05:05

DL: MP3-320k-LAME3.98

Review from Wire Magazine (June 2008):
"This is one of nine albums which make up Three Lobed’s Oscillation III series, featuring exclusive recordings from Bardo Pond, The Bark Haze (featuring Thurston Moore), Jack Rose and Lee Ranaldo, among others. A bit like Konkurrent’s In The Fishtank series, it offers artists an experimental breathing space aside from their normal output. GHQ is a trio of Steve Gunn, Marcia Bassett (from Double Leopards) and drummer Pete Nolan (of Magik Markers). Unlike some of the more extended pieces in the series, GHQ’s album is a varied collection of four contrasting tracks ranging from the tense, hovering guitar buzz of “Rembrance” (sic) and the murmured vocal drones and dappled psychedelia of “Four Trees” to the hollowed out drift of “Drop City Blues” (not unlike the eerie torpor essayed in Black Sabbath’s “Planet Caravan”) and the murky reverb and hum of “Morrow Rose”."

No Bra

No Bra
"Dance and Walk"
2006 (Muskel)

1. Doherfuckher - 02:26
2. Munchausen - 02:29
3. Noise Pollution - 03:10
4. Fags On My Floor - 01:33
5. New Girls - 02:22
6. Voodoo - 02:46
7. Polite - 03:52
8. Foxy Congregation - 02:06
9. No Woman No Crime - 02:16
10. X Sauna - 02:18
11. Motorcockhead - 02:21
12. Dance And Walk - 02:24

DL: MP3-VBR(V0)-LAME3.97

Review from Wire Magazine (April 2007):
"Originally, duo Susanne Oberbeck and Fanny Pistor-Ettinger (male) came together to make what they term “a retard porn film”. When Fanny declared he was fearful Oberbeck would rape him onstage (or suffered stage fright in alternative versions of the act’s history), he was replaced by Dale Cornish. All of which serves admirably to set the scene for the macabre, sexualised, cheap, sleazy and often hilarious world of No Bra. The broken down pop beats and dance tracks of Dance And Walk concern themselves lyrically with the more fraught aspects of humanity’s diverse proclivities. 2005’s cult hit “Munchausen”, included here, captures the mood. Two pseuds trade claims punctuated by the verbal tick “Really?”: “I love Karl Heinz Munchhausen”, “Really?”, “I shared a flat with him once”, “Really?”, “I shagged him once”, “Really?”, “I used to piss on him every day”, and so on. Pointedly true, funny and frequently revolting."

Fabulous Diamonds

Fabulous Diamonds
"Fabulous Diamonds"
2008 (Slitbreeze)

1. Untitled - 02:36
2. Untitled - 04:02
3. Untitled - 02:53
4. Untitled - 03:12
5. Untitled - 05:13
6. Untitled - 03:53
7. Untitled - 02:23

DL: MP3-320k-LAME3.98

Review from Wire Magazine (August 2008):
"The latest run from the relaunched Siltbreeze label has been the most impressive yet, and alongside the Eat Skull LP, the Fabulous Diamonds album is the cream of the bunch. An Australian boy/girl duo, they work from a blueprint of primitive drums, keyboards, saxophone, tapes and piano, with Nisa Venerosa’s simplistic rhythms extrapolated and confused via huge dub-scale doses of effects, while Jarrod Zlatic switches between drugged, Terry Riley-esque drones and devotional Pharoah Sanders-style sax. Their vocal duets have a frail pop quality that sounds most like the Aussie wing of the International Pop Underground while the overall heft of the sound is as propulsive and psychedelic as The Silver Apples. A unique and maddeningly addictive listen."

Zola Jesus

Zola Jesus
"New Amsterdam"
2009 (Sacred Bones)

1. Odessa (Live on WNYU) - 04:07
2. Dog (Live on WNYU) - 04:23
3. Orthodox (Live on WNYU) - 04:34
4. Last Day (Live on WNYU) - 04:28
5. New Amsterdam - 03:13
6. Lady Maslenitsa - 04:02
7. Nativity - 03:00
8. Little Girl - 01:22
9. Be Your Virgin - 01:41
10. Lady in the Radiator - 02:18

DL: MP3-320k-LAME3.98
Zola Jesus on AMG

These Are Powers

These Are Powers
"Taro Tarot"
2008 (Hoss)

1. All Night Services - 03:52
2. Chipping Ice - 03:31
3. Cockles - 04:18
4. Untitled (Garbage Bird) - 00:43
5. Peel Some Off - 03:42
6. Twin Remains - 04:32

DL: MP3-320k-LAME3.98

Review from Wire Magazine (June 2008):
"Featuring ex-Liars bassist Pat Noecker, the drum-heavy sound of These Are Powers evokes the echoing dub displacement of PiL accompanied by chanted vocals and howling, reverberating guitar. The group’s self-styled “Ghost Punk” music has its obvious antecedents, then, but its trancelike repetition and unsettling barrage of processed guitars and voices, bolstered by a robust low end, lend it a certain distinction. These Are Powers’s intense, ritualistic sound is a rechannelling of rock energies (rather than a post-punk rejection of them) and the 20 minutes of Taro Tarot are like a short, sharp shock. Here the group make their mark and sign off with the guitar’s distorted siren cries and the fading echo of tribal percussion."

Pumice

Pumice
"Quo"
2008 (Soft Abuse)

1. Pumice Quo - 05:31
2. World With Worms - 02:09
3. Fort - 01:34
4. Thermos in the Studio - 02:12
5. Pebbles - 02:20
6. Whole Hoof - 02:46
7. Sick Bay Duvet - 03:27
8. Dogwater - 03:29
9. Heavy Punter - 04:57
10. Battersby - 03:10
11. Beak Remedy - 07:13

DL: MP3-VBR(V0)-LAME3.97

Review from Wire Magazine (August 2008):
"Pumice aka Stefan Neville is the new heir apparent to the New Zealand DIY punk/pop crown previously held by The Clean, Chris Knox and This Kind Of Punishment. His songwriting combines a crude lo-fi aesthetic that manifests itself in muffled vocals, huge ‘dooming’ drums and a motorik take on Lou Reed-style chord solos with drunken folk melodies, lonesome vocals and bursts of free rock. Quo expands the remit even further, with song styles that run the gamut of breakneck hardcore, sea shanties and even moonfaced doo-wop, all rendered with that classic ‘edge of the world’ feel that defines all of the greatest New Zealand independents."