Reviews

Syf

Bzdet Atom cassette

Nice mix of post-punk and coldwave from this Polish band. The genre hallmarks of bouncy, loping basslines, angular guitar lines, and detached, depressive vocals are all here. But BZDET is not afraid of the dancefloor, like on “Niewola,” which is driven by crispy drum machine handclaps. Similarly, “Nadzieja” builds an ominous atmosphere around a bass-led dance beat and guitar swells. Other standouts are “Sukcesy (Pozory),” which features an oppressive, atonal din interspersed with trebly synth wiggles, minimal electronics, and spoken vocals, and “Okazejszyn,” the closest that the band comes to NEW ORDER-style pop, albeit with slurred/reverbed singing. Moody dance jams covered in sheets of ice for fans of SIEKIERA and LEBANON HANOVER.

Bzdet Niepokoje cassette

A cassette of lo-fi post-punk from Poland. After my last few encounters with this type of thing, I hesitated to press play. Hearing the opener “Yareg” drop in with a deeply funky beat made my face scrunch up and my head bob with approval almost immediately. The drums programmed with the robo-claves and handclaps, a thick intrusive bully of a bassline, tremolo-bar-torture guitar, and static synth smears. It’s a two-minute tune I’d love to have a 12” remix of, because after that, the tape goes to predictably cold and straightforward post-punk that just sounds limp in comparison. If it kept the mutant funk, I’d be all in, but at least they knew that first song was a strong opener.

Coins Parallèles Démo cassette

Montreal post-punque pour toi. I breathe a heavy sigh listening to this, as I wonder how many new minimal post-punk bands we need? How has this style survived the pandemic? To be fair, I get the allure for bands that play this kind of music, much like the spikeys glom to D-beat. It’s a recognizable sound, it has a defined aesthetic, and it’s usually a surefire ticket to a built-in audience. But at this point, the style is so minimal that it’s become deeply generic and overdone. Listening to this demo is akin to opening my lunch and seeing that it’s peanut butter again. But I will say there are some textures on this that I liked, and the lead guitar has some occasionally inverted, diagonal-sounding passages that contrast with the hard parallel lines and 90-degree angles that the songs are drafted with. My biggest complaint with this (as with most bands of their ilk) is that the rhythms are so stiff and uptight. Their drummer’s neck and shoulders must be so sore from playing like this! How the hell do you make a cowbell sound so damn unfunky? I just wanna get them a massage, some beers, and a plate of poutine, let them loosen up a little before going back to the studio. Groove is in the heart, but this sounds like music for Lego-men to dance to, and I’m sorry to tell you, Lego-men have got no heart.

Goblin Daycare Q: EP? A: EP!! cassette

Really digging this debut cassette from Istanbul, Turkey’s GOBLIN DAYCARE. “Mama Goblin” does it all in this project, combining bedroom synth waves with garage punk and resulting in an equation that reaches the highest level of egginess that weird punk could reach. Lo-fi punk maniacs and DEVO-core worshipers casting sounds with deranged guitars quite in line with the Spanish band PRISON AFFAIR, good mashing synth mayhem, and heavily reverbed electronic drums, plus an on-point distorted voice that’s still audible with non-stop ranting in the fashion of cyberpunk band WWW (and even reminiscent of Jello Biafra’s vocal register) and a bit of DEVO’s stop-and-go songwriting. Imagine if DEVO and Jello were fighting in a steamy basement and add it all to the experience of surfing space in a videogame. Suggested tracks: “Coup De Grace” and “Officer Down.” Things are getting quite eggy in the realm of weird punk.

Kiloff & Debtors Mokry Sen cassette

Trippy. This band, it appears, is actually a collective of various Polish artists from the Szczecin area who all release a lot of material collectively and separately through the Syf label. It’s all a little mysterious, which works in their favor while listening to their Zoom-recorded art-punk jams, sung in their native tongue. There are twenty-three tracks here, many of which are two minutes and under. The spookier, BUTTHOLE SURFERS-style tracks such as “Poeci” and “Po Majowce” are my favorites, but the material ranges from something that could be on a Lumpy Records comp (like “Ponownie”) to the RESIDENTS-inspired “Zebranie.” Maybe there are reviewers more knowledgeable about this group out there, but there’s definitely a long rabbit hole available for one to jump into if they so choose. Dig it. I did.

Letha Letha demo cassette

Anemic-sounding drum machine punk with simple riffs and an excess of tape hiss. Basic and a bit dumb, but I guess that’s the point. From what I can tell the band(?) is from Australia, and they’re on a Polish DIY cassette label. I think that’s a used condom on the cover? Or perhaps a human colon?

Raut Raut cassette

“Egg” is hard to wash off, apparently. A meme turned flesh like Videodrome, thrown into the goofy blender that was essentially codified and perfected by its originators, yet still somehow refuses to be fully assimilated into a more generalized sound. I only spend so much time on the term because this Polish duo uses it in part to describe themselves, throwing the word “dark” in there for good measure although I can’t piece together why. These songs are stripped down to the point of monotony, which could strike a nerve in an interesting way (let’s never forget Mark E. Smith’s credo of “repetition, repetition, repetition”) if the music weren’t so sexless. This is ABABAB-structured coldwave that all sounds like it was recorded DI so that nothing really has depth or character. The vocals have a garbled telephone effect, like a rogue AI wants you to wire crypto or your loved ones will “get it.” If that all sounds appealing, and I’m sure it does to some, go all in. For me, the music just holds me at arm’s length, never letting me regard it as more than a curiosity. Let’s face it, no one likes eggs when they’re cold or old. Can we move on now?