THE REPORT: 8/9/2024
HIGH VIS GETS RIGHT ON ONE, MATEY
Many hardcore kids want to wear Stone Roses shirts, but not as many hardcore bands actually want to sound like The Stone Roses. London’s High Vis have been slowly aligning aesthetic and sonic interests, and their new single is a display of that synergy. There’s barking vocals, but there’s also a sampled diva. It’s hooligan house, slow-jacking and laced with crystalline guitars; it’s music for coming up while cruising on the M25. If Turnstile is Red Hot Chili Peppers, High Vis is Primal Scream.
Jaeychino & Jodyboof “Guitar Hero”
Rap rock week was last week, and yet… More rap rock. “Guitar Hero” fits into the genre in a looser sense. It blends rage-ish synths with futuristic-ish Atlanta guitar and DMV-ish rhyme pockets. If that means nothing to you, just know that the track kind of sounds like bass-boosted video game music. Found via Billdiffern, naturally. (Also on the same YouTube channel: “Bang Myself” by DB Odog, which sports a wild go-go sample.)
There is an uncanny quality to some of these new school electroclash cuts, as if the artists are more influenced by early YouTube parodies of electroclash than the genre itself. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Electroclash was a wonky approximation of the ‘80s. This energy can be felt on “Drama,” Ren G’s collaboration with NEW YORK, and it can be felt here, too. Blunt bangs and octave basslines—can’t really go wrong.
When we talked with digital hardcore lodestars Machine Girl, they were in between album cycles, just chilling and working on music. Well, that music is now here. “Until I Die” sees the band in fine form, honing their style further, pushing the songwriting, taking the next step. The chorus is ready for the big room. (Somehow related: Here is a pretty good article about hit em, a genre of music that came to Drew Daniel from Matmos in a dream and, via the power of the internet, turned into a real thing. 5/4 time signature. 212 BPM.)
I’m aware that I probably post too much BabyTron on the blog, but then he will do something like, I don’t know, rap over circus music. What am I supposed to do? It’s not easy to ride the meme rap line, but it helps when the song itself is actually catchy—his jittery, conversational bars work over that carnival progression. I wonder if Em likes it.
FREE JAZZ REISSUE OF THE WEEK: Sun Ra & His Astro Infinity Arkestra Strange Strings
Everything I’ve read about this recently reissued record from 1967 calls it an outlier within the larger Sun Ra Arkestra catalog. No doubt: On the album, the band picks up a variety of string instruments—ukuleles, mandolins, kotos, koras, lutes—and goes crazy, making sounds that call back to previous avant traditions and predict styles to come. It’s free music beyond time. It’s music that makes me glad that music exists.
High Vis and Home Front are my favourites right now doing this weird mutation of hardcore. Saw High Vis headline a small show in 2023, and it was hands down my favourite show of the year.