it’s atari teenage riot addled on e-numbers without the poseur anarchism and eyeliner. it’s computer game music, gabba, happy hardcore and ringtones. fuck me, it’s almost pop. how crossover can this shit be? well he’s opened for devo, the go team, lightning bolt and shitmat. his influences? stockhausen, john carpenter, steve reich, moondog?!? john cage, bach…

you know the strangely comforting sensation you get when putting on underwear freshly warmed in the tumble dryer? you know the pleasantly stifled discomfort when yr on the bus and you suddenly remember a joke and try hard not to laugh out loud and look like the kind of demented sap who laughs out loud at nothing obvious on public transport? you know the random joy of being drunk at a halloween party dressed in a ridiculous costume and dancing to the ramones like a ruddy fool?

oxbow do not fuck around

sweet jeebus it’s here…. ultraheavyweight purple triple vinyl stephen o’malley styled inch thick gatefold diecut seventies-tastic sleeve thousand limited pure fucking wonderous beauty. this is so ridiculously awesome i am genuinely flabbergasted. struggling to type with shaking twiglike fingers as thirty five minutes of feedbacker crackles and lunges like some seasick wet dream from the speakers. i have the same nervous queasy near sexual excitement listening to this as i did digging through my old dads’ king crimson and black sabbath lp’s as an impressionable youngster.

this record has all the disorientating grace of a tuesday morning hangover. hazy snapshots of a half remembered nights before. or mornings after. moments emerging; simple, graceful, speaking in tongues, sighs, whispers, tears. sets teeth on edge. dreamy and warm abstract. glances thrown across rooms. conceptions of smiles and promises. paths guided by knives; frenetic and alphabetized. coiled, tangling, stumbling, slipping through fingers with ease. tapping nervously at windows, grasping invitingly through clouds and sunsoaked blinds. a single solitary expanse of wordlessness. an unclear connection. an imperfect fit. strangers ghosting through windows. sunlight and dark clouds. battlewearied neon. staggering between moments, through breaths and cobwebs. succumbing to syntax and ellipses. flitting between cars. a tenuous drift. cold logic and a warm embrace. somnolent among clouds and concrete.

i like what i see. referencing julio cortazar and wes craven is for me a good start. musically the closest i can come is maybe ariel pink’s homemade biological musical stylings. noises made by mouths and armpits and christ knows what else. it’s a mad heady brew, psychedelic (as much as i hate the term) and occasionally unsettling and eerie. there’s a creepy childish/childlike/childhood vibe to it all. probably not without reason the john carpenter forum is part of their friendspace. primitive is a word you could use if you were that way inclined to describe them/him/her. at the very least it’s interesting. which is more than can be said for some of the plodding indie rubbish i’ve been duped into listening to recently. it’s a bit jazz without form, by way of phantasm, edgar allan poe and the wicker man.

these ten songs. these ten songs are all perfect tumours and broken-teeth smiles and drunkdrunk women in shortshort skirts. they’re like getting ripped and taking off all your clothes and running running running; listening, it’s cracking an egg and finding a chicken fetus. it’s blood and vomit and spunk and piss and shit. it’s the sky falling. it’s a house on fire with the family inside. it’s the best orgasm of your goddam life. it’s the sun the moon the earth. it’s everything horrible and glorious about being human and alive and sick and dying. it’s the whole clever dumb smart stupid beatifully ugly fucking endorphine fueled dog and pony show.

i’m zooming in on that sunburned skullface spinning round my goddam turntable. i’m hearing all kinds of crazed shit pour out of these huge black and wire monoliths like the mad tar ramblings of braindamaged comedians and prescription medicine addled heavy metal psychotics. i’m thinking kill the girl save yourself kill the girl save yourself kill the girl save yourself kill yourself save the girl. there’s a bubble in my skull and blood trickling from my nose. my fingers are twigs my fingers twitch. the lightbulb flickers flares and pops like a pigeon under car tyres. stabbed cats and rats and blood and spiders in your hair and vomit cops and little kids and sweat and fuck andandand…