I didn’t know squat about this band before looking it up just now (which most likely means that when I got it for review like a decade ago I wrote an awful review). This is All Scars’s first record, a seven inch, released on Ace Fu Records (Portland label). All Scars was from Washington DC, and this was recorded in 1996 and released in 1998.
After this they put out a couple full lengths. The material on those is more experimental/ambientish, from what I read. This interview on WFMU from the year 2000 goes into how their live sets were entirely improvised. They had a bit of a rotating cast of musicians, and the members also played in a bunch of DC bands that you’ve probably heard of (like Fugazi and Beefeater and stuff). Here’s their last.fm page.
This seven inch being their earliest material, it’s fairly structured, post-hardcore. And it’s good!
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This is the soundtrack to one of the most awesome surf videos ever made. Bali High came out in 1983 or so. It was written, directed, and shot by Stephen Spaulding (he later made a bunch of snowboard vids, and wedding videos…). A friend of mine had this while I was in high school, and it was in our top rotation (we tended to watch a surf video or two every day). So I’ve watched this video like 50 times at least.
A few years ago I tracked it down on dvd. But it had the “original soundtrack.” Originally when it was released and played in little theatres on the coast the soundtrack was an underground soundtrack, featuring tracks by the Rolling Stones and many other bands who would never release songs their songs (or if they did, the cost would be prohibitively expensive). So for the VHS release (in 1984), Spaulding had a new soundtrack made. This VHS version is the one I’d grown to love. Hearing the Rolling Stones doing the intro, rather than the wild jungle rhythms in the theme song, was disconcerting. Despite what Spaulding was into at the time, I do not think that classic rock fits this vid at all.
The new soundtrack is sort of mysterious. At the end of the video it says recorded by Mantra Sound, with all songs written and performed by Michael Sena. However, if I had guessed I would have guessed the soundtrack contained a number of distinct bands. There is a fairly wide array of styles here. It’s very possible that he had a bunch of session musicians and singers at his disposal. The styles are all kind of in a psychedelic-70s genre: bongo jams, ballads, dubbish rock, soft folk, instrumental guitar rock, synthy-disco rock, etc.
After the disappointment of the DVD, I tracked down a VHS copy. Then I transferred it to DVD, then zapped the audio off of it. So, the audio quality is not the most pristine. On top of that, the quality on the original VHS is not even that great - it’s sort of warbly, and some songs peak at points. However, I still love it!
It’s probably a much different experience to listen to this without having watched the video. But, to help set the mood for you, the narration is included (it’s interjected into the songs, so I couldn’t remove it)! Spaulding’s narration is golden. He speaks in a pretty monotone, west coastal accent, and tells us about the mysterious places we’re scoping, and the surfer’s who’re braving the odds. Example: “From the human perspective, the going is a bit rougher. But you can get there just the same if you keep your mind set upon the goal.” (There’s a video from the ’90s - I think it was Above and Beyond - that had Spaulding narrate one section in his trademark style… it was funny!)
Back in the late ’70s/early ’80s, when this was filmed, Bali was obscure and difficult to access (for surfers). It was first gaining exposure at this time (and I’m sure this film went a long way in getting people pumped about it). Bali High is the definitive take on this region.
All the track titles are made up by me!
Sample track (the theme song):
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p.s. hardcore punkrockers - I was just at my parents’ house, and picked a little stack of 7″s I had in their garage - a lot of stuff that I had received for review for HaC, and kept because it was good. I’ll get cracking on posting it. Hopefully there’s some stuff in there you haven’t heard.
Since the “download” section of Creation is Crucifixion’s site is an invalid link, and because seasoned downloaders report only having found two releases by them, here’s every Creation is Crucifixion record I have!
I first encountered these guys at the second Goleta Fest, in 1998 (I think?). They were touring with Suicide Nation. Incidentally, the day before they played I was given the In Silico album/CD-ROM to review for Heartattack, so I had a brief moment to prepare.
Here are my vague recollections of the show: both guitarists had the straps on their guitars set very tightly, so that the guitars were almost chest-high. Their left hands were basically spider-crawling all around the fretboards throughout each song (aka way technical playing). There was about a five minute break between each song, during which the singer, Nathan, and guitarist, Paul, would discuss things like artificial intelligence, and computers, and how soon the human brain will be binarily coded, and how nanotechnology will be able to physiologically manipulate and control us, how the human is being deprecated and soon AI will have control of the world. Nathan was at the time attending Carnegie Mellon (as an art student, I believe), and Paul was working for a company that made super computers. They both had a lot of first-hand knowledge, and their presentation of it, coupled with this dark, fast, noisy, caustic, and deathly music, made for quite an intense and gloomy situation. I remember being seriously scared and anxious during the show.
From their liner notes, it seems that they recognize the irony in their music: by constructing songs, recording them, and distributing them, they’ve essentially coded themselves, thus setting up a structure that can be deconstructed and devoured; a methodology they detest and warn against throughout their music. Their songs frequently repeat the fatalistic notion that “they are coded.” The singularity is inevitable.
They formed in 1997, and were mostly active until 2003 or so (but not totally inactive after that). They were based around Pittsburgh. But I believe they relocated to San Francisco in 2000 or so. I wanted to interview them once for Heartattack… but they basically disagreed, and said they’d submit a manifesto instead. But it didn’t happen.
They are quite metallic and brutal and noisy (techcore!). The vocals are somewhat like Rorschach (Protestant-era), and the recordings are, in general, a bit on the muddled side (which I love, of course).
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So, I separated all the records into separate zip files, so it’s not one ginormous download. And so you don’t have to get anything you already have. As seen from the discography on their site, this isn’t everything. However, it’s a lot. The only 7″ missing is the split with Fate of Icarus. (I used to have the split 7″ with Unruh, but I can’t find it! But I had it downloaded, so I’m including that file, too, for the sake of convenience.)
In Silico is a full length. 19 tracks. Every other song is a short noise track. The day after their show, I told Nathan how much I liked the album. I remember him being concerned that the noise tracks would turn people off. But I assured him they wouldn’t/shouldn’t. They are short, never long enough to bog you down, and they serve as nice interludes between the songs. As mentioned above, this CD is a CD-ROM… but, you obviously don’t get that with the download.
The Automata ep is a 12″. But there are a lot of noise and misc. tracks on it (some not found on the CD version). There are only four musical numbers. The beginning of side b wins my heart.
The split 7″ with Suicide Nation is a favorite record of mine. Suicide Nation blew me away at Goleta Fest. They were super intense and emotional, and I think this is one of their better songs. CIC’s song contains a soft/gentle part in the middle that’s overlayed with samples from Texas Chainsaw Massacre - pretty creepy!
“All our songs are about cyborgs!” Nice drummer shots in this vid.
The Descent from Heaven 7″ is a one-sided record (but the second side has grooves…. but they don’t produce any sound. It’s odd.) I remember one of the members telling me something about this - something like it being demo material. This stuff is definitely more raw than their later songs. In fact, I don’t think there’s much distance between this and, say, Usurp Synapse.
The Child As Audience CD (”Where Technology and Anarchy Fuck”) comes with a guide for hacking Game Boy games, to make them educational. It’s part of the Hactivist Tactical Media Network. I didn’t scan the booklet. It’s huge, and in a lot of languages. But it’s very interesting. CIC was/is an integral part of the Hactivist network, so I recommend scoping that link for a deeper idea of what they were about. Or… check out this pdf I just scanned.
Bros. and sisses, I can’t believe I haven’t updated since May! Time flew by. I moved, and made a ‘zine, and so on and so forth (btw, working on a new ‘zine right now, called Future Spa - feel free to “follow” Future Spa on twitter).
Slightly new direction! I decided to put a little less effort into each post. Before I used to worry about things like, “what records will people likely not have yet in their mp3 stash?” But my cache of amazing lesser-knowns is dwindling. And now I’m just going to be transferring records that I don’t have in my mp3 collection, and then sharing the zips with you all. Some of them may be common things that you’ve downloaded elsewhere. That’s a risk I’m willing to take.
In this grab bag is the Uranus double seven inch, their split twelve inch with His Hero Is Gone, the Floodgate seven inch, the Floodgate double seven inch, and the Mara’akate seven inch.
This double seven inch is super great! It’s from 1994 or so. The second song is on the Heartattack #10 comp. That song stands out as a little more melodic than the others (maybe that’s not the right word). Uranus (aka Union of Uranus) present a pummeling onslaught of total shred. I took a screenshot of the wav file for an average song.
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The split with His Hero Is Gone is their demo. It’s from 1993/1994. The liner notes says that one of the songs is a cover of a Negative Approach song. But I can’t figure out which one that could be. Possibly the second part of the first track. The drummer is my fave. Snare driven, super fast. Their songs are particularly intense on this.
The HHIG side is, I believe, their demo, too. It’s from 1997. And it was also released on the Fool’s Gold 7″. Minus the intro…. right? I haven’t listened to that 7″ in a while. Funny that it’s their early stuff, considering it sounds more like the material from Monuments to Thieves than 15 Counts of Arson.
All three Floodgate seven inches. Their first seven inch is my favorite material of theirs. It’s pretty even-tempoed, but it gets fast, sort of like a mix between Still Life and Moss Icon (no?). The singer’s voice cracks a lot. And the recordings are raw. I love this band.
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If you like the last post, you’ll probably like this. I didn’t break the sides up into tracks, since all the songs bleed together. Pretty screamy and chaotic, with synthy interludes. From 1999.
And friends! Three split seven inches. Plus one compilation seven inch.
I’m sure that all of the songs in this post can be downloaded elsewhere… but, first off, fact: I tend to transfer the music that I want to listen to, and this is what I want right now on my portable music device. So there. Second off, I’m not sure if I need a whole Usurp Synapse discography CD at the moment - because (third off) I like having the context for the songs, and I like having whatever bands were on the other sides of the splits; and also, Usurp Synapse is very crazy and brain-melting. Fourth off? This is everything I own by this band.
So, here are the splits (both sides!) with Jeromes Dream (on Clean Plate/Level Plane), the split with Hassan I Sabbah (on Electric Human Project), the split with Index for Potential Suicide (on Witching Hour), and the Antipodes compilation (on Level Plane) (which features, Jeromes Dream, Hassan I Sabbah, Neil Perry, Usurp Synapse, and The Assistant).
All these came out in 2000. All, to be honest, rule. Things I like about Usurp Synapse: they blend Rorschach’s Protestant-era vocals (vicious) with crazy time signatures, blast beats, all along a solid general backdrop of chaos and noisiness. I can’t deny that I’m drawn to hardcore that is almost blindingly chaotic. Of course, that’s a simplification of this music. And once you listen to it over and over it loses its sense of chaos, and becomes, frankly, predictable. But don’t let that detract from your enjoyment of these records; they’ll always be unusual and crazy. Also, transferring these records has reminded me that I really like Jeromes Dream… unfortunately this is all I have by them.
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Oops, I just realized that I misspelled the track name, Maybe You Should Kill Yourself. I don’t want to re-upload this right now, because my ‘net is acting slow. So please fix it yourself. this should be fixed.
This was going be another “Comps!” post. But then after transferring the other comp (the Placebo comp) I discovered that I already had it on my computer, because I’d downloaded it elsewhere. I was going to be like, check it out two comps with reversal of man! But, as it is, here’s one comp with Reversal of Man. All bands in total:
Noisome Faugh
Reversal of Man
Synguya
Racetraitor
Dropdead
President’s Choice
Passafist
Noisome Faugh sounds a lot like Enewetak. I’d classify this compilation as thrash/power violence. ROM is rocking my socks lately. The song on this, Theory of La Masastra (totally misspelled on the discography download), is also found on the “discography” download (CD?) that’s out there… it’s not really a discography, since it doesn’t include This is Medicine and Revolution Summer. You know, as we all know they got their name from the Frail song Love, but until I really gave that discog a few good listens, I wasn’t seeing too much resemblance between the two music-wise. And now that I have seen it, I think it rules, because both Frail and Reversal of Man are righteous bands.
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Racetraitor - this is the first song I’ve heard by them. I’ve read interviews with them, but just hadn’t came across any songs. Their song on this is way different than I was expecting. I was obviously jumping to the easy assumption that they had some kind of hardline-ish superchugga deal going on. But instead they are muddy and gross (in a good way!) and pounding, and sound sort of like freaking Usurp Synapse! Who knew?
One thing I liked to do a lot when I was in high school was surf all the time. I would try to do it mornings before school. Then at lunchtime I’d check the surf to get an idea of how I should spend my afternoon. And then after my after-lunch classes (wood shop and art) were over I would most likely haul my shapely ass on down to the beach. Okay, let’s just cut to the chase here: when my ears weren’t tuned to the types of sick and brutal mechanized assaults you’ll find elsewhere on this blog, they were tuned to pretty much the opposite - pink floyd and reggae/dub. All the pink floyd albums were totally accessible, so I was on ‘em. But aside from Bob M. I didn’t really know where to start when it came to successfully listening to reggae/dub. One of my surfer/math class friends, Nate, lived just south of Cito in Summerland, and he had dreadlocks and sweated reggae. I heard he made good mixtape, so I calmly requested one from him.
Here’s the tape he made me. I’ve had it since 1995. And it had to be digitized. I want it on my earphones, and I want my friends to have it, too. This didn’t really open up a new world to me or anything - I pretty much just stuck to only listening to this tape. Over and over, and on many surf jaunts and whatnot. I brought it to Hawaii, on a trip with my family, and we listened to it as we drove through the coastal road on Kauai, and we all agreed that it was a perfect soundtrack to the trip. I brought it to Costa Rica, with MJM and his dad, and it laid the jams for the entire trip (I remember his dad at one point saying, “Jesus, is this like the ultimate stoner mix or something?”).
About the recordings: the tape was starting to die, so the first few seconds of the first song are cut off (I had to cut the tape and then tape it). The first two songs are also mono for some reason. The last song was cut off. But it’s famous, so I just got it from the original recording. I don’t know the names of many of the songs/artists. Sometimes I made up the song titles (based off lyrics), and sometimes I didn’t bother because there weren’t any lyrics. The mix has a nice range of upbeatish reggae stuff, and muddy, warbling vinyl dub recordings.
Another compilation. All four bands are from Boulder, Colorado. This came out in 1994, on Black Plastic Records.
Bands:
Cavity
Dead Silence
Angel Hair
Bunny Genghis
Cavity does a cover of an oldie. Angel Hair is one of my favorite bands. I was surprised to discover that their song on this, Second Cousin, was a different recording than what’s on the 7″ on Gravity (and the discography). Bonus. Listen, why don’t you:
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I just picked this up. And I think it’s a good comp. There are some guitar solos, though.
Related: Does anyone have the “Powerless 2: No More Flowers, No More Ribbons” compilation that Black Plastic Records also put out? It looks killer!
The music shared here comes from records I've collected. The purpose is to get people, who might otherwise not have access, into the music. Links to purchase info are provided when available. Please tell me if you're affiliated with one of the bands and would like the content to be removed/altered.
This double seven inch is super great! It’s from 1994 or so. The second song is on the Heartattack #10 comp. That song stands out as a little more melodic than the others (maybe that’s not the right word). Uranus (aka Union of Uranus) present a pummeling onslaught of total shred. I took a screenshot of the wav file for an average song.
