LAMONT THOMAS is maybe best known as the drummer of blues punk legend THE BASSHOLES, but he has started a very own project as OBNOX some years and eight albums before. „His approach to punk is well… punk as fuck. Thomas doesn’t care about rules and he certainly isn’t afraid to experiment, blending his sound with noise rock, hip-hop, garage, soul, and hardcore. It’s usually abrasive and often pretty steeped in political and social consciousness, he speaking as a voice for the oppressed without gimmick or pandering” – as Post-Trash Mag wrote about him and I just could write the same.

A few years ago Monofonus Press head Morgan Coy had that crazy idea…why not ask OBNOX to make a free jazz record? And he has made one. Morgan says about it: Although it may not directly sound like it, to these ears it’s an updated take on some of the late 70’s free jazz LP’s that, at the time, were panned by critics but now are being rediscovered… think Albert Ayler’s „New Grass”, Archie Shepp’s „Attica Blues,” Larry Young’s „Fuel”, even reminds me of Tony Williams Lifetime at times. OBNOX has infused „templo del sonido” with that same sense of urgency and protest.  Like the 70’s, we are once again in a time of protest and discontent with the world around us – as Thomas so elegantly states in the first lyrics of the album:

„wake up… wake up… America… wake your punk ass up!”

Perhaps you are afraid of jazz, even more free jazz, but this album is so much punk than jazz. It needs your open mind only:

Anyway his previous recordings were released e.g. on punk rock’n’roll label Slovenly or noise rock one 12XU.

JOHNNY MAFIA hails from Sens, Burgundy (which is known more for it’s wheat and cereal production than rock ‘n’ roll) and bring a young, snotty, explosive and ferociously fun energy that drives audiences into a near-frenzy. Inspired by classics like The Ramones, T-Rex, and The Clash, they also draw heavily on contemporary acts like
Ty Segall, Jay Reatard, and the Wavves. The band have just released the video single for BIG BRAWL

after recently finishing recording and mastering their sophomore album PRINCES DE L’AMOUR with producer JIM DIAMOND – who was the bass player of Dirtbombs and produced albums for The Sonics, Andre Williams, The John Spencer Blues Explosion, White Stripes and countless others.

Jim was forced to shut the doors at his studio Ghetto Recorders in 2015 due to what can only be described as “hipsterfication in the downtown Detroit area when his landlord doubled his rent. He set up a new base in Montpellier, and continues his prolific presence across the scene, working with bands as far and wide from Cambodia to Cleveland. In recent years, Diamond has become something of an unofficial in-house label producer/engineer at DIRTY WATER RECORDS.

The album PRINCES DE L’AMOUR will release on 9 November on DIRTY WATER RECORDS (UK).

at the darkest hole of Budapest

– Hi! Are you Xeno or Oaklander?

– I’m Xeno.

– What are your favourite Hungarian music?

– Korda.

And after a short discussion with Oaklander she said:

– Új Látásmód Fúzió, Alpár, Koyanisquatzi, Hungarian Dracula*, but last year we made a live radio show with our favorite Hungarian music for the London based radio station NTS. It contains Katalin Karády, Új Látásmód Fúzió, Csermanek Lakótelep, Alpár, Trabant and Pal I, Prince Esterhazy of Galántha, Palatine of the Kingdom of Hungary, who also was a composer and wrote numerous cantatas:

*Very strange. I did not hear the name of Koyanisquatzi in the past 15 years. It was a great ritual rock band in Szeged in the late 80s and early 90s. And for the first time I got news about the darkwave band Hungarian Dracula from same place and same period like Koyanisquatzi.

Anyway, XENO & OAKLANDER are a cold minimal synth pop duo from Brooklyn. They are on European tour now.

Unfortunately it is very rare that bands from my fav Canadian label Telephone Explosion Records play in BUDAPEST. So rare that this is the first case. But maybe the most bizarre among the label’s bands the NEW FRIES are going to play at AURORA on 19 May.

No Wave made the biggest influence on them but I think the best if I use their own words about their music:

• – We don’t have etiquette or technique or anything. I’ve tried my best to destroy technique in this band. We’re very deconstructed, very incomplete.
• – It’s a bag of garbage. Fun garbage. Tumultuous, terrible garbage.
• – Yeah, there are more than enough people doing this shit well!
• – It’s a non-stop shot in the dark. Like, for sure we want a heavy rhythm section. We want really sexy drums and sexy bass and a chaos for sure, but we definitely want people to dance.

You can do it in BUDAPEST at AURORA on 19 MAY

ONYX was the avant-garde electronic duo of American songwriter and instrumentalist Judd Stone, and British vocalist and fashion model Beveur in the early 80s.

The only instruments they used are drums /percussion and synthesizers – except for a primitive drum machine track that is used on “Planet X”. All of the instruments are played, and there is no syncing or sequencers used on any of the recordings. The bass tracks are keyboard bass. And what they recorded it is still fresh:

COMPLETE WORKS 1981-1983 will release in June on Osaka based Franco-Japanese label MIND RECORDS.

11 years ago in Atlanta, 4 girls have decided to start a band, walked in a pawnshop, bought the cheapest instruments and begun to learn play. So THE COATHANGERS‘ early recordings are not too defined works, but I like these nice no wave-like primitive garage rock songs. Naturally, they have developed their musical skill, but the music stayed simple, not too sophisticated but great garage rock and roll. There were more albums and some split 7″ singles (Audacity, Nü Sensae, Davila 666) but I think their best album LIVE is going to release on 1st of June on SUICIDE SQUEEZE RECORDS. Listen!

Oh, almost I forgot that one of the original 4 quit.

SHILPA RAY  new EP  NIHILISM  on 16 May

The song “Shoot This Dying Horse” is a rainy day waltz about how bad things can happen to anyone, at any time in the most random and meaningless ways. More specifically, it’s about getting dumped at a bar two days before Christmas. It was inspired by and written after binge-watching the Grateful Dead documentary series Long Strange Trip.

On the B-side, there is an Alice Cooper cover. The story behind this version is that she and her band listened to this one a lot on tour. When she paid closer attention to the lyrics, she realized if sung by a woman the song could be a feminist anthem.

„What have I got
That makes you want to love me
Now is it my body
Or someone I might be
Or somethin’ inside me”

The original one.

Digital and limited cassette editon on NORTHERN SPY RECORDS (US)

GOSH! is a minimal psych-pop duo. OK, there are many. But when I got their new album ODYSSEY I wanted to show it to everybody. Hey, listen to this! So simple, bittersweet and beautiful.

GOSH! started when Padraig left his psychedelic post-americana band Nude Sunrise and started dating with Claire. One of the first moments they spent together there were guitars. Claire picked the bass and they learned „Badlands” from The Jesus and Mary Chain. Anyway she never played any instruments before and GOSH! is her first band. And it is among my brand new favourites.

New album ODYSSEY was written after they got back to Chicago from a chaotic tour. It remembers an underpaid journey as arduous as the real Ulysses’s, full of tragic twists and chemical quicksands. „All while watching the new season of Twin Peaks. It was a dark time, but we channeled that darkness and complete sense of defeat into creativity and in turn have produced something incredibly positive” – said Claire.

I know it coming soon on NICEY MUSIC

Unfortunately at the moment I cannot show the song Lake Shore Drive to you, but you can listen to it in KILLBONOCLUB this Saturday.

Cadillac born New Orleans based American traditionalist LUKE WINSLOW-KING plays a mix of old, but maybe eternal American tunes with his band: ragtime, country, blues, gospel, dixie, bluegrass, jazz, rock and roll with minimal and occasionally brass band orchestration.

New album BLUE MESA out soon on BLOODSHOT RECORDS (US)

„BLUE MESA” on Bandcamp

LWK on Spotify

This was a happy Wednesday morning because I have got the new album ROACH GOIN’ DOWN of American avant-punk girl trio PALBERTA. On this album Ani, Nina, and Lily continue to pave the way as innovators in the field of guitar-based music, delivering a barrage of twisted, catchy hymns that manage to be both challenging and feverishly compelling. They combine the band’s signature frenetic instrumentation with a thoroughly developed pop sensibility that fans merely glimpsed on previous releases. And this time it’s grounded by a lyrical nuance and newfound melancholy that gives the record an air of maturity compared to previous releases. But best describe their music what I’ve found on their FB page:

“You wanna wabbada? Wap wap wap dabbada?
You see that mabada? ding ding dack dabbada?”

Album on Bandcamp

ARNDALES is a sardonic post-punk quartet,
a hidden gem at an English countryside warehouse.
Their long-awaited debut album „SHOPS” coming soon.

Some thoughts about them in special LUTON HAIKU style.
There are rules and laws which people attribute to haiku writing
which aren’t the concern of Luton haiku writers.

Luton, the lively English town somewhere in the Polish-Pakistani borderland
to where I arrived 2 and half years before as a mentally emigrant from Hungary.
Of course it was raining that day.

And then totally suddenly The Fall played in Luton
at a fest where the other day Lee Scratch Perry was the big name
but that day I went to London to see Guitar Wolf.

And then my eyes got stuck in a name in the festival book: ARNDALES.
Got its name after Arndale Centre which is known as The Mall in Luton nowadays.
And one time it was the biggest covered shopping centre in Europe.

I googled them. And it turned up that In The Red Records release them.
And it releases just fine stuff, like Bassholes, Black Lips, Chain & The Gang,
Jay Reatard, Kid Congo, Oblivians, Ty Segall, Thee Oh Sees, Andre Williams

And I read their former bands are Country Teasers, Thrilled Skinny,
Badgewearer, Pregnant Neck, Collapsed Lung, Zuno Men,
and they played songs like this

rigth before The Fall at the same place.
And there I observed the guitar player’s hamburger patterned socks.
I thought those were witty symbol of the consumer idiotism.

On their new album they have taken inspiration from the world of retail jargon.
E.g. the opening track „Prestige Pricing” is named after the practice of inflating
the price of a product to indicate it’s prestigious status.

The album „SHOPS” is coming soon on IN THE RED RECORDINGS.
And there is nothing shiny. Just old fashioned music like the old Fall
with a Negativland song which is replaced to mid Bedfordshire.