sons and daughters.

happy sunday everyone, we have some nice news and music to accompany t4 and your roast dinners today and that is that we're very pleased and equally excited to announce that we'll be doing a tape for the righteous lo-fi synth pop act, baby venom! (http://www.myspace.com/babyvenombaby).

they hail from baltimore, which for me along side LA and brooklyn is home to one of the most exciting underground music scenes in the US and everyone involved seems fiercely intent on keeping it that way, underground that is. with the likes of the notorious collective wham city, dan deacon, videohippos and cult tv show the wire to boast but a few of it's offspring, this is a city that oozes cool and conscious excellence. now couple those contemporaries and being from a city so culturally rich as baltimore and i can imagine that there is a great deal of pressure on new bands to uphold this level of integrity so it bodes well for baby venom that they are doing exactly that.
as a band they are still somewhat in their infancy, which gives it a real positive, esoteric quality. they make music that sounds like it was made solely for you, warm and affectionate full of endearing vocals and beautiful hooks. think along the lines of telepathe meets high places only that it doesn't sound like it wants to be either, it sounds as though it wants to be precisely what it is, which is the perfect pop music. but don't take my word for it, go listen yourself, you won't regret it. so, if i was baltimore and baby venom was one of my children, i'd be very proud them.

we'll be re-releasing a tape that the band put out themselves with a few extras thrown in for good measure as our fourth tape to replace the gap that will be left by doom patrol which for various reasons, we regret to inform you, we unfortunately won't now be putting out. we do wish both matt and curtis all the best though and just to clarify there are no hard feelings at all. hopefully you can expect to see something for baby venom before the end of the year but just keeping checking back for news on that.

baby venom - frank.mp3 (zshare)

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i need a job.

monday morning, the worst part of almost everyones week. i'm not even at work and i still can't ignore the distaste for this particularly gruelling part of the week, after an amazing weekend of free bars, good food and amazing company i'm having to go back to trawling through monster.co.uk and reed.co.uk in search of a crappy job. so i thought i'd procrastinate for a while and bring you a long overdue update on the next stage of stop scratching's plan for world domination.

so today i bring you the news on the next four tapes we shall be releasing after doom patrol. we decided that we're going to do releases, in terms of packaging and artists, in groups of four. for these next four though, we're making them extra special by giving away a fancy screen printed poster (by meesh of danger! laser! phaser! razor!) with each release, and when put all together form a four frame comic of their own. so without further a due...


the opening riff to human hair's 'happy birthday' is discordant, post-punk gold. it instantly crawls under your skin and pollutes your unconscious and you won't even notice until 5 minutes later when you're suddenly singing the notes aloud. human hair are a 4 piece from nottingham featuring henry of lovvers fame, they play cohesive, sullen post-punk with infectious, jangly hooks and smart, inviting vocals. they combine the abrasive, at times slightly uncomfortable elements of arab on radar, with the the importance (at least in my eyes) of les savy fav circa the cat and the cobra. they effortlessly blend together the confrontational with the listenable. i'm really exited for this.

human hair - happy birthday.mp3 (zshare)

teeth!!! are a three peice based in london, they fuse punk rock energy and ethics with positively unrestricted electronica. pitch bending infectious synth lines layered over the top of earth shaking drum beats and topped off with the seductiveness of lead singer veronica's raw but somewhat relaxed vocals. musically they are much more akin to the likes of a less polished dat politics, or if poney p of les georges leningrad headed a more balls out extreme politics, less rehearsed but with no less conviction. for those of you who are out of the loop, they basically just sound like kap bambino raised on a diet of punk instead of electro. they have remixes by the magnificent eats tapes coming out soon and are recording for the tape at madonnas studio in notting hill in october.

teeth!!! - dead boys.mp3 (zhshare)

male bonding are 3 guys from london, the play brattish garage punk with an un-ignorabley natural edge. scuzzy, brittle percussion that almost but not quite overpowers the frenzied but dynamic guitar playing. the vocals splutter with confidence and a sort of clarity and while each section is clearly defined and has a definite individuality it all comes together with the same clumsy cohesiveness found in the sounds of the butthole surffers and kin. it's britain's answer to everything that is coming out of LA at the moment, fun, energetic good times punk. they have a split 7" with pens coming out soon on paradise vendors inc. so keep an eye out for that.

click for link to male bonding's music (myspace)

chupacabra are a mysterious bunch, i've only heard two recorded songs by them. on those recordings, they create dark and atmospheric noise that makes you feel like you're cloud walking through an industrial graveyard on your way to the final showdown with sephiroth. live it's certainly a lot less daunting affair, lauren's wrangler brutes esq guitar sound ferociously rattles away with careless abandon while the pummeling tribal drums earge the march onwards and charleigh's wailing, eerie vocal lines bring it all together with complete unity. they're recording this month in new york and will apparently be returning next month, complete with a couple of new members to boot.

click for link to chupacabra's music (myspace)

so there you have it, keeps your eyes peeled for developments on those little beauty's.
x

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another punch in the dark, connects.

finally, after almost 6 months of putting off the release dates and numerous financial and physical set backs we have definite news about the two releases which have been pending since way back when. both talibam! and gentle friendly will be officially released on october 1st but because we've kept you in the dark for so long we've decided that you're in need of a treat so we're putting them up for sale on our website on monday september 8th, then in october you'll be able to also buy them at rough trade east on brick lane and at platform in the custard factory, birmingham.

here is some information on the bands and their tapes.

talibam! - chewy needs his meat c40 cassette (ss002)


talibam! are one of the most challenging and fascinating bands in contemporary music, not content with standing still, not restricted by the boundaries of genre they are more concerned with exploring and pushing themselves and their music to transcendent new heights. on "chewy needs his meat" talibam! have pumped up and pressurized, pushing red on the meters, sinking their teeth into the saturated beauty of an analogue ecstasy. the sound is a blended up time-machine transmission from a newly populated martian landscape faraway from the wasted megacities left behind on a burnt earth canvas. After the apocalypse, toxic anthropologists will determine "chewy needs his meat" alone summarizes the debauchery and wreckage that took place.

talibam! - extract from chewy needs his meat.mp3 (zshare)

side a:
1) chewy needs his meat
side b:
1) chewy needs his meat cont.

gentle friendly - esses together/blast debris (debris from blasts had 1968-2008) c30 cassette (ss003)


gentle friendly create intricate, esoteric pop music, as private and dear as it is accessible. they are often compared to the likes of animal collective and in the same sense as experimental and innovative it is also manages to remain mysteriously individual. this cassette release, titled "esses together/blast debris (debris from blasts had 1968-2008)" is a collection compiled by the band from reams of magnetised tape and hours of song. It is a mesh of old favourites and brand new cuts for you all to step to.

gentle friendly - punch in the dark.mp3 (zshare)

side b:
1) mic check
2) ins
3) you are the brother/real fighters
4) untitled 1
5) punch in the dark
6) dymo omega
side b:
7) untitled 2
8) giants exist!
9) teen lightning pt. 1
10) teen lightning pt. 2
11) ex ex

so, there you have it. both tapes will cost just £4 each! with £1.00 to cover the costs of the postman and paypal (more overseas) or just a flat rate of £4 at shows or from us in person. so crack open your piggy banks and fill up our collectively empty pockets as of september 8th. each is limited to 100 and is on a fancy coloured cassette which is then wrapped up in brown paper and string and comes with it's own unique stop scratching comic by trav_art. get yours fast before they become back catalogue gold.

also, in other news we have someone new to introduce you to; mike coley is long time friend of mine who shares much of the same tastes, ideals and opinions of stop scratching and also has a fondness for the love playing music to the sound of our own shrinking livers and so we asked him to come on board and join myself and cassie as part of stop scratching djs, to accompany this he'll also be a fixture on these here pages as a contributor to the blog. i'll bully him into making himself known over the next few days. keep your eyes peeled for dj sets and events coming soon.

thank you, i'm off to sign on which will no doubt turn into a full blown war with the jobcenter

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