Nice smattering of new arrivals and restocks this week… Died Pretty’s Doughboy Hollow is back in print and back on the shelf, alongside a new one from Seefeel, SML, and Krakatau. A bunch from Felt Sense Records in Melb and the broader Discreet Music world of the Swedish underground landed this week, alongside reissues from Poison Idea, X, The Residents, The Zombies, and a restock of the criminally underrated Small Intestines LP on Lost & Lonesome!
@discreet.gbg@feltsenserecs@krakatau.music@lostlonesome
It’s hard out there for a contemporary Hip Hop curious physical media Unc!! (note: this is gen z/alpha slang for someone who displays “uncle like behaviour”) I haven’t really stopped listening to MIKE’s ‘Renaissance Man’ and Earl Sweatshirt’s ‘Some Rap Songs’ since acquiring them a couple of years after their 2018 release.
Personal listening preferences (I like albums and want to escape phone/computer world) and music industry dynamics have stopped me from being nearly as engaged with new Hip Hop as I would like to be. Still, I’ve been following the release press cycle of Earl Sweatshirt, MIKE & SURF GANG’s ‘POMPEII // UTILITY’ and love the energy they have been projecting into the world. Some profoundly funny, heartwarming, and insightful thoughts have come out of their unassuming and open media appearances. Their affirmation of friendship and tight knit creative partnerships as a way to block out the anxiety-inducing outside forces that usually strip music of its unique flavour is one of the great messages.
I think ‘POMPEII // UTILITY’ has been somewhat polarising, and I get why, but I’m firmly on team “It’s incredible!”. Getting a little old-head here but both rappers remind me of the unhinged and offbeat flow of Sensation, Kool Keith, Sir Menelik, or a 12” you might’ve bought on Fondle ‘em or Rawkus Records, but along with Surf Gang’s production they fold in cassette-only era Southern Hip Hop bangers and post-boom bap experimentation (sorry for writing that) but in a way that feel specifically located in the post-Gucci Mane/Lil’ B era.
I am sorry about the price tag and will save my more in-depth frustrations about Hip Hop physical music distribution for another time. – Nic
Earl Sweatshirt, MIKE & SURF GANG - POMPEII // UTILITY 2CD $54.95
Roy Montgomery returns with an album of guitar instrumentals that, while recorded a decade ago, feels particularly prescient at the moment. Turbulent waves of feedback and incredibly rich tone crash into one another. While there’s a similar psychedelia to Montgomery’s album, his sounds considerably more aligned with a kind of natural awe. To allow a moment of grandiose cliche or lazy metaphor, on first listen to Guitar Infernal my mind is drawn to the massive geological and meteorological forces (ie. earthquakes, volcanoes, gales) that have shaped his homeland of Aotearoa, or, to more simply riff off the album and song titles, the intensity and scale of a bushfire. Beautiful, intense stuff as one would expect from Montgomery!
–Mitch
Roy Montgomery - Guitars Infernal (Discreet Music, 2026), New LP, $49.95
@roy_division@discreetmusic.gbg
Blimey! Can’t believe we’ve still got a couple of these kicking around. Cock Sparrer’s ill fated debut was released in Spain and Spain only in 1978. Record industry shenanigans robbed the world from experiencing Cock Sparrer as an important thread in the fabric of the initial UK punk explosion, and I reckon if this album had gotten a widespread release on Decca it would have been a wonderful humbling of the punk media spectacle. I know that it’s only rock ‘n’ roll, but I like it. A killer slab of thrifty, glam-y pub rock that joins the dots between the studded bracelets and The Small Faces. – Nic
Cock Sparrer - Cock Sparrer LP (Pirated Press, orig. 1978) $38
A fittingly Nag Nag Nag-forward list of new arrivals and restocks this week, featuring titles from South Korea’s Slant, Indonesia’s Sukatani, and Melbourne’s Season 2 (the later couple bands playing tonight!) alongside a restock of Michael Zulicki of Love Chants fame’s solo LP My Mind Wanders (gives me hope in this world that we’re onto another batch of copies of a killer record of bass guitar meditations and understated sax skronks!!!).
But that’s not all! A couple of new titles from Me Saco Un Ojo (Teratoma, Cryptworm), a restock of four recent Oz-classics from Urge Records, the latest from Plastic Tones, Ov Pain, and Aldous Harding, and a couple of all-timers from Arthur Russell and Gene Clark!
–Mitch
@nagnagnagfest@season2band@spoilsportrecords@sukatani.band@doyouknowwhereisboogie@realplastictones@mesacounojo@cryptwormofficial@albertsbasement@urgerecords
For those like myself who were left floored by Fin Healy and Love Chants’ sets last night at Nag Nag Nag and woke up this morning thinking, “where can I get more extended, lyrical guitar playing?” (or even those who wake up with that thought who didn’t attend last night) then I’ve got an answer for you!
Jon Collin has been a real favourite of mine the past few years, making some of the most intriguing and haunting experimental guitar music of recent times, combining fingerpicking and extended playing alongside tape recording techniques that draw on familiar histories (American Primitivism, musique concrete, etc) without getting bogged down in such lineages.
Following the Other Dead Sea reissue and his collaboration with Troth last year come a couple more past releases reissued on his Early Music imprint.
High Peak Selections (2013/2026) An early collection of Collin’s tracks, in shimmering lo-fi. Plucked slackly tuned (slack in the terms of the strings sound loose and expressive, not out of tune) acoustic guitars meet room creaks and scrapes, all of which is blown out into slightly fed back territory by the tape recorder.
Early Music (2015/2026) Another whisper-quiet recording that sounds like an early approach to playing that Collin has opened up in more recent years. Collin has the ability to create an atmosphere of creaks, scrapes, and deadened notes that is then sliced open by a single note or a short run of phrases. Here he plays a fair bit of slide guitar that sounds like Ry Cooder with the fragility of Loren Connors’ work with Kath Bloom, or even the lyricism of the Love Chants lead lines. Among all this, passages are recorded to tape, played back, and played back over, creating an uneven plane of audial reference, with guitars slipping in and out of fidelities.
–Mitch
j_n_collin
The overly simplified perception of Ov Pain, the formed in Aotearoa/New Zealand, now based in Victoria duo of Renee Barrance & Tim Player, would be a post-4AD cold/goth/synth post-punk group. On ‘Free Time’ they admirably switch up their approach in an embrace of ‘improvised songwriting’ that results in an entrancing disc of seven sci-fi synthesizer landscapes.
Firstly I was taken by the pensive, time-warping mood created by these pieces, a room altering minimalism similar to Artemiev’s Solaris Soundtrack, Half High, Destrifan, Heldon at their most ice-y, Idea Fire Company at their most synth-y etc, and in searching for more context on the album, which was given by Tim from the band (and I’ll copy in full below), I’ve come to admire their conviction and how in touch with their creative intuition they are.
These recordings deserve to be in the world. Edition of 110, released by the Room 40 sub-label A Guide To Saints. – Nic
Ov Pain – Free Time LP (A Guide To Saints) $44.95
@room40shoots@ov_pain
I’m of the age where the name Kate Crawford is more readily associated in my mind with her work as a media theorist/artist studying the political economy of AI rather than as one half of the pioneering Oz electronic duo B(if)tek.
Leaning into retro-futuristic approach, listening to this reissue of their debut 1996 album feels like listening to a long-lost vision of the future of Oz. That’s not to say this sounds dated. Rather, it feels like rewatching The Matrix films all these years on. Perhaps it’s because this brand of electronic music eventually filtered into soundtracking the Matrix-esque futurism of TV shows that I grew up on. Perhaps it’s also the fact that retrofuturism appropriates aspects of the past in order to envision a future, whereas so much at the moment takes mashes together different aspects of past art/musical styles without saying anything about the now (let alone the future!).
Anyway, I’m getting away from myself… Great to see B(if)tek’s debut finally back in print and for the first time on vinyl, with a whole side of cuts unearthed from Nicole Skelty’s archives!
–Mitch
B(if)tek - Sub-Vocal Theme Park (Portal Replica, 1996/2026), New 2LP, $68
#biftek #katecrawford @nicoleskeltys
Behold, more gore from Monterrey, Mexico! Impending Rot is another outlet for Adrián from Stenched (who also released an 12” EP on Blood Harvest, followed by an LP on Me Saco Un Ojo) to unleash more death metal upon the world. Both projects are festing, oozing, gross, bacteria-ridden etcetera, but justify their own separate identities with Impending Rot embracing the Swedish HM2 buzzsaw guitar sound, and phlegmy, crude goregrind feel. You could say it’s the slightly more fun and “feel good” of the two projects, I don’t see anything contradictory with that statement…. – Nic
Impending Rot - Anatomical Discorporated Aberration LP (Blood Harvest) $39.95
@bloodharvestrecords@impendingrot
Twas the Sunday before Nag Nag Nag…
Lotsa great titles from many of the artists on the bill starting Friday (and copies of Carla Dal Forno’s LPs, the new Season 2, and a restock of Blue Communications’ debut are imminent)! Browse ‘em in the racks of via this handy website banner before the festival for those looking to get across the lineup prior to kickoff or for those looking to relive the moment afterwards.
@nagnagnagfest@holybalm@fin__healy #lovechants @thenativecats@possiblehumans #vastaruina #romansy @marcuswhaleinlandsea@total_solar_path333
CD specific weekend round up!
Image 1. A selection of high rotation albums and compilations from the in-store listening pile that includes Earl Sweatshirt, Mike Cooper, Barbara Manning, Terrance Dixon, Rafeael Toral and more.
Image 2. The best band t-shirts, now available on compact disc. Essential early albums from Suffocation, Gorguts, Deicide and Obituary in handy box sets.
Image 3. Non-metal prime-period-discography box sets I am so happy to have in my life! I have to say I’m a little disappointed that I haven’t sold more copies of Hanoi Rocks.
Image 4. Charnel Sanctum Records bring the obscure metal heat with the lost album from From the Dark (NZ), Veneraxiom (USA), Monarchianvs Claustrvm Castificatio and more Starseed. We love Starseed!
Image 5. Nice to have a local, current, actually very good album at the front of our Jazz CD section. If you’re generally down with our curation of jazz reissues, check our Believe - Spirits of the Dead Are Watching (it’s also on LP!). It’s a good one!
@charnelsanctum@believe_the_band@themusicianbarbaramanning
Happy May Day!
Workers of the world, you have nothing to lose in picking up a copy of the latest Presser either in B&W print (in the shop/with online orders) or in glorious colour digitally via our website - it’s free!
Kick back and read Nic’s exploration of two solo records from Chip Kinman (of The Dils fame), stacks a reviews (including a few covering recent releases from upcoming groups on the Nag Nag Nag lineup - next week!!!) and the usual Arrived/Arriving and Gig Picks columns!
#Presser @nagnagnagfest #chipkipman
