Third World Chaos: New Move for Error 12"

Third World Chaos: New Move for Error 12” (Merciless Records) I’ve really been enjoying the punk and metal reissues that have been coming out on Germany’s Merciless Records lately. We wrote about the excellent crossover LP from Deceased they reissued a while back, and we also covered their reissues of the seminal Pinoy band Dead Ends when they came out (by the way, all these releases are back in stock if you still need them!). Merciless’s latest reissue is a cornerstone of Filipino punk: Third World Chaos’s 1984 full-length New Move for Error. Third World Chaos (who were also known, at various points, as Chaos and Ex-Communicate) was the only Filipino punk band to release vinyl, putting out an ultra-rare single on the major label RCA Victor in 1984 (copies of that sell for around a thousand bucks nowadays!) and New Move for Error on the independent Tower Records that same year (which is also a highly sought-after collectible). Alongside playing in Third World Chaos, guitarist Tommy Tanchanco was also a key figure in the Pinoy punk scene thanks to his cassette label Twisted Red Cross, which documented the Philippines’ punk scene more extensively than any other label (they did the original versions of the Deceased and Dead Ends records Merciless also reissued, for instance). I knew virtually nothing about this scene before Merciless started doing these reissues, and one thing that surprised me when I heard these Filipino bands was how much they sound like Southern California punk bands from the late 70s and early 80s. That’s the case with New Move for Error too, which sounds like it could have come out on Posh Boy Records circa 1980 alongside bands like the Simpletones and the Crowd. A lot of that is probably the singer’s accent, which bears some resemblance to a SoCal surfer drawl, but the music fits too, with that laid-back vibe that evokes the beach at sunset. I am a sucker for that sound, but I also hear a lot of Sex Pistols in Third World Chaos, which is always something I love. The Pistols’ music is a sturdy foundation to build upon, and I like feeling that connection to punk’s prime movers. If you love OG 70s punk and also get a kick out of exploring the worldwide underground, you’ll love New Move for Error, particularly given its clear but bare-bones recording (another way Third World Chaos reminds me of those early SoCal bands). Merciless’s reissue reproduces the record’s original layout and sounds great, and there’s also a ton of paper stuffed inside the jacket reproducing the handful of surviving artifacts from the scene. Some of it isn’t scanned super well, but it’s hard to nitpick when it feels like a privilege to see this stuff at all. My fellow amateur punk historians will be sure to get a ton of mileage out of this one.