Landon Speers
Gobble Gobble are in the midst of a five month 160-date tour. Obsessed indeed.
A look at Canada’s best alternative format releases
With the ever-burgeoning bumper crop of alternative format recordings DIY labels and self-released offerings it can be tricky to separate the wheat from the chaff. As such extending on my writing for the website weirdcanada.com and giving a nod to Byron Coley’s ‘Size Matters’ column for The Wire No Rest for the Obsessed will be your monthly guide to new (mostly) Canadian music released on 7-inches cassettes CD-Rs and other fringe sounds that likely wouldn’t make it into Fast Forward Weekly otherwise.
First on the chopping block is Calgary’s Grown-Ups a beloved bummer-punk three-piece featuring married cutie-pies Josiah and Sara Hughes plus Darrell on “dad guitar.” Following a self-released self-titled cassette and its sophomore effort I Can’t Win on the almighty Bart Records the band’s latest blast is the four-song Not Friends 7-inch EP. Fast catchy and fist-pump-inducing it explores adult issues with teenage ’tude (think a pissed-off Jay Reatard not a pee-pants Simple Plan). Also announced: an upcoming 7-inch split with Vancouver voodoo punks Nü Sensae.
Despite being in the midst of the marathon Mobile Rave Infinitour (160-plus live dates across five months and counting!) Edmonton-born electro glitch-pop wizards Gobble Gobble somehow found time to deliver a flurry of new releases. West Virginia’s Royal Rhino Flying Records give up the goods with a vinyl reissue of the band’s debut full-length Neon Graveyard plus the bangin’ Lawn Knives – End of Days 7-inch. Batchawana Bay Ont. label Scotch Tapes also compiled a recent collection of Gobble Gobble remixes for artists such as Sean Savage Diamond Rings and RatTail as the GOBBL’d Volume 1 cassette. Lastly Edmonton’s Pop Echo teamed up with Weird Canada to release the Becoming Legion – Cat Eggs 7-inch as part of the 99 Sevens series. Sadly the latter is long sold out but MP3s of all four of these releases are available for free download at gobblegbl.tumblr.com.
Toronto’s Induced Labour (featuring members of the Sick Lipstick Disguises and Doom Tickler) dropped a doozy of a cassingle with three songs spanning an epic four minutes. Billing it as a “teaser” for an upcoming 7-inch the band tears into noisy trash-punk with witchlike vocals over buzzing Arab on Radar-style guitar damage. The climax is a cover of arty 1980s hardcore band No Trend’s “Reality Breakdown.” Not for the faint of heart.
Winnipeg weirdo label Dub Ditch Picnic mailed me a copy of FP Tranquilizer ’s Summer Tape and I’m stoked to pay the favour forward. From the mind of sole member Bill Northcott comes twisted Ween-style pop songs dipping into glam rock basement electronics and lo-fi disco. Songs include “I Want to Chop Off Your Head” “I Wish You Were an Icicle” and organ-drenched opener “Crispy Big Ones” which could be a chart-topper in an alternate dimension.
Vancouver spaz-rockers The SSRIs reach new levels of ADD-addled intensity on their latest long-player Effeminate Godzilla-Sized Wind Chimes. On top of claiming one of the strangest album titles in recent memory it’s also a highly energetic idea-crammed effort bridging the gap between the Dismemberment Plan and Blood Brothers (without being anywhere near as creepy).
Finally Calgary’s best newish band Faux Fur has released a full-length split with LA’s Ghost Animal on the previously mentioned Scotch Tapes. Sometimes angular sometimes atonal but always driving guitars set the backdrop for haunting echoed vocals while sounding like slacker rock played by the ghosts of the ’90s. On a similar tip snag a copy of Wealth Plant’s Friends cassette the debut solo offering from Faux Fur frontman Jean-Sebastian Audet. Released on Audet’s own Yew Nork imprint the eight-song trip-out layers in-the-red riffs over that same recognizable monotone shambling tambourine and backwards-looping samples. Instrumental “Bible Fruit” drifts the proceedings to a placid ear-pleasing finish.
