Belinda Carlisle, “Her Greatest Hits” (MCA, 1993; originally released 1985-1992) The ex-Go-Go’s frontlady came back fast with music that represented the absolute cream of big-time ‘80s studio pop. Carlisle’s lush, incandescent, immaculate voice purrs, swoons, and soars through songs the best of which have a near-cinematic sweep. Try 1, 7, 8. 10 4/30/12
Carolee, “EP1” (12XV, 2012)Here’s an intriguing item: angelic-voiced C86ish guitar-noise-pop but, unlike the many similar efforts, this one is filtered through Swell Maps/early Pavement-esque structure-scrambling and powered similarly to Big Black/Metal Urbainlike beatbox punk. Truly singular, compelling stuff, with what feels like a dozen things going on at once on each track and the promise […]
John Carpenter, “Halloween” (Compass International, 2013; original release 1978)Spooky soundtrack to the pioneering slasher-flick, written by the director. Ideal for whiling away late-night hours on the air. Play any track.1/23/14
Joe “King” Carrasco And The Crowns, “Joe King Carrasco And The Crowns” (Hannibal, 1980)Fast, stripped-down, hyper-catchy Tex-Mex rock’n’roll with an ultra-day-glo New Wave sheen, like if you crossed the Ramones and the Cars, then made ‘em listen to nothing but “96 Tears” for a year.Try 1/1, 1/ 2, 2/2, 2/4, all1/12/11
Casket Girls, “The Night Machines” (Graveface, 2016)Post-punk-meets-girl-group-meets-goth hybrid, kind of like Best Coast if Cosentino did a lot of tranquilizers and sat around watching German silent films with Christian Death playing in the background and the windows boarded up. Luckily, they’ve got the songs to bring it off, and this moves along blissfully/eerily cloudlike with […]
Casket Girls, “True Love Kills The Fairytale” (Graveface, 2014)Like the Marshmallow Ghosts, this exemplifies the “Graveface Sound” at its most Halloween-candy delicious. Jesus and Mary Chain-style noise-pop spun and softened into pastel cotton-candy swirls, spooky nursery-rhyme sing-songs like the creepy twin sisters from “The Shining” if they’d grown up and started a band.Try 4, 92/21/16
Catholic Discipline, “Underground Babylon” (Artifix, 2012; original recordings 1978-80)Vocalist Claude Bessy was the critical/journalistic voice of early L. A. punk (look up his vintage writing on the web). His band were toward the arty/Velvets-influenced end of that scene’s musical spectrum, but their dark humor and corrosive, brutal force ranked with its fiercest and best.Try A/2, […]
CCR Headcleaner, “Tear Down The Wall” (In The Red, 2016)Way more in the bong-blasting Sabbath-sludge vein than is par for this label, they definitely pack enough single-minded punk-rock throttle to fit in with the rest of the roster. Like Slip It In-era Black Flag turning abstract, this puts up a slope of pummeling fuzz whose […]
Ceremony, “Zoo” (Metador)Along with the Men, another group exploring hard-assed late-80s post-punk/HC sounds, less melodic than the Men, but more sinuously malevolent, and very good as well. These guys really have some swing in their sound, like they took their Gang of Four records seriously, but also in the sense that their songs swing around […]
CFM, “Still Life of Citrus and Slime” (In The Red, 2016)Solo album from Ty Segall side-person that actually features more wild and wooly, all-over-the-map abandon than his boss-man’s own (for better or worse, more coherent) recent work. In fact, this constitutes a sort of tour de force of garage-punk modes – MC5/Stooges power-anthems, analog-electronics bloop-spacery, […]