Foundation Vinyl Newsletter
Welcome
Hello and welcome to this week’s Foundation Vinyl newsletter. I’m finalising this week’s edition having just caught an utterly brilliant Diploid show at New River Studios, so forgive me if I get straight to it!
This is the line-up:
- Featured New Arrivals from Parallel Worlds, Rat Cage, Enzyme, and Gel
- Trains, Ferries, and Water Fountains
- Shows and Tours
- Coming Soon including some cracking new releases from Alerta Antifascista, Convulse, La Vida Es Un Mus Discos and Scene Report
Featured New Arrivals
‘If not by the grace of god, then an accident of birth, if not by divine intervention, then a fluke, a whim, or something worse. Right time, “right” place, “right” sex, “right” skin’.
Parallel Words are the Young Conservatives reborn, the name change heralding a recalibration in musical direction but no dilution in their political vehemency. So, what is different? Their previous straight-up hardcore punk has evolved into a more experimental direction, with fuzzed out guitars, chunky distorted basslines, and fluid percussion laying the bedrock. And what is the same? Semi-shouted vocals still drip with fury and sarcasm in equal measure as they astutely dissect issues ranging from social conflict born of precarity and the myth of Britain’s meritocracy, to the desolation of the deindustrialised cityscape. A burlier By The Grace Of God, with added dashes of Rollins Band groove, would be a pretty decent yardstick. Thoughtful, impassioned hardcore and a very fine record indeed.
‘I remember a sun rise over the city. Hazy skyline free from self-pity. When what we did was secret and they wouldn’t come close, and we still saw beauty in the thorns of a rose’.
We live in an age when plenty of people have very justifiable reasons to be angry. Yet public discourse is characterised by synthetic, manufactured outrage that serves to distract rather than focus attention and action on the causes of social inequity. So, when we encounter the pure fury of Rat Cage, it is like a sledgehammer blow to the body, an adrenaline shot to the heart. This is desperate, genuine rage-fuelled, genre melding hardcore punk. Its sonic savagery matched only by the sharpness of its social commentary.
Furiously discordant almost mechanical vocals and viciously distorted guitars are central to Enzyme’s aural assault on this brutal follow-up to their debut full-length Howling Mind.
Indeed, in less skilled hands you sense that this sonic onslaught could prove almost too relentlessly intense. The key perhaps lies in the sheer infectiousness of their rhythm section, which despite its own inherently frenzied execution brilliantly leavens the battery. Few will be able to resist the pogo inducing madness of Masquerade and Chewing The Fat. Lyrically, the album explores the band’s disorientating experience of lockdown living and how malformed government priorities privilege corporate interests over those of the public.
Gel have been building what seems like an almost unstoppable momentum and with their first full-length they have honed that momentum into an impressively singular statement of intent.
Gel play an aggressive grove-laden hardcore punk that stomps with elasticity as opposed to size twelve boots. Riffs are subtly reworked through each blistering song. The energy and positivity are infectious. And therein lies their potency – everything about this record is focused on getting a room moving, not just the pit, but the whole room. Lyrics deal with themes of developing personal awareness and overcoming self-destructive tendencies with a sincerity that evades triteness.
Trains, Ferries, and Water Fountains
I have a little ritual every time that Catharsis announce a European tour. Firstly, I excitedly check the dates. Secondly, I realise with growing disappointment that once again their definition of Europe does not extend to these shores. Thirdly, I start exploring to see whether I can make one of the other dates, only to realise that the logistics are not going to work, even if the costs could be justified.
Of course, I appreciate that this lifecycle also speaks to the relatively privileged life of a London hardcore fan – most tours reach our city and even if they don’t a jaunt to Sheffield or Leeds hardly compares to the trips faced by many on the continent and in the US.
I realised that, as a result, I have only ever enjoyed two gigs overseas. One by good fortune in the US, and one by design in Germany. The US show was back in 2009. My partner and I had gone to the Pacific Northwest on holiday, where we were travelling on the train from Vancouver down to Portland via Seattle. You can imagine my delight when I realised that Keep It Clear were due to be playing a show in Seattle, supporting Soul Control. I tracked down the West Seattle American Legion Hall and, in hindsight rather foolishly, decided to take the ferry across the harbour to the show.
We soon realised we were very much on the wrong side of the peninsula for the venue and time was running very fine if we were to catch Keep It Clear’s set. As we sat gasping after a frantic chase for the bus, we consoled ourselves with the thought of a pint when we got to the gig. This was to prove a vivid example of how two institutions founded with the same core mission can evolve quite differently. While the British Legion charity maintains a welfare mission, its halls are primarily membership social clubs (although I can’t ever recall seeing one host a hardcore gig). It would seem that the US equivalent have developed rather differently, remaining specifically focused on veteran welfare and so the West Seattle branch was a much more austere affair than a UK counterpart.
So liquid refreshment was confined to the, unsurprisingly, extremely popular water fountain in the entrance hall and my domestic popularity was at something of a low ebb. On the plus side, Keep It Clear had arrived late (which was not an unusual occurrence from chatting with some of the locals), so we had got there in plenty of time for their set. The function hall itself was pretty spartan, brightly lit (until Soul Control’s set in any case), with no stage, but a healthy crowd in place. And our various travails were soon forgotten as they unleashed an utterly blistering set ahead of a Soul Control’s intensely accomplished closing performance. We didn’t take the ferry home.
Our second overseas venture was in 2015. Now regular readers of these notes will know, I am something of a Trial fan and when they announced a European tour with another personal favourite, By The Grace of God, I was gutted to realise that we would be sunning ourselves on the Welsh coast when the tour hit London in mid-August. My attempts to make one of their Central European dates floundered because of work commitments, but we could definitely get to Köln. So, we hopped on the train for a weekend in Germany and on the Sunday evening I headed off for the show.
It was in basement venue, MTC, and by the time By The Grace of God took to the stage it was jammed to the rafters. But while the crowd for both theirs and Trial’s sets were clearly deeply engaged with the material, it was perhaps the least animated crowd I had ever seen at a packed show. Not in any sense apathetic, indeed intensely focused, but certainly surprisingly restrained. The show was a great experience but undoubtedly a quite different one to the couple of times I had seen Trial before.
I still rather regret not being able to make one of the Central European dates, but perhaps that’s one for the future. And in the meantime, I can content myself with revisiting perhaps my favourite tour diary, though that is barely doing it justice, The Humourless Ladies of Border Control by Franz Nicolay (for the uninitiated, formerly a member of the wonderful World/Inferno Friendship Society and now a thoroughly engaging solo artist). This is a wide-ranging travelogue on the life of the touring musician that specifically explores the past and future of underground punk in the Central and Eastern European region. Its concluding thoughts tie in with some of the themes I recently explored in respect of ‘The Lost Art of the Spoken Word’:
‘I found something life affirming in the opportunity to play for people for whom music and politics were meaningful in a concrete way, for whom the act of congregating and the investment of feeling in performing music were all serious business’.
Show and Tours
This section lays no claims to being a definitive listing! It is simply gigs coming up in London that catch my eye and that I think people who read this newsletter might be interested in. I will always try and highlight where a show forms part of a wider UK tour.
20th July Iron Deficiency, Sentient plus more (New Cross Inn / UK Tour)
21st July Jotnarr, Wreathe, Cady (Bird’s Nest)
22nd July Kohti Tuhoa, T.S. Warspite, Antagonizm plus more (New River Studios)
24th July Faim, No Man, Dying For It plus more (New Cross Inn / UK Tour)
26th July Current Affairs plus support (The Lexington / UK Tour)
4th August Plastics, TS Warspite, Unjust plus more (New Cross Inn)
5th August Knuckledust, Nine Bar, Fifty Caliber plus more (New Cross Inn)
8th August Sacred Reich plus support (The Underworld)
13th August DRI plus support (The Underworld)
14th August Chat Pile, Petbrick, Dawn Ray’d (The Dome)
18th August Cloud Rat, Bad Breeding, Golpe (Studio 9294)
28th August Slutbomb, Frisk, Frantic State plus more (New Cross Inn)
9th September Big Brave, Dawn Ray’d, Ragana, Jessica Moss (Bush Hall)
14th – 17th September Static Shock Weekend (tbc)
15th September Cinder Well plus support (Moth Club)
3rd October As Friends Rust, Don’t Sleep plus more (Boston Music Room)
26th October World Peace, Xiao, Trading Hands (New Cross Inn)
18th November Axegrinder, Civilised Society?, Zero Again plus more (New Cross Inn)
24th November Bob Mould plus support (The Garage)
Coming Soon
Discreet ‘This Is Mine’ 12-inch (Convulse)
JJ and The A’s ‘Self-Titled’ 7-inch (LVEUM)
Median Rot ‘Exit’ 7-inch (Alerta Antifascista)
Prey ‘Unsafe’ 12-inch (Scene Report)
Spirito Di Lupo ‘Vedo La Tua Faccia Nei Giorni Di Pioggia’ 12-inch (LVEUM)