THE CALM 12"

It’s well known that I like shoegaze. While your typical shoegaze band was playing the Byrds with more feedback and through lots of crazy effects Calm plays slowed down hardcore with a smattering of haze. Let me back up. I don’t really know what genre this falls into…maybe spacerock? I don’t really know man. Calm fills the gap from Mohinder to Her Space Holiday, Duster and possible other bands I don’t know about (Cattle Decapitation? Jenny Picollo?). Mohinder ruled, Calm slayed and those other bands I don’t care about. So Calm is the penultimate band by these dudes. The Calm 12” surfaced sometime in the mid 1990s and immediately became one of my favorite records. Thumbnail (from Knoxville, TN) played with Calm a few times in California their roadie (he of Patrick Patrick fame) told me they were dope live, a mixture of Karp and Smashing Pumpkins. Dag…. This 12” is loud and quiet at the same time, as well as, fast and slow. If you turn it up reallllll loud you get the most out of it.

VAN 100-JM Lapham "Lost in Edit Mixes" 7"

Static Caravan (staticcaravan.org) is amongst the best record labels of this here modern age and they have just released a cracker jack of a good seven inch for their one-hundreth release. This release sees JM Lapham from the Earlies de-mixing or re-mixing or saving the unmixed components of two tracks from Static's back catalog to excellent effects. Tunng's "Tale From the Black" (from Van 72) is made more ambient and vocalless. The other track is an electronic track from errr, maybe, Tomcats in Tokyo or Bronnt Industries Kapital or D_Rradio. Maybe Magnetophone? Its reallll familiar, but I can't place it. Anyway, it is rad and sounds like it could be the soundtrack to a documentary about a frog or better yet a toad. One toad. The artwork is hand collaged from past releases (mine is from the Ted & Ray 7") and the vinyl is lathe cut. A class act all the way. The artwork here is from their website and doesn't represent the actual record...