LULU'S MARCH 2023 NEWSLETTER

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Featured in this newsletter

THE DRIN - “TODAY MY FRIEND YOU DRUNK THE VENOM” LP
SMIRK - "MATERIAL" LP
INDRE KRIG - "DESTROYER" 7"
GISM - “M.A.N.” LP
550BC - “HEAVYWEIGHTS” BOOK
VIDRO - "GLOD" LP
HEAVY MOTHER - "THIS TIME AROUND" LP
LES FLEURS DU MAL - “LES FLEURS DU MAL”
FLEA COLLAR - "FLEA COLLAR" LP

What’s up all you lovely dolls and trolls,

We hope that your Summer ‘23/’23 was a blast! There’s definitely a bit of high rising mercury left in the tank so don’t put your swimmers away just yet, but surely we can all rest easy knowing that our climatically unfit rental homes will soon be bearable to sleep in and the ripe fruits of Summer’s bounty will keep our baskets filled as we retreat into the piles of Autumn’s falling leaves, right?

As usual there is a slew of sweet grooved wax, magentisided ribbons case in plastic that you can put pencils into to rewind, and lovingly printed pages that have found their way into the shop since we last wrote. Real stoked to have our freinds at Alter’s repressing of the LOW LIFE - DOWNER EDN’ LP back on the shelves! GIMMIE GIMMIE GIMMIE Zine Issue #7 has arrived featuring: SEX DRIVE, SHOVE, THE RETAIL SIMPS, PALE HORSEY, THE PRIZE, TEE VEE REPAIRMAN, CIVIC, SANTIGOLD. We’ve also got the GAFFER - ‘DEAD END BEAT’ LP in from Perth’s Helta Skelta Records. Story time: there was a stretch of maybe six months where we realised the GAFFER ‘Demo’ CS was getting an astonishly high number of views on our website. I mean, to the point where we’d half considered the possibility that perhaps a rogue bot-farm had somehow latched onto obsessively generating views on this punk cassette from Perth, instead of doing what they’re meant to do (sewing discord and artificially inflating content engagement across various platforms) After some head scratching and just generally being clueless as to what on earth was going on, at Mexican resturant (I can’t remember what I had except for tequila and beer, the corn chips were ok too) a friend brought it to our attention that there’s a fair chance our website was coming up in  results for the search string ‘GAFFER TAPE MELBOURNE’. Still seems a bit kooky to me, but that’s as close as we got to any sort of answer.

Okay, story time is over.

Until next time - be good or be good at it.

XOXO
LULUS

NEW ARRIVALS

THE DRIN - “TODAY MY FRIEND YOU DRUNK THE VENOM” LP
Feel It Records

Feel It come into the new year swinging with their first release of 2023 from one of the most enigmatic, intriguing groups of the Cincinnati underground - The Drin. From its opening crackling choir chant, ‘Today My Friend You Drunk the Venom’ revels in its own murkiness and mystery. While classified as post-punk, The Drin are up to they definitely lean into a sludgier more experimental approach reminiscent of late 70s icons Swell Maps.

It's an unsettling world full of recognisable elements such as motorik beats, phased guitars, pulsating bass but tied together in a way that makes you question their placement or meaning in the grand scheme of things. Apocalyptic imagery is intoned through low textural vocals with lyrics only being sung the few moments the Drin come up for air and elevate the record into a sort of late 70s jangle for much needed relief.

This sold out in a heartbeat at Feel It HQ for a reason. It's a record to be experienced.

SMIRK - "MATERIAL" LP
Feel It Records

"Oom. Pa. Oom - pa. Oom! Pa!" The opening moments of 'Material World's Unfair'  strike up a match using a bass guitar and one-two drum beat for friction. I am immediately drawn to how simple it is. Then I ponder for a moment if there's actually anything to smirk about. It doesn't sound like there is, which makes me think that surely, yes, there is. I dismiss the thought. Then the sounds changes direction, they begin to take their time. Then silence. Nice. A hint of jingle jangle emerges from the speaker cones, the distortion has lifted, the palms are laid and a song titled 'Revenge' creates a similar illusion as above; "this doesn't really sound like it's a song about revenge; it must be". The Fisher Price toy drums arrest my attention again. I think this person knows what they're doing. The same way a group like Strawman Army know what they're doing.

Allow me to try to explain a little: droll tunes casting a poisoned cross-eyed gaze at a decaying environment and a streaked mirror. There's a jester holding court inside their head and the little bugger is getting tired. So why not just let him have his way for our sad amusement. Besides, what the hell else is there to do? Get a real job? Pffft. The joke's on all of us. They know it, you know it, I know it. Might as well have a laugh and join the dance. SMIRK are piecing together a jigsaw puzzle from different boxes. They know it's a little bit wrong, but the rules don't really mean anything and that's why it has to be right. Glass. Concrete. Reality. Songs. Jokes. Material. Smirk?

INDRE KRIG - "DESTROYER" 7"
Beach Impediment Records

Destroyer indeed! K-Town has done it again with this ripper 7". INDRE KRIEG are snappy as hell and bursting at the seams with melody. I'll gladly admit that it sparks some joy to hear some killer Adolescents/RKL vibes on a modern record long after the No Way/Grave Mistake/Feral Ward rise to prominence about fifteen years ago. Riffs not bombs, baybay.

GISM - “M.A.N.” LP
Relapse Records

A truly wild ride, M.A.N. takes the heady blend of heavy metal massacre and psycho hardcore that GISM perfected on their debut LP ‘Detestation’ and pushes all limits. The guitar work is masterful, the production is dense with bizarre flourishes of gruesome noise, and Sakevi sounds a few years and a few sakes and a few doses more malevolent and unworldly. GISM are mythological creatures who make a truly exclusive and elitist hardcore that doesn’t invite you in but demands distance for most of humanity - GISM most certainly not for everyone - not for them, who order food on the internet for dinner because hungover and afraid to leave the house! Who start vaping to quit smoking and now they smoke and vape! Who set limits on their phone for how long they’re allowed to use the facebooks - and they cheat! On them self! GISM not for cheats. Not for everyone!

A necessary lesson in art and life: don’t make hardcore for vegan cafe worker or sneaker nerd or record collecting butterfly catching trivia recounting Instagram cuck. Make hardcore to frighten humanity for 50 years, 100 years time, make empirical hardcore to conquer space and give birth to future gods, for anarchy and violence, for eternal glory!!

550BC - “HEAVYWEIGHTS” BOOK
550BC

The new 550BC book is in the same pocket of his earlier publication called Oxy-Ace & RS6: Dutch Crime. The introduction by Pouria offers insight into the violent world of cocaine smuggling in the Netherlands. Printed in a high quality hardcover, the imagery is stark and brutal: bricks, piles of euros, Grenades and handguns… endless weapons…

VIDRO - "GLOD" LP
Beach Impediment Records

You want a raw punk record you can grow your hair to? Vidro got it. You want chorus on your tinnitus? Vidro got it. You want a little post-punk with your d-beats? Vidro got it. You want acid on your swangin' cymbals? Vidro got it.  You want machine guns hiding inside the snare? Vidro got it. You want anthemic muscles gluing the noise flesh to your brittle bones? Vidro got it. You want Vidro? Lulus got it.

HEAVY MOTHER - "THIS TIME AROUND" LP
Feel It Records

Well this is a treat. Ft. members of The Cowboys plus Eddie Flowers from 70's group The Gizmos, Heavy Mother is a healthy dose of that old skool rockin' scuzz. And, trust me, it sounds better than the album cover looks. Heavy Mother are at their strongest when they step back in time to late 60's/early 70's territory, donning the bell-bottoms and Chelseas of obscure 'Nuggets' groups or stained denim of the revered Rocket From The Tombs. But even when they're rocking more modern ditties it still stands above many in the field, playing the kind of tunes that would be at home alongside your early Goner/Reatards wax, secretly getting up to no good with your whisky and pills while you sleep. Fuzz on, Heavy Mother, and thanks for the treats. I hope you grace us with another visit soon.

LES FLEURS DU MAL - “LES FLEURS DU MAL”
Projectile Platters

Exactly what you want from 80’s DIY obscurity. It’s been impossible to find much information on this one, this is all we have - “Previously unreleased early 80's new wave punk featuring members from France and the UK.” And I’ll tell you, the mystery works for me. I’m obsessed. Contained within are five songs sounding like they were recorded to 4-Track. If you can imagine a blend between Desperate Bicycles and Les Rallizes Denudes, that’s what it feels like. The simple guitar lines disappear into the aether, the drums were definitely at the other end of the room and the vocals might have been recorded on a couch with eyes desperately closed to make oneself invisible. Musically it feels like all of the ideas could have come from the Joy Division catalogue, if you isolated that bass it would certainly pass as demo material for Peter ‘Hooky’ Hook and the lads, but the atmosphere is something else to be sure. The vocals, sung by a woman in what I think is French except for a few choice drops of venom in accented English, swing between being tender as a dew drop and rude protestations.

If you are the type of person who enjoys letting your imagination run wild while you’re listening to a record, and you’re also a fan of that Cleaners From Venus all-cassettes-all-the-time sound quality, then I reckon you’ll be able to get as lost in this artefact as much as I currently am. There is no audio online that I’ve been able to find (if anyone reading has it on SLSK write me) but I will say that it is part of the charm. Access to nearly everything nearly all the time is cool, and you can call me old-fashioned, but digging through crates  and reading about rarities you’ve never heard of then feeling the urgent need to seek it out is also pretty cool. In this instance, it feels right.

FLEA COLLAR - "FLEA COLLAR" LP
Feel It Records

Cretinous strain inhaled. Schizoid dose shot. Stand up if you can. Lay down if you dare. Woof. The immature genius of once-prodigy-now-prophet Brandon Gaffney (Brown Sugar, Cement Shoes, Woodstock '99) once again is cut into wax for you to get your head around. He seems to infect everyone around him with terminal sarcasm and a perhaps unrelated courage to do whatever the hell they want on a record. But what can I say? The kid can play. He can also step into any shoes. Demonstration: Track 3 sounds like a 50/50 hybrid of Motörhead's eponymous ode-to-self and Eddy Current's "You Let Me Be Honest With You", while the very next track might as well be an offcut by Cleveland's infamous The Inmates - des-cus-tin manic slop that apparently is only able to breed itself in Ohio. Other songs sound like early era Dinosaur Jr (or Deep Wound, or Witch) with one of the NYC/Toxic State throats on the mic.

S(L)ick guitar, bizzy riddim and teenage mutant sewer system vocals seem to be the real name of the game here. Whatever it takes to make you feel uneasy while filling your ears with snot drool that infects. Flea Collar is a punck virus. It starts at the cochlear, moves down through the chest and to the extremities until finally it gets comfy, using your brain as a couch while it pees all over the place and sticks forks in your sockets. So if you wanna get weird, Flea Collar are ready when you are.