***Latest album by Japanese hardcore band NIGHTMARE, the same guys who made the excellent Give Notice Of Nightmare back in '88. The 10 new songs are great and the old power of Nightmare is still there. Along with Gauze & Warhead, Nightmare is one of the few classic Japanese bands that never broke up and it's still going strong after all these years. Limited to 500 copies only.
LP $21.25
09/06/2019
***540 Records and Todo Destruido are proud to present the latest call to arms from Japanese punk legends FORWARD. Featuring ten new tracks on a single disc, the release is the band’s first LP in six years and only their fourth in a storied twenty-two year career of state-of-the-art, nitro-fueled Japanese hardcore. Established in 1996 from the ashes of the much revered DEATH SIDE, vocalist ISHIYA and bassist YOU formed Forward, along with members of INSANE YOUTH and more. Building upon the teachings of UK metal-punk legends Discharge, Forward’s unique “intelligent savage” approach to hardcore was and is decidedly their own, nodding at the work of Poison Idea, Anti-Cimex and others while forging an ironclad path strictly through word of mouth, DIY gigs and underground channels. Future Troops is a taut and explosive collection of tracks that spin yarns of police brutality, calls for peace, rumors of war, injustice, the effects of the Tokyo Olympics and more in a compact and tense 25 minutes of vitriol. You’ve never heard anything as furious as “A.C.A.B.,” you won’t be able to unclench your fist after “Tokyo Orympic,” “Hatered Union” or “Piece of Peace,” and the world won’t soon forget Future Troops. Limited to 500 copies only.
LP $18.50
12/14/2018
***540 Records is proud to present a split offering and a rallying cry from L.O.T.I.O.N. and SCUMPUTER called Campaign for Digital Destruction. The pair offer eleven abominations, calling upon distorted and manipulated samples, synths, drum machines and a perversion of traditional instrumentation to create a dystopian vision of a society in collapse. NYC’s L.O.T.I.O.N. could only exist in the now—the digital age ruled by a bloated capitalist tyrant consumed by a move toward totalitarianism. L.O.T.I.O.N. is hardcore in the digital age—bursting with nihilism, a sneering hatred for injustice and icy disdain for humanity at large in an era where an email or text is a sufficient substitute for a personal conversation. Citing the work of Scumputer as a key influence, more conventional ideas from Killing Joke, Pailhead, DAF, Skinny Puppy and Throbbing Gristle appear and vanish through the duration of Campaign. Yet L.O.T.I.O.N. is an entity onto itself—calculating, remorseless and seething with malcontent. The material on the split represents the final recordings with EMIL BOGNAR-NASDOR, mastermind behind DAWN OF HUMANS and former percussionist for HANK WOOD & THE HAMMERHEADS. Scumputer is the nom de guerre of GABBA from the legendary CHAOS UK, who abandons much of the approach employed by that band while retaining the fury, cynicism and revolutionary ideas. Recorded by ROB SMITH in Bristol and Kyoto between 2014 and 2016, Scumputer ropes in appearances from Japanese hardcore legends like JUN KATO of WARHEAD and MUNE from CLOWN as Gabba explores the far reaches of punk, hip hop, experimental,...
LP $19.50
08/17/2018
***The name MIKE “REP” HUMMEL means many things to different people. Many equate Rep with ‘70s "Proto-Punk", ‘80'"D.I.Y." or a pioneering founder of ‘90s "Lo-Fi" (Rep prefers the term "Mega-Fi" himself). Along with his bands MIKE REP & THE QUOTAS and the seminal (Ohio) TRUE BELIEVERS, he was also a a cohort in the ‘90s Columbus "supergroup" EGO SUMMIT among a plethera of other Ohio band involvements. Also known for recording and/or mixing ("Lovingly Fucking With") such bands of note as Guided By Voices, Times New Viking, Jim Shepard, The Gibson Brothers, Strapping Fields Hands, Mount Carmel and dozens of others, mostly in their formative garage/basement incarnations. "I prefer deflowering to retooling. Both present worthwhile challenges but working with virgin talent won't get you an STD" he once infamously said. Still others remember him for his groundbreaking Columbus Ohio homegrown label New Age Records (named before there was such a thing as New Age music) which evolved into the ‘80s/’90s cassette pioneering signpost to new space OldAge/NO Age label through the ‘90s. And so the name Mike Rep Hummel has a polarizing effect on many who either admire or deride his body of work. Hummel's new record Darby Creek Drifter is one that is sure to draw the line even deeper into the sand. Rep sez; "As my pal Bob Pollard" once quipped, "this does not rock". But it rolls baby, it rolls.
LP $14.00
07/29/2014