CORY HANSON
Cory Hanson
(Los Angeles, USA // Drag City Records)
Cory Hanson’s third solo LP follows upon 2020’s luminescent Pale Horse Rider, upping the heat to molten levels, six strings at a time. In search of further adventures, Cory draws with vampiric glee from the madness coursing through the world outside; a spiraling shitshow that’s reawakened a compulsion in him—an old ambition, even!—to crush brutality and elegance together into a fresh set of rocks to hail down upon us.
Western Cum is a high-stepping, hard-dancing, first love/heartbreak, tonight’s-the-night, future nostalgia kind of good time—the sound of guitars through the speakers of luxury cars. Like the dream you had once, alone, asleep in an amplifier, blasting Guns N’ Roses through every last orifice in your body. And it’s coming through!
It’s another side of midnight somewhere; high o’clock too, and the dark, cactaceaen fantasias of the previous incarnation have hardened and dried in Cory’s pre-apocalyptic garden of choice, a sun-blinded plain of sedimentary rock. Down the highway, beyond the horizon, through the looking glass, etc—he’s fixed for rough times ahead, a gunslinger/anti-hero of legend/infamy, back in town with axe blazing and a rhythm trio dubbed “Slowhand” walking up the crazy horse he rode in on. You ready to boogie?
Western Cum’s map to the treasure is less about pastiche, though; more toward executing the songs by executioner’s axe, rolling their decapitated rhythm heads and soaring melodies, the panoply of Cory’s melodic impulses with guitars, guitars, guitars. Harmony leads are just the tip of the iceberg, but be quick — the guitars like to melt everything in their path! The eight songs of Western Cum are driven by the stalwart bass of brother Casey Hanson and the drums of Evan Backer with a few passing acoustics from Cory and the intermittent spirit-moans of Tyler Nuffer’s steel guitar. The quartet sound—two guitars, bass and drums—acts as beat-making principle/phrasing device, as well as template for Cory’s layers of six-string and vocal textures. From the rooftop of their musical safe house—the band in their makeshift hut and Cory ensconced in an outhouse—they let loose with a blast both face-melting and mind-blowing: a social service that gives constipation a good name.
With Western Cum, this debauchedand shameless world is redeemed in the same breath as it is repudiated. A massing of voices and guitars form an almost post-gospel harmony, bright and burgeoning, engorging the thermostat, prising the pressure from your chest before the final wink-out. Maybe it’s a mirage…but those things are just
another part of reality, ain’t they?
WAND
WAND
(Los Angeles, USA // Drag City Records)
In late 2013ish Los Angeles California, Wand formed up and got right on it, playing, writing & plotting a path forward – a not-undifficult task for a special new band come to life in the twenty-teens and audaciously self-identifying as “Wand”. The original group – Cory Hanson (guitar, vocals), Lee Landey (bass), Evan Burrows (drums) and Daniel Martens (guitar) – recorded Ganglion Reef before too long and attracted the attentions of GOD? Records, In the Red and Drag City all at once. A deal was dreamed up and hammered down: first album with GOD?, second with In the Red, and then Drag City. What would the result of THAT be?
So began the years of furious activity; near-constant days of touring and recording and releasing. Between August 2014 and September 2017, Wand released Ganglion Reef, Golem, 1000 Days and Plum, a period in which they also reduced from quartet to trio (less Daniel) and then expanded to quintet (with the addition of Robbie Cody (guitar) and Sofia Arreguin (keys, vocals, percussion)). All this action had launched them onto the world-wide stage, which suggested increasingly more to do all the time. No prob: everyone was playing in other bands, and Cory started a solo career too. No time like the present! A maxi-EP, “Perfume”, appeared in the Spring of 2018 and the double-album Laughing Matter dropped in April 2019. Touring continued apace; it was only the CoCo craze of the following year that that forced any downtime – and even that gap was filled with the mixing of an epic live document, the 2xLP Spiders In the Rain, dropped in the pan in 2022. All this while Evan focused on his long-time other band, Behavior, plus Pink Trash Can, and Robby joined in on both endeavors, while Sofia played with Shannon Lay and Kamikaze Palm Tree, and Cory wrote and recorded two more solo albums!
When the smoke cleared on all the pandammit action, Lee and Sofia had decided it was time to get on beyond Wand, something the other three were still dedicated to doing while remaining in the band. Ayund… clock on the wall said it was time for another album, as it was suddenly a few years since Laughing Matter. That’s when Vertigo set in. Robbie began to record the new stuff at his place. The new Wand directive: recording only, no writing. That would come later. Surely the next great Wand album was somewhere at this end of this rainbow? Yep – by late 2023, all of it had boiled down to album-size, and Vertigo was soon slated for release on July 26, 2024. In the process, Wand had grown an extra hand – or more accurately, become a quartet again, with the addition of Evan Backer (known as Evan Too, for those keeping track). And what ho, more dates had been scheduled and played, and more scheduled. For the earth is round and we must continue in orbit. For Wand, this means North America in the summer and Europe in the fall, with Mars TBA. What next, man?
The UV Race
The UV Race
(Melbourne, AUS // AARGHT, Future Folklore Records)
Describing their music as « avant-tard » and « idiot savant punk rock, » the UV Race are an Australian outfit whose music combines the structural trappings of garage punk with a purposefully off-kilter attack that fits somewhere between deliberate primitivism and art-damaged provocation. Formed in Melbourne in 2007, the UV Race features guitarist Alistair Montfort, singer Marcus Rechsteiner, Alex Glazov on keyboards, Georgia Rose on sax and harmonica, Moses Williams on bass, and drummer Dan Stewart. The group played its first show in July 2007 and released a demo on cassette later that same year, with the UV Race displaying a lasting affinity for the lo-fi analog format. After a handful of cassette-only releases, the UV Race moved up to vinyl in mid-2008 with their first 7″, « Lego Man, » issued by the Aussie indie label Aarght Records. Aarght also put out the band’s next release, a split-live cassette with Eddy Current Suppression Ring; Mikey Young of ECSR was an early booster of UV Race and has produced most of their recordings. A second 7″, « Malaria, » was issued by American indie imprint SS Records in July 2009, and the group’s first full-length album appeared later the same year on Aarght; originally distributed only on cassette, it was later reissued on CD and LP. In 2010, UV Race toured the United States for the first time (the itinerary included a stop at that year’s Gonerfest in Memphis, Tennessee), and another 7″, « I Hate You, » appeared on the Fashionable Idiots label in the fall. In early 2011, yet another 7″, « Acid Trip, » hit the racks via Sweet Rot Records, and noted American garage punk label In the Red Records released UV Race‘s second album, Homo, in late March the same year. Their next project was filming and recording the soundtrack for a film, Autonomy and Deliberation. It was released in November of 2012, roughly the same time as their next studio album, Racism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIQJNDGtF3E
The Make-Up
The Make-Up
(Washington D.C, USA // Drag City, Dischord Records)
THE MAKE UP is the Washington, DC group that re-defined underground music in the middle and late 1990s with their peculiar and incendiary blend of gospel, garage and yeh-yeh music.
Known for their dynamic and interactive live presence at hundreds of shows across 5 continents, the group also recorded 7 LPs, 14 singles and EPs and and collaborated on films, videos, pamphlets, and happenings. They toured extensively as a headliner and with groups such as Royal Trux, Sonic Youth,, Fugazi, Dub Narcotic Sound System, Lung Leg, Harry Pussy, and many others.
The group has been called “dazzling … best dressed … martial … terrifying.” Their shows were known to feature communication, sermonizing, crowd participation, and dancing virtually unknown in the staid world of indie and garage rock. Their style was perfect, with matching Mao style jackets, with new versions designed for each tour.
The group was widely copied as well and precipitated and inspired a wave of “garage” imitators in the 21st century who often had commercial success but lacked the spark, character, nuance of the Make Up.
Occasionally, when the moon is bright and the wolfsbane blooms, the group has come out of hiding for rare and exciting personal appearances since disbanding in 2001.
They are making one of their rare returns now for a short time only, available for very special events.
Featuring Ian Svenonius on vocals, James Canty on guitar, Michelle Mae on bass guitar and Mark Cisneros on drums, and performing classics such as “they Live By Night”, “I am Pentagon”, Walking on the Dune” , “Here Comes the Judge,” “Every Baby Cries the Same,” etc, the Make-Up is as extraordinary as ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ohDSjgd-Y&feature=emb_title