***"'What do I do? Is this living?' In asking these questions, Richmond-based musician Sarah Everton underlines the absurdity of human existence. We reach out for meaning in an indifferent world. Jane From Preoccupied America, the debut LP from her project Added Dimensions, explores what we do in the face of this indifference: the bullshit we preoccupy ourselves with, the anxieties we develop as we suffer through the mundane, the coping mechanisms we adopt, the people we choose to be. What makes this record great is the extent to which this is communicated, not just via lyrical content but by the music itself. Sarah’s loose overdubs and hauntingly beautiful multi-part harmonies are fastened to a backbone provided by Rob Garcia’s deceptively simple drumming—a bundle of insecurities standing upright, moving through the world one step at a time, perhaps a little unsure but steady. Some tracks spread indie pop sweetness over primitive punk (imagine Tender Trap backed by Buck Biloxi), not unlike a facade you put up to avoid fully crumbling into despair after witnessing another day of atrocities. Other tracks eschew melodicism in favor of something more akin to Wire’s brash matter-of-factness, multi-tracked until reaching a Swell Maps-esque DIY wall of sound, reflecting a more measured approach you might need to adopt to navigate some acute crisis—focused and pragmatic, but ultimately a little surreal. It’s a record that celebrates living by virtue of existing, which, really, is all any of us can do."—Alex Howell (Garbage in My Heart)
LP $23.95
10/03/2025
***Time Suck / Hellbent is the first vinyl EP from Richmond, Virginia’s Added Dimensions (the home recording project helmed by Sarah Everton of Blowdryer and Telepathic), following a self-released, self-titled cassette released in 2022. Sarah’s trebly/jangly guitar riffs and sneaky bass lines are backed by a charge of unfussy, driving drums from Rob Garcia, all cloaked in the perfect amount of lo-fi Tascam grit, as she lyrically pares down the heavy psychic weight of modern living (the social cost of convenience and connectivity, the inane routine of labor as a means of survival, etc.) into disarmingly hooky mini-manifestoes—even the sugar-coated melodies can’t hide the harsh truths behind lines like “every day, same as before” (“Interruption”). Wire rubbing elbows with the Shop Assistants as a C86 band? A Kim Deal-fronted Urinals? Charms you can’t resist!
7" $9.75
04/12/2024
***Neutrals are a trio from the San Francisco Bay Area, owing as much to the direct, tightly-wound edge of Wire-schooled post-punk as the proto-C86 melancholic jangle of bands like the Television Personalities. The Rent/Your House EP was their second vinyl release, after their 2019 debut LP Kebab Disco on Emotional Response Records. Originally released in April 2020 as a benefit for Border Angels & RAICES (keeping with the anti-fascist themes of the record & protesting US policies of caging immigrant children), this new 2023 repressing defends another vulnerable community currently under attack from fascism in the USA & elsewhere, serving as a benefit for the Transgender Law Center & Trans Lifeline. On this recording, Neutrals were Allan McNaughton (Giant Haystacks, Airfix Kits), Phil Benson (Terry Malts) & Phil Lantz (Airfix Kits, Cocktails).
7" $9.75
12/08/2023
***"Portland's Collate play music that recalls late ’70s/early ’80s minimalist post-punk, and loops through the styles and genres influenced by that music a million times until you end up with a sound that is evocative of the past but also modern—kind of like when you photocopy and re-photocopy something until it distorts and becomes something new and weird. The lyrics are sometimes blatantly political but always wry and clever. There are still plenty of the danceable, catchy bass-forward kind of songs you heard on their previous recordings, but in songs like 'Stocks,' there's a hint of more straightforward punk and it starts to kinda ROCK. Just a bit. But in the end, Collate always handles themselves with cool restraint, even when frustration, anger, and joy are palpably bubbling under the surface."—Rachel Courtney. 500 copies pressed, recycled chipboard jacket with two paste-on CMYK risograph prints, includes photocopied insert and Bandcamp download code.
LP $18.50
10/06/2023
***Divorcer formed in late 2016 in a booth at Duffin's Donuts in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and that's perfect, because just like a donut, Divorcer is a treat. And after two cassettes—Debt Jubilee (2019) and Nutty Grotto (2022)—the band has made a delicious donut of its own with Espionage, their vinyl debut. Arty and aurally reminiscent of the Raincoats, Rose Mercie, Young Marble Giants, Marine Girls, and Dolly Mixture, Espionage’s four playful tracks swell with unanticipated changes that leave the listener wondering if this is still the same song, or even the same band. But the ingredients are there, they're just mixed up a little differently each time. There's call-and-response singing, whisper singing, singing in rounds. All four band members sing, and the straightforward instrumentation all works to serve the lyrics. Frank, funny, sharp, and skewering, the lyrics are a highlight, and Divorcer knows how to emphasize them. Layering lush melodies over "crying on the outside, crying on the inside" wryly increases the melodrama of the third track, "Crying." The final track, "Leech," is the most rocking of the bunch. "He's a leech, and he's sucking me dry, dry dry," goes the refrain, leading the listener to this expertly honed barb of a line: "You're so quick to point a finger (he's a leech) / Let me get you a mirror (he's a leech) / If you look a little closer (oh he's a leech) / the monster will appear (he's a leech)." Divorcer has a lot to say, some...
7" $9.75
03/31/2023
***Whisper Swish is the debut record from Bay Area mutant disco duo Flex TMG (Hannah D’Amato of Fake Fruit/Divorcer and Rob I. Miller of Blues Lawyer), featuring six tracks recorded in the early stages of the pandemic — get into the groove, dance to destroy. "Whether they intended it or not, Flex The Music Group is an extraordinarily apt moniker for this project, in which Fake Fruit’s Hannah D’Amato and Blues Lawyer’s Rob I. Miller exercise different musical muscles without losing a speck of the charisma they infuse into their other groups. They promise “leftfield disco,” and that’s exactly what Whisper Swish delivers. D’Amato and Miller sing tongue-twisting lyrics over fuzzed-out bass and the occasional flanging guitar melody that somehow never get lost amid the booty-shaking synthesizer beats (this is the flex we’re talking about). Whisper Swish taps into what ESG, Deee-Lite, Maximum Joy, and Blondie once handed to disco and punk clubs alike, but with an attitude all Flex TMG’s own. On the penultimate track, “Quiero Que Sepas” (“I Want You To Know”), D’Amato sings about “something you can latch onto.” But she need not worry — you’re already hooked." (Erin O'Hare)
12" $21.95
11/11/2022
***Two new songs from Collate—no wave for the now; desperate sounds for desperate living. "Shards of glass guitar punctuate a rhythm section that wants you to dance that anxious bedroom dance you did when you first played that Au Pairs mixtape your cousin made. Each song is delivered with minimal fanfare and maximum intent: music by people who know what they're doing and know what they want." (Allan McNaughton)
7" $8.50
01/28/2022
***New sounds from the solo home-recorded incarnation of Portland's CDG (aka Conditioner Disco Group), as performed by J. Nickle—also of Collate & the Bedrooms. Messthetics moderne / doomtown goes downtown. "If you can opine on the relative merits of Slates versus Hex Enduction Hour (I definitely can), CDG makes music for you. Not that CDG sounds exactly like the Fall (but sometimes they sound a lot like the Fall). For one, CDG often uses funky grooves (like the Zamrock-ish “Degraded Dialect”), something the Fall didn’t tend to do, but that was a big part of that UK DIY / post-punk / messthetic (although CDG resides in Portland, this is very Anglophonic). If you have any fucking clue about what I’m going on about right now, you need this. It’s exactly how on the nose you want it to be, right down to the distinctive sleeve design and the sneaky pop hit that closes the record. I also love that, while a lot of bands of this ilk release singles, this is modeled on longer 7” EPs like the Television Personalities’ Where’s Bill Grundy Now or the O-Level record, and like those EPs, this feels weightier and wider in scope than a two-songer."—(Daniel Lupton / Sorry State Records)
7" $9.25
01/28/2022