Pink Reason's Winona and Borrowed Time

The Pink Reason singles that have surfaced in the earlier days of summer provide two completely different windows into the bedroom angst of Kevin DeBroux and company. First up is Winona, a 33 rpm 7-inch on Woodsist that collects the very first recordings under the Pink Reason moniker. Here DeBroux, collaborating with Shaun Failure, concocts a sound as far away from the fast, short and skuzzy bands he'd become accustomed to in Wisconsin over the years, taking cues from acid rock and folk bands instead of crusty punk.

The title track is a long, acoustic ballad about a trip to Winona, Minnesota that found them camping in the middle of the Mississippi River. If it weren't so damn stark—and DeBroux's voice so baritone—it could be confused as an outtake from Neil's Harvest record. It is exactly the type of song that Kevin later perfected on tracks like "Goodbye" from last year's Cleaning the Mirror, but "Winona" is worthy of repeated listens beyond its historical perspective. "Give Yourself Away" is a little more interesting, a gnarly take on the early Stooges sound, complete with a fried guitar lead and one-note piano ala "I Wanna Be Your Dog." Keeping with the theme of jittery isolation, DeBroux caps off the EP with "Letting Go," where he sings, "It's all over now. Why is it so hard to sleep?" A fitting end to the very beginning.

Seeing as DeBroux has always been in control of his own career arc, it is no mistake that Winona (length: 6:48) coincides with the Borrowed Time single, his briefest and most hardcore-sounding song to date. You could call the A-side, clocking in at just over a minute, a waste of precious vinyl space, but I think it works at isolating the song's message. This blistering, trebly anthem may not be the prototypical Pink Reason song, but the theme could be Kevin condensed into a minute of your time: waking up on floors, empty pockets, (failed) attempts at joining society while it flies right by you, realizing that "society" is shit. If only Danzig was this concise.

On the flip is "Scared Shitless," a cut reminiscent of late-period V-3, back when paranoia was Jim Shepard's only friend. You get the feeling Shep and DeBroux would've gotten along just fine. Musically it also reminds one of Pink Reason's early live sound, back when it was Kevin, Shaun and a computer playing a sort of strobe-shocked My Bloody Valentine, feedback piercing eardrums and colliding with the double guitar attack. Two more fine singles to continue a perfect streak. Go to Fashionable Idiots to beg for a Borrowed Time repress. Fuck it Tapes should have Winona in stock.

Real Talk: Complete Singles of the Year List

Alright, let's just get this year-end stuff out of the way. I ended up posting my top albums list over at donewaiting, where I've been writing about a post a week on topics local or current or just a little more universal that what I attempt to do at this space. Check out that list HERE. I will continue to write there for the time being, even if it does take up some of my time for pop:doug, but honestly I need to devote more time to writing in general, so hope for more on both fronts in 2008. I mean it this time.
Anyway, right now, it's time for some seven inch talk. What a great year for singles. I'm still gathering a lot of what came out this year, piecing together my paypal account and dishing it out in intervals across the land. So in that regard this list is incomplete. There will always be that one great single that I forgot about or didn't know about or didn't care for at the time. Shit, I'm still catching up with 2006 singles. And for some reason a lot of great stuff was just release this December.
If you're not buying these puppies up, I hope that you are at least checking out these bands' pages, or soulseeking your life away tracking down the music, because these go beyond the mere fetish object of the vinyl single. All are on par with the best music being made anywhere, on any format, in 2007. So here goes, my top singles for the year:


1. Eat Skull - Eat Skull 7" (Meds)
A perfect debut EP. Eat Skull flail around like it's code: red at the mental ward, medicating themselves enough to get three songs down. Here's to hoping they don't change a damn thing for their upcoming Siltbreeze LP.







2. Blank Dogs - Blank Dogs 7" (Sweet Rot)
It took me the better part of the year to get past all the blog hype and finally listen to a Blank Dogs release. I'm glad this Sweet Rot 7" was the first to stick, a perfect introduction to Mr. Blank's alien synth-pop jangle. "Outside Alarmer" is the year's prettiest tune, pretty enough to be the only song I played for ten straight days in November.





3. Tyvek - Summer Burns 2x7" (What's Your Rupture?)
Four more nails in the diy/post-punk totem pole. Tyvek warrant your immediate attention but have been doing just fine without it.









4. Factums - Factums 7" (Polly Maggoo)
Yes, the Siltbreeze LP is great, but these bad dudes seem more in control with the limited format of a 7" - much like their obvious heroes in Cab Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle.








5. Pink Reason - By A Thread 7" (Trick Knee)
I think I've written enough about Pink Reason this year. FIY.










6. Nothing People - In The City 7" (S-S)
Psychotic glam-punk for nervous nobodies, with a Roxy cover on the back side. Their single on Hozac is just as good. Another band due for a big LP next year(?).









7. Blank Dogs - Diana (The Herald) 12" (Sacred Bones)
A little more to chew on this time around, the better of two Blank Dog 12"s. It seems like he's clustering recording sessions with each release, putting 'em out as soon as they hit the tape, and this is a good thing for someone as prolific and consistently great as he is. Can't wait to see what he does for the Troubleman album.






8. El Jesus de Magico - Funeral Home Session 7" (Columbus Discount)
Finally, a piece of El Jeezy's recorded output worthy of the worship they demand on stage. Probably the most overlooked single of the year on a national level. New demos for the LP are freaking amazing.






9. Sic Alps - Strawberry Guillotine 7" (Woodsist)
It wasn't until I caught Sic Alps' transcendent live show that I understood their intentions. They take chunks of 60's gold and slather it in 90's fuzz BBQ until your eardrums pop. Much like with TNV, the juxtaposition is irresistible.







10. Times New Viking - My Head 7" (Matador)
A teaser for the front-runner of album of the year, '08. "My Head" and "RIP Allegory" now go together like weed and coffee, but you're pre-ordering this one for the B-sides. "Western Civ" was a favorite of mine when I got a copy of the Rip It Off demos, and I was surprised they left it off the album.






11. TV Ghost - Atomic Rain 7" (Die Stasi)
The youth of America? There is hope. TV Ghost ripped through '07 with this single and a house show-ready live set. One time I saw the guitarist smile. Their upcoming LP should redefine Midwestern angst.







12. Wooden Shjips - SOL '07 (Sick Thirst/Holy Mountain)
In hindsight, the LP was a tad disappointing. I admire what they attempted with the opportunity: a high-fi version of their Les Rallizes-Kraut-Summer of Love hybrid. Sometimes trying to satisfy all of Julian Cope's sensors doesn't always work out. But the Shjips had two heady doses of 7" in them, this being the best of 'em, a single fuzz stretched over two sides. Still, they've yet to re-capture the perfection of their first 10".




13. Catatonic Youth - Piss Scene CDR (Fuck Jazz)
You could call '07 the year of the mystery myspace band. Dozens popped up, potentially all helmed by the same person, each group with a focused sound and aesthetic. I like the idea honestly, come up with a batch of two or three songs, give it a name and make it "real" online. Post-modern pop at its finest. That said, CY tapped into the stoned 80's West Coast hardcore fringes, shorts and flannel and Sweet records. I want more.








14. Los Llamarada - The Very Next Moment 7" (S-S)
Mexico's answer to....everything? I hear something different every time I play this. They seem like such nice, unpretentious, youthful individuals for kicking out such dirty, sexy stuff. If you don't like this and the LP I suggest you...go listen to your Liars records or something (I'm out of cute things to say today).






15. Night of Pleasure - Night of Pleasure 7" (Columbus Discount)
Awesome single no. 3 from the CDR HQ. NoP smother Columbus' punk past and spit on its inbred corpse. They are better than ever and have been stretching out their sound over 30 minute sets lately. Could bring a banger of an LP in '08.

The Midwest in Black and White

A few thoughts on a couple of singles that were brand spanking new when I began writing this damn post...but by now are most likely sold out.

First, the new Pink Reason single on Trick Knee Productions. I don't know whether he's pulling from a decade-old treasure-filled archive or writing this stuff on the spot, but it doesn't really matter: Kevin DeBroux has a perfect record, something even Bart Starr couldn't manage! What else can I say, the kid is on fire. How he became this year's underground "it boy" is a story better told elsewhere, primarily over at Blastitude, but what it all really boils down to is him following up one of the greatest singles in a while with one of the greatest out-folk/psych records in a long long while. Nothing from '07 stands out more than the epic, ravaged angst contained on Cleaning the Mirror.
By a Thread contains three tracks that rival any of the other gems in his growing discography. I guess you could call this one his most "rock" or traditional statement to date. The title track is a perfect A-side. Spatial, melodic and disorienting, it's another take on post-Joy Division basement blues this time with the help of guitarist Shaun Failure (who accompanied DeBroux on his first major tour of '07 to excellent results). "The Devil Always Wins" is a live favorite usually played at the end of his sets as a spiritual clap-chant, here done a capella. I've always thought this was some sort of old blues cover but after a long internet search I've found it is an original. Very classic. "Down on Me" is another big winner, a post-grunge downer (surprise!) with more excellent work by Failure and an excellent big stupid drum machine holding it all together. The whole single is a stunner. Also, the sleeve of my copy smells funny.

On top of all that talent Mr. Debroux has become quite the taste-maker in these parts, using his weeks on the road to recruit fellow basement dwellers. Sometimes he'll just tell you about the bands, other times bring them on tour for a few dates. By now you've probably been hearing about the youthful death tornado that is TV Ghost and the wreckage they've left in Columbus and surrounding cities this late-Summer. The all-underage (one's, like, fourteen) foursome from Lafayette, IN have a new 7" on die Stasi (out of Findlay, OH of all places) and its another big Midwestern winner. Now that I've seen them a few times I can tell that the single is not perfectly representative of what TV Ghost can bring (and will bring...they've already done a batch of recordings at the Times New Viking studio w/ Matt "Whitey" Horseshit behind the knobs) but both songs are keepers just the same.
"Atomic Rain" is a nice Cramps-ish romp with a great little mush mouthed melody. The recording could be a little better for this style of song but everything is pushed to the max so it shouldn't matter. "Bird Flu" is more in their main artery, an off-kilter rhythm beneath sort-of darkwave keys and spiky guitar, and more mush-mouth.
When you see them live you'll think they've invented this sound, as they play about half their set with the template and it works wonders, at least on the crowds I've seen them seduce. Keep an out for these kids, as they like to tour and they're getting better by the month.

New Levels of Sorrow

This post you're reading right now has been staring at me as a draft every time I log in for the past three months now. I just can't find the right words to finish my thoughts on a record that was the soundtrack to a pretty nasty winter here in Ohio. After repeated plays earlier in the year with an advance copy I acquired, I took a long break from this challenging dose of bleak folk and scraping anti-psychedelia until finally grabbing a vinyl copy from Mr. Pink Reason himself, Kevin DeBroux, who at this point calls the road home and considers Columbus as much as a spiritual resting place as his "actual" home in Wisconsin. In many ways this record is the the soundtrack to a young man's wanderlust, modern gypsy music to greet the apocalypse. I've seen Pink Reason four times in five months and never has the lineup been the same, nor the sound or feel or attitude. In fact all four times have been drastically different and have all gotten increasingly better as DeBroux rapidly becomes more comfortable with his own talent and his place in this world. This is only the beginning of a very long, most likely life-long, trip....
Anti-psychedelia...I like that. For a while, during my initial absorption into Cleaning the Mirror, I was calling this the saddest record I've ever heard, ever. More sorrowful than anything Ian Curtis - whom DeBroux uncannily resembles in voice - sang on, more strangely dramatic than Tim Buckley's weirdest sides, more dryly melancholic than even Nikki Sudden's starkest moments. There's really only one artist who has touched this level of sadness, and that's Nico. Yeah, I forgot about those Nico records, Marble Index and Desertshore. That's some desperate shit. But there's something about DeBroux's voice, and the key his songs are played in, and the strict black and whiteness of the way it is recorded that makes this so heart-wrenching. It makes my dog sad.
Cleaning the Mirror is a record that will swallow you whole, but never tries to. One listen to a song like "Thrush", with its post-industrial skeleton rhythm, or "Storming Heaven", the four-horsemen's drinking anthem, or the slightly (comparatively) upbeat "Dead End" - the album's cheeriest song is called "Dead End", and the chorus asks "where did we go wrong?", and you'll be hooked. Not becauase of emotional bells and whistles or outsider angst or anything like that, this isn't the Cure and it isn't Jandek either. This record is just one person's representation of truth; he's cleaning the mirror for us to see his perspective more clearly. Stay tuned for chapter two, because the first one is a masterpiece. Out now on Siltbreeze.