They are the monsters we never became.
Whoops! As usual this is several days/weeks overdue, but it's worth it. First up is Fucked Up's Year Of The Pig 12"--part of their Chinese Zodiac series, which is enough to tell you they're working with an entirely different creative agenda than 99.9% of their punk brethren. In fact, they've spent the better part of their 6+ year career making decidedly gruff rock n roll 'core with an increasingly non-core aesthetic sense, resulting in 5-minutes-or-longer hardcore jams (that, miraculously, don't overstay their welcome), stunning, clean sleeve design work, and intense esoteric conceptual theorizing. I'd only followed them here-and-there for the last couple years, and thought they were decent--a lot to like, not enough to really love--but this 12" is a whole different story. The title track (an epic in 18 minutes and 38 seconds to be exact) is easily the single of the year, and possibly the defining punk moment of the '00s. Their own unorthodox, expansive hardcore language gets stretched even further to somehow fit The Cardigans, Neu!, and an impeccably crafted insight into the existentially crushing human/pig struggle. Every publication and critic on Earth is probably talking about how great this record is (I haven't even mentioned the flip side's shorter rocker "The Black Hats") and how Fucked Up is the only band that matters, and now I'm pretty sure they're all telling the truth.

Fucked Up - "Year Of The Pig"

And speaking of Neu!--I finally heard that Harmonia album (1974's Musik Von Harmonia) I read about in the Freak Scene column, and I think I like parts of it more than Neu! (and honestly, De-Luxe may be even better). Main Neu! dude Michael Rother's collaboration with Cluster dudes Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius is characteristically pretty kraut-y, with a major pro-synth, anti-guitar bent. The motorik beat is only used sparingly ("Dino"), ditched largely in favor of weird keyboard jungle rhythms, pre-rave spasms, or wandering electronic compositions befitting, perhaps, a meditative '70s/'80s Italian thriller--not bad for three Germaniacs plotting out "endless sheets of bliss" or whatever it is Thom Yorke says on the cover of the first Neu! cd. A nice addition to your good, bad, or indifferent krautrock collection.

Harmonia - "Watussi"
Harmonia - "Dino"
Harmonia - "Hausmusik"

I finally got my David Scott Stone credit card CD-R and it sounds like this. He has a new record coming out on PPM soon and seems to be a hero to many, myself included. The best Les Savy Fav song in a while is still "Raging In The Plague Age", but the new record is alright. I feel a little corny liking "The Man Who Sold The World" as much as I do, but that organ and whatever that shaker instrument is and those moany vocals at the end make it hard to be ashamed. Also, check out Pissed Jeans on the radio and the video, and some great dog photos (1, 2).