Artists starting with T

Second Annual Report

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Throbbing Gristle, “Second Annual Report” (Mute, 1991; original release, 1977)
It’s heartwarming (and a reminder of their unprecedented sound and its subsequent influence) to recall that this came out the same year not only as “Never Mind The Bollocks” but also “Saturday Night Fever” and the first Boston album (great records all, incidentally). TG used state-of-the-art electronics to create a doleful, chemical-smog-brown cloud of sound that evokes the moan of the factory foghorn and the lurching clack of the conveyor belt to the extent that its explicitly musical quality disappears intermittently, but that’s where the tension and excitement comes from as it builds inexorably into a sort of majestic blues for inanimate objects (and the people who serve/blend into them). We’re still catching up with this.
Try 2, 11.
3/18/18

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D.o.A. – Third And Final Report

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Throbbing Gristle, “D.o.A. – Third And Final Report” (Mute, 1998; original release 1978)
The title is misleading (there were two studio LPs and a spate of live shit yet to come), but in some ways TG’s definitive summing up. There’s still the gloomy, entropic hum of the early stuff and its electronic evocation of some random condemned-factory hellscape, but it’s starting to congeal into a harder-edged sound that makes it seem as if the condemned factories have now heard a Stooges record and are engaged in some sort of grotesque mimicry of rock and roll. Crucial work.
Try 7, 15
3/18/18

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If You Knew

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Thor’s Hammer, “If You Knew” (Ugly Pop, 2013; original recordings 1965-67)
Iceland’s contribution to the international garage/mod/Merseybeat sweepstakes, this is excellent stuff, of unusual melodic complexity, outstanding precision, and superior heavy-duty rock power.
Try A/2, A/3, A/4

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Smell of Female

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The Crumps, “Smell of Female” (Vengeance, 2001; original release 1983)
Bryan Gregory having gone off to worship Lucifer and/or fail to become the next Robert Smith, this features Ivy shouldering full guitar duty, and the sound is actdually bigger/louder/ruder than before, the punk side of their garage/surf/rockabilly Frankenstein-fusion starting to dominate.
Try 1/1, 2/4
10/2/18

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Dansette Dansette

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Tender Trap, “Dansette Dansette” (Slumberland, 2012)
Latest project from Heavenly/Talulah Gosh leader Amelia Fletcher is not only up there with the best of this label’s youthful explorers of the jangly/shambly noise-guitar-pop she pioneered, bu with the best of her own old stuff. If anything this is more hard-driving and punk rock than anything she’s done, but still as twisty, tasty and smar as ever.
Try 1/ 3, 2/ 5
7/29/13

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Sunshine

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Talk Normal, “Sunshine” (Joyful Noise, 2012)
Two-girl post-punk/noisy rock outfit, with one foot in early-Sonic-Youth-like multi-guitar scree and another in dancy/dissonant stuff à la Gang of Four, ESG, etc. The best of it builds to a nice tribal/haunted groove.
Try 1, 5, 6, 8.
1/13/13

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Lost Time

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Tacocat, “Lost Time” (Hardly Hart, 2016)
Second album from these feminist garage-punk-pop jokesters isn’t quite as winsomely tuneful as its predecessors, but there are some smart, memorable tunes here, and the harder edge is often quite effective.
Try 1, 3, 4
11/10/16

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Credit In Heaven

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The Suburbs, “Credit In Heaven” (Twin/Tone, 1981)
Second LP is a double, and they needed it, because their invention here is at its most frantically fertile. U.K.-inflected Roxy-romantic swashbuckling heartachery and Contortionesque cool atonal twitch get irrigated by their local Minneapolis fluids in the mode of Princetly sophisto-perv funk and Replacements-reiniscent smash-up-the-bar-at-4AM rockin’ recklessness. Yet it all forms a whole that’s uniquely Suburbs and uniquely excellent.
Try 3/1, 3/2, 3/3 4/ 1
7/11/18

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Jeopardy

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The Sound, “Jeopardy” (Renascent, 2001; original release 1980-81)
At the time, these UK postpunkers were considered peers of Public Image, Gang Of Four, Joy Division, etc., but they’ve kind of slipped through the cracks since, which is too bad, because they definitely rank, especially on this debut. Streamlined Stoogely power-trio crankage (as honed in their prior incarnation, The Outsiders) here drives elliptical yet anthemic songs that pulse across the grey cityscape at strange trajectories or just boil with pre-apocalyptic neuroto-clench.
Try 2, 5
2/7/19

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The Soft Moon

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The Soft Moon, “The Soft Moon” (Captured Tracks, 2010)
Hard-driving minimal electro-rock, its cold surface frequently bisected by sheets of hiss. Perfectly machine-tooled but violently precise, this has a lot more in common with classic Factory stuff like Crispy Ambulance (or J. D. themselves) than with any sort of putative “Chillwave” movement.
Try A/1, B/1
1/6/12

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