LULU'S AUGUST 2022 NEWSLETTER

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Featured in this newsletter

GREEN/BLUE - "PAPER THIN" LP
RIGOROUS INSTITUTION - "CAINMARSH" LP
PEACE DE RESISTANCE - “BITS AND PIECES” LP
WARTHOG - "WARTHOG (5TH EP)" 7”
EVIL I - "OFFICIAL BOOTLEG" LP
MARAUDEUR - “PUISSANCE 4” LP
POURIA KHOJASTEHPAY - "ULTRA VIOLENT" BOOK
V/A - "BURNING IT UP: AUSTRALIAN REGGAE 1979-1986" LP
DAVID BOWIE - “LIVE ON STAGE: MELBOURNE CRICKET GROUND, 18TH NOVEMBER 1978” CS
DOCUMENT SWELL - "HYBRID EMOTION" LP

Hello!

First of all would you suss the calendar this month? Absolutely incredible. Jam packed. Almost too many options, so many of them so good.

Got another great month of new arrivals, including a fresh box from our family across the other side of the world Feel It. Motherfuckers absolutely cannot stop releasing incredible records.

Plus a new drop from 550BC, which never sticks around for too long.

Also got some cute new merch incoming - Lulu’s scarves designed by Lucy Dodd should be here any day now - we’re down to the very last few of those if you still wanted to cop. Also got the Australian exclusive on this incredibly fresh new design from Worn Spiral - don’t expect these to last long either.

Love you heaps; speak next month,
Lulu’s xxox

NEW ARRIVALS

GREEN/BLUE - "PAPER THIN" LP
Feel It Records

Comin' at ya with a sound heavily inspired by The Wipers, this Minnesota group are rocking a blend of 90's vibes all wrapped in cotton wool swoon-sing a-la Slowdive. It's nice to hear some big + strong guitar delivered through a bit of a different lens, one that lulls you in and keeps you there while the rest rolls around your ears. The under-the-skin energy of Greg Sage & Co. is still present though and that's the real mustard on this sandwich - it wouldn't work the same without a sense of deep sense of longing and wanting for something better. In the world of rock music, bitter is sweet and it's better that way.

RIGOROUS INSTITUTION - "CAINMARSH" LP
Black Water Records

Intense trip through the Amebixian marshes with Portland's purveyors of putrid RIGOROUS INSTITUTION. Getting a little slower and more "out there" than their previous output, they've further explored the sound layed down by thee Brothers and blended downer industrial hypnotism with key-laden cross-wave black metal, but when it kicks into high gear it's an unhinged slamming romp. Devasatating stuff. It's an experience that is cathartic and claustrophobic - but after all a punk band is at it's best when you're in the palm of their hand and they're doing that right. There are strong parallels you could draw to Sydney's OILY BOYS but they zag when O.B. would zig. It would take a strong willed individual to run these records back to back and make it out in one piece. Music like this isn't for the faint of heart but this is a dirty, mucky record worth wading headlong into. Tempt fate... and win!

PEACE DE RESISTANCE - “BITS AND PIECES” LP
Peace De Records

Moses Brown of Institute and Glue blasting into the solo game with his debut long player ‘Bits and Pieces’.

Sonic shades of Lou Reed circa ’Sally Can’t Dance’ glam strut with a shot of demonic hedonistic effected ‘Idiot’ era Iggy vox, a dash of ‘Helen of Troy’, hit of ’Bananamour’ and some early 70s Cleveland sensibilities and to round out the mix.

A truly fried and fuzzed out ode to a bygone era of gutter royalty when rock n roll was kept street level and the lower east side’s infrastructure ran with blood and glitter.

Fans of Institute’s early work and demos take note - this is a burner.

Had a few requests for this one so get on it if you wanna get down.

Needs more cowbell though.

WARTHOG - "WARTHOG (5TH EP)" 7”
Toxic State Records

Listen up suckas WARTHOG is back with a BANG (and an OUGH!). These dudes have taken things by storm and once again stomped & stamped their claim as the gold standard of bruising modern hardcore punk with this - their third self-titled 7" of battering ramthems for the illz of nowadays. Edging away from what was going on with their other bands and immediate crew, WARTHOG's damage is an interpretation of the best of their sonic predecessors (Impalers, Rival Mob, Waste Management etc.) with all the nods to ripping Japanese d-beating motöring classix of the 80's. OUGH! The sound on this 7" is full as an egg, the only moments they give you to breathe are for the riff-noose to be placed around your neck before they drag you off again behind their high-horsepower steed. There's not too much to dissect here, it's rock solid music played with purpose, hard as hell and tougher than a two-dollar steak. For those of you already familiar with Warthog - they haven't missed a step and this is sure to please. If you're new to the gang - welcome - the only way you're getting out alive is through the fire and bricks. OUGH!

EVIL I - "OFFICIAL BOOTLEG" LP
Alona's Dream Records

This is a gem - don't sleep. Totally killer 1983 USHC from Illinois reissued by Alona's Dream Records, and it perfectly distills the wicked and righteous energy of the first wave of hardcore. It's also the first group I've come across from that era with a young Asian American woman spitting the microphone violence. Their sound is comparable to Gang Green (young, fast and snotty), Negative Approach (stripped down, straight ahead, start stop start) and a bit of Discharge (that brilliant & crazy & probably accidental metallic guitar buzz) and with song titles like 'So What?', 'Senior Citizens Today: Soylent Green Tomorrow' and 'Am I Agreeing?' you just can't argue can you? Pure punk spirit through and through, it's nuts that it's taken this long for something so good to get the reissue treatment but better late than never, right?

MARAUDEUR - “PUISSANCE 4” LP
Feel It Records

Feel It reissue of Leipzig post-punkers Maraudeur’s second LP ‘Puissance 4’, which was self-released in 2021.

There is a considered approach and some legitimate fun with the post-punk genre being had on this one.

While subtle at first this playfulness lends itself to repeated listens and ensures this isn’t a drab affair with lots of clever hooks, unique structures and sparse dry arrangements that come across as quite a refreshing take.

The emphasis is on maximising the minimal, with a compressed push and pull and an absence of reverb that give 'Puissance 4' a taut urgency.

The synth and guitar tones and interplay bring something unique to the table too.

Feels like a modern meeting point between Flying Lizards, the Raincoats and Malaria!

POURIA KHOJASTEHPAY - "ULTRA VIOLENT" BOOK
550BC

Ultra Violent is a visual study edited by Pouria Khojastehpay that focuses on the appearance and behavior of diehard football club fans, known as Ultras and Casuals.

Men join these groups and riot for fun because it’s an instant way to feel they’re connected to a community. The antisocial kick is like doing drugs: bad for you but addictive. Violence produces endorphins and lets their adrenaline flow. It’s like sex – you live in the moment.

This publication comprises low-resolution grayscale images, reframed and cut to create a new, first-person perspective of the lifestyles of football fanatics from the streets to the stands.

When you quickly flip through this book, it hardly differs from zapping through hundreds of news channels or scrolling through your timeline on social media. The enormous number of (horrific) images we see every day, unsolicited, makes us realize less and less what we are actually looking at. We cannot (and do not want to) close ourselves off from our contemporary, violent visual culture. The author used hardcore football culture to study this.

V/A - "BURNING IT UP: AUSTRALIAN REGGAE 1979-1986" LP
Austudy Records

You can feel the hot weather and hot lungs radiating outward from this one. From 79-86 Australia was blessed with some pretty wild takes on reggae music. Time Lords Inc. have a particularly insane track about QLD that quite frankly defies words. For all you pot smokin’ hippies and shaggers out there, we recommend you burn one of those funny lookin' cigarettes and check out this cool little document of an inevitably idiosyncratic phenomena. Also the artwork is 5 stars and needs to be on a tshirt/bumper sticker.

DAVID BOWIE - “LIVE ON STAGE: MELBOURNE CRICKET GROUND, 18TH NOVEMBER 1978” CS
Surgical Bootmaker

David Bowie’s first tour of Australia in 1978 is the stuff of legends and to say there were high expectations would be an understatement.

The announcement in September's Saturday paper that tickets would go on sale the following week generated such a buzz a few eager punks got down early, vying with football fans there for the Collingwood v Carlton semi-final, to see if they could swing early tickets.

As the punters dissipated from the G these like-minded souls staked out a position in front of Gate 2 while others were recruited and gathered camping supplies. As the week dragged on and word of mouth traveled the modest camp grew to thousands.

This started the most famous ticket queue in Australian history as immortalised in the cult classic ‘Dogs in Space’. Cars were utilised as sound systems, rubbish bins burned for warmth, the gates adorned in music related graffiti and booze and substances ingested openly.

The queue reconvened in October for another three weeks of debauchery and the media circus it generated made its way all the way up the top to Bowie himself.

With a ticket stub that boasted ‘we play rain or shine’ it was typically a torrential downpour on the 40,000 capacity crowd. Members of Bowie’s band recall the show as one of the most incredible of the tour - with the media circus, expectations and rain resulting in a crowd of frothing bedraggled fans, makeup streaking, getting wild and letting off fireworks in the crowd.

Bowie is at the top of his game here, promoting 'Heroes' and burning through reinterpretations of his earlier work in that vein.

This tape is all that remains of that performance, with the rest presumed lost due to the aforementioned rain, and one of the most legendary concerts in Melbourne’s history.

DOCUMENT SWELL - "HYBRID EMOTION" LP
Data Arts Group

Beginning at the chiller end of things this one ends up rolling through the spectrum of minimal electronic muzik over the course of eight tracks, eventually bumping its way into banger-but-low-key territory and back down into some almost experimental post punk vibes. Hybrid indeed. Perhaps it's just this penman's tastes but things are at their best when they're thumping along hard and steady - bass wins the race. Album closer "Epic Sands" feels like the soundtrack to some perfectly polite but "improper" behaviour if you know what I mean. Whether it's at the club or cooking it in a kitchen this one is gonna hit the spots.