Reviews

Floating Mill

Self Improvement Visible Damage cassette

The whereabouts of Su Tissue following the demise of SUBURBAN LAWNS have been a source of continued speculation, but after listening to this debut from Long Beach’s SELF IMPROVEMENT, one could convincingly run with the theory that Su decamped to the UK for a spell before finding her way back to the LAWNS’ hometown, where she started the band up again under a new name and with a new accent—English expat vocalist Jett Witchalls largely sticks to a Tissue-adjacent (but considerably less art school quirky) deadpan speak/sing, only allowing her austere facade to slip into more animated squirms and squeals when the band’s wound-up wiggly world rhythms hit fever pitch. ”Ashes” circles in an ominous, bass-centered loop with near-whispered voice-over narration for a steady two minutes, before abruptly shifting into a frantic finish line dash of shrieks and “I can’t believe it’s not Northwest Indiana” robo new wave writhing, and the nervous tick of the title track sounds like ’80s weirdo staple “Janitor” if it had been written by Hardcore-era DEVO, with Jett’s blank emotion chants spiking into the briefest of melting-down shouts without ever losing control. I think Su would approve (wherever she is). 

The Antelopes Breaking News cassette

Early ’80s UK collective the ANTELOPES have a colorful and winding history, ending their brief run as CLASS OF ’76, but unfortunately the music doesn’t compel one to follow all the membership twists and turns. Musical history is always worth the effort of excavation, but the tunes themselves don’t quite deliver. There’s clumsy attempts at smoky Eastern European late-night tavern jazz alongside awkward stabs at disco and power-to-the-people funk. On “Mississippi Line,” these Brits lay down an awful blues pastiche that makes the ROLLING STONES’ most ham-fisted takes seem legit. The dubwise post-punk of “Hour of Light” is pleasant enough, but it’s followed by the schmaltzy mush of “Keys to the Kingdom” that warbles on for six long minutes. As evidenced by this collection, not all the unearthed post-punk that glitters is gold.

The Stick Figures Archeology LP

Tampa, Florida’s best (only?) contribution to the turn-of-the-eighties art-punk discourse gets anthologized! The STICK FIGURES were five University of South Florida students enamored with the serrated grooves of first-wave UK post-punk who found each other in 1979, duly inspired to craft their own ripped-up, danceable sound that wound up running roughly parallel to what bands like OH-OK, PYLON, and the B-52’S were devising about seven hours due north in Athens, Georgia. Archeology starts with the the four tracks from the STICK FIGURES’ one-and-done 1981 EP (released before the band relocated to New York; they would call it quits soon after), and it’s the sort of beguiling creative jumble that often comes as an unforced by-product of operating far outside of a rigidly-defined scene—”N-Light” is a frenetic bricolage of taut funk bass, trebly guitar scratch, and group-chanted vocals that clearly betrays the STICK FIGURES’ interest in the works of GANG OF FOUR and DELTA 5, while the jangly “September,” with its winsome femme vocals and playful crashes of xylophone, falls closer to presaging early K Records/C86-era shamble-pop. The remainder of the LP is fleshed out with a half-dozen unreleased studio recordings, a pair of live tracks, and an extended, electronically-damaged 2021 revamp of the EP’s “Otis Elevator Dub,” but don’t write them off as filler scraps, especially the keyboard-driven, rhythmic twee rush of “Make a Fire,” the totally sideways mutant funk beat that cycles through “Energy,” and Rachel Maready Evergreen’s deadpan spoken delivery over the angular new wave bop of “Yesterday” like a Third Coast SUBURBAN LAWNS. Undeniable weirdo genius.