Blumfeld - 'Draußen auf Kaution/Jet Set' (Big Cat)

Moody, mid-90s German indie-rockers Blumfeld made a pretty great album, if I remember it, and then faded into obscurity. At least in my tunnel vision world! I don't speak a word of their language so I have no idea what they are singing about, but 'Draußen auf Kaution' is a dramatic, mid-tempo guitar jam that reminds me a bit of what everyone was trying to do in 1995. There's arpeggiated guitar lines slowly unfolding, slow building vocals and a darkly-inflected instrumental buildup at the end of the song. Hints of Slint's "Washer" for sure, but that's unavoidable. No, it's the grooves of 'Jet Set' on side B -- actually labeled as side AA -- that I've worn out on this record. A fast, energetic thrasher with spoken/shouted lyrics, this is why I got into Blumfeld. There's a resemblance to the Fall, or maybe Moss Icon since they aren't as sloppy or lackadaisical as the Fall -- there's a real spark behind this, a statement of direction that you'd only get with some pissed off Germans. Again, maybe they are just singing about their breakfast or train timetables, but it's enough to have me hopping up and down for the past 15 years.

The 1985 - 'Seven Inch Record' (Pop Bus)

Source: Bought at a show, from the band or label, early 1997.

These guys used to rock my adolescent world, with their black-clad nihilism, pointy riffs and subversive attitudes. I hadn't heard Nation of Ulysses or Six Finger Satellite then, but so what if I had? It wouldn't lessen the thrill of taking a bus across town to watch these guys play in basements so I could awkwardly nod my head up and down and dream of the future. I remember the release show for this, with Chisel headlining, the '85 (as we called them), a teenage post-rock band called Spittoon and a long-lost band called Daytime TV. This 7" convienently falls at the start of the alphabetical 7" project but it's a good start -- this record was the first record in my life that I looked forward to because I felt like I was part of it. Not because I actually had anything to do with the record itself but because it was from this tiny slice of the world that I was carving out for myself. Listening now I'm mostly struck but the horrendous mastering job, probably a United in-house deal, and the preponderance of distorted, descending guitar riffs. Dan Tomko's bass farts about in a Jesus Lizard/Metal Box manner and on which Vernet and Schreckengost can hang their guitar parts. Though it sounded so angry, explosive, and haphazard to me twelve years ago, today I'm struck but how carefully constructed it all is. Bonus points for having a bonus track at the end of the first side. The top of the beautiful Third Termite packaging has faded after years of being hit but sunlight but Schreckengost's paste-on art print still looks great.