News

Seth really outdid himself with this week's holiday-themed cheat sheet! I bet you can't wait to see what he breaks out for Flag Day! But while you wait for that most important of holidays you can bide your time by checking out clips of all of the new stuff in the distro below and ordering your favorites below that:

I've mentioned this a few times in the email newsletter, but in the next few weeks Sorry State will release a brand new 4-song EP from Ireland's the Number Ones (who you may remember from their earlier release on Sorry State, the brilliant "Sharon" single, or their LP collection on Deranged Records). We're previewing the lead track, "Lie to Me," right now, and it's right up there with the best pop songs the band has ever cranked out, and if you've heard the band you know that's really saying something! Check out the track below, and be on the lookout for its imminent vinyl release on Sorry State (in the US) and Static Shock (in the UK and Europe). We'll even have a special red vinyl version for you nerds out there!

I bet you thought that we were done saving you money after our Black Friday / Cyber Monday sale, but we can't stop and we won't stop! Our cassette rack has been overflowing for some time now, so we're having an extremely aggressive cassette sale. Click here for the items that are currently on sale. There are a ton of fairly recent demos that are still hot, many of which are discounted 50% or more, and some cassettes are discounted to as little as $0.98... yes, NINETY-EIGHT CENTS! The sale will only run for a limited time and of course quantities are extremely limited, so don't waste any time digging in to this!

It's time for the latest edition of the Sorry State Records Cheat Sheet! As usual, check out the video below and if anything strikes your fancy you can order a copy right below that.

Alright folks, it's time for the United States' annual orgy of consumerism! While the rest of the world looks at us with a mixture of pity, disdain, and wonder, I know everyone in the US right now is thinking SHOW ME THE DEALS! So let's quickly go through what we have in store for Black Friday / Cyber Monday 2017.

Some of our stock of Black Friday exclusive releases

First up, as many of you know Black Friday has also become Record Store Day Jr., i.e. a day on which there are numerous exclusive vinyl releases only available from independently-owned, brick-and-mortar record stores like Sorry State. Our retail store will open at noon on Friday with a little over 50 exclusive titles. Click here for a list of what we ordered. As of this writing we are still checking in titles so we can't yet confirm what we will have for sale on the day, but it should be most of what you see on the list. In accordance with Record Store Day's rules, after we close on Friday we will place any unsold stock on our web site. You should see those listings go live on this page somewhere around 8PM Eastern US time.

Of course the other big part of the event is the SALE! As usual, we're having a store-wide sale with incredible deals for both our online and brick-and-mortar customers. To summarize the above graphic, you'll get 15% off of most new vinyl and cassettes (this only excludes a handful of very recent arrivals as well as Black Friday Record Store Day exclusive releases), 25% off used vinyl regularly priced over $5, and a whopping 50% off of used vinyl regularly priced $5 or less. WOW! These discounts will start going live on Thanksgiving Day (November 23) and the sale will continue until the end of the day on Cyber Monday (November 27). However, quantities on everything we have are limited, so don't expect all of the cool stuff to stick around until Monday! And then, of course, on Tuesday it'll be back to business as usual and we'll stock the webstore and the brick-and-mortar with even more used and new goodies for the holidays.

It's Monday and that means it's time for another edition of the new release cheat sheet! Check it out below for the latest sounds to come through Sorry State's store, and if you here something you like you can add it to your cart below.

You’ve probably noticed that the personal blogs here at Sorry State have had an erratic publication schedule. We’re super swamped preparing for the holidays, especially given that Jeff has been away on tour with Skemäta for the last month, but we’re doing our best to hold things together. The plan is to talk about our listening environment, and I figured that rather than writing some poetic ode to my record room, I’d give you a video tour of my home office, which is where I do most of my serious vinyl listening. Please don’t make fun of me too much… I’m a delicate flower:

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Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the dynamic between tightness and looseness. I recently read Julian Cope’s book Japrocksampler, which is about weird and/or underground Japanese music in the 60s and 70s, touching on everything from psych to hard rock to free jazz and musique concrete to soundtracks to experimental theater productions. I’ve been spending a lot of my time checking out the records mentioned in the book and I’ve been blown away by too many of them to count. However, one puzzler for me was one of Cope’s favorite records, the album Eve by Speed, Glue & Shinki. In Cope’s ranking of the top 50 Japanese LPs of this era, he awards Eve the top spot on the list, which they have the honor of sharing with the Flower Travellin’ Band’s Satori album. Now, Satori is a stone-cold classic and I’m pretty sure that I realized that the very first time that I listened to it, but Eve was a puzzler. I put it on during a couple of my late-night streaming binges and it just sounded like total lame-ass blues rock to me. However, when I read Cope’s more detailed review of the album I realized that I was listening to it all wrong. At one point, Cope specifically recommends that you not put on Eve as background music because all you’ll hear is generic blues rock. Instead, you have to listen closely to this record to hear what the band does to the idea of generic, drugged out blues-rock.

Basically, Eve is the loosest record that I’ve ever heard in my life that can’t be dismissed as pure nonsense. As you’re listening, the songs themselves seem to drift in and out of focus, to the point where sometimes you can’t even really tell if the band is playing the same part—or even the same song—anymore at all. It’s like they got the band together, wrote and rehearsed an album of blues-rock songs, then the members separated, went on a two-year-long drug binge in which they didn’t see one another or play any kind of music at all, and then put their first rehearsal back together out as an album. It’s extremely difficult to figure out where the compositions end and the free-form jamming begins. At various points you can hear one of the musicians try to take the lead and get everyone to change to a new part, but whether one or both of his fellow band members will follow is a 50/50 shot at best, which means sometimes different parts of the band are literally playing different parts of the song. In a way, listening to this record is one of the closest approximations I’ve ever found to a pyschedelic drug experience… the way that these songs seem to drift in and out of focus is perfectly analogous to how reality itself seems to shift and squirm underneath you during a trip.

Another thing I love about Eve is that the sheer wackiness of the music inspires some really great metaphors. At one point in Cope’s book someone describes Speed, Glue & Shinki’s music as like a stringless kite floating away in the breeze. At another point Cope describe’s the drummer’s style—which speeds up and slows down drastically over the course of any given song, only has a passing relationship with the beat, and is punctuated with some of the oddest fills I’ve ever heard—as “like someone throwing bibles at a couch.” I mean, how can you not want to listen to that?

Anyway, listening to Eve has made me value looseness in a way that I never really had before. In fact, it made me realize that for pretty much my entire life I’d just assumed that tightness was the goal in music and anything that didn’t achieve a certain level of tightness was just fundamentally crappy or flawed. That’s probably one of the reasons that I never liked Led Zeppelin (and, indeed, I’ve found myself a little bit interested in revisiting them since Eve turned my world upside down). Coincidentally, this past week I happened to be reading a sample chapter from Tony Rettman’s new book on straight edge over at the No Echo web site and the following quote from Chris Zusi of Resurrection really stuck out:

With Resurrection, we purposely wanted to do something different musically and visually. We wanted to be a straight edge version of Black Flag or Bl’ast. At the time, most of the Youth Crew bands had died out or were dying a painful death. We wanted to provoke people—do a dirty, sloppy, straight edge band that felt like any song could fall apart at any minute. It was really meant to be a contrast to the tight punch of the late-’80s sound.

The idea that (at least some) 90s bands purposely went for a looser, sloppier sound was something that honestly never occurred to me. Particularly after the “No Way years” reframed my idea of what constituted “good” hardcore, I tended to just dismiss 90s hardcore. I am sure I’ve uttered the question, “why did people forget how to play good hardcore in the 90s?” many, many times. It honestly never occurred to me that people didn’t forget what good hardcore was, but instead were exploring an alternative idea of what good hardcore could be. Not that you’re going to find me going back and digging up old Resurrection records any time soon, but I feel like I at least have a better idea of where bands like that were coming from now.

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So, my run-down of what I’ve been listening to is going to be more informal this time around because I’m totally swamped (or, maybe it's just as loose as Speed, Glue & Shinki), but here are a few of my personal highlights:

Liquids: Heart Beats True 7” (Digital Regress) I was extremely pleased to see this release had gotten a vinyl repress as I’ve been listening to mp3s of it for a while and it’s some of my favorite Liquids stuff. “Lucky Knife” is the jam here, built around the kind of ultra-catchy riff that made everyone fall in love with the Coneheads, but without the affected delivery that also made that band the target of so much backlash. There are plenty more jams here for the fan of quirky, catchy punk, the only oddball being the kind of dirge-y track on the b-side. There’s an early Lookout! Records vibe to Liquids in general, but this release in particular really captures the spirit of fun and creativity that I associate with those releases. Highly recommended.

Uniform: No Trending 12” (State Laughter) Long-awaited debut LP from this Atlanta band that features a couple of folks who you might recognize from the great, dearly departed Wymyns Prysyn. If you haven’t heard Uniform, then Wymyns Prysyn is probably the best reference point as they have a very similar sound and production style… sort of a more hardcore-informed take on the thick, melodic, Wipers-esque driving punk sound. I know that Uniform have been working on this record for a very long time, and it shows… pretty much every track has a bass line, two guitar melodies, and a vocal melody all going in different directions and criss-crossing over one another at all times. It’s disorienting at first, but there’s so much to listen to that it’s all really captivating. This is an album I love to put on, lie on my back, and just stare at the ceiling while I parse everything that’s going on. I also love the little noise / abstract pieces that bridge the gaps between songs. Far more than the random noise and feedback that a lot of bands use to fill up silence, these strike me as ideas that are short but well-developed… you could imagine most of them being expanded in length and scope to be their own hip-hop or noise tracks. Anyway, this one is a real pleasure to listen to, and when you throw in beautiful, unique packaging you really can’t go wrong.

Lumpy & the Dumpers: Those Pickled Fuckers 12” (Lumpy) Latest dispatch from Lumpy & Company and I know that I probably say this about every one of his records, but this one really IS the best one yet. While there’s a little bit here that will feel comfortably familiar if you have a bunch of Lumpy records in your collection (the grotesque chug of the title track in particular), my favorite moments are the ones that find Lumpy expanding his pallette. I think I wrote this somewhere on the site earlier, but it’s kind of funny that Lumpy & the Dumpers is actually one of the more musically conservative acts on the Lumpy label, which has become one of the most exciting labels for underground weirdo sounds over the past few years. However, tracks like “Attention” and “Clatter Song” introduce some rickety synths into the Dumpers equation to great effect. “Attention” is probably my favorite track on the album, recalling Broken Prayer in its rather elegant fusion of blazing hardcore and blistering synth-punk, but I’m also quite fond of “Clatter Song,” which finds Lumpy doing what sounds to me like a Bobby Boris Pickett impression. Their name and aesthetic just beg you to write Lumpy & the Dumpers off, but Those Pickled Fuckers proves that when you actually listen to the music there’s a whole lot to love.

Das Drip: Demo cassette (self-released) Now, this is one that is pretty exciting for me, first of all because I really like it and second of all because Sorry State played a small role in this band coming together. Basically, three former Whatever Brains started jamming on traditional rock instruments and wrote a bunch of hardcore songs, but hardcore songs filtered through the members’ unique sensibilities. They played for a few months without a singer, and eventually they put up a flyer at Sorry State looking for a singer for their “mid-brow hardcore band.” Rachel answered their ad and ended up being perfect. We have had a few people hanging up “musicians wanted” flyers in the store over the years, but this is the first one I know of that has actually resulted in a real band forming, furthermore a real band that I am super excited about. In terms of vibe I think that Das Drip clearly fit with newer weirdo hardcore like the Bug, Mozart, and Neon… like those bands, Das Drip seem to appreciate the speed and intensity of hardcore, but by studiously avoiding following the genre’s “rules” they manage to suck out the associations with toughness and macho-ness that make a lot of hardcore a total drag. While that’s clearly the inspiration, I also hear plenty of other quirky hardcore bands in their stew… everything from the Crucifucks to Skull Kontrol. And the vocals that glide over top of the music match the vibe perfectly. Rather than relying on the cliche screams and grunts of most hardcore bands, the vocals for each track sound like the verbal articulation of an anxiety attack, a stream of syllables that is as disorientingly relentless as the music behind it. Who knows if this will catch on outside of North Carolina, but it’s honestly one of my favorite releases of 2017.

Room 101: One Man Band 12” (Summary Execution) We carried an earlier Room 101 7” on Germany’s X-Mist Records that I only managed to hear in passing, but this LP definitely grabbed my attention. First of all, there’s the packaging, which is a beautiful Winston Smith (whose work you may know from the Dead Kennedys) collage rendered as a full-color screen print by Martin Sorrundeguy… it’s absolutely stunning, particularly when you hold the physical release with its heavy paper stock and slight mis-registration of the colors. This is a record that doesn’t look like a lot of other hardcore records, which is appropriate because it doesn’t sound like a lot of other hardcore records either. As you can infer from the record’s title, one guy, Roburt Reynolds, composes and performs all of the music (there are a bunch of live photos in the booklet that make the band’s live show look like a very intense experience). A lot of one-man hardcore projects out there (I’m thinking about stuff like Protester or early Violent Reaction) use the singularity of perspective to create a kind of tunnel vision where everything is super tight and locked in, both in terms of how the music is played, but also how other influences and ideas are incorporated into the sound. However, Room 101 sounds like a complete free-for-all… the playing is remarkably loose and alive for a one-person project, and it’s quite difficult to pinpoint specific influences on the band’s sound. Reynolds tends to use a drum machine in a way that emphasizes its drum machine-ness, sort of like Big Black rather than bands that use drum machines to approximate and/or exaggerate the kinds of beats that humans typically play. The rest of the music is wild and loose as well, with songs typically built around a fairly simple bass line that the guitarist improvises wild, cathartic bursts of noise over. The overall vibe is something like the first Crucifucks LP filtered through the post-industrial sensibility of Big Black. I’ve never really heard anything like it, and if you tend to seek out bands that don’t sound like anything else I’d recommend giving this one a spin.

Bodykit: No-NRG 12” (New Body Tapes) Rich and Josh from Whatever Brains’ second appearance in this update, as they both also play in Das Drip. Anyway, if Das Drip is where those two guys follow the thread of quirky punk that unraveled from Whatever Brains’ tattered cloak, Bodykit is the project where they dive deep into the electronic and noise influences that were the other big component of the Brains’ sound. Unlike a lot of other stuff that comes across my desk here at SSR, this one is really difficult to pin a specific genre tag on… there are elements of techno, power-electronics, synth-pop, noise music, and probably others swimming around in Bodykit’s sound. Some tracks here really emphasize texture and sound in a way that recalls abstract noise music, while other tracks reveal pop melodies deep at their core, and some tracks do both of those things at the same time. I’m not really sure how to sell someone on this other than by saying it’s a very intriguing and very inventive record that I find myself returning to again and again. If you were a Whatever Brains fan this is essential as it very much sounds like the next chapter, but it’s also it’s own thing that’s well worth checking out.

Various: LdAs - Lass Die Alten Sterben 12" (Swisspunk) Compilation of vintage Swiss punk music that doubles as the soundtrack to a Swiss film (the film, incidentally, is a work of fiction where the characters are punks, not a documentary on Swiss punk). Functioning something like an official version of the regional Bloodstains compilations, LdAs - Lass Die Alten Sterben (which translates to “Let the Old Folks Die”) collects a range of late 70s and early 80s Swiss punk encompassing a broad, but not overly broad, range of styles. While some bands are really fast and border on hardcore, others are kind of quirky and new wave-y, but all are a relatively comfortable fit under the ’77 punk / KBD-style punk umbrella. There are a few bands I was familiar with, like Sperma, Nasal Boys, and Dieter Meier (whose single is a real underrated gem… if I remember correctly I learned about it from Johan Kugelberg’s list of his favorite punk records), but a lot more I wasn’t familiar with at all… I think my favorite is Mother’s Ruin, who have two tracks included, but “Godzilla” is the real jam, a quirky, lumbering slice of angst that kind of sounds like Kleenex blown up to superhuman size and heaviness. While the quality of the track listing is just as good as that of unofficial releases like the Bloodstains compilations, the packaging pulls out all of the stops that you’d expect for an official release, most impressively the large, thick booklet that devotes a full page of space to each track and including liner notes / histories for each track as well as plenty of vintage photos and other ephemera. While I wouldn’t say that LdAs is the first international punk compilation you should buy, it’s a very good one, and if you’re a sucker for this kind of release I think you’ll definitely be pleased, and if you’re a collector you’re bound to add a few items to your want list.

Sorry, no stream available for this one :(

The Clay / Anti-Septic: Split 12” (Euro Import) Fan club reissue of two Japanese crushers. The artwork isn’t too hot (unfortunately it has that slapped-together bootleg style graphic design rather than the more fashionable “repro of the original artwork” style), but the music contained within these grooves is absolutely flawless and the sound reproduction is top-notch. The Anti-Septic 7” is one of my favorite Japanese records… it’s the perfect mid-point between the earlier ADK Records-type sound and the more full-on hardcore that would rise to prominence a few years later, splitting the difference between earlier, more mid-paced bands like Kikeiji, Masturbation, and G-Zet and faster stuff like Gudon or the Execute, with all of the catchiness and gloomy atmosphere of the former supplemented with the raging-ness of the latter. It really is a record that every fan of 80s Japanese hardcore should own in some capacity. As for the Clay, they’re most definitely a hardcore band, and their Middle East Combat Area7” is right at the top tier of noisy Japanese hardcore. The tracks collected here come from a live soundboard recording that originally appeared on a live 2xCD along with a bunch of other live tracks that you probably don’t need to bother looking up. These sound great, though, and not only are they just as raging as the band’s studio material, but also there are a ton of otherwise unreleased tracks contained in this 16-song set.

gSp: S/T 12” (Thrilling Living) Debut 12” from this new group with one of the coolest band names I’ve heard in ages (at least in its unabbreviated form, Girl Sperm). You night recognize guitarist and bassist Marissa Magic and Layla Gibbon’s names from the pages of Maximumrocknroll, and hopefully you certainly recognize drummer Tobi Vail’s name from her old band Bikini Kill. Obviously that’s a pretty strong pedigree, and if you’re coming at this record as a big fan of the Riot Grrrl era it’s hard to imagine you’ll be disappointed, as it has a similar energy about it to Bikini Kill’s most upbeat tracks (like “I Like Fucking,” for instance) or Bratmobile’s Ladies, Women, and Girls LP. However, it’s not really a time capsule-type thing either… moments remind me quite a bit of newer London bands like Good Throb, Frau, and Runt, for instance. I’m aware of the fact that I’m comparing gSp exclusively to groups with women in prominent roles, but it really does feel to me (and take what I say with a grain of salt, obviously, given that I’m a man) that gSp offer us a distinctly feminine / femme / feminist take on punk. I’ll leave it to someone else to parse what that actually means in terms of the different kinds of choices gSp make as songwriters and performers, but all I know is that I love it. While there are a few records (like the ones mentioned above) that sound sort of like this one, it’s a musical framework that feels alive and exciting, like there are still new and exciting ideas to be explored (unlike, say, genres like d-beat that seem stagnant at the moment). So, not only is this obviously coming from a very positive place politically and socially, but also it’s a blast to listen to with its infectious, effervescent energy just streaming from the speakers. I really can’t recommend this one highly enough.

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All New Arrivals:
The Stooges: Highlights from the Fun House Sessions 12" (Run Out Groove)
Propagandhi: Victory Lap 12" (Epitaph)
ZZ Top: ZZ Top's First Album 12" (Rhino)
The Grateful Dead: Best of Vol 2: 1977-1989 12" (Rhino)
T Rex: Electric Warrior 12" (Rhino)
Cradle of Filth: The Principle of Evil Made Flesh 12" (The End)
Cradle of Filth: V Empire (Or Dark Faerytales In Phallustien) 12" (The End)
The Smiths: The Queen Is Dead 5x12" (Rhino)
Weezer: Pacific Daydream 12" (Crush Music)
Julien Baker: Turn Out the Lights 12" (Matador)
Escape-ism: Introduction to Escape-ism 12" (Merge)
Husker Du: Savage Young Du 12" box set (Numero Group)
Exploded View: Summer Came Early 12" (Sacred Bones)
Entombed: Clandestine 12" (Earache)
Bolt Thrower: ...for Victory 12" (Earache)
U-Men: S/T 3x12" (Sub Pop)
Sepultura: Roots (Expanded Edition) 12" (Roadrunner)
Metallica: Master of Puppets (remastered) 12" (Blackened)
Quicksand: Interiors 12" (Epitaph)
Angel Olsen: Phases 12" (Jagjaguwar)
Converge: The Dusk in Us 12" (Deathwish)
Radiation Risks: Headless Horseman 7" flexi (Feral Kid)
Morrissey: Spent the Day in Bed / Judy Is a Punk 12" (BMG)
Natural Man: Natural Man & the Flamin' Hot Band cassette (self-released)
Antichrist: Sinful Birth 12" (Electric Assault)
Occvlta: Night Without End 12" (Electric Assault)
Weezer: Pacific Daydream 12" (Crush Music)
Liquids: Heart Beats True 7" (Terminal Regress)
Terry: Remember Terry 12" (Upset the Rhythm!)
Ekman, Joni & Koira: S/T 12" (Fuck Rekords)
Suburban Homes: Unemployed 7" (Total Punk)
The Clay / Anti Septic: Split 12" (Euro Import)
Lebenden Toten: Mind Parasites 12" (self-released)
Unarm: Myth or Reality 311 12" (Black Water)
Natterers: Toxic Care 7" flexi (Boss Tuneage)
Haram: S/T 12" (Toxic State)
Primer Regiment: No Futuro / No Solucion 7" (Discos MMM)
Purple X: Demo 2017 cassette (Discos MMM)
No Negative: Cellophane 7" (Swollen City)
Ultrarat: D-Pression 7" (Swollen City)
Bruised: S/T cassette (self-released)
Dianetics: Book Learned / And Psycho Horse cassette (self-released)
Red Delicious: Bad Apple cassette (Not Normal)
Smooch: First Kiss cassette (Big Dunce)
A. Savage: Thawing Dawn 12" (Dull Tools)
Franco Battiato: Fetus 12" (Superior Viaduct)
Bell Witch: Mirror Reaper 12" (Profound Lore)
Frankie and the Witch Fingers: Brain Telephone 12" (Permanent)
Gun Club: Fire of Love 12" (Munster)
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard: Sketches of Brunswick 12" (ATO)
Pageninetynine: Document #8 12" (Reptilian)
Severed Heads: Come Visit the Big Bigot 12" (Dark Entries)
Ufomammut: 8 12" (Neurot)
Rakta: Oculto Pelos Seres 7" (Iron Lung)
Acrylics: Structure 7" (Iron Lung)
Brand New: Science Fiction 12" (Procrastinate! Music Traitors)
Wulkanaz: Paralysis 12" (Helter Skelter)
Michael Jackson: Scream 12" (MJJ)
St. Vincent: Masseduction 12" (Loma Vista)
Beck: Colors 12" (Capitol)
Dirty & His Fists: S/T 7" (Feel It)
Unjust: Transparency 7" (Quality Control)
Rapture: I Glorify 7" (Quality Control)
Bjork: The Gate 12" (One Little Indian)
Quicksand: Manic Compression 12" (SRC)
Pretty Things: Greatest Hits 12" (Madfish)
Mork: Eremittens Dal 12" (Peaceville)
Room 101: One Man Band 12" (Summary Execution)
Mad Conflux: Crazy Action Party 12" (FOAD)
Sado-Nation: We're Not Equal 12" (Euro Import)
Paralasis Permanente: Los Singles 12" (3 Cipreses)
Atoxxxico: 30th Anniversary Anthology 12" (FOAD)
Systematic Death: Systema Ten 12" (FOAD)
Gauze: 限界は何処だ (3rd LP) 12" (Crowmaniax)
Gauze: 面を洗って出直して来い (4th LP) 12" (Crowmaniax)
gSp: S/T 12" (Thrilling Living)
Various: LdAs - Lass Die Alten Sterben 12" (Swisspunk)
Spodee Boy / Datenight: Split 7" (Drop Medium)
U-nix: S/T cassette (Drop Medium)
Shimmer: S/T 12" (Drop Medium)
Dog: Trash Temple 12" (Drop Medium)
Impulse Control: demo cassette (self-released)
Deletär: S/T 7" (Kick Rock)
Blink 182: S/T 12" (SRC)
Electro Hippies: The Only Good Punk Is a Dead Punk 12" (Earache)
Dream Probe: Demo II cassette (self-released)
Das Drip: Demo cassette (self-released)
Lumpy & the Dumpers: Those Pickled Fuckers 12" (Lumpy)
Nasti: Big Achievements 12" (Iron Lung)
Uniform: No Trending 12" (State Laughter)
Bed Wettin' Bad Boys: Rot 12" (What's Your Rupture)
Power Trip: Nightmare Logic 12" (Southern Lord)
Itansha: Paranoia Demo 7" (Warthog Speak)
Lion's Share: S/T 7" (Warthog Speak)
Μάτι: Demo 2017 cassette (self-released)
Sun Ra and His Arkestra: Featuring Pharoah Sanders and Black Harold 12" (Superior Viaduct)
Coil: Another Brown World / Baby Food 12" (Sub Rosa)
Various: The Gamelan of the Walking Warriors 12" (Akuphone)
Various: Tokyo Flashback 12" (Black Editions)
Pharoah Sanders: S/T 12" (ESP-Disk)
Various: No New York 12" (Lilith)
Faust: S/T 12" (Lilith)
Os Mutantes: S/T 12" (Lilith)
Alex Chilton: Like Flies on Sherbert 12" (Vinyl Lovers)
Unruly Boys: S/T 7" (Crowd Control Media)

Restocks
Rut: Attraction 7" (Digital Regress)
The Abused: Loud and Clear 12" (Radio Raheem)
Neanderthal: A History of Violence 12" (Deep Six)
Limp Wrist: Facades 12" (Lengua Armada)
Agnostic Front: No One Rules 12" (Radio Raheem)
LSD: 1983 to 1986 12" (Schizophrenic)
Kleenex / Liliput: First Songs 12" (Mississippi)
Grief: Depression 12" (Fuck Yoga)
Grief: Dismal 12" (Fuck Yoga)
Life's Blood: Hardcore AD 12" (Prank)
La Urss: Maravillas 12" (Discos MMM)
Ausencia: Cuantas 7" (Discos MMM)
The Fall: Hex Enduction Hour 12" (Superior Viaduct)
Crass: Feeding of the 5000 12" (Southern)
Dicks: Kill from the Heart 12" (Alternative Tentacles)
Flesh World: Into the Shroud 12" (Dark Entries)
The Sound: From the Lion's Mouth 12" (1972)
The Sound: Jeopardy 12" (1972)
Stiff Little Fingers: Inflammable Material 12" (4 Men with Beards)
Subhumans: The Day the Country Died 12" (Bluurg!)
Subhumans: EPLP 12" (Bluurg!)
The Fall: Dragnet 12" (Superior Viaduct)
Flower Travellin Band: Satori 12" (Phoenix)
Various: Bingo! French Punk & New Wave 12" (Born Bad)
Beastie Boys: Paul's Boutique 12" (Capitol)
Funkadelic: Maggot Brain 12" (Westbound)
Misfits: Earth AD 12" (Caroline)
Misfits: Static Age 12" (Caroline)
Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon 12" (Pink Floyd)
Slayer: Reign in Blood 12" (American)
Slayer: Seasons in the Abyss 12" (American)
Slayer: South of Heaven 12" (American)
Aggression Pact: Instant Execution 7" (Painkiller)
Banshee: Caw! 12" (self-released)
Aburadako: S/T 7" (Crowmaniax)
Dead Kennedys: Plastic Surgery Disasters 12" (Manifest)
RAS: Rien a Signaler 7" (Dirty Punk)
Raw Power: You Are the Victim / God's Course 12" (FOAD)
Bad Posture: C/S 12" (Mono)
GISM: Detestation 12" (Euro Import)
Brand New: I Am a Nightmare 12" (Triple Crown)
Earth Crisis: Destroy the Machines 12" (Victory)
Geto Boys: We Can't Be Stopped 12" (Rap-a-lot)
Integrity: Howling, for the Nightmare Shall Consume 12" (Relapse)
Modest Mouse: Building Nothing Out of Something 12" (Glacial Pace)
Parquet Courts: Content Nausea 12" (What's Your Rupture)
Jay Reatard: Blood Visions 12" (Fat Possum)
Run the Jewels: S/T 12" (Mass Appeal)
Run the Jewels: Run the Jewels 2 12" (Mass Appeal)
Run the Jewels: Run the Jewels 3 12" (Mass Appeal)
Sleep: Dopesmoker 12" (Southern Lord)
Sunn O))): Monoliths and Dimensions 12" (Southern Lord)
Against Me: Reinventing Axl Rose 12" (No Idea)
Bags: All Bagged Up 12" (Artifix)
DOA: Hardcore '81 12" (Sudden Death)
Eyehategod: Take as Needed for Pain 12" (Century Media)
Jawbreaker: Unfun 12" (Blackball)
Sleep: Volume One 12" (Tupelo)
Sonic Youth: Daydreamnation 12" (Goofin')
Sonic Youth: Evol 12" (Goofin')
Suicide: S/T 12" (Superior Viaduct)
The Fall: Grotesque 12" (Superior Viaduct)
Wicked Lady: The Axeman Cometh 12" (Guersson)
Teenage Filmstars: There's a Cloud Over Liverpool 12" (Munster)

Sorry State's latest New Release Cheat Sheet is out now! If you're looking for something new to listen to in order to get your work week off to a great start this Monday as always we have you covered. Watch below and if anything strikes your fancy place an order below that:

However, I generally do most of my listening while doing a different task. I’ve noticed that I am usually more inclined to listen to something new while I’m cleaning. I’ll put a record on, crank it so it can be heard throughout the house, and try to be productive. Usually doing dishes, laundry, y’ know, something relatively monotonous. Funnily enough, the other thing I’ve learned about myself is that if I really need to focus on something, I really shouldn’t listen to music while doing so. I’m a horrible multitasker and it is very easy for me to get carried away in the rhythm and lose concentration. Even as I’m writing this in a coffee shop, the stupid indie rock Pandora station has me losing focus (and also pissing me off in the process).

At the gig: And in conclusion, I obviously do most of my new exploration of bands at local shows. For me, a band on a recording could not do the trick for me, but after seeing them live sometimes a light bulb flickers and I go “Aha! Now this band makes sense to me”. On occasion this has the opposite effect though; I might have set really high expectations for a band based on recordings and end up feeling disappointed.

Anyway, here’s some new shit that slaps:

Nasti-Big Achievements LP: I saw Nasti at Everything Is Not Okay fest a couple years ago and thought they were incredible. Another year or two went by and I hadn’t really kept up with this band. This LP holds up to my memory of them bringing the heat. Great mid-tempo hardcore that fits in well with some contemporary midwest punk while still maintaining a heavy and groove centric feel. Funny enough, when I first popped this on the turntable I listened to the whole thing at 45 rpm and thought “this is some of the wildest shit I’ve EVER heard” until I finally realized it’s a 33… Anyway, it sounds great at both speeds, so if you’re feeling feisty give it a whirl at 45.

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Dream Probe-Demo II: 5 tracks of perfectly executed hardcore punk hailing from Champaign, Illinois. Hands down one of my favorite new releases I’ve heard in a minute. Ripping anti-colonial hardcore with all lyrics sang in spanish. Another thing that grabs me is the fact that they’re a 3 piece, which is always something I love in a fast punk band. Don’t sleep on this!

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Das Drip-Demo: Brand new cassette from right here in the triangle area. Featuring members of Whatever Brains, Body Kit, etc, Das Drip plays spastic and wild punk for true freaks. Very excited to see how this band develops!

So, we have a TON of great new releases in the new arrivals, so I think it's time for a run-down!

First up we have a new LP from Lumpy & the Dumpers. Lumpy has always been a divisive band, but I respect that... if you're not pissing someone off that's probably a clue that you're boring. That being said, I've always thought it was kind of funny that Lumpy & the Dumpers were one of the more conservative bands on the Lumpy label. However, Those Pickled Fuckers definitely takes things out there quite a bit further, showing that Lumpy can get just as freak as his acolytes:

Next up we have the debut 12" EP from gSp, which I might dare call a "supergroup." Featuring members of Bikini Kill, Skinned Teen, Mozart, the Frumpies, and many others, this is undoubtedly the most authentic riot-grrrl-styled punk that you'll hear this year. There's more to it than that, though, and if you like the angular-yet-catchy stylings of bands like Shitty Limits or Monorchid I think you'll be quite into this as well:

Next up we have a killer compilation of vintage Swiss punk and post-punk music titled Lass Die Alten Sterben. Apparently this is a soundtrack to a film, and comes with a zine-style booklet and a poster for the movie. Here's the track listing:

A1   –Flurin Giger   I Think I Should Stop To Talk   1:58
A2   –Sperma   No More Love   2:14
A3   –Mother's Ruin   Dany Hot Dog   3:45
A4   –Mother's Ruin   Godzilla   3:20
A5   –Kraft Durch Freude   I've Got A Whole Lotta Love   2:17
A6   –Vorwärts   TV Generation   2:26
A7   –TNT (19)   Razzia   2:11
B1   –Sida (2)   La Serveuse   4:02
B2   –The Bastards (3)   Impossibilities   2:53
B3   –Nasal Boys   Hot Love   3:10
B4   –The Squirt   Last Chance   1:47
B5   –Dieter Meier, Fresh Color   Cry For Fame   2:15
B6   –Fresh Color   The Source   2:23
B7   –Flurin Giger   I Think I Should Stop To Talk (Punk Version) 1:14

We're one of the only distros in the US with this so don't sleep, because this is bound one of these things everyone is looking for in a couple of months when they're all gone (oh, and unfortunately we don't have an online stream for this one):

Next we have a release I'm personally very excited about, the demo cassette from Raleigh's Das Drip. Das Drip is basically 3/5 of Whatever Brains with a singer named Rachel, but rather than whatever genre it was that Whatever Brains played, Das Drip is hardcore band. But, of course, they're a hardcore band that aligns perfectly with the members' skewed world view, which is to say they're quirky and unique as fuck:

Speaking of quirky hardcore, we have a new release on the Iron Lung Records from Nasti. Iron Lung is pretty much the premier name in left-of-center hardcore (along with La Vida Es Un Mus), and here's a prime example of the style:

Next up we have the second demo from Dream Probe out of the Chicago area. We were big fans of their first tape here at SSR and this one is even better... straightforward, passionate, yet still unique-sounding hardcore punk:

We'll finish things up with a slice of vintage Japanese punk from the always-busy "fan club." This LP collects the 7" from Anti-Septic (one of my favorite Japanese records ever!) along with some heretofore unreleased live tracks from the Clay that have a great quality soundboard recording:

We've released a new edition of the cheat sheet! Watch it below and if anything strikes your fancy pick up physical copies below that!

Yup, that's right! The newest Liquids record is in stock and shipping now! Their previous records have all sold out within a couple of days of release, so don't sleep on this one! This is some of my favorite material by the band and I'm stoked to finally have a vinyl copy to play, and it looks and sounds as great as expected. Check it out below and smash that add to cart button!