December 2010 New Releases!

Finally ready to roll, there are details below. £2.50 per cassette, plus postage and packing. Please email smearcampaign@hotmail.com for a quote. New non-Vermin releases to be added in the next few days.

Total Vermin #48: Taco Bells - Talviunelmia C30

There are but a handful of copies left of these astonishing and under-documented free-jazz Finns' latest, released primarily for their UK tour in November. This cassette finds them in trio formation of drums, double bass and tenor saxophone, wringing more ruckus from those instruments than is strictly decent. The Taco Bells do not indulge in simple blowhard, disconnected Europeanisms, though; a righteous fire burns here, and its a fire that heals as it burns. Act now, or miss out.

Try some here.

Total Vermin #47: CKDH - Summer Trance C41

This is Hockyfrilla and Barbarians' Rhian Thompson's summer album. That being the case, I can only assume that her aestival activities consist of whiting out and falling into paranoid, delusional sleep under bushes in the ornamental gardens of power stations. Insectoid-acoustic scrape and scratch and a dissonant cloud of generator drone unsettle and disturb. The more I listen, the surer I am that it is her best work so far, and imbued with a certain beauty... but not the kind that I'd ever like to look at.

Hear some here.

Total Vermin #46: Ocelocelot - The Umbragechord C30

Another excellent addition to the rich and varied catalogue of Ocelocelot. This cassette finds M. O'Dhubshláine building a post-industrial trance from the
wreckage of the Enlightenment, a Keytar and an Evolver, which internet research reveals to be a synthesiser. The A is pretty sprightly, a sheer electric
blanket that belly-dances you comatose. The flip is darker, a tangerine dream gone sour, with bitter cadences interrogating and a whipcrack precluding escape
or refuge.

Listen to a bit here.

Total Vermin #45: Boom Edan C41

Expatriated Finn, wandering around Scotland in a drunken stupor, records awestruck/disgusted paean to his adoptive home. The A side is a humdinger of tonal electronics, with unexpected welcome-weirdo vocal pomp, recorded live in concert. The B side is also recorded live, but is quite different... you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll punch yourself in the head.

Sound sample here

Total Vermin #44: Servants of Culture, Drinkers of Pearls Volume III C39

Volume III of what people are starting to call the 'Now That's What I Call Music' for people who are sick of music. Collects heavy electronics from CKDH, Ananas Pyramidalis' elegaic synth crescendo, overdriven post-jazz solo percussion from Pascal Nichols (PWHMOBS et al), exhibitionist tension from Bess Keloid, Plum Slate's bent acoustic guitar pluck and shoot 'em up quasi-drone electronics from Luke Vollar of Lanterns' Brohawk project.

A snifter of each here.

Total Vermin #43: Servants of Culture, Drinkers of Pearls Volume II C39

The second volume of Total Vermin's survey of sub-underground auteurism, this cassette collects cranial-mole overprocessed something from Oawre (Joincey of Coits, Inca Eyeball, Stuckometer, etc), a majestic tape fuckup from Gaz Myles of Spoils and Relics, bedroom late-Kraut ponder from King Rib, savage trumpet and drum machine tribalism from Smear Campaign, Irma Vep's (not just emotionally) damaged guitar and vocals and Lovely Honkey's airless pummel and screech.

Dial through the elements here.

Total Vermin #42: Mid Leopard Violet Prism - Carbohydrate Somnambulism C33

In contrast to the recent release on Sick Head, this cassette captures the Prism boys (Ruaraidh Sanachan (Nackt Insecten, Moon Unit) and me) in overloaded electric mode, wresting demons from the wires and threatening the sky. Reverb-heavy guitar lead circles above a static, fluttering organ. A mixer feeds solemnly back to the scorched earth. Heathens seek redemption in ritual.

Take a sip here.

Total Vermin #41: Ali Robertson's Ludd Quest - "Just Leave It" C33

Now that he's sorted his hearing out (absolving him from ever having to learn the word 'pardon'), and been forced to confront the other halves of conversations in which he is participating , Usurper knuckle-dragger Ali Robertson has had to find new ways to express his rudeness. How about using the kindly offer of a release of his material as an opportunity to take the piss out of his benefactor? Nice one. Elsewhere on this cassette there is plenty to be joyful about, outside the boundaries of one's expectations, at both ends, of his previous output; from a contemplative and almost stately attitude towards the wee knick-knacks doing their things to a tribal stomp. No shit!

Tear off a hunk here.

Total Vermin #40: Plum Slate - Blues For Death C33

Outsider acoustic guitar moves, with (mostly) subtle electronics. Much more actual guitar-playing than previous Plum Slate outings, and a new approach to tuning and harmony place this cassette some way east and south of Coits; somewhere between Jandek, Elliot Sharp and Istanbul. Not as good as that suggests, obviously. I don't want to get a reputation for being a bighead.

Check it out here

Total Vermin #39: Scrim - Squubble and Beak / Nettles Soup C29

The strongest release yet from Edinburgh loverband Scrim. Beguiling tape-churn, the breathing of human and machine, and contact mics submerged in jelly produce, on the A side, a morphine dream of a faraway building site, and on the reverse, an arts-and-crafts cantilever on the verge of collapse.

Have a wee listen here.

Total Vermin #38: Early Hominids - Alkali / Dilate C33

Early Hominids is the duo of Neil Campbell (Astral Social Club, Vibracathedral Orchestra) and his former Smell and Quim cohort Paul Walsh (nee Nonnen). The Early Hominids material seems something like a more industrial, and yet more abstract, aggro sister to ASC. The music on this cassette is a latticed squelch; the recording of a thousand laser guided automata exploring the Mariana Trench.

Here you may have a listen.

Total Vermin #37: Eric Ostrowski - Tinkle C39

Eric was one half of Noggin, whose records of dizzying, string-damaging improv have floored and rejuvinated me more times than I care to mention. This new solo tape is made up of a series of multi-layered compositions for guitar, violin and electronics, balancing the chaotic with the structured, and paying no mind to sub-genre signposts; preferring to hack its way through the undergrowth to where the most exotic of species can be found.

There is a 3" companion DVD called 'Twinkle" that I have a few copies of, too, listed separately here, while they last.

Here is a sound sample for your enjoyment.